Sell With Social Marketing! This Is Our Love Of Music

Posted in Paid Social, Retargeting & Remarketing

Posted on June 25th, 2015

Because music is such a fanatical passion for so many of us who work at AIMCLEAR, it’s only natural that a lot of our social media conversations cross over into the music industry.

Organic social media plays a huge part in music industry success… Some of the top accounts in numbers of social media followers/fans are musicians. The top 5 celebrities with the most Twitter followers are musicians — On Facebook, musicians make up 9 of the top 10 most popular fan pages, according to Socialbakers.

Additionally, there is a seemingly untapped spectrum of paid social media options available to independent artists and record companies that have aspirations to increase sales. This post offers record companies four actionable tactics that will help them get music into the hands of people singing their favorite artist’s song in the shower right now — and do it all through social media.

Reaching Music Lovers
music-marketing-and-retargeting

Customers are flooded every day with messages trying to capitalize on their attention. The music industry could change from a shotgun approach and instead use psychographic targeting to MAKE SURE people can not only see their artists, but can purchase the albums immediately.

Here are four ways the use of a more targeted approach can be an advantage to record companies.

Influence Conversations With Twitter Keyword Targeting

influence-conversations-with-twitter-keyword-targeting

Target users already engaged enough to speak about an author on social media with a well-timed Twitter ad promoting their latest album.

Users obviously care about the artists if they support them on social media; it is logical to estimate that the same users would support them monetarily given the chance. 

With roughly 500 million tweets a day, Twitter is one of the best places online to share information and opinions. Music is no exception. Users are constantly promoting and debating with other users about their favorites bands. Record companies are missing a golden opportunity if they let these conversations continue without sharing their own voice.

Leverage Facebook Custom Audiences To Create Perfect Customers

Screen Shot 2015-06-24 at 2.09.59 PMUse email addresses to build custom audiences in Facebook and Twitter. These lists are full of people who love similar genres and artists. Give them the chance to buy.

Want the best chance to get someone to purchase your music? Advertise to people who purchased before. Musicians build email lists to stay in touch with fans and keep them in the loop for news on tours, promos and new material.

If an artist doesn’t have an email list, they can cater to organic fans by offering a free download to social media fans/followers where fans have to offer up their emails — BAM, there’s your list. 

facebook-custom-audience

Deploy A Coordinated Attack With Search Retargeting

Adapt to a new strategy with Search Retargeting, one of the hottest topics in Digital Marketing, and build a list of qualified purchasers by utilizing search retargeting.

Offer exclusive content. Video is a great option for a social media ad — 52 percent of marketing pros say video content provides the best ROI, according to Video Statistics: The Marketer’s Summary 2014. Show video ads to users who have already visited an artist’s site.

While there is an investment in serving the ads to build a remarketing list, targeting qualified users generally leads to higher conversion rates and more album sales.

Build New Audiences By Capitalizing On Related Artistsspotify

Leverage other artist followings through custom lists and related artist suggestions.

Have a new artist who doesn’t have a huge organic following? No need to fear. Just borrow a similar artist’s larger following and expose the artist to a whole new fan base.

Use a service like Spotify, go to the artist’s page and take a look at the related artist section. This gives a qualified list of artists these programs consider to be similar. Import this list into Facebook and Twitter and create an advertising list based on fans of these artists. add-followers

While we know that social media plays a huge part in promoting an artist organically, we also know that growth isn’t always going to sell records on its own. Those forward thinking companies that understand the marriage between organic and paid on social are in a position to watch their business grow. Get artists in front of the right people. Expose an artist to a whole new fan base. Use social media to achieve it all.

Pairing AIMCLEAR‘s groundbreaking social media strategies AND passion for music just makes sense. It’s who we are. It’s what we do. This is our love of music.

Subscribe Today

We'll keep you updated on the latest Aimclear musings & appearances

  • C. Ray

    Best 5 minutes I’ve ever spent. This is an excellent and truly inspiring read! Anyone involved in music on ANY front can get behind this logic. Thank Mr. Davis for this knowledge nuke!

  • Mike Baker

    Hmmm…these strategies do sound sensible and smart, but have you ever actually tried to execute them in the music field?

    “BAM – there’s your list”? Maybe if you’re okay with a timeframe of a year or more. People are less and less interested in downloading MP3s these days, and it’s very difficult to get them to give up their email address. Consequently, adding more than one email to your list every couple of days can be very difficult.

    And checking to see which bands algorithmic services like Spotify consider similar to your band for purposes of advertising to that band’s fans also sounds like a great idea. The devil in the details here is that everyone of these services will say your band sounds like a number of really huge, famous bands, as with Bruno Mars and Katy Perry in your screenshot.

    People who like acts like these are usually not passionate fans, and won’t be interested in clicking through to check out an unknown band that supposedly sounds like these stars. Not to mention the fact that these are huge, completely un-targeted audiences that you will go broke trying to reach via advertising.

    Sorry to be such a downer, but I have personally blown through thousands of dollars in the course of learning these lessons while promoting indie bands, and have learned that best practices from other industries usually don’t map on to music very well.

    Your points on custom audiences and retargeting are great though. Excellent ways to lower your CPC and reach the most receptive audience – people who are already paying attention to you.

    • Chris Davis

      MIKE: Hmmm…these strategies do sound sensible and smart…
      aC: Cool, thanks man.

      MIKE: …but have you ever actually tried to execute them in the music field? ”
      aC: Fair question. The short answer is yes, not just in today’s social. Our team has been marketing music to musicians, students, downloaders, media (PR), since the days of putting two-sided table tents in bars, counting myspace follows and email-subscriptions.

      MIKE BAM – there’s your list”?
      aC: That’s our reality, yes ☺.

      MIKE Maybe if you’re okay with a timeframe of a year or more.
      aC: From the sounds of that, it sounds like an agency could help you.

      MIKE People are less and less interested in downloading MP3s these days…
      aC: So what? Sell other formats.

      MIKE and it’s very difficult to get them to give up their email address.
      aC: It’s true, the placement value of email has been corrected as new technologies came to light. That said, many marketers make a meal out of email.

      Fortune wrote this month, “It [email] remains a consistently reliable method of finding and keeping customers.” http://ow.ly/OTHzo

      MIKE Consequently, adding more than one email to your list every couple of days can be very difficult.
      aC: You can do it, yes you can, go Mike GO!

      MIKE And checking to see which bands algorithmic services like Spotify consider similar to your band for purposes of advertising to that band’s fans also sounds like a great idea…
      aC: Thanks!

      MIKE …The devil in the details here is that everyone of these services will say your band sounds like a number of really huge, famous bands, as with Bruno Mars and Katy Perry in your screenshot.
      aC: Yep.

      MIKE: People who like acts like these are usually not passionate fans, and won’t be interested in clicking through to check out an unknown band that supposedly sounds like these stars.
      aC: OK, then… Well, I like acts. I’m passionate. And I’d check out an unknown band. BTW, the FB targets don’t KNOW they’re being targeted for their love of a similar band. They see our ads, whenever we want, for cheap, and they buy. THAT’S the power.

      As an aside, we’d love for you to provide our readers with data showing people who like “acts like these” are not passionate fans.

      MIKE: Not to mention the fact that these are huge, completely un-targeted audiences that you will go broke trying to reach via advertising.

      aC: Ummm…

      MIKE Sorry to be such a downer,
      aC: No downer man. We’re glad to listen

      MIKE: but I have personally blown through thousands of dollars in the course of learning these lessons while promoting indie bands, and have learned that best practices from other industries usually don’t map on to music very well.
      aC: Bummer. Sounds like you could use a good agency to have a look at your business model, assess the feasibility of moving it forward and making a plan.

      I’m providing links to some of radionowhere’s assets for our readers. I’m sure they’ll find them an interesting study.

      http://radionowhere.net/
      https://www.facebook.com/radionowhere?fref=ts