What to Post on Social Media

"Good social media is authentic. What makes social media work is actually having something to say." - Steven Levitt

Ah, the age old question philosophers have been asking throughout time: What do I tweet about today?

This may seem trivial, but it actually is an important concern for many of you who post to something, or many things, to social media (sometimes every day) in order to assist to grow your music ministry.

Content Marketing

It's not enough anymore to just have an album out, or a single, and send Facebook and Twitter messages out to folks hoping they will buy it. Guess what, they will likely not.

What social marketing has become for music artists or any small business, is building a following who falls in love with your content. What is content? Your music sure, but also your experiences. Your funny pictures; your videos from the road; your blogs about God, life, and art; news about interesting things that are happening or already happened.

This could be a Twitter or Facebook post, but this also applies to using LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and even your blog. What and how do you post to keep the people paying attention to your music and ministry on these social media sites?

I know this a concern to many of you because you feel silly posting about yourself. It seems overly self-serving and gratuitous. Or maybe you are running out of ideas to post everywhere.

Well, here is a list we have put together to help you think of things to post regularly on your social media accounts.

• Share a resource/web site. Maybe there's a site that you love that other folks who think similar to you may love. People love goodwill and sharing.
• Quote. Could be humorous, or topical to your music or ministry.
• Retweet/Share/Comment. Always good to share something you see you like, and helps the person who originally posted as well. It's called Retweet on Twitter, Share on Facebook, RePin on Pinterest, etc.
• Make an Announcement. Let the world know of that new radio single, album release, concert coming up, or anything cool that has happened or will be happening.
• Reveal Something Personal. What happened to you today? Feeling blue? Share why. Although a little of this goes a long way...
• Ask a Question. Encourage involvement with your followers by getting their thoughts on questions like "What is your favorite song on my album" with a link to your store page so they can hear to decide (and buy, wink ;)
• Provide a Discount. People love saving money. Lower your album cost for a week or month and tell everyone about it.
• Reply to a Question. Someone answer your question? Engage them, thank them, or debate them.
• Report What You Are Doing Now. This is allowable every now and then, but especially applicable if you are in the studio, going on stage, or just finished an interview.
• Offer Your Congratulations. Send a public congrats to a friend or industry contact who just had something big happen.
• Spotlight an artist/writer/composer. Similar to the quote, talk about a favorite music maker that has relevance to your music.
• Reverbnation clip. Send your followers to a clip of your music, preferably a free download that captures their email address.
• Soundcloud clip. Same here, let them know how to hear you.
• Join us at FB, TW, LI, YT. Send your Twitterers to your Facebook page, send the FB folks to your Youtube account, etc.
• Youtube Video. Take advantage of each video you have and send people to watch it every so often. If you don't have videos, well, you need to make more. See this blog about that!
  
  By the way, here are four types of  videos to put up:
  
  1. Original low budget. Shoot this with your phone quick and dirty. This isn't MTV. (Then again even MTV isn't MTV!)
  2. Cover low budget. Same thing, sing another song and shoot it cheap but cool.
  3. Original higher budget. Maybe this is shot by a pro, or you work harder with light.
  4. Talking about anything
• Podcast. Record an audio version of your blog post, or maybe a weekly show.
• Pics doing anything (from Instagram). Anything you do, especially something doing music, is interesting to people who don't do this. Use Instagram and have it post to FB and Twitter.
• Performance Dates coming up. If you have these, let people know. Also give reports on gigs you just did!
• News. Things that are happening with your music and ministry.

So as you see, there is in fact TONS to tweet out there. Feel free to keep this list handy. And I heartily recommend Hootsuite to send these messages to ALL your social medias in one fail swoop.

Social media is marketing for the 21st century, and guess what folks - it's free!

"Social media is not about the exploitation of technology, but service to community." - Simon Mainwaring

Have a great week!

EC
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Eric Copeland is a social media fool, and has to be as president of Creative Soul, in association with Word Entertainment in Nashville, TN. His company provides complete A to Z consulting, artist development, production, and marketing for Christian music artists. For more information check out http://www.CreativeSoulOnline.com