3 Tips for Growing Your Social Media Following and Avoiding Burnout

By Devin Renspie

Whether you’ve just started trying to establish your brand on social media or you’ve recently come down with a case of social media burnout, keep reading for three tips on how to sustainably grow your online presence in a way that’s enjoyable for you.

Focus Your Efforts on What Inspires You

First and foremost, you need to make sure that your social media strategy is centered around the platforms and forms of content that feel most authentic to you and your brand. Growing your following will be much easier if you genuinely enjoy the process. Are you the type of person who expresses themselves primarily through images and aesthetics? If so, Instagram and Pinterest could be where you thrive. Are you good at creating intriguing short videos? TikTok, Instagram Reels, and even YouTube Shorts might be your zone. Whatever your strengths are when it comes to content creation, if you put some thought into it, you’ll find a gap in the market that only you can fill.

As such, the majority of your social media activity should occur on whatever platforms inspire you. If you haven’t already, experiment with posting content that covers 3-5 different topics that interest you, and assess what kind of engagement each topic gets. Adjust the scope of your content as necessary. If you have an idea of which platforms and kinds of content you enjoy partaking in and your audience responds well to, then the next step will be fairly straight-forward, and you might have even already subconsciously implemented some of it into your strategy. If you don’t, it will hopefully help you find your content’s focus! You can also check out my last blog post where I discuss a few other things you should consider when deciding on what kind of content to post.

Seek Out Inspiration

The world of social media moves too fast for you to try to conjure up completely original ideas every time you post. Thus, it’s important for you to look to other content creators to help get your creative juices flowing. Start by looking at what other creators are doing that’s getting a lot of engagement. Specifically, pay attention to a variety of other creators whose brands are similar to yours, general trendsetters of the platform, and content curators. Save or take note of any content they post that you enjoy or that speaks to you.

With the content you’ve saved, try to identify which elements of it make it work. Which aspects can you replicate and include in your own content, and which aspects do you need to change to make it fit your brand? These could be anything from the format, the topic, the tone, or the trend that the content embodies. Searching for inspiration is an ongoing process, so if you find yourself bored of browsing content on a specific platform, that may be a sign that you should shift your focus to a different one.

Make Content Specifically for Each Platform

While you should continue to be primarily concerned with posting on the couple platforms that you identified in the steps above, it is also a good idea to have at least somewhat of a presence on every current platform, as well. That way, you will be able to reach the widest possible audience. If this sounds too daunting right now, that’s okay! Many times, however, content you post on one platform can be repurposed in a way that works for other platforms, so you really don’t have to invest much more energy in this process. For instance, if you make YouTube videos, you can take snippets and post them on places like Instagram or Facebook.

However, take heed, since platforms will punish you for posting content that is not native to them and/or directs users off their sites. For example, Instagram’s algorithm will suppress TikToks that are reuploaded to Reels (side tip: editing your TikToks/Reels in a third-party app and then uploading them to each respective platform can remedy this), and Facebook’s algorithm will suppress your post if it includes a link to a YouTube video instead of a video that is uploaded natively to Facebook. Therefore, make sure to upload content natively to each platform!

Moreover, it’s important that you use each platform as intended. While it would be extremely time-consuming to be totally invested in the cultures of every current platform, you should at least know the basics of each platform you intend on using, such as the optimal aspect ratio of pictures and lengths of different types of videos on Instagram. Check out these Sprout Social guides on social media image and video specs, respectively. If you don’t take the time to learn these things, your content will likely look out of place.

Overall, if you’ve grown weary of trying to foster your social media presence, you might just need to rethink the way you go about it! Start by focusing on specific platforms and forms of content that inspire you most, and stay up-to-date with what other creators are posting to add fuel and ideas to your creative fire. Once you’ve got those steps down, start to build up your presence on other platforms while keeping your efforts centered on those platforms and forms of content that inspire you. Best of luck!

5 Social Media Tips to Build Your Artist Following

By Devin Renspie

If you clicked on this article, you’re probably an artist just starting to try to establish yourself on social media. If this is the case, you’re in good company, and hopefully the following tips will make this process feel a little less daunting!

Have a Cohesive Presence

The first step in building a social media following is to make sure that you have accounts on every relevant social media platform. Even if you’re not as invested in some platforms as much as you are in others, this assures that you already have your profile claimed in case you decide to use it more and that you reach the widest possible audience.

Moreover, it is essential that all of your accounts look and feel the same so that fans of yours can easily find you across all platforms. While a big part of this is ensuring that things like your username, profile picture, and bio are the same (or at least similar), it is also important that you have the same content on each platform. Software like Later allow you to easily schedule content that will automatically be published to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts, or any combination of the four (and there’s a free version!), so you don’t have to worry about remembering and scrambling to post on each platform simultaneously.

Do More Than Promote Yourself

While there is a time for self-promotion, that time is after you’ve given your audience content to connect with. If you’re like me, you like to have a game plan before you dive into something as expansive as building a social media following, and luckily, the 70-20-10 rule exists to help you do that! The 70-20-10 rule is a general guideline concerning how much of each type of content should appear on your social media. As such, 70% of your content should build your brand, 20% of your content should build your network, and 10% of your content should be self-promotion. For more information on the 70-20-10 rule, check out this sonicbids article. If you still aren’t sure what to post, the following two points will give you some more insight regarding how to create content that your audience will engage with.

Focus on an Area of Content

Going back to having a cohesive presence, in order for your social media content itself to feel cohesive, it’s important to focus your efforts on one area of content. These main areas are documentation, education, and entertainment. When choosing an area, be sure to think about how it will fit into your brand, since whatever area you choose will be the basis of your brand-building content (the “70” in the 70-20-10 rule).

If you choose documentation, your content will mainly focus on the journey of your music career and what it looks like behind-the-scenes. A great example of an artist with this type of content is Jon Bellion, who posts a lot of “making of” videos, such as The Making Of All Time Low. Alternatively, with education, your content will mainly focus on teaching your audience a skill such as music production. Andrew Huang does an amazing job at this. Lastly, the arguably hardest area of content to make is that of entertainment, since your personality has to be the driving force. That being said, it is possible to include aspects of entertainment into the other two areas of content, as well. For more information about how to utilize the three types of content, check out Burstimo’s article.

Connect with Your Audience

Connection is the basis of social media platforms, and it should be the basis of your social media accounts, too. When you’re deciding what to post on your socials, be sure to keep in mind that social media is there to help you form relationships with your followers (and other music industry professionals). Therefore, no matter what area of content you focus on, make sure that you’re speaking to your audience, not at them. That is, find ways to allow your audience to communicate with you. If you’re thinking of focusing on documenting your journey as an artist, consider asking fans what they think of your unreleased songs. If you want to focus more on educating your audience, consider asking your followers what they want to learn more about. If you’re basing your content on entertainment, consider making content reacting to your followers’ questions or submissions. There are infinite ways to connect with your audience, but the bottom line is that your followers need to feel involved in your work and in your life in order for you to have a lasting impact on them.

Be Consistent in Your Efforts

If you only take one thing away from this article, let it be this. Social media is an art form, and like any art, there is no one way to do it. That being said, consistency is key to getting better at anything, and it is also key to growing an engaged following. To maintain such consistency, try to post on your socials around once a day. If this sounds too overwhelming, consider posting consistently at whatever interval feels maintainable to you, but keep in mind that once a day is ideal. To get the most engagement, check out Sprout Social’s best times to post on social media.

By consistently creating content and making efforts to connect with your followers using the tips I listed above, you are sure to accumulate followers that are invested in you and what you do. Best of luck in your social media endeavors!

How to Find New Music

by Chelsea Hallman

Ultimately, my favorite way to find new music is to hear it live. Going to a show with four artists, only knowing one of them, and coming out on the other side with a playlist full of new music is my ideal Friday night. Right now, since that option is not currently in the picture, we must go digging ourselves.

I find myself digging up the most music when going for drives alone. Spotify really helps me out with this one. I put on my Discover Weekly playlist and just cruise. I often find a single by a small artist that Spotify matches up with my taste. I then add that to a playlist and later will look into more of their music. More often than not, I end up with a new favorite! This is how you find stellar smaller artists like Derek Webb or Ruthie Collins. Another cool thing about my Discover Weekly is I will sometimes land on a single that came out years ago that I would have never listened to otherwise. Tell That Devil by Jill Andrews came out four years ago and every day still is rocks on. With songs like that I’ll listen to one old single and find a whole artist's discography. It’s one of the many tools we’re lucky enough to have these days.

Another way I find music is through my friends. I find they have pretty good tastes in music, too! I’ll follow my friends on Spotify and look at their playlists, or just ask them what they’ve been listening to. I can assume that at least one of your friends gets a little too excited when you like their music taste. We all have that friend (or friends) (or friend groups!) that prides themselves in their playlists, I know I do!

It can also be fun to find music from another generation than you. Ask your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, coworkers! I know my Uncle Jim is a music fanatic. He will give me hours of playlists of underground oldies. It’s a totally unique and fun listen. It’s also something cool to show off to your friends when you find something great.

Social Media is a great place to find music too. Instagram and Facebook have live shows going on the daily. A new one for me is finding artists on Tiktok. All the dance videos can lead me to some good music that I probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Keep on dancing!

Also, I recently found the Music Map. You search one artist you love and it comes up with a whole map of artists around that it recommends you check out. You can get down a hole in this one and find all kinds of new artists. I know for me, I searched for one artist I liked, Billie Eilish, and Harry Styles, Lorde, Lana Del Ray, Ruel, Bea Miller, Lady Gaga, King Princess, and many more of my favorites showed up along with about 40 artists that I hadn’t heard of. I’m a little obsessed with this tool now. Check it out here!

Happy music hunting, and let us know of any solid finds in the music world below in the comments!

Finding New Music

by Steven Metrejean

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like the amount of music that’s being released, on an almost daily basis, is making it harder and harder to keep track of your favorite artists. On the opposite side of that coin, it makes discovering and falling in love with new music easier than ever before. Nothing can quite compare to the exhilaration of finding a new song or artist that just speaks to your soul in a new way or that gets you up and dancing or crying like you haven’t in a long time. Interning at an artist management company like Olivia Management, new music comes through our doors consistently—it’s incredible. I recognize that not everyone has this opportunity. This begs the question - what are the most effective and easiest ways to find new music today?

Social Media

Social media: the thing we love to hate and hate to love. But as far as using it as a platform for discovering new music, I find that it is often a great way to explore new music. Whether it’s through searching hashtags or even going through follow lists of artists that you already follow, it’s a good way to expose yourself to all different kinds of artists. Not only seeing what my friends post on their stories, I find that my social media advertisements are really good at targeting me with artists that I might like. We could talk about how the internet uses all of our data to tailor ads for each of us individually, but to be honest, I am not all that upset when I see an ad for a new album or music video from an artist that is spot on with my tastes. The most recent example of this was when I discovered a British artist named Mabel after seeing an Instagram ad for one of her music videos. That song was catchy, and I downloaded it immediately when I heard it for the first time!

Concerts

Some people like to gripe about opening acts at shows. They’ll complain about how they didn’t pay to see this brand-new artist with only one EP out, and that they’re just grinning and bearing it until the headliner hits the stage. But I like to see openers. Oftentimes their music is similar to the artist’s music that I paid to see. Having an opening spot on a big headlining tour is an amazing opportunity for exposure to a huge audience that a new artist would not normally have a chance to perform for. Who doesn’t want to give back to an opener who spends half their set talking about how grateful they are just to be there?

Friends & Family

Some of my favorite conversations with friends and family have turned into hours-long rants and arguments about who’s favorite artist is more under-appreciated and underrated than who’s. We talk about how one genre of music is deeper and more emotional than another, or we just have fun talking about the latest bops that we’ve been dancing in our cars at stoplights to. Never underestimate the power of a friend suggesting you listen to an artist or song they think that you’ll like. If they know you well enough, they only have the best experience for your ears at heart. And I find it’s one of the best ways to show someone that you truly care about them!