It’s really easy to spend lots of time online and not actually get anything done to grow your audience. A simple daily check list can keep you motivated and stop you spending three hours staring at a twitter #catjokes hashtag. Better to spend an hour a day getting stuff done for your career than a whole day achieving nothing.
Picture by Paul Linus Claassen
The following is an example of things you can do regularly to make things happen (and it goes without saying your music has to be brilliant and remarkable for it to work). Some bands may do things at different times (i.e. only blog once a week or post videos more often) but this is a general example of a social media tasking sheet for a band:
Daily:
- Post updates to Twitter/Facebook.
- Re-tweet and share the links of other bands within your genre (then they will be more likely to do it for you).
- Update Your Blog.
- Upload Photos to Flickr.
- Tell one person about your music and thank them for listening (someone you know, not spam).
- Comment on a blog you are looking to have review your music (relevant content, not spam for your music).
- Post on a forum (not spam) and engage with people who enjoy the music in your genre.
- Reply to fan mail/@messages on Twitter and Facebook posts (essential).
- Check Google Alerts to see who is talking about your band online and engage with and talk to them.
Weekly:
- Update your gigs on Live Unsigned
- Post links to your music and ask fans to share them with their friends on Twitter (keep this to once a week to avoid it seeming like spam).
- Hang out at a gig where bands within your niche play and hand out fliers.
- Post a Youtube video (perhaps an acoustic cover/video blog/live footage).
- Submit your music to a music blog (that you are commenting on daily and engaged with)
- Upload a rough demo/rehearsal or live track/remix to Soundcloud.
- Contact promoters about booking gigs
- Contact local/national print press about interviews and reviews.
- Contact podcasters about playing your music and post an episode of your own podcast.
- Update band website with news and the other content generated in the week.
Monthly:
- Post a new song/EP on Bandcamp (and allow people to Download it in exchange for an email address).
- Upload a high quality video to Youtube.
- Do a UStream concert and post the show on Live Unsigned.
- Send out an email to fans.
- Review band finances.
- Review where the band is at with regard to long term goals.
- Start a contest for fans (perhaps to make videos or remixes)
- Create a new line or merchandise (T-Shirt/Mug/Box set/Multi-buy). A monthly time limited special offer is a good idea (i.e. 2 CDs for £10 etc).
Long term goals:
- Get 5000 people on the email mailing list.
- Release an album and sell 1000 CDs
- Do a national tour.
- Collaborate with a major artist.
These are only examples and will be different for every band. Napalm Death and Jay Z will require different plans. If you don’t enjoy writing, don’t write a blog – focus on video or photos or a podcast. If you don’t enjoy doing something its far less likely that you’ll do it. Do the things you’re good at and enjoy and really push them. Focus on building a fanbase rather than making money at first, get a few thousand people on the mailing list then you will start to see financial rewards when you put your product out.
The key is to be doing stuff regularly and setting goals. Review where you’re at and keep pushing yourself to get things done and you’ll soon see some results.
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Tags: checklist, Live Unsigned, time management, twitter, Ustream
