Social Media Best Practices For Musicians: 21 Helpful Tips

These days, virtually anything can go viral on social media. 

However, there are some social media best practices for musicians to follow that can help them maximize exposure and retain their audience’s attention.

Below is a breakdown of the general best practices for success on social media:

What Is In This Guide

Learn everything you can about your fans and the fans of similar artists

Once you know who you’re trying to reach on social media by establishing your target audience, you have to uncover what your audience is actually interested in, what types of posts they prefer over others, and what platforms they’re most active on. 

Structuring your social media content around your fans’ interests will ensure that the content and visuals you’re posting will always appeal to your audience. If you’re outsourcing some of your content, taking some time to build a strategy around your content focused on what you think your fans will enjoy will save you both time and money in the long run.  

If you already have a solid fanbase on social media, you’ll have an excellent basis to work from in terms of learning about your audience! However, suppose you’re just starting out. In that case, one easy way to think like a potential supporter of your music is to find inspiration from another successful artist that has a similar target audience to the one you are trying to establish.

Choose which platforms to use (and which to ignore)

Once you know who you want to reach on social media, you should have a good idea of what platforms your target audience frequents the most. Each social media platform has a variety of different users of all ages and backgrounds. While it would be impressive to establish a massive audience on each platform simultaneously, you might be biting off more than you can chew. 

When deciding which platforms to devote more time to, access your analytics on each platform to see where you’re getting the most engagement. Also, consider what platforms you enjoy using the most or have the most knowledge of. It’s essential to hang out on the platforms where your potential fans are, but don’t spread yourself too thin. If at all possible, seek help by building a team or outsourcing when it makes sense.

Have SMART Goals

Setting SMART Goals is crucial to your success on social media as this gives you something to work towards. 

SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Here is a hypothetical situation of the SMART goals method being applied to an artists social platforms:

 Let’s say an artist is beginning to record their debut EP and decided to start a YouTube channel as part of a promotional campaign to document the recording process. 

The artist sets a specific goal to reach 1000 subscribers in the next month, so they have a measurable number to work towards and can track their growth throughout the campaign. 

Before starting their YouTube channel, the artist has about 2000 followers on Instagram and 500 followers on Twitter, both used for music purposes and separate from their personal profiles.

Since the artist already has a following, a goal to reach 1000 subscribers in a month is both achievable and realistic. 

Since the goal has a time limit attached to it, the artist can reflect on the campaign in a month to see if they were successful. This forces the artists to reflect on their strategy and make any appropriate changes for the future.

Have a plan

After you set SMART goals for your social platforms, you’ll need a plan for reaching those goals. However, the type of plan you create will depend on your goals — for example, if your goal is focused on growing your TikTok audience, your plan should be optimized for TikTok and creating content best suited for that platform.

In future sections, we will go over how to properly use each of your social media platforms to reach your audience — but for now, keep in mind that every goal you set should work in synergy with a complimentary plan to ensure maximum success. 

Keep an eye on the competition

It can be useful to look at other artists on social media for inspiration. This also helps you to stay on top of the latest trends in the music industry.

However, obsessively comparing yourself to other musicians on social media will not get you anywhere. You should never let outside influences negatively impact your creative process. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, many artists used social media and various tools, including live streams and virtual concerts, to stay connected with their audiences and make money during the lockdown. 

Being aware of how other artists are leveraging social media can inspire you to create similar content and experiences for your fans — but make sure to put your own spin on it and make it your own.

Listen for mentions of your music and share fanbase feedback — especially when it’s positive

When you spend time scrolling through social media, always keep an eye out for mentions of your music, no matter what the source is. Listening to what other people say about your music online is a great way to understand how your music is perceived.

Mentions of your music open the door for engagement opportunities as well. You can re-share, like, and comment on the posts of people praising your music. Furthermore, you can also instigate mentions of your content by asking people to engage with your content and tell you their opinions on it.

Asking for feedback makes your audience feel heard and like their opinions matter. Ultimately, this builds a closer relationship with your fans and helps you understand what they actually like or want you to produce more of.

Regardless of how you decided to amplify these messages, taking the time to share positive feedback on your social platforms is an effective way to show your appreciation for your supporters and stay engaged with them.

Monitor conversations that are relevant to your music or brand

As an artist or musician, you may reach a point on social media where you’re viewed as a public figure. Having a platform that reaches thousands of people every day comes with a lot of responsibility and power. 

Over time, find creative ways to utilize your platform to speak on things you’re passionate about or that are relevant to the topics in your music. 

The nature of these trending conversations will vary depending on several factors related to your brand, current events, the communities you’re a part of, etc.

Not all conversations require your commentary so remember to pick your spots wisely and try to keep it positive for the most part if you can.

Establish your social media voice and tone

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as sounding too professional on social media. When writing out captions for your posts or responses to your followers, you should maintain a friendly tone, so your followers feel like they’re speaking to you and not a robot. 

If you have not already established your brand voice and tone for social media, consider how you want your followers to feel when they engage with you online. 

Once you have established your voice and tone — stick to it! As discussed before, consistency will help you establish a recognizable brand.

Respond to comments and @mentions — promptly

There is a sense of gratification when your friends mention you in one of their posts or comments on your latest photo. 

Whether you agree or disagree, promptly responding to your social media comments is the most effective way to engage with your audience and build relationships with them.

If a fan is raving about your latest song on Twitter, show them some love and thank them for the support. If someone makes a meme about you, why not keep the meme going? 

I encourage you to make your responses thoughtful, entertaining, and in alignment with your brand.

Not only is this courteous to your supporters, but it can also give you a boost when it comes to the algorithms of these platforms.

Have a strategy for each platform

It’s no secret that platforms like TikTok and YouTube are great for video-based content. While platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow you to post a range of content including videos, images, GIFs, etc. 

Every platform is unique, and people go to these platforms for specific experiences. You need to keep this in mind when posting your content as what works on one platform might not work on another or may need to be tailored to better suit each individual platform. 

After you’ve started to build a following on each of your platforms, continue to educate yourself on how each platform operates and how you can optimize your posts to reach a wider audience.

Later on, we will provide you with more clarity as to what works best for each specific platform.

Use data to determine when and how often to post

You can access your data and analytics on most social platforms if you have registered for a business account. 

Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook will give you access to your audience data and analytics. Allowing you to easily find out where your audience lives, the time of day they’re most active online, and how much engagement you’re receiving on your posts.

Being more active on your social platforms means you’ll have more reliable data and analytics to help you make stronger business decisions. It’s important to stay consistent as the data collected from these platforms can help you determine the optimal times to post and what type of content performs the best on your account.

Use the right scheduling tools to automate tasks

It can be challenging to find the time to post every single day. If you want to spend less time every week posting photos on Instagram and keeping up with daily Twitter posts — consider using a scheduling tool for your social media content. 

Most scheduling tools cost a monthly fee but can potentially save you multiple hours if you know how to use them correctly. Once you find the right online scheduling tool that works with your strategy and budget, allocate a couple of hours each week to strategize and plan your posts. 

Although scheduling tools can be useful when posting planned announcements or posts that are not time-sensitive, you should not automate everything. Automated tools for sending DMs to your followers, replying to comments, or posting Instagram stories can come across as thoughtless — engagement related tasks should almost always come from you directly. 

Build a relationship with your fans

No matter how many hours you put in an advertising campaign, your loyal supporters (often called stans) are the best marketing team you can get. 

With an effective social media marketing strategy, you should be able to build a loyal following that will support most — if not all — of your releases and announcements. 

The relationship between you and your fans is arguably the most important relationship involved with your career, so you need to focus on strengthening your bond with them no matter how successful you become. 

When planning out your marketing strategy, think of ways you can engage your fans on social media. You can do this by giving a few fans early access to upcoming releases, music related-content, holding live streams or exclusive Q&A sessions. 

Follow Correct Social Media Guidelines Sizes

When creating your content, it’s important to understand where you’ll be posting your visuals so that they can be optimized for each of your platforms. For example, with TikTok and IGTV, you may want to shoot separate vertical videos for promotional purposes. 

However, you’ll probably release a full-framed version for YouTube. When it comes to Twitter you need to be cognizant of character limits when trying to get your message across.

All social media platforms have specific guidelines to follow, so see to it that you follow them to ensure your content looks professional and is a proper representation of your brand. You can usually find the best up-to-date guidelines on the main website of each platform.

Outsource Elements of Your Social Media Marketing

It’s no secret that there are many different tasks associated with building and maintain your audience on social media. Although you should be involved in this process, it can be hard to do all of this work on your own. 

If you’re finding it hard to keep up with all your social media tasks, you may want to consider outsourcing some of this work, so you have more time to focus on the elements of your career that require more of your attention.

We stress the importance of getting help a lot, and this is not intended to get you to spend money you don’t have or overstretch yourself, creating more unnecessary stress. 

We just want you to realize that you can’t do it all on your own, and having one less thing to worry about helps you focus more on the areas that matter most.

If this isn’t a reality for you now, that’s completely fine. However, we encourage you to consider your options as things progress with your career. Try to maximize your time as much as possible and be aware of tasks that don’t make sense for you to participate in.

With that said, always be cautious of who you outsource work to and make sure that certain engagement-related tasks are done by you.

Handle Negativity With Grace and Sincerity

As you become more well-known for your music, negative comments are impossible to escape. Even if you have thousands of followers who love everything you put out, there will always be “trolls” on the internet with an undying need to insert negativity on your social platforms. 

With that being said always be open to constructive criticism because sometimes tough love is what helps us grow the most. Some hot takes may sting the ego at first but try your best to look for the silver lining.

Someone not liking your music is not something you need to respond to, and sometimes the best thing to do is ignore the “trolls” and “haters” as much as you can. However, never fight fire with fire — if you ever decide to respond to a negative response, do so with sincerity, maturity, or even comedy.

Focus On Quality Over Quantity

Posting consistently across your most frequently used platforms is proven to increase engagement, but there is such a thing as posting too much. Even if more people see your posts every day, that does not mean they will engage with your content and share it with their friends. 

It’s best to prioritize the quality of your posts instead of how often you’re posting. Your content is more likely to be shared by your followers with this approach. 

You can also look to utilize other options for posting content on these feature-rich platforms. 

For example, some artists post dozens of stories every day on Instagram and might only post to their actual profile for important announcements.

This is where having a social media calendar can help you stay organized and continually pumping out quality content to be released at the right time.

Mix Up Your Content

Even if you are receiving a lot of traffic on your social media platforms, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment with different mediums outside of your comfort zone. Try to find a balanced combination of posts that could include videos, doing live streams, GIFs, or images. 

You can also switch up the nature of your content to include things outside the realms of music that align with your brand or personal interests.

Claim Your Usernames On Your Profiles, Even If You’re Not Active On Them

There are millions of profiles on each social media platform, so don’t make it harder than it already is for people to find you. Try and secure the same username across all of the top social media platforms, so you’re easy to find. Even if you are not active on all of these platforms, securing your username gives you room to grow your audience on these platforms when you have time in the future.

Be Smart About Your Social Media Contests

Giveaways and contests are a trendy method to increase your audience and engagement on your platforms. If you decide to run a contest on social media, consider involving all of your platforms to diversify your audience.

When creating the rules for your contest, consider creating a mandatory rule for people entering the contest to follow all of your social media accounts. Other mandatory rules that could help you achieve more engagement include encouraging contestants to tag their friends in the comments or encouraging them to re-share the contest on their own accounts. 

Also, make sure that whatever you’re giving away is attracting your actual target audience and not just random people trying to get lucky or who won’t engage with your music after the fact. At the end of the day, the goal is to grow an engaged audience. Meaning whatever you give away should be highly tailored to the specific interests of your target audience.

Research Your Hashtags Before You Use Them

Using hashtags is a proven way to reach a wider audience, but only if you are using the right ones. A quick Google search will bring up hundreds of websites that claim to have the best hashtags for musicians to use to increase engagement, but sometimes these hashtags may not work best for you. When deciding which hashtags to use on your posts, think about your target audiences’ interests and keywords that work with your branding. 

Most of the hashtags you could use in your posts could even be words that are already in the caption of your post — think about the common buzzwords that are relevant to your brand and your music, as well as things that your audience would be interested in.

Final Thoughts On Social Media Best Practices For Musicians

Implementing all of these best practices is a great habit to form when building your audience and marketing your music on social media, but remember that these platforms are always changing.

If you keep track of your results and are not achieving the engagement or reach you were aiming for — adjust your strategy as needed. 

Marketing your music on social media will require some trial and error. Still, once you cultivate your own niche and stay consistent with posting fresh content — you should be on your way to successfully reaching your target audience.