Your time is precious, so why would you waste it using social media that offers nothing of value?
Social media is a gift. For the first time in history, artists everywhere can grow and connect with a global audience in real-time. It’s a miracle anyone gets anything done when there are so many possibilities to connect and interact, but not every social media platform is right for musicians.
The only social media that matters for your career are the platforms your fans prefer. If you find a high concentration of your audience exists on Facebook, then that is where the major of your social media marketing should take place. If your audience engages more with Instagram or Twitter, then those platforms are where you need to focus your efforts. You want to make finding the latest information about your music and career as easy as possible for fans to find, which means going where they already are and working to leverage that platform’s tool for success.
But in all our years of social working study and analysis, there is one platform that offers nothing of value for musicians. It’s a place where professionals go to meet other professionals and browse job opportunities, but it offers no tools or design options for music promotion. In fact, we sincerely doubt the developers even consider musicians part of their target market. Still, every week, artists are incorrectly using this platform in a seemingly desperate attempt to connect with people in positions of influence that may be able to help their careers. We will let Music Biz host James Shotwell explain:
There are a lot of tricks for improving your social media stats, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Social media has given us many gifts. The world is more connected than ever. People from all walks of life can share thoughts and feelings with anyone willing to engage them. Complete unknowns can become famous with one great idea. Anyone can be anything they choose, both for better and worse.
But the problems with social media are numerous. Rather than focusing on the miracle of our connectivity, social media has cultivated a culture of attention-seekers who lack the patience or work ethic traditionally associated with success. Many people believe there are shortcuts to getting the attention they seek that replicates the work generally required without the effort.
Sadly, lies and deceptions about the ability to scale the digital social hierarchy have been greatly exaggerated. Anyone hoping to get ahead in music today should realize their online presence will be under review. You can amass as many followers as you need to feel important. That said, unless you can show those followers are actively engaging with your creativity, the numbers associated with your social media mean nothing.
Before you fall victim to thinking there is a way to game the system, please make it a point not to fall victim to these negative social media trends.
The Follow/Unfollow game
One of the oldest tricks for building a social media following is for artists to follow as many people as possible who could potentially take an interest in their work. If they play punk music, for example, they might spend hours following people who follow other, more popular punk bands. After someone follows them, the artist then unfollows that individual to keep their “Following” count as low as possible.
Promoting in the wrong place (artist/label/festival feeds)
A popular way for artists to promote their music is by comparing their art to the creative output of someone more famous. That method of promotion is as old as the music business, and it works perfectly fine in press releases or conversations.
However, artists come across as desperate when they begin sharing their music in the feeds of the artists, labels, and industry events they idolize. If you look at any tweet from Billie Eilish, for example, inevitably, you will find numerous artists replying to her tweets, encouraging Billie’s fans to give them a chance. Maybe they sound similar, but that isn’t always the case. Either way, it’s not a good look, and it does not impress anyone in music.
Don’t DM anyone
Social media is a public place to engage with private citizens. You do not need to send your music to anyone’s direct messages on any platform without first receiving a request from the recipient. No one is logging onto Twitter or Instagram with the hope someone they have never met nor heard of is dumping new music into their direct messages.
You want Billie’s manager to hear your music? Send them an email. You want her label to listen to you? Send them an email. You want Billie to hear from you? I don’t know how you would find her email, but go ahead and send one if you acquire it.
Sliding into a music professional’s DMs out of the blue is a quick way to get written off as another desperate artist spamming the industry because they are too lazy to develop meaningful relationships.
Don’t shame or criticize industry professionals (unless it’s necessary)
There are very few good reasons to shame a fellow music professional publicly. Did they abuse you or someone you know? Are they a threat to someone? If so, make sure you have all the correct information and utilize every possible path toward resolution before making a fuss online. If you don’t, you may position yourself for blowback and backlash that will damage your reputation more than theirs.
That said, if you are mad that someone isn’t returning calls or emails, that is by no means a substantial justification for harassing them online. The same goes for unacknowledged press kits. Very few, if any, music professionals ignore people for the sake of being mean. Everyone in the business of music is busy all the time. The industry never stops, and the same goes for the people in it. Be respectful of people’s time, and if they can respond, most will.
Twitter users who have not accessed their account in a long time are encouraged to log in before December 11 or risk losing their handles.
Username availability is a growing problem in social media. Much like email before it, social media has now been around long enough that new users are increasingly struggling to find unclaimed handles. For example, if your name is John Smith, you cannot use @John or @JohnSmith or @TheJohnSmith on Twitter. You also probably can’t use @John_Smith, @JSmith, @J_Smith, or @The_John_Smith. Those names are already in use, and getting someone to surrender their handle is often an uphill battle that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Adding to the frustration is the fact that not all the usernames are in use. Someone claimed the name, but now the account sits dormant. Usernames that many would want, such as @AuxCord, sit unused on social media with abandoned accounts (or worse, accounts that never posted in the first place).
But a reckoning may be on the horizon. Twitter user Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) shared an email they received this week from the social media giant regarding an account he owns that has sat dormant for some time. In the email, Twitter informed Navarra he needed to agree to the company’s terms, privacy policy, and cookie use to continue using the platform. The letter also said they had until December 11, 2019, to access his dormant account. If Navarra failed to do so, they would risk losing their handle permanently.
Twitter is warning dormant account owners to log back in, or risk losing their account @-name pic.twitter.com/Xz9ykIDqid
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) November 26, 2019
Navarra, wanting to retain the dormant account, logged into Twitter using a link in the email and captured the prompts that appeared:
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) November 26, 2019
The decision to mass delete dormant accounts will open hundreds, if not thousands of desirable usernames to the public. Such a move would boost interest in the social media platform and likely lead to a rise in new accounts, not to mention increased engagement.
Twitter has not publicly commented on Navarra’s tweets or officially announced plans to remove dormant accounts. That said, the company is well within its rights to delete accounts that do not agree to Twitter’s new terms, privacy policy, and cookie use.
Readers hoping to claim a dormant account when they become available should consider using Handlescout. The service, which is free, tracks username availability on Twitter and sends email alerts when desired handles become available.
Hello and welcome to another week of music industry insight and advice here on the official blog of Haulix. It’s the first week of June and we are kicking off our content with a look at a problem impacting almost every artist working today. If you have any questions about the content of the blog, or if you would like more information regarding the distributional services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
In the interest of full disclosure, not to mention the need to properly setup this column, I feel I must tell you that we are currently in the preliminary stages of designing the future home of the Haulix blog. We are growing, and over the past few months it has become increasingly clear that we will soon need to make changes if we want to properly deliver content in a simple and easy-to-read fashion. We don’t know when this project will be finished or when we will even begin testing the new site design, but one thing I can say is that during this process of planning our future we have not once discussed the possibility of adding additional social networks to our marketing efforts. I’m not sure it has been a conscious decision on everyone’s part, but the more I thought about our future this weekend the more it made sense, and I am willing wager the same can said for your future marketing efforts in music.
There are many times in your music career when it is considered a good thing to be ‘everywhere.’ Music distribution, for example, is best when those who want to buy your music can do so with the least amount of effort. When it comes to social networking, however, the focus of your efforts should be on quality over quantity, and by that I mean both in the number of posts created and the number of networks managed.
Commit this to memory: It is incredibly easy to become join a dozen social networks. It is far harder backing out.
Social networking requires one factor for success that things like music distribution do not: Personality. You can find tools to automate distribution and several aspects of generic promotion, but no auto-posting service can help you engage with fans in a direct and authentic manner. Further, trying to balance touring, recording, practice, real world commitments, and handling a half dozen or more social networks will only result in high stress levels, with a likelihood of low quality networking. You don’t need the added stress and you don’t want mediocre content being shared on your networks, so why stretch yourself thin when no one is telling you it’s necessary?
In order to maximize the return you see on social networks while minimizing the time and stress that goes into social networking you need to settle on 2-3 platforms where you feel your audience resides and focus on making those profiles thrive. For most artists, these platforms would be Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With the ongoing changes to Facebook pages, however, many are beginning to abandon the service that Zuckerberg built for G+, or even MySpace (seriously). Any of these are fine choices, and there are several more out there are would work just as well. The important part is figuring out where your fans are and then finding the most effective ways of engaging them through that platform.
There may very well come a day when you feel there is a ‘need’ for you to be everywhere in the world of social networking, but unless you’re bringing in thousands of dollars every week and can hire people to handle such efforts for you I would advise those ideas be shelved until further notice. All the digital hype in the world does not matter in the slightest if you cannot sell concert tickets or records, and the only way that happens is through connecting with fans in an authentic manner. Be yourself to the best of your abilities and never get too stressed if the number of followers doesn’t move as fast as your would like. It’s only the internet, after all.
