I always stress the importance and power that social media has because if utilized in the right ways, it can do wonders for your brand as a musician. On this article I will however only focus mostly on Facebook that’s because majority of South Africans are on Facebook than any other social media platform.
Recently Facebook videos have been trending , the interactive engagements surrounding videos has been great , This comes mainly as a result of the Facebook live video push which automatically plays posted videos as you scroll down through your news feed.
How Live Video Push can benefit you as a musician.
More people now are watching videos on Facebook; Video content has fast become the number one trending content type. So artists need to take advantage of this , I watch so many useless videos everyday , Only a few artist are starting to upload their talent in the form of videos.
What’s nice about videos is the simplicity and effectiveness around the way people listen to your music unlike requesting people to download.
So I urge all up and coming artists to start recording themselves and uploading on Facebook , at least one Video a week. If you’re truly talented, your video has a potential of reaching thousands of people, through shares and likes.
One recent video that sure made rounds on Facebook was Relz Musiq who was smart enough to do covers of two of the biggest songs in the country, she did covers of Kwesta‘s Nomayini & Ngud and got over 100K views , 3.5K shares and 2.3K likes .
Now that has definitely put her in a position where a lot of people are aware of her amazing voice, which could potentially result in more people wanting to work with her and booking her for gigs.
How to benefit through Sponsored Ads
I know a lot of people may be skeptical about using Facebook ads but trust me it’s worth it , I’ve used them a lot and they’ve proved to be effective. These Ads are currently only available for pages and you only need a debit card to make payment.
And Surprisingly Facebook Ads are not that expensive. How much you spend on advertising depends on you. So let’s look at the different types of ads available to you on Facebook.
- Promote Page
If you have a Facebook Page and would like to get more likes you can promote your page using ads. A simple budget of R 100 can get you anything from 100 – 300 Likes or even more. As much as people don’t see the need for this , Your Social Media numbers play a great role in your music career. It adds a bit of credibility , makes people a bit curious about you , they start asking themselves ‘ that how come this guy has so much following , let me hear his/her music . and that’s what you want as an artist for people to give your music a chance.
However this is mostly beneficial if there are people who already know you but were not following you on Facebook, although depending on the words you use on your ads, you can get likes from new people.
- Post Boost
This is when you’ve posted a video, picture or just a normal post that you would like seen by many people outside those that already follow your page. Let’s say Relz Music had spent R 100 to boost those cover songs we talked about above, She could have potential doubled those numbers.
These type of ads are useful when you’ve just released a new song, E.g. you can upload a small snippet video of the song, and put the link on the post then boost it. That way more people get to hear the video then if they like what they hear then they download the song.
So start recording those Videos and start sharing on social media, if you can consistently upload videos with good content trust me soon majority of your target market will start to know you . And things will definitely start to be easier once a lot of people know how talented you are.
