Content: What works?

The Battle Between Bands And Social Media

Here we go… time to sound old. Back in the day when it came to promoting your music it was relatively simple. Make a band, book a show, print flyers, hand them out everywhere you can. If you were lucky to either have someone in the band with a rich parents or a crafty band member with some shifty recording equipment to make a demo and hand it out to everyone who makes eye contact with you. In certain circumstances you drop that CD or Cassette in an envelope and send it out to who is unlucky enough to list their mailing address anywhere you can find it. Things were easier, I think.

Now let’s run through a current “content” schedule for releasing just a song. We’ll go from inception to release and really give you the down and dirty.

1. The song

   You write the song, you play it out, you refine it and you record it. Great the hard part is done… nope.

   It’s time to upload the song to the distribution platform of your choice. This needs to be done a minimum of 6 weeks prior to release to allow all streaming platforms to receive it and have it available day of release. Also this gives you a chance to pitch to Spotify editorial playlists. Essentially begging the company who couldn't care less about you to care JUST a little so they can take all your money but you feel special because you’ve been chosen.

   Now you have listen to the song and pick a few different spots inside the song that will stand out in reels and Tik Tok videos. It may not always be just the chorus. It could be a bridge or a certain stopping point with really catchy instrumentation.

2. The Content

   You’ve got your song, it’s uploaded and you know your Strongs spots now time to create content around it. This is when you take a day, most likely on the weekend because everyone has day jobs, and shoot as much footage as you can around the song as possible. You shoot about 30 pieces of mid size content that you can then split into 60 pieces of short form content OR one piece of long form content that you can break up into 30 pieces of mid size and 60 pieces of short form content.

   A. Short Form Content: Under 20 seconds. Usually “POV” videos, or “If you like (band name) then you’ll like us” videos. But there are MANY varieties of typical content in this time structure.

   B. Mid Size Content: 30 - 60 seconds. This video is mostly an expert of a larger video i.e. music video or lyric video. These pieces of content are typical more high quality and showcase more of the artistic side of the artist

   C. Long Form Content: 2 minutes or more depending on the length of the song. This usually relegated to Music videos or Lyric videos. More high quality, but quality is not a prerequisite. If you get the point across you get the point across.

   Ok, now you got all your content it’s time to start planning it out.

3. The Rollout

   Once you’ve got all your content lined up it's time to create a plan on how you will roll it out. You hop on into your social media analytics and see when your followers are most active and start scheduling reels, carousels etc. for those time frames. Typically you will do 1 reel (TikTok as well) every day starting day of release. Within those scheduled reels you also want schedule 2-3 carousels on Instagram and Facebook per week because you need to diversify your content. Now you have to be careful because if you just post high quality footage of you pantomiming your song then the audience really has no idea who you are and how to relate to you. So… there’s that too. This content rollout will last for about 30 days until… your next release.

Now I will say that all of this can be done at a very low cost if one of your band members can record, mix and master the song. That takes a huge chunk off the bottom line. Also, if one of your band members can film and edit video footage on their own. Also also, this doesn’t even go into spending money on meta or google ads to get your music to the masses with ad dollars. Which is something we do as well alongside many other artists.

But let’s say you do all that, there is zero guarantee it’s gonna work. There is zero guarantee anyone is gonna listen or if they do…care. But this is where we sit in the industry. With indie artists having more opportunities than ever before the competition is that much tougher. This is all to just be heard, in this model money is not the main goal. That’s why it is so important to like, share and subscribe. That’s why it’s a necessity to buy merch if you can or just go to the shows in general.

When you see a local bands post think about an iceberg. That is only the tip of it, below the surface is weeks, months or even years or work that led them to that post. The real art is less what you see, but more of what lies beneath the surface. Social media is just a lighthouse, try to figure what it’s trying to guide towards.

If you dug this please make sure to share and as always check out our music on all streaming platforms. Below is a playlist to check out. If you’re not sure if you like Ska, or even know what Ska is, this the playlist to prove you do.