There are so many digital mistakes that you may be making online without even realising it. Avoiding these will mean you have a better relationship with your fans.
1. Being Arrogant.
Don’t ever think that you should be able to get famous overnight, things take time. Not everyone cares about everything. Stop complaining about Facebook reach going down – yes has changed it’s algorithm so it’s not as easy to get as much reach but it’s free advertising. If your content is good then you won’t have a problem.
Stop complaining about Facebook reach and improve your content yourself. Look internally at what you’re doing rather than pushing the blame onto the platforms you are using to market yourself.
2. Forgetting That Things Look Different on Mobile.
Check everything across desktop, iOS, Android, phones that don’t have the latest update, tablets etc. Ticket buying is really difficult on mobile so make it easier before paying for Facebook advertising for example.
Have you actually tried to do the process you are asking people to do? If you are trying to send people from your Facebook page to go and buy your merch, have you done that whole process across all devices? If the process is difficult then this will stop people completing the task you want them to do.
3. Ignoring Your Website.
Try to link to your website wherever relevant (if you have one). You will most likely have some sort of data analysing tool set up with your website. It is useful to pick up pixel data which is useful for marketing – this means finding out where people are coming from to find your website. Is it from Facebook? Is it from a Google search? What devices are they using to look at your website?
You can use this to figure out which of your platforms is attracting the most views and engagement and where to focus your marketing to boost this even more.
4. Ignoring The Power of Email.
Create a mailing list. They are useful to target those who are genuinely interested in you to up-sell your products/services. If someone signs up to your mailing list they are likely to be dedicated fans who are motived and want to hear about what you are up to and what you have on offer. They are a great and valued source of revenue!
5. Your Links Don’t Work.
Check all your links before sending anything out. Wrap your links, you can see straight away if the links work. You can then change the link in the back end if it doesn’t work and the link people see stays the same so this saves embarrassment.
Simply put: whenever you paste a link into a Facebook post for example, if the link works then an image should come up along with the link. If no image comes up, chance are the link doesn’t work. Never ignore this image either – it makes the whole post look more appealing!
6. Linking to Single Videos, Not Playlists.
Sending fans to a single YouTube video isn’t great because YouTube pushes to content from other channels straight after this video has ended. Create your own playlists of your own content and link to this.
Linking to playlists means that the person stays on your own content even after seeing / listening to the thing you advertised to them. This boosts further engagement and makes it much easier for people to see more of your material.
7. Trying To Add Links to Your Instagram Posts.
Links don’t work on Instagram comments or descriptions so add the link to your bio and point people towards this in your comment or you can add it to your Story. Or just don’t put content on Instagram that requires links!
8. Using The Same Content Again and Again.
Don’t shove the same content across all your platforms every time. Different platforms attract different people and people may be linked to all your platforms so it’s boring to see the same content again and again across everything. Keep it interesting, stop using the same image.
For example, most people have a photoshoot and select the best few and throw away the rest. Keep everything, you may be able to make use out of it.
9. Using Too Much Text In Your Posts.
Images are friendlier than text. Also change the image for every post even if you’re talking about the same topic again. People see images first, if you use the same image for different posts people assume they’ve seen the post already and don’t read it.
10. Not Resizing Your Images.
You need to resize your images according to what platform you’re posting on. Change around the format of the image depending on the platform. Create a tour poster but don’t use that same image for everything. Organise the information so it’s mobile and digital friendly.
Check out this useful social media image sizing guide to figure out what size your images should be for each platform! Then take your tour poster and move the content around to fit the different sizes for each platform.
11. Not Utilising Video Content.
Platforms are favouring video over anything else. Trailers, previews, any campaign or important announcement should have some type of video content. You could even use a gig trailer rather than your usual poster when advertising you next few gigs/tour.
12. Never Looking At Your Stats.
Promoted posts are really good at driving engagement but what are you trying to achieve? If you’re trying to get someone to buy something on a different platform then Facebook advertising may not be the best thing. Your cost per click on a promoted post is ANY click on the post, not necessarily a click on the link you may have posted.
For example, this means you could end up paying Facebook when someone has just clicked on the image you used with your gig announcement, not on the actual link to buy tickets to your gig.
Understand what you are paying for and what exactly each statistic means to better your campaign for next time around.
13. Still Using Links on Facebook.
Facebook wants content native to Facebook, not a link taking you away from the platform. If someone is using Facebook they are less likely to be expecting to have to use the sound on their phone than if they were choosing to use YouTube – it doesn’t make sense to try and take them from one to the other, they aren’t ready for it.
If you do have video content you want people to see, upload it natively to Facebook – the platform favours this over posts with links to YouTube and therefore this will give you more reach on your post.
14. Not Understanding Your Environment.
Right place, right time. You don’t need an advertising campaign for 2 weeks on Facebook, a few days is fine. Stay relevant. The environment on social media changes every day, they will get sick of seeing the same thing popping up on their feed for a long period of time.
15. Thinking All Your Fans Are The Same.
Use a different strategy according to who you are targeting. What are your audience segments? People who have never heard of you will respond to something that is much simpler like a link to a stream, whereas super fans will respond to exclusive content.
16. Only Giving Fans One Option.
Let the fans decide where to engage with your music. You can use smart links when wanting to send people to listen to your music on streaming platforms – this creates one link that then lets the fans decide which platform they want to go to.
Avoid These Digital Mistakes
When using social media and your website to promote yourself it can be very easy to make mistakes. The key is to look at everything you post as if you are the user. Would you be attracted to it? What would make you engage? Look at everything you do from the perspective of your target audience and double check everything before it goes out! Then you will be well on your way to improving the way you use digital marketing tools.
