Although some businesses are still trying to figure out the value of building a fan base on social media, many entertainers have long understood that attracting a vibrant community of fans is critical to their success. Perhaps this is why entertainers were among the first to embrace social media as a way to engage and communicate with fans. Since the most effective marketing strategies include building a broad, dynamic, and engaged community around your act or business, social media can represent a healthy percentage of your marketing efforts. There’s much more to social strategy than creating a fan page, posting photos, or amassing a large following on Twitter.
By adding your own personality and flair to the following steps, you’ll be well on your way to a successful social media strategy.
1. Choose Quality Over Quantity
You’re a busy person! You don’t have time to pour hours and hours into having an amazing social media presence across multiple platforms, and that’s okay! Instead of having a mediocre presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, it’s better to have a strong presence on one or two of these platforms. Choose the social network(s) that suit your business the best and encourage the most interaction from fans and clients. For example, if you’re a photographer, you might opt for Facebook and Instagram. But, comedians may have a better experience on Twitter. Regardless of what you do, it’s wise to use LinkedIn as a way to network and connect with past, present, and future clients.
2. Do Your Research
Know your audience. Different social networks are popular amongst different groups. Knowing your target audience’s demographics can help you decide which social networks are best for you and when the best times are to make posts. Here’s an infographic to get you started.
3. Set Realistic Goals
Setting social networking goals can be a daunting task, but it’s important. Be realistic. If you’re just starting out as an entertainer, it may take a while for you to build up a fan base. But, if you’re an old pro and you’re selling out shows, let’s see those numbers! Pay attention to analytics. How many people followed you or unfollowed you? Are your posts getting engagement? What types of posts are getting the most interaction and when were they posted? Facebook offers an analytics tool called Facebook Insights for brand pages, but you can also measure your analytics using sites like Google Analytics, Followerwonk, Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Moz, and many others.
A few great ways to build up and engage your fan base are to interact with fans personally, share behind-the-scenes photos or videos, and host giveaways! Do you have a show coming up that you could give away a pair of tickets to? Or maybe a new album or t-shirt that you could offer to one lucky fan? For photographers, perhaps you could giveaway a free photo shoot. Whenever you can, it’s great to do something nice for your fans. Word of mouth spreads fast, so keep your fans happy!
4. Link, Link, Link!
If you do have multiple social media profiles, make sure that they all link to each other. Chances are, your fans are also on these social networking sites and want to follow you! Having links to other social media profiles readily available takes the guest work out of searching for you, and makes it easy for your fans to keep up with you all across the board. Many social networking sites will allow you to share widgets or hyperlinks to your other sites. You can also create tabs or “apps” to these pages on your Facebook, so that your Facebook fans can view and interact with your other social profiles without actually leaving Facebook. How cool is that?
5. Brand Yourself
While we don’t recommend posting the same exact thing on each of your social networking profiles, we do recommend having some consistency. For starters, think about how you’ll want to speak to your fans. This is a business page, after all, so you’ll probably want to avoid using too much slang or abbreviated speech. However, it is important that you sound like YOU. It’s also a good idea to use similar themes or images across the board. For example, if you’re in a band and you have a new album coming out next month, it’s wise to include a graphic announcing the album drop date in your Facebook cover photo. But you can also use a similar image as your Twitter header photo. Being consistent in your voice and image makes your act seem more credible as a business and, at the end of the day, is just a good marketing practice.
6. Share High-Quality Photos & Videos
You’re a professional and social media is an integral part of your business. It’s important that you treat it as such. High-quality photos and videos will give your profile the professional touch it needs. Think about it this way: No matter how much you love a band, would you want to watch a video of their performance where the camera was moving all over the place and the sound quality was fuzzy, interrupted by wind or surrounding voices, or not properly synced with the video? Of course not! Your fans want to see you and they want to hear you, so give them what they want by sharing top-notch media files.
Take some time to spruce up your social media profiles this week and optimize them to attract and engage your fans. If you keep up a strong presence and pay attention to analytics, you’ll have a booming fan base on social media in no time.
This post originally appeared on Gig Salad’s Blog: https://www.gigsalad.com/blog/6-social-media-tips-for-entertainers