Does Your Social Media Account Fit One Of These 3 Categories?
If, as an artist, you’ve been sinking a lot of time and energy into your social media accounts without seeing much in the way of traction, it may be because your account doesn’t fall into one of three specific categories. Here, we look at how you can course correct in order to grow, and better engage with, your online fan base.
Guest post by Marta Grzegorzak of Soundfly’s Flypaper
We all know that becoming a successful online creator requires more than just a good camera, and way more than just a wish. These two may have worked in 2008, but these days with the algorithms stacked against us, most social media accounts won’t reach anything more than friends as followers and a few random people who came to follow for some reason.
Have you ever looked at your feed and thought: “I post nice things, why do I only have like 10 likes?”
Well, let’s figure it out!
One of the biggest traps of social media is creating content based on your… ego! We love looking at our perfect pictures and videos, talking about our hobbies for hours, and posting tons of posts about things that happen to us. The problem is we’re the only ones who care, forgetting about the golden rule of social media; to have a successful account, you need to give your followers something they care about.
On that note, we can put most of the accounts into three categories: the ones that share useful knowledge, the ones that bring entertainment to their followers, and the ones that show a lifestyle that their followers want to achieve. If you can’t put your account into any of these three, you’ve probably just discovered the reason for low engagement and sticking to the same number of followers for the past two years.
Let me explain these categories a bit more thoroughly.
1. The Knowledge Sharing Ones
These accounts give people a valid reason to follow. The message is clear — follow, and you’ll receive free knowledge and posts full of useful tips and/or information. When it comes to music-related accounts, they usually share some composing tips, music production secrets, or other useful information.
All of these are free, so the followers gain something for the price of tuning in with their attention. They are keen to engage, ask questions, comment, and like!
2. The Entertaining Ones
This is the type of account we like to follow because it gives us joy and relaxation while we’re scrolling passively. These accounts let us forget about our problems and focus our thoughts on something else for a little while — like a pug dressed as a pumpkin! What’s more, they usually don’t provoke any bad feelings and are easy to like, that’s it!
3. The Luxury Lifestyle Ones
That’s pretty clear and common in the artist community, but it doesn’t always have to mean living a life of luxury. It’s just that what you show on your account needs to reflect the notion that you’re living life to the fullest, spending more time in your studio or on vacation than anyone else. And it has to translate to the small screen. These accounts aren’t highly educational, but they are entertaining, and mostly just interesting.
Unfortunately, social media is pretty brutal. There are tons of new accounts created every day and most of them copy not only the content but the mistakes too. If you’re focused on building a big and engaged group of followers, you should definitely review some of my tips below.
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What do your followers gain?
Well, it may sound pretty bad, but everyone has a reason to follow you. It’s just that you need to think about the way they benefit from following you. If your account is just for friends, it’s fine, but if you’ve set it up to grow and turn into a profitable source of income for your creative endeavors, this is key.
Knowing, or not knowing, why people should be following you is the quickest way to go astray in your journey. And this could be the exact reason for your poor engagement. Try creating more useful content!
Is your account worth following at first glance?
Imagine being a completely random person who sees your account for the first time in their life. Would you actually follow yourself? Is your content eye-catching? Is your last post a reflection of your brand?
If not, work on the visual aspects of your profile first. Add some highlighted stories and update your profile description with two sentences that state what you do and who you are. Here are some extra tips on branding your artist identity.
Are you any different?
The competition is vast out there, so it would be great to find something different in your content that you can offer the world exclusively. Think of adding some extra touches wherever possible — stuff that will help you gain new followers and make you stand out from others. Show what you’re the best at.
No one follows ten accounts with the same exact, repetitive content, so you destroy your own chances for growing a community of engaged followers by doing so.
Are you consistent in posting?
It’s hard to expect great results if you only remember to post something once a month. Consistency is a must! It not only helps your followers get used to frequent posts but also improves your engagement and reach.
So there you have it. Put your ego aside and remember to always offer your followers something of value, to them.
