It’s been a long time since we saw record stores adorning our streets, where one could go in and get one’s favourite vinyl albums. They were replaced by cassettes and the famous Walkman which allowed the first true portable musical experience. These in turn were swiftly eclipsed by CDs which were even quicker to go out of business with the advent of online music. Now anywhere where you can get cellular reception or internet you can have any music you want any time and store a near infinite variety on your personal device for enjoyment later. Now it’s time for the next wave of advancement with social media marketing for music.
Social media and music
Social media has offered something of a revolution to the music advertising industry. Not only can emerging bands attempt to get agents and book a gig at a local pub or coffee house, now their audience is potentially as wide as the world. With the ability to be able to focus target advertising towards certain demographics, ages, genders, and certain geographic areas, emerging musicians now can advertise themselves specifically to the people most likely to be interested in their genre of music and increase their chances for the big break with greater technological muscle and less effort than in years past. Having to go to various radio stations or trying to book gigs was incredibly difficult but now with social media, people can see how good you are anytime they like without having you to assemble your band and bring them out for an audition.
Advertising potential
The advertising potential for your music is huge. Just think about the banner ads along the side of Facebook and other social media platforms allowing your ad to be clearly visible for anybody to see. This is not your most effective form of advertising, however. The best advertising you can do is through the simple word of mouth advertising that social media makes so simple. Word-of-mouth advertising is where an individual who likes your music or product you are selling simply shares it with the other people who they are linked with on social media. This can have a cascading effect allowing your initial post to be seen by thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals within a few days. Word of mouth advertising has proven time and again to be the most effective advertising available.
Build the prestige
With social media, building your prestige is easy. You might have only played in your parents’ garage, but online you can be anyone and anything. The sky’s the limit and you can appear as big as you project yourself to be. With professional video recording, professional audio recording, plus friends and friends of friends who support you to establish an initial fan base and market potential for your music, your band can look like it’s about to be the next breakout star even before you get your first gig. Size does matter and the bigger you look in your social media footprint, the better people will assume you are. This is a psychological effect where individuals assume that things are good simply because they are popular.
Social media makes this incredibly easy for you to tap into this effect to enhance your music by putting out a serious social media campaign. Don’t get caught in the vinyl age when the future of music is in social media.