Becoming a Musicpreneur: Creating Your Online Presence

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Last week we tackled marketing basics in Becoming a Musicpreneur: Marketing Basics, and now we’re going to take some of those strategies and apply them to your online presence.

If you’re reading this article, then you live in a connected part of the world. You probably pick up your phone to search for directions, find the best fast food restaurant closest to you, and search out your favorite artists, company, or products from that tiny device in your back pocket.

You know that an online presence is important for a brand, but just how do you go about creating one for yourself? And what platforms do you use? Do you need a website? Can you just use social media?

Let’s take a look at developing your online presence to get your music, service, and products in front of your audience.

Mindset

Yup, we’re going all the way back to the beginning of the month with some more mindset work. I know a lot of musicians who don’t want to have a website, don’t like using Instagram, and think they can connect with their audience without using online tools.

Okay, yes it’s possible but in today’s highly connected world where we have access to countless bands, songs, and services at our fingertips, it’s likely that you’ll be passed by without an online presence of any kind.

Now I’m not saying you have to like having a website or social media, but when you think about your favorite brands and bands, they all use it to some extent. So let’s work to change our mindset around it.

Going allll the way back to Getting in the Musicpreneur Mindset, we need to think of our online presence and social media as a tool for business to help us grow, scale, and take our careers to the next level. Get those thoughts of “I hate Instagram!” out of your head, and merely see it as a tool to engage with your audience, to strategically promote your next single, or to tell the story of your business and how it came to be.

Using Marketing Strategy

Last week you defined your ideal customer avatar, your value proposition, and your product, price, place, and promotion. So now let’s do a deep dive into the place and promotion part of it in today’s connected world.

We don’t have to go all gung-ho and build out a crazy coded website or use every single social media platform and digital marketing platform out there. If you defined your ideal customer avatar, you’ll know exactly where they live online and how to connect with them.

Now pick ONE platform where you can reach your audience. Pick the one where they’ll engage with you through comments, sharing, DMs, and tagging their friends. Develop your marketing strategy around that platform and run with it.

You don’t have to be everywhere all the time to be effective, it will only burn you out and could be information overload for your audience. Keep it simple but keep them engaged.

Websites

Who needs a website these days anyway? Isn’t that what social media is for?

Websites are virtual storefronts for potential customers and fans to learn more about you, your band, your business, and services. It can help to position you as an expert in your niche, highlight your music and showcase your products and services online, and convert your visitors into leads, fans, and customers.

Each social media platform offers a different value - Instagram is very visual, Facebook is more text and articles, LinkedIn is professional, Pinterest is beneficial to content creators (if you have a blog, this is for you!), and YouTube is for long form videos.

A website can connect the dots with all those platforms (if you choose to be on all of them) and provide extra information and content. Even just the landing page of your website can lead out to other platforms for fans to connect and engage with you as they see fit.

Okay, you’ve convinced me. Now how do I build a website?

It’s easy and often cheap to create a [stunning] website to show case your brand and your music, art, product, or even service. You don’t have to be a coding expert to build a destination for your audience online.

There are two platforms I recommend when building out your website:

• Squarespace

• Wordpress (via Weeknight Website)

Both platforms are affordable and easy to use with drag and drop options, beautiful and clean templates, and no coding experience required. In fact, you could build and launch a site in less than an hour.

You’ll also want to make sure you secure a domain name. If your preferred name (artist name, brand name, or business name) are taken, then choose something that relates to you, your company, and is something your fans and audience will remember.

Squarespace gives you the option to purchase the domain name through them when you set up your website, or you can purchase it through a company like Namecheap, which is what I use for my domains. You’ll have to do a bit of configuration if you purchase through Namecheap, but website builders like Squarespace offer excellent tutorials and support to help you transfer your domain name to them.

Alright, now what do I need on it?

You don’t need to go crazy on your first website build. I typically suggest these pages to start:

• Home

Here you’ll give a basic intro about you and what you do, provide an opportunity for your audience to opt-in to your email list through a call to action of your choice, and promote your new album, tour, merch, and more. You’ll show your audience your value proposition here, specifically letting them know what value you can provide.

• About

Your artist bio can go right here with some shots from the studio, live performances, or a still photo from a shoot. Your about page where you’ll reiterate your value proposition, but be creative with it. Tell a story - tell the visitor why they’re here and why they should stick around. If you offer a product or service, tell them the story of the creation of that product or service and how your can solve their problem. Let them know the value of listening to your music, following your band, buying your product, or using your service.

• Sales 

This is where a few of the 4 P’s of Marketing from last week’s post can come in handy [link] (see, it all comes around!). You’ll have your product (march, link to streaming, etc) and price here, and maybe even promotion if you’re offering a sale of some kind.

For service providers, you’ll want to include your packages on this page with all the details - what it is and the results your customer can expect, the benefits, and why they need it. 

Make sure you also include the process for the customer to purchase, whether it be hosting the items directly on your site, linking out to an online storefront such as Shopify or other checkout page, or gathering their information as a lead so you can submit a proposal to them.

And again, don’t forget to show the value!

• Contact

Welcome the visitor and allow them to contact you here. You can embed a contact form from your email marketing platform, CRM, or include an email address and how to connect with you on social medial. You want to make sure that potential customers, managers, and labels have a way to reach out to you with opportunities.

Okay, that’s great! I want one, but I just don’t have the bandwidth or skills to build out a website.

There are plenty of people out there who can help you put a beautiful site together. Broken Glass offers website design packages, or you can generally find designers in Facebook groups, on freelance sites such as UpWork or Fiverr, or through your local community (design students may be looking to add to their portfolio and could give you a great deal!).

Social Media

Wonderful. Now what about social media?

I just knew you’d ask that again 😉

The truth is, social media is an entire article in and of itself (you’d be reading this for days) because there is just so much to building out each and every platform.

But here’s the deal with this, social media can be your only online presence or it can be used in conjunction with your website as you build links into and from the site.

Optimization

Start with just one platform where you can connect with your audience (this is the platform your determined from your target market research). Make sure you optimize your profile with the following:

• Photo - of you, your band, your product, or your logo

• Brief bio - describe what it is you do and how you provide value

• Contact Info - how can your audience or a potential client reach you?

Here’s my IG profile for ideas:

{screen shot of my IG profile).

Customization

If you’re using a platform that allows for customization beyond a profile photo and brief bio (Facebook page, YouTube), make sure you utilize those features. Add a relevant banner that provides information about your newest release or service and a call-to-action, customize the URL of the page so you’re easily found, and include keywords that will help Google connect your fans to your page.

Engagement and Value

Make sure to engage with and provide value to your audience as well. You can do this through copy (what you write along with the image) by asking questions of your audience, telling a story that resonates, or polling and asking for responses in stories.

Respond to comments with likes and if nothing else, a “thank you.” If you poll or ask questions, make sure you’re posting those back in the stories. Fans and audiences love to know they’re being seen and heard, and you’ll be seen as authentic and genuinely interested in your audience.

One thing to pay attention to on social media is the type of content you’re posting. Is it valuable, engaging, or driving traffic to your website? Or are you constantly promoting your album, product, or service to generate sales? Follow the 80 / 20 rule (80% engaging, valuable content and 20% promotional) to keep your audience interested and engaged. 

If web design and social media management just isn’t your jam, that’s completely okay. Just know that you should have some kind of engaged, online presence. Connect with me to learn more about my web design + social media packages so I can help you take that task right off your plate 🙂 

Looking for more information on how to build your site and social media presence?  Here are the top 5 systems in my business that will help you build your online presence!