Music Business For Dummies
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Social media is where you see the most conversions and the most bang for your advertising buckin the music business. It’s also the best way to get your message, marketing, and music out there online. There are hundreds of books and thousands of views on these methods, but it comes down to four simple types of promotions and advertisements.

Page promotion

Page promotion is where you spend money to put up an ad that’s pointing people to you through one of your pages online — your website, one of your social media sites, one of your sales sites, or any other site that’s tied in to you.

Switching up the ad on different sites that point to the same site sometimes and different sites others times is a strong way to attract people. For example, at times, promoting your Twitter page with an ad on Twitter is useful, whereas during another week or short period promoting your website on Twitter works, too. The same goes for other social media sites.

Post promotion

Promoting a post, a blog, video, image, or audio as an advertisement is another method for social media advertising. This is where you promote a strong post that draws others in to read, view, or listen, which then prompts fans to find out more about you, your music, and your products.

Stick with posts that highlight you, your approach, and your vibe without selling. Let people see these promotions for posts as something that draws them in and not something that feels like an advertisement, even though technically it is.

For example, consider promoting a post on Facebook that has a picture of the band with a link to the website, and mentions a giveaway or album release with a couple of hashtags. This type of strong post can reach many more people.

Performance promotion

Promoting a performance that’s a week in the future can draw strong engagement from people in that area. These localized, two- or three-day post promotions can be effective, but make sure you’re promoting only those posts in very limited markets. No one in Buffalo needs to see an ad about a show in Birmingham, and you don’t need to waste the money either.

Whereas a post is seen by anyone anywhere in the world on social media, running ads that promote to specific locations are seen by people in that area who might not already be connected with you.

Keep the radius of the town or city under 20 miles to the venue for the best effect and results. So if you are in Birmingham for a night and you promote a post about that show, keep it with in a 15-miles radius; in certain towns and cities that have a heavy college presence, you can specifically advertise to people that attend those schools.

Product promotion

A T-shirt, a download, a CD, or whatever product you want to share can be effectively advertised in a product promotion advertisement. These can be links directly to that product’s Amazon page, iTunes page, PayPal product page, or wherever you want to send your readers.

All promotions need to be clear and should not run for an extended period of time. Short promotions and ads that run in different areas, such as specific towns or cities for a week at a time, can help with continuous exposure while reaching different markets. This also enables you to know which areas are responding and which areas are not as strong in followers, purchases, and connections.

Switch up the pages you promote just as you switch up the products, posts, and shows. Continue to work with shorter campaigns that are based in a regionalized area and then choose another area far away.

Don’t oversaturate. Even if you have the financial means to run the four different types of advertisements at the same time, make sure they’re all in different locations.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Loren Weisman is a music business consultant, speaker, and author who has been a part of over 700 albums. He also maintains TV production credits for three major networks and has served as a media consultant for many businesses in and out of the arts and entertainment fields. Loren is an executive producer and co-creator of Leveraging Smart, a new reality business TV show airing in 2016.

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