Social media is a very crowded stage, and yes content is king in this neighbourhood, however, you can use many different ways to engage with your fans on a daily basis. Here are 28 ideas that you can use to share on your social media platforms:
1 - On This Day
People love to consume facts and stats, and people love history and nostalgia is the in thing right now. You can find great historical facts related to music right here This Day in Music.com and you can post them on your Facebook page with a great relevant picture, tweet on Twitter, or you can even use that great picture you found and share it on Instagram along with the fact.
2 - Quote
Everyone loves a good quote. People find inspiration in the words of others and it is great content that gets retweeted on Twitter, shared on Facebook, and their is an abundance of quotes that are music related, or inspirational.
3 - Music Facts
As we mentioned in point 1 people love a good fact. Well why not share a really good music fact with them. The content is easy to get your hands on, and you will find that it will easily get retweeted and shared. It might not be your content, it might not be your t-shirt, but what retweeting and sharing does is increases the chances of people seeing your name, your brand as one would say in the business world.
4 - News
Have you just been signed for a new tour. Have you chosen where you are going to record your next album. Your fans want this information. They are following your every move. Make sure you keep them in the loop of your musical journey. Social media allows the ability for artists like yourselves to take the fans along for the ride, so utilise it.
5 - Interviews
Have you recently done a radio interview, or had an interview appear in a magazine online or off? Then share it with your fans. If you’re in the magazine snap a picture. If you were on the radio share the link with your fans.
6 - Fill In The Blanks
You can play a game with your fans and get them to engage with you on Facebook and Twitter by posts we like to call fill the blanks. For example - The best show you have seen of ours is ________ or the best band on the planet right now is _________
People love to participate and the more they participate with you on Facebook and Twitter the more chance you have of being seen and other people participating.
7 - Polls
You can use polls to get your fans participating in band decisions. Make them part of the process. Which single shall we release next A - Song 1, B - Song 2, C - Song 3
This will allow your fans to feel special, which is what social media is all about, because fans that feel special jump on board and buy your album, and go to your shows.
8 - Behind The Scenes
Let your fans see everything that goes on behind the scenes. That is why platforms like Instagram are doing so well at the moment. People love to follow their favourite musicians and artists, and see what they are up to, because they want to be a part of it. If you are backstage before a gig take a pic. If you are playing the biggest show of your life… take a snapshot of the crowd. It will be gold dust to post that on your social media accounts because it shows the world just how great you are, because all those people were embracing your music.
9 - Industry Statistics And News
Passionate about pirated music, or the new birth of Apple Music tell your fans about it, share the news stories you’re reading. It will give your fans a little more insight into the artist they are following.
10 - Blog
If you have a writer on your team, in your band, or you love to write, blog writing is a great way to get content to your fans. They could be in the form a journal where you walk the fan through your experiences, or they could be blog posts about things that really mean a lot to you. Such as the current state of the music industry, or your favourite charity.
11 - Questions
Ask your fans questions, get to know your fans, let them get to know you. Questions like, what was the last gig you went to, mine was Glastonbury. As you know from reading this blog the aim is to make fans feel special, and taking the time to ask them questions means a lot to them. Social media is not a one way street.
12 - Infographics
Infographics are a cool way of showing numbers and facts. Find some infographics that may be relevant to you and your fans and share away!
13 - Product Photos
When promoting your merchandise or music make sure to always include a picture. The picture will help you sell sell sell! You can get really clever and post funny images of you or band members wearing the merchandise or using it in funny poses. That way you are marketing to your fans but doing it in a way that is not blatantly promoting to them.
14 - Live Photos
Don’t forget to take photos at your shows, get fans to email you photos that they took at the show, or if you get a professional photographer at the gig get him to send you the photos so you can share them online. Just remember to credit the photographer as that is what we like to call proper musician etiquette. Always try and take photos with the other artists that you perform with at the show because when you post it you can tag them in the image, and they are guaranteed to share it with their fans, which gives you the opportunity to branch out and reach a new audience.
15 - A Day In The Life
Use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to give your fans a glimpse into a day in the life of you as an artist, as part of a band etc. Let them see everything, but not everything, you know what we mean. They will appreciate all the behind the scenes content, and the time you are taking to show them everything. It will build relationships with the fans because they will feel like they know you that little bit more.
16 - Random Tip
If you have a random tip that you think your fans will benefit from share it… How to make your money last on tour, how to wash your hair when there is no shower, how to start learning guitar. The list is endless.
17 - Throwback Thursday
Show your fans images from years before. They will love to walk down memory lane with you. It is also a great way of rehashing old content. Don’t forget to use the #ThrowbackThursday hashtag so that people who are searching for Throwback Thursday will come across you and if the image is that good, you might end up acquiring a new FFL (Fan For Life)
18 - Twitter/ Facebook Shout Outs
If you have some great fans on Twitter tell other fans about them. It will encourage your fans to get involved and engage with you because you might just give them a shout out to the Twittersphere. If you give a shout out to a fan the chances of them paying attention to your tweets is going to triple. Another way to use this is if you did a great gig with a venue that were really supportive, or a sound guy who went that extra mile give them a shout out. They will feel appreciated which will really strengthen your relationship and when that venue needs an act who’s Twitter inbox do you think they will be knocking on?
19 - Meme
People love to smile, people love to laugh and memes really hit the spot. You can make your own or you can retweet someone else's. A little tip for generating content… Setup a Pinterest account and search music memes and the ones that make you smile, and you think your fans may like, pin it to a board and use that as content at a later date. You can simply go to the board, download the image, and use it wherever you like.
20 - Photo Or Video Contest
Fans love a good contest. You could ask fans to submit their greatest moment in a photo and you could use it as content for your new music video and give them a prize for the best one. They will probably be grateful to be part of your video. You could use an app like Shortstack to run a photo contest where fans can submit photos and get their friends and family to vote, which means a big surge in brand awareness for you.
21 - Caption This
If you have a funny photo and you don’t know what to do with it, post it. Post it and request that fans leave a caption. It will make you laugh, it will make them smile, and they will share it to let their friends see the funny photo that they captioned.
22 - Holiday And Awareness Days
These are a good hook for social media. For example July 3rd is Superman day and you might choose to dress up as Superman, take a picture and share with the fans wishing them a Happy Superman day! They will love the thought and it is the type of content that they will love and share!
23 - Ask A Question
You can ask fans to ask you any question they want and you can answer it on your social media channel. Or you could even go as far as to have a Twitter chat with your fans and they can all ask you lots of questions. It is a lot of fun.
24 - Fan Of The Month
You can find a way to choose a fan of the month and post it on your Facebook page. Oreo do this a lot and like to choose a fan of the week. To enter you simply have to send them a picture of you and an Oreo, they can be as creative as they wish. They then randomly select a person and give them the status of fan of the week. You can do the same thing!
25 - Thank Your Fans
A thank you can go a long way, and this is true in the world of social media. Don’t forget every now and again to say thank you to your fans for all that they do for you, because remember, without them who would you be playing your music to?
26 - Weekly Round Up
Share with your fans what you have been up to that week. You can even get them to sign up to your blog and get their email address (which is hot collateral in the social media world) and you can send them a blog about what you have been up to that week and the exciting world of music.
27 - Giveaways
Fans love free stuff and they don’t mind working to get it either. So get fans to like your post and randomly choose one to win. Or you can make them work for it a little harder and ask them to share your new album release post and you can randomly select 3 people who shared it. Just make sure you follow through, fans don’t like to be let down.
28 - Guess The Song
Post a snippet from one of your songs or a song from an act you love and get the fans to guess the song. It allows them the opportunity to engage with you on your page or Twitter, and who doesn’t like a game.
Balance is key in social media and the aim must always be to build relationships and engage with your potential fan base. Promotion is not the main objective of social media. Of course you should always promote your new album, your next show, your new t-shirt, but don’t over do it. If you were to post 10 posts a week on Facebook, only 2 of them should be promotional based. The rest of the content should be to engage with fans because the more they like you on Facebook, the higher Facebook will place you in the news feed when you post your “promotional” content. The more engaging content you post on Twitter, the better relationships you build. This means the higher the chance of a retweet for your promotional content. Social media is no walk in the park, it is time intensive, but the rewards are massive if you supply your fans with great content, respect their news feeds and don’t spam with “buy our album now”. If you take the time to build genuine relationships it will be the army that will take you to the next level in your career, and it will happen out of nowhere.