In the music business, you need to have a plan for your website. Inside all the different types of content — like blogs, videos, photos, and audios — that you post and plan out, add different concepts and pieces to further more interest in you and your music. Adding these supplementary elements to your content not only helps keep the content and your postings more engaging, it also mixes things up a bit and can make the viewer look a little deeper.
Easter eggs
An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in a work such as a computer program, video game, movie, book, or crossword puzzle. Whether in a video, blog, audio file, or any type of content, add those Easter eggs now and then.
For example, in a blog, you can use different colors or different fonts for certain letters, and over a series of days or weeks, spell out a word. Let readers know that there’s a secret word or phrase spread out across a series of blogs and if they figure it out, they get some kind of prize.
Using your editorial calendar to track what you put up and when, it’s easy to create those hidden messages, images, or elements across a wider spread of time.
By offering the prize, you re-engage the fans who have already seen the content or skimmed through it to read that much closer and look that much deeper. They also spend that much more time on your site.
Then those who skipped certain content or didn’t see those posts at all, will go through them with a fine-tooth comb. Although their main goal may be to win something, they get more engaged with you and the posted content. This can help with the conversions to purchases you’re looking for.
Make sure the prize is something pretty good. In a sense, you’re asking a fan, follower, or potential fan to dig through a whole bunch of material, so make it worth their while.
Prizes don’t always have to tie in to you or your music or your products. While a CD, a T-shirt, a coffee cup, and a hat might entice some, offering something like a $50 gas card, a free oil change gift certificate, or another useful item may be that much more of an enticer to connect with you, join your mailing list, or whatever is required of them to be able to be entered in the contest.
Keeping sites and content public
Don’t force fans to like you, your pages, or to sign up for a mailing list before they can decide if they actually like you, your music, and your content. Forcing them to do so is a bad idea and can make people move on very quickly to another artist or band.
Give each page the sense that it offers something exclusive to draw people in. Have a single video on YouTube that isn’t shared on your other pages, photos on Instagram available only on Instagram, and certain posts just for Facebook.
Don’t make your social media pages private. Give people the ability to see you as soon as they click through to you.
Whereas most of the time it’s easier and faster to share content across social media sites, have a little bit of exclusivity here and there for people to look around. With your monthly email newsletter, be sure to offer more than just a recap of the posts and content of that month. There should be a couple articles that are shared only for those who signed up for your list; otherwise, they have no reason to be added to your mailing list.
Comments and commenting on other pages and posts
Just as you look for positive engagement, negative posts, critics, and flat out jerks can also comment on your walls. Anything too graphic or really mean should be deleted, but leave some of the negative posts on and engage with a thicker skin, being the better person and taking the high road. Being able to handle a few blows to the ego can be good for your marketing as well as life in the music business as a whole.
When you comment on other pages or posts, you’re representing yourself to your fans and others in the industry when using your artist or band pages. Post accordingly, play nice, and project professionalism, even when the other person might not be acting all that mature.
Sharing other people’s posts to promote you
Sharing other bands’ posts or posts from those you’re cross-promoting is a helpful way to connect with a different audience, and you may see the same actions reciprocated. Don’t get caught up in quid pro quo, and expect because you share a post that they will share one of your posts.
If a post resonates with you and you want to share it, give the post a headline that leads your viewers to it and offer a basic reason why you’re sharing it.
The potential for viral down the road
That post from a few months ago or a few years ago might just get a second wind stronger than the first. Realize that everything you post could serve as additional marketing and promotion far down the line or in some of those cases, even go viral when you least expect it.