Hi folks. I hope this is in the correct place and will be seen. Goals huh? Well the goal is this:
I want to be able create an online presence (nothing major, just the staples, FB, Instagram and YouTube) for my multiple projects so that a) it is manageable for me and b) people can find them easy enough.
In more detail:
I have multiple, mainly solo driven projects on the go that will all come under different project names. There is reasoning behind this - They are all quite different and I want any potential listener to not be swayed by a previous release (as in if you liked A you may think youāll like B but itās completely different, or vice versa).
I have no real social media/internet presence at the moment as was pointed out by a community radio host who tried doing research on me/the project before an interview.
So hereās my thinking and associated dilemmas. I donāt want to run 4 different social media marketing accounts. Fact is, I am slow at producing the material and in all likelihood, it will take years between each particular project release. BUTā¦ If I have a YT, FB and Intsa account, what do i call it so that people can find it easy enough should they come across a release that they like and want to follow it up further?
If I use a label name OR my own name (or derivative of) how on Earth would someone find it if they looked up Giggons (my most recent release)?
What are your suggestions or advice for managing a single account on social media for multiple projects - similar to a label I guessā¦
Iāve contemplated doing something similar to what youāre suggesting because I have some very contrasting music with wildly varying genres. I only have one facebook band page and one youtube account for my one project/ band. The style of my band is hard rock/ classic rock. I always feel that Iām unable to introduce my pop music or light rock style to the Hard Rockers. I also have lots of ādirty joke songsā that run the gamut from Crooner, Punk, Jazz, Rap, experimental music, etc. It would be really easy to alienate heavy metal/ hard rock fans if you try to post a disco song amongst your hard rock songs. So I only allow my fan base (a very small fan base!) to see that harder edged side of me. Iām sure that will change one day. I hate being confined musically like this!
All I could suggest is having a Facebook band page, and social media pages for each separate project.
Or,
You could house them all under the umbrella of danmanisa. For example, that name can be used as your record company, organization, or something similar. That company name would showcase all the acts on itās roster. So if you have 4 different projects you would have them housed within that organization. I donāt really know how this would work because Iāve never tried it before.
Iāll be interested in hearing what others suggest to you.
I believe consistency is key to success as far as social media goes. Even though it might be detrimental to use the same account for several projects with different names and different audiences (this has yet to be proven), I think it would be a much better solution to have one place and put all your energy and efforts into this one account.
I agree completely. The threat of alienation or complete dismissal based on a previous release is something I am very much trying to avoid (even if I have little to no fan base too!).
The thought of running and maintaining 4 different sm accounts is not pleasant and therefore probably wonāt be done. It also wonāt help that I may not touch a project for several months while I work on others.
I agree that having one account to rule them all is the way to go, but how does one find project A or B when you have an umbrella name like a label etcā¦? That, my friend, is the conundrum. If you hear a project and you like it and want to find out more, you search that name and not the label name, UNLESS you know the label name. How would you know that? Well, maybe it is on the music platform, but a) is it prominent enough and b) what about those folks that stumble across it on a simple spotify playlist or the like?
I am not too sure it will be detrimental as such as I think if well labelled and designed, people will discern very quickly between projects. My main concern, as mentioned above, is how the hell do people discover it if it is under one account name so to speak?
Maybe it is not going to work as a discovery tool at all and Iāll simply have to rely on that any traffic I receive will be from places that advertise the label/umbrella name.
Iām about to spend a good portion of tomorrow setting it all up under one nameā¦ still to decide if I go my recording studio name (Rubberman Studios) or my own name Dan Mayes Music). I think the latter is great for those who know me already, but I often site my studio in credits too. Iāll work it out shortly and give it a crack.
People donāt discover you via social media, you have to make yourself knownā¦ and that takes a whole lot of dedication and time. Paid advertising is not even a viable solution when youāre starting out because it wonāt get you the fans youāre after. You can do a little low-budget advertising at first to gain a few likes and followers but the only thing that works is a real, engaged audience.
If you have multiple identities on one page you could run small ads with specific target audiences related to those avatars. Driving all the traffic to the same page will be beneficial overall and who knows, some fans of name A might become fans of name C as well.
I would go with your own name, it makes you look more approachable and it makes sense. If you are trying to promote your studio services as well, I would do that through a separate channel though. It makes sense to promote various artist avatars on the same page but selling music to the general public and selling studio services to a specific audience canāt work together, you will only discredit yourself doing so. That doesnāt prevent you from using your music in your studio portfolio though.
I may sound like Iām confident about all this but really Iām not, so take this with a grain of salt. I have been following a course to develop my studio business so Iām only conveying what Iāve been told. I am also working as a freelancer for a big company, I started their social media and do a few ads and posts for them every week, but Iām a beginner, Iām actually learning as I go.
That doesnāt look problematic to me. Search algorithms are good enough to find the content on your page, not just its title. You might want to post regularly with contiguous names though, to help with SEO. What matters is the quality and consistency of the content in the end.
Maybe you could have multiple Bandcamp accounts that all point to your āholdingā FB, IG and Youtube pages, this could help people and bots make the connection.
Thanks @Lophophora!
Yeah, I completely acknowledge that people donāt discover you via social media, it was more a case of how they find your relevant social media accounts to follow if it is under a different name but you answered that one quite well.
Fact of the matter is, like many, I have that conundrum of having so limited time that the effort to maintain social media sites (which I donāt particularly find fun, especially when I am promoting myself!) when I could be using that time making more music. But, of course, we want people to have a chance to listen to that music too!!! Catch 22.
I was initially not going to have any social media at all but was convinced by a friend who liked my new EP and said I really needed to, as well as a local radio host saying he found it hard to research me and therefor his interview questions were limited because of this.
Thanks again for the advice!
Do you have a website btw? This is very easy to do and requires little maintenance. That would be a good first step in being present online, and you can add links to your social media from there and a contact form.
Then I think you should decide what is the type of content you are more comfortable with producing regularly. If itās music, maybe you should use Bandcamp or SoundCloud as your main channel and focus all your effort there. If itās music videos (which really is the best, by the way), then go full-on on Youtube and Instagram. If itās a little bit of everything, then maybe focus on Facebook, it gives you the ability to cross-post with Instagram (less work to do!) and is powerful when trying to promote yourself online because of the advanced advertising features and the fact that almost everybody uses it. If you choose FB and IG, you need to set up a business page because that gives you a lot more administration features. Then you can set up a Facebook pixel so that you can use retargeting on your ads. If you havenāt heard of this before it might sound complicated but itās really not.
Yeah, I had done quite a bit of this before when I hosted a podcast (which was me interviewing bands I found on bandcamp so I am ALL over bandcamp - I am a self professed bandcamp wh*re!) but the difference then was that there was one project, one target audience kind of thing.
I think I will leave the website for now, and simply do YT, FB and Insta. Bandcamp will be my main push, partly because I love the platform and the people behind it and b) they support artists really well. But I use distrokid, so my stuff is everywhere anyway.
The Insta/FB content will largely be recording snippets (behind the scenes sort of stuff), promotion of music (both mine and others) and that sort of thing. Itās kind of tricky to think about what my āmessageā or presence personality needs to be (or should be or want it to be). Am I posting content for the sake of posting content? Does it mean or add anything to the experience? Given Iām just a guy making music in a variety of different styles, does anyone care that I posted a 20 second clip of a guitar recording or a snippet of a mix in progress?
That is my problem to solve though, I think. And that may not come for a while. But I agree with your set up suggestions and I spent some time to day setting up quite a bit of it with photo editing and page setups etcā¦
Thanks again!
Sounds good. I believe that you should not be afraid of posting content as long as it can be relevant to at least part of your audience. Of course it has to have some sort of interest because if you keep on posting meaningless stuff people will quickly unfollow you. But you need to keep them entertained consistently. Just like on forums, when people see some content theyāre not interested in, they just skip to the next thing. Having a bunch of photos and whatnot in advance is a very good idea, that way you can post something even when you donāt have the time/energy to make up something new.
Dan,
I am in a similar position and if I ever get my s*&* together I will let you know if anything works out. I am thinking that may have to have several different accounts on each platform and then provide links and mentions from one to the other, while making one a primary umbrella account that always links to new posts from all accounts. Like I said I am still trying to work it out.
I think it depends hugely on what your purpose is. Are you trying to get followers/fans because you want followers/fans? Or are you trying to get followers/fans so that you can show you have followers/fans?
Iām a bit torn here because I know exactly where you are coming from both in the online presence and the āI donāt do one thingā thing.
I would start with a decent home page. Just use a good looking template, add some of your own pictures and showcase your stuff.
Donāt try to sell what you donāt want to make. If you want to make a bunch of different types of music, then that is your selling point. Your selling point is making interesting music that spans genres. You take elements from multiple genres and you make whatever you want. Thatās a single message that would make sense to a lot of people. Use it.
Make content that shows how your record and write music for different situations. Thereās years worth of content to be done on that front.
Thanks mate,
I have decided to go down the one stop shop route and if I am heavily focused on one area/project for a bit that any followers are not that interested in, I am sure they will swing straight passed it.
I agree. I just donāt have time to produce ācontentā when I would prefer making the actual music based content. But you are 100% correct in that you can kill two birds with one stone by showing how I write and record as it happens. I was not going to do a home /web page as such but now you mention it, a well designed and simple, basically static page that links everything together is probably the way to go.
So that leads to the next question then: If I was going to have a basic page that could highlight the various projects that provides a description and relevant links for each, what is the best and easiest way to do this? Googlesite? Wix? Iāll likely want something simple that I can just about set and forgetā¦ I thinkā¦ eerrgh!
I donāt think you need to produce regular content. Your goal is to show people what you do, not gather crowds of people who need content every week. If you go down the āfresh contentā route, making content will be your full time gig. Just show enough stuff to make it clear what you do, and then keep it updated every 6 months or so.
I love that idea and I have not really thought about it in regards to the ātypesā of people you want on board. Thanks heaps, that makes a lot of sense.
yeah, the whole need to constantly engage is annoying. It makes me feel like I have to make stuff up to make my job look more exciting. Iāll go for months without posting anything publicly, and it certainly has an effect on how many people I get buying plugins, but Iād rather enjoy my job than turn it into something I hate.
