Developing Your Social Strategy

Social media is a big world and it can easily become confusing. Which networks should I be on? Are some more important than others? Which one should I concentrate on? Here's an excerpt from the new Social Media Promotion For Musicians book that gives you a different way to look at your online presence, and how all the platforms fit together when it comes to promotion.

"There are a lot of online elements that every artist, band or brand has to be involved in these days in order to be an effective online marketer. It’s pretty easy to get confused and either not know where to begin, or throw yourself scattershot at all of them, which usually means that your efforts will be ineffective when it comes to promotion. If we just look at the major components, it looks something like this:

Your website

Your email list

Facebook and Google+ posts

Twitter

Music releases

YouTube video posts

Blog posts

Throw in any of the 100+ additional networks available and it’s no wonder why artists, bands and music execs become bewildered by it all. We can make things a bit simpler by separating these components so they fall into one of three categories; content, interaction and tactics. If we break all this out, it looks like this:

Content: the places online where you place the material that you generate, like information about your band, music, videos, or blog posts. Interaction is all the social networks where you might interact with your fans and followers. These include:

• Your website
• Your mailing list
• Your blog
• Your videos on Youtube and other video sites
• Your music files on Soundcloud or other music hosting sites

Interaction: the places where you regularly communicate with your fans, followers, clients and customers. These include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Bookmarking
• Any other social network

Tactics: everything required to define and refine who you are and your position in the online world. These include:

• Branding
• Strategy
• Measurement

All this gets more interesting when we put into the form of a Venn chart on the left and watch how the categories intersect.

As you can see, where all three category circles cross, a new element pops up - promotion. This isn’t possible without all three elements combined, which goes to show just how synergistic they all are. Use only one or two and you fall short; use all three and new possibilities for promotion arise."

You can read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and other books at bobbyowsinski.com.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.