Music Biz Growth Hacks #1
Want to side-step the B.S.?
Growing your creative empire? Trying to get there faster? These proven "growth hacks" will help you shortcut some of the BS and feel a sense of progress sooner.
We know that people tend to be tight-lipped about the things that they are doing that actually work to grow their brands. They want to show you all the results, but rarely want to pull back the curtain on what they actually DID to move that ball forward. Not us. We plan to share the dirty truth with you about how we grew our social media following from 0 to over 17k in less than 3 years, about how we maintain a presence of a variety of different social media platforms (with a blog, a podcast show, and a YouTube channel), and how we are forging community with fellow artists and creating relationships with established brands. We’re going to share it ALL! Why? Because when we started out, this is JUST the type of information that we would have wanted to find. So, we’re going to walk the talk and share as much as we can, as often as we can. This is the first post of our new Music Biz Growth Hacks series.....
Making the most of Facebook posts....
This particular growth hack was pulled directly from my daily journal:
—Oh, I NEARLY forgot, but one of our goals is product endorsements. And we had been going about it the traditional way (—asking, but feeling as if it was begging) for a little while. Another one of goals is to cut out taking out ads by finding more effective —and cost effective—ways to market our posts.
(If you aren’t familiar with the concept of a vision, please start here, then come back.)
Prefer to watch the video for Gab & Jam Episode 7 Be a Rock Star Billboard? Here it is.
Okay, so here's the nitty gritty...
Well, it seems that Facebook MAY be helping us wittingly or unwittingly with this. You see, we see ads/sponsored posts on our newsfeed for brands that I think they assume we care about (like Fender, Kala, Zoom, and Arkon Mounts). So, what I have been doing for the last 6 months or so is dropping a comment under that ad that tells just a little about our experience with that product and include a Bitly link to the related YouTube video. —Bitly links are another topic for another day, sorry...
Not only has this has caused our engagement to go up by people clicking through to the video—because those who look through those comments are ALREADY interested (which eliminates us trying to find them)—but it also has earned us attention from the brands in the form of some sort of frequent poster badge (from Facebook) and a lot of times, by the brand in the form of likes to our comments and/or a comment back from them.
We don't know about you, but that’s absolutely amazing to me, since when I first did this, I was soooo scared that the brands would block (or delete) the link and/or, worse, they would report us as spamming them to Facebook. Instead, what I have found is that brands appreciate seeing that real people are using and sharing info about their products. Having realized that we are starting to develop these unconventional relationships with brands, I have NO doubt that a formal product endorsements are forthcoming! Bam!
It started out as an experiment, but has turned into one of our most effective growth hacks for:
Pre-qualifying audience,
Getting engagement on these posts, and for
Developing a relationship with these brands that we’d love to work with; three things that may not have happened as quickly if we hadn’t put ourselves out there.
Get the "Check Your Brand Cheat Sheet" to get practical suggestions for making sure that you are getting the most of your branding.
Your turn!
What’s a growth hack that’s working for you? Whatever the tip—and no matter what your goals and creative content are—we would LOVE to hear about it.
(Don’t forget that by sharing, you are contributing to supporting ALL D.I.Y. Rock Stars in pursuing their vision and that nothing but good karma can come from it.)
If you’d like to partner up with us folks who make music that falls in a wide variety of genres, please join our Facebook Group, Be the Next D.I.Y. Rock Star, where we share strategies, resources, mindset shifts, and growth hacks to help those who are trying to build a creatively prosperous life for themselves. http://bit.ly/diyrockstarjoin
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