5 Minute Audit: How do successful Underground Music Producers maximise their Social Presence: Using Solardo as a Case-Study


Social Media presence:

The level to which you are able to effectively create engaging content across Social Media and reach your fans.

In the music industry, Social Media can seem like a daunting world of unknowns for someone who just wants to get on with producing music.

However, Social Media is vital to the success of Music Producers: How else can people find you and your music?

This blog will aim to show three areas which successful underground producers, such as Solardo, efficiently use to maximise their Social Media presence and how you can audit your own Social Media presence, with factors to take into consideration for review and to improve.


Brand Identity/Image/Theme

Brand Identity is vital for Social Media success. Building up an image and personality across Social Media allows for fans to identify with the music as their self-expression aligns with the brand identity (Fournier, 1998). In some cases, fans use brands as an extension and expression of personality: think loyalty to a music scene or a genre and the adoption of their cultural norms.

Successful brand identity requires understanding of what is expected of you; its a two-way communicative flow: what the brand expresses and how consumers respond.

For example, take a look at Solardo, successful UK duo specialising in the Tech-House scene.

“Loud shirts, branded snap-caps and enough big-room rollers to bring down a fighter jet” as DJ MAG puts it, the duo have reached success championing a care-free party style. Boasting big bright vintage T-shirts yet playing dark, moody underground tech house, the juxtaposition quickly found them Social Media success leading to several Beatport #1’s, sell out tours and the launch of a successful record label, Sola.

Having a coherent and consistent brand image quickly allows you to build a story and attract new fans.

But what are the components?

  • Easily identified: Your image should quickly be recognised by fans, consciously or unconsciously.
  • Relevant: Is your image relevant to the music your are producing? Use creatively to create somethings that unique, but also makes sense.
  • Consistency: Brand image can change over time, but not constantly changing and sending mixed signals to your fans prevents confusing, and allows the development of super fans who begin to identify with you beyond one simple track.
  • Memorable: Several factors can make a brand memorable: Imagery, Slogans, Style. But something should make it memorable. Something should make you unique to the fans. What you want as a producer, is for someone to hear a track or to see a flyer and instantly know it’s your brand.

Social Media Consistency & Presentation

Simply adopting a brand is not enough, you have to present this across all Social Media channels consistently.

Again using Solardo, lets take a look at the presentation of their Social Media channels.

Now, this may look relatively simple, but its effective. Using their Brand Identity, they’ve created a consistent Social Media image. As well as this, they have taken the opportunity to market their events through available covers and profile pictures across the networks.

Heres some points to create a coherent Social Media image:

  • Have you used the same/similar display pictures?
  • Have you used available visual space in a consistent manner?
  • Are the colours and themes similar and match your brand identity?

An important yet simple step. Have a look at your Social Media accounts and you can quickly adopt a consistent image across the various platforms.

The success of this step largely stems from Human Psychology: we like our expectations and reality to match up and be consistent. This is known as Cognitive Consistency Theory. Marketeers use this as a subconscious method to increase appreciation; making the entire consumer experience friction-free and the content more attention grabbing and shareable.

This may seem like a big leap, but after deciding and developing your brand, you have to then implement it: that is why the outlook of your Social Media is important; it’s how fans begin to perceive and interact with you.

This area should be constantly reviewed with your overall aims & objectives. Are you trying to sell your tracks? Sell tickets to shows? Whenever you create Social Media content you must consider the overall presentation.


Content & Engagement

This area is huge, with plenty of thoughts and considerations to made. Ultimately, you are providing content to your fans that promotes your aims & objectives: Sales, Bookings etc.

Creating content can be challenging task. Making it engaging even tougher. This section aims to try help and provide tips to help improve this area.

When creating content, you must think what the utility of it is to the consumers? Why are you making this content?

There are many types of content: Videos, Pictures, Articles, Tutorials etc. To increase your Social Media presence, you have to create content that engages your audience.

How do you know you are making engaging content? Every Social Media platform provides analytics to reach and engagement. Use this to your advantage: Track what content has the highest, which is the most shared. As well is this, monitor which content does best on each platform. Instagram is heavily focused on pictures, Twitter lends to jokes, insights and memes. Facebook for videos. Snapchat for daily insights. Soundcloud for track previews. This is just a generic way of using them – mix and match, be creative, be unique!

Here are some points to keep in mind:

  • Does the content provide Utility? In other words, is it interesting? Does it create an emotional response? Boring content will be ignored!
  • Is the content shareable?Β Shareable content will engage people more and lead to a greater reach. Consider including ‘Call-to-actions’ to encourage sharing. Make sure you content provides the ability to share
  • Is the content consistent with your brand? A constant throughout this blog: Consistency. Keep your brand in mind, make sure you share across all your platforms.
  • Don’t Spam! If you take one thing from this, take this one: spamming links will lead to disengagement entirely. Always posting links to your tracks and mixes without offering any other value will be ignored. Every DJ & producer does this! Think about how you consume music. Do you find it through these links, or through interesting content? Try to incorporate your promotions without being obvious!

Solardo, again adapted an effective content strategy.

“If they knew a particular DJ was into their records, they’d drive the length and breadth of the country to see them play, hoping to hear one of their tracks being played out. They’d then video the track being played (and the all important response from the crowd), and get it straight up on Facebook and Twitter”

β€œIt was how we got ourselves out there so quickly,” says James. β€œWe’d be at the festivals and raves all around the country, and be catching these big artists playing our tracks. We then had this content we could use. We’d start popping up on people’s timelines more and more often.”

They’d find YouTube footage of old school raves, and put their own tracks on top of it. Instantly, they were creating fun, shareable content for their fans, while also getting their music out there and listened to. Artists pay good money for forward-thinking marketing strategy like this, but Solardo have done it all for themselves.” – DJ MAG


Summary

Hopefully this blog provides some useful insight into building your Social Media presence. By using comparisons to those that are successful the audit points through the blog, you can assess and review your progress. After all, its a dynamic and changing market: you have to learn what your audience wants and when it wants it, this is always changing! Mistakes will be made and lesson will be learnt but understanding the impact of these areas can help to improve your overall Social Media marketing strategy.


References

  • Chung K. Kim, Dongchul Han, Seung-Bae Park, (2001) The effect of brand personality and brand identification on brand loyalty: Applying the theory of social identification, Volume 43, No. 4, 195–206 Special Issue: Consumer behaviour.
  • Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 24, 343–373.
  • Lau, R. (1989). Individual and contextual influences on group identification. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52, 220–231.

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