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Influencer marketing has become a significant trend for independent musicians to integrate into their social media strategies. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube wield substantial influence over new music trends. Influencers play a pivotal role in determining what becomes popular and what doesn't in today's social media-driven world. This trend has propelled emerging artists to fame, generated excitement around new music releases, and expanded their fan bases. Interested in leveraging this strategy? Here's your invitation to join the influencer marketing wave. Get in!
How to implement influencer marketing for promoting your music
Let's start by understanding the concept of an 'influencer' and its relevance to marketing your music.
What is an influencer?
An influencer is someone with the ability to shape opinions and wield significant influence over their audience. Typically, influencers have a large social media following of dedicated fans who trust their recommendations and viewpoints on various products or services.
In the music industry, influencers are invaluable for smaller and emerging artists aiming to expand their audience. They assist artists by promoting their music through activities such as:
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Reviewing and promoting tracks, albums, or music videos
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Creating viral trends or moments using an artist’s music
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Growing an artist’s online fanbase
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Boosting an artist’s streaming numbers, listener count, ticket sales, and merchandise purchases
How does influencer marketing work?
Influencer marketing operates on a transactional basis for musicians seeking to leverage it for promoting their music. This approach involves both parties—the artist and the influencer—gaining mutual benefits.
As an artist, you benefit from having your music shared with a broad audience of dedicated and active followers, potentially converting them into loyal listeners. Meanwhile, influencers benefit by enhancing their visibility and increasingly, generating revenue through these collaborations (which we'll discuss further later on).
Top social media platforms for leveraging influencer marketing in the music industry
Now, you might be wondering where to find influencers and the best platforms for them to promote your music.
Let's dive into the answers you're looking for.
1. TikTok
TikTok is arguably the best platform for making your music go viral in today's social media landscape. With over 1 billion users worldwide, its growth has been massive in recent years.
When looking for TikTok influencers to collaborate with, it's generally best to target those with 5K - 10K followers. These influencers are still building their audience and are more likely to work with smaller artists.
On TikTok, influencers promote music primarily by creating videos using an artist’s track as the soundtrack. They might even start a new dance, singing, or lip-syncing trend, helping the track stand out and potentially go viral.
2. Instagram
Currently owned by Facebook, Instagram boasts around 1 billion active users and offers significant potential for cross-platform marketing, particularly if the influencer you’re partnering with has a strong presence on multiple social media platforms.
Stories and Reels are the key tools for promoting music on Instagram. Similar to TikTok, when an influencer features a track in their Post, Story, or Reel, a link to the track is automatically added to the app’s in-house music library.
3. YouTube
This one might seem obvious.
Despite being older than TikTok and Instagram, YouTube is still an excellent platform for artists looking to reach new audiences. YouTube influencers are major tastemakers for millions of younger music fans.
One reason for YouTube's continued success is the lasting nature of its content. Unlike the fleeting posts on Instagram and TikTok, YouTube videos remain accessible and can rank for a long time. This means that content about you or your music on YouTube can continue to generate views and streams for years.
4. Snap
Although Snapchat has seen a decline in popularity in recent years, it still has over 400 million daily users. The app continues to introduce new features focused on music sharing, such as Snapchat Spotlight and Snapchat Sounds.
5. Twitch
From the onset of the COVID-19 era, live stream gaming has surged in popularity.
An influencer doesn't have to be a social media celebrity. They could be a Twitch gamer who plays your music in the background during their live streams. A simple shoutout to their viewers and a link to your track in the chat can be just as effective as any viral video hype.
How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Music
With countless content creators online, where do you start in finding relevant influencers to promote your music?
1. Start by going online.
Utilize Google and various social media discovery features to identify potential influencers you'd like to collaborate with.
2. Review their content.
When selecting influencers to promote your music, conduct a brief but essential assessment of their content. This initial step helps differentiate between influencers you'd prefer to work with and those you wouldn't.
Consider what they typically post about, the message they convey through their social media, and whether you feel comfortable associating your music with their brand.
3. Ensure brand alignment.
Choose influencers whose branding aligns with yours.
While an influencer may support causes like world hunger or climate change, ensure these resonate with your music and personal values. If not, it might be best to explore other options to avoid potential mismatched partnerships that could confuse your current followers or new listeners.
4. Assess engagement metrics thoroughly.
Follower count isn't everything and can sometimes be artificially inflated.
Look instead at real metrics like likes and comments on their posts to gauge genuine engagement. This provides insights into whether their platform can effectively amplify your music and deliver a meaningful return on investment.
5. Consider your budget.
Influencers typically charge fees for their services, with smaller micro-influencers often charging between $20 to $50 per post. Larger influencers command higher rates.
Given the unpredictable nature of influencer collaborations, consider diversifying your budget across multiple smaller influencers to maximize your chances of reaching diverse audiences, rather than relying solely on one costly partnership.
Keep in mind that you can negotiate fees with an influencer based on factors such as:
- Their average number of story views and swipe ups.
- Their average number of website clicks generated.
- Their average engagement levels over the past 30 days.
5. Create a spreadsheet and begin reaching out.
Once you've identified influencers you want to collaborate with, organize their essential details in a spreadsheet:
* Name
* Social media handle
* Contact information (usually found in their profile bio)
Proceed to contact influencers directly via email, their website, or social media direct messages. Before reaching out, consider building rapport by engaging with their content—liking and commenting on their videos or posts. This familiarity can potentially aid in negotiating fees or even securing some promotional work at no cost.
How to assess the effectiveness of your music influencer campaign
You've enlisted an influencer to promote your music, and now that the campaign is active, how can you accurately measure its success and evaluate its performance against your expectations?
The primary indicator of a successful influencer campaign is conversion.
In music promotion, conversion refers to the number of social media followers who become active listeners or streamers. This involves followers clicking links from social media platforms to find and stream your song on music streaming platforms.
To gauge this, track whether the influencer's posts and trends correlate with an increase in streams of your track.
Ultimately, the aim of influencer marketing is to promote your music and attract new fans.