social media guide for musicians - polyphonyarts.com€¦ · social media editor at classic fm....

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Copyright © 2020 onwards Katie Beardsworth

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Social Media Guide for Musicians

Katie Beardsworth, Director of

Polyphony Arts, talks to Kyle

Macdonald, whose day job is Senior

Social Media Editor at Classic FM.

They answer musicians’ top social

media questions, and share their

tips and advice on how you can best

use social media to improve your

personal brand, professional profile,

and career opportunities.

I’m Katie, and I have managed multiple social media platforms for my own business

and for musicians and music societies, for ten years. Over that time, I have had

hundreds of discussions with musicians about their social media concerns. The top

three questions I have heard are:

How do I decide which social media platform to

use?

How do I strike the right tone on social media?

How do I structure my posts to get the best

possible results from them? (How do I optimise

my content on each platform?)

Kyle Macdonald has grown Classic FM’s social media following to almost 4 million

over the last seven years. His top tips are:

Think of social media as an extension of your personal network

Be warm, honest, conversational and genuine

Talk to people as you would talk to them in real life

It’s not about the viral moments – it’s about making your content engaging,

sharable and gradual building of relationships




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Question 1: How do I decide which social media platform to use?

What are the differences between the platforms?

There are several social media platforms. We are mainly discussing

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and also mention LinkedIn.

Each platform behaves differently; they have different uses and

outcomes, and which suits you best will depend on your personality

and the messages you want to communicate.

Facebook

Main Uses: Facebook is a multi-purpose platform. You can share

links, images and video easily, and position yourself as a hub of

content.

Hashtags: No.

Tips for optimising content: You can use Facebook as a personal user, but we

recommend using a page for your professional content. I love composer Ella

Jarman-Pinto’s page content – she uses great imagery and talks about her work

with warmth and honesty. You get a real sense of her personality from her page.

You can also run groups for particular interest, such as Love Classical Music. If

you wish to build your personal profile

into your professional network, you can

turn on public posts and convert your

personal profile.




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Twitter

Main Uses: Networking, relationship and partnership building.

More informal than LinkedIn.

Hashtags: Yes.

Tips for optimising content: Create threads, and discussions, and

respond to others. A great example is Fenella Humphreys’ challenge to

composers to write her a 16-bar variation on Paganini’s 24 Theme:

She then played them all and gave feedback, all via Twitter:




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Instagram

Main Uses: Discovery; showcasing video, your brand and engaging

imagery.

Hashtags: Yes.

Tips for optimising content: Embrace the discovery aspect of what you do and

the life you lead. There are great examples of using Instagram to showcase the

life of a travelling musician, such as Jennifer Pike.

I also love how violinist Miriam Davis uses her Instagram feed as her website’s

image gallery, which she calls ‘moments’.




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Linkedin

Main Uses: Networking, relationship and partnership building

in a professional forum.

Hashtags: Yes.

Tips for optimising content: Engage with posts and use hashtags to engage

others with your posts. An example of a musician who keeps LinkedIn very up to

date and engaged is tenor Austin Gunn.




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Why do we use the different platforms in different ways?

The audiences on the different platforms are different and use them in

different ways, as described above.

The platforms themselves respond differently to different things – hashtags,

for example.

Even on the same platform, audiences will be different for different types of

posts.

There are no rules on social media – it’s a place to try new ideas. If it works

replicate it!

Insights on Facebook and Instagram are a vital measure. You can see exactly

how well your posts perform. For posts that work well, ask yourself how you

can replicate this? Can you turn it into a series or set of themed content?

How can you improve the performance of the posts that didn’t work well –

are there lessons to be learned from the ones that did better?

What is the impact of posting the same content on several platforms?

All the platforms respond differently content, and audiences respond

differently too. Try it, and measure your success using the insights.

So, how do I decide which platforms to use?

This is entirely personal.

Use the information above to help you choose.

You could create a presence on all of them and

focus on one or two, post the same content on

all and see which one brings back the best

results.

Question 2: How do I strike the right tone on social media?

The most frequent question I am asked is: How do I make sure I publicise my

successes, without coming across as bragging or spamming? Kyle’s top tip is to think

of your whole potential network as friends - like-minded people with similar

interests, with whom you have wonderful things in common. Social media is often

the pre-cursor to face to face relationships and collaborations – think about what

you’d say online in the same was as what you’d say to a friend over coffee, or to an

acquaintance at a concert.




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Here are some dos and don’ts to deal with this:

DOs

Be genuine and warm. Talk about your work with love, and

people will love reading about it.

Use your friends as a measure. If your friends are enjoying

your content, that’s a good sign. If you’re spamming them,

you’re probably spamming others.

Reply to people, thank them, ask genuine questions and strike up warm

conversation.

Find a way to talk about your work as though you’re talking to your friends,

in a way that makes them happy for you and come on the journey with you.

Listen to your gut instinct. How does writing the posts make you feel? If you

have reservations, listen to them – I tend to feel good and confident about

certain posts, and if I don’t, I re-write them.

While you are being conversational and genuine, also embrace the science

side of social media. Look at your analytics, and replicate successes.

Optimise your content. Is the image the best it can be? Is the text in the

best possible layout? Does it include a question, or content that might

promote conversation and engagement? Have you used relevant hashtags?

DONTs

Don’t force it and aggressively push out your message

Don’t make up arbitrary questions where the only goal is

to increase engagement. Ask questions you’re genuinely

interested in the answers to – as you would face to face.

Don’t feel you have to write an article every time you post. If you’ve done

a wonderful concert, where the acoustic was perfect, the audience was

huge and the other performers were sublime, post about an aspect of that.

Then, you’ve got something further to say when people engage you in

conversation in the comments.

Don’t leave comments un-responded to. Comments are people getting to

know you. Respond to compliments as you would in person, for example.




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Question 3: How do I optimise content on each platform?

Use great images

Include images and video as

often as possible.

Images are essential on

Instagram.

The better your phone, the

better the photos, so make

sure your kit is up to date!

Hashtags are important on Twitter,

Instagram and LinkedIn, but not

Facebook.

Make sure your content is ‘evergreen’

Social media is often considered to be very immediate, but this is

changing. Posts have a long life span now and text should be

appropriate for this.

Ensure you have ‘evergreen’ posts available often. If someone wants

to share your work, they will want to find a post that gives a snapshot

of what you do.

Content isn’t seen in the context of your timeline; it’s seen in the

context of their feed. Make sure every post gives the full story. Don’t

assume people will have seen your other posts.

This doesn’t mean posts need to be long – a sentence, or a photo of

you with your instrument will tell most of the story.

Avoid posts that go out of date – for example, if advertising a concert,

don’t say ‘in two weeks’, say ‘on 1st May’.

Evergreen posts allow others to support you easily.

Optimise your profiles

Take time to make sure your social media profiles are well looked after

– they should have good header photos, profile photos, and ideally the

same handle for each.

Make sure your website is linked on each profile.

These things make it easy for people to engage with you and find out

more about you.




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Thank you!

I hope you have enjoyed our Social Media Guide for Musicians. I’d love to see you

in the Polyphony Arts online course community – join for ongoing discussion and

support, and to share your work with others.

If you’ve enjoyed this guide, do check out our other resources and services for

musicians.

Do tag Polyphony Arts on social media for engagement with your posts!

https://www.facebook.com/polyphonyarts/

https://www.instagram.com/polyphonyarts/


https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-beardsworth-0362a194/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2317566528342409/

https://polyphonyarts.com/services-and-courses/

https://polyphonyarts.com/services-and-courses/

https://www.facebook.com/polyphonyarts/



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social media guide for musicians - polyphonyarts.com€¦ · social media editor at classic fm....

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