Content Marketing For Artists (Taylor Swift Case Study)

IIt’s important for artists to put out content about themselves in the Music Industry. It allows them to keep fans updated about their activities. Besides this, it’s also a way to build up relationships in the Music Industry and other fans. In this article, you will learn more about how artists can do their content marketing.

Back to the basics

Artists need to have high quality music with a distinctive character. If they don’t do it, then they are one of many artists out there. It’s very basic and important to take care of your musical identity. It has to be very strong. Later on, you will know more about the content marketing. So if you don’t have a strong musical identity yet, start building from there.

Content Marketing Strategy

Start by formulating a goal. The goal of your Content Marketing Strategy could be: Target more of your fans. Without a starting goal, it’s going to be hard to make a Content Marketing Strategy that fits and suits your long-term goals. There are two target audiences which need to be taken into account when making a Content Marketing Strategy. First you have the B2C market, the fans. Second you have the B2B market, those can be labels, online and offline media, booking agencies, events, festivals, promoters and companies. Both of these target audiences are highly important to sustain a career as an artist.

Conditions for your Strategy

The content you put out there needs to be relevant for both target audiences. The B2C market wants to know what you experience as an artist during your whole career. The B2B market is mainly interested in your developments. The reach of the fans is an important example. You have to ask yourself if the content matches with these 2 conditions. Besides this, you also need to analyze the needs of the target audiences.

Example: Taylor Swift

Look at Taylor Swift and her #Taylurking-concept. She collects various photo’s of her fans. Fans took pictures with a reference towards Taylor Swift (merchandise, gigs and so on). A few photo’s were being selected and they were published at her Twitter account.

#Taylurking

A good way to interact with your fans. Based on this interaction with the target audience you can get more connected with your fans and you can see what their needs are. With this concept Taylor knows more about her fans, which she can use in the future.

Make relevant content

The content needs to be frequently updated. It’s not something you can do one time and then it’s finished. Sometimes artists forget this. You need to be aware of the content your putting out, but also think about the frequencies of your updates (day, time). The interaction with your target audiences is also part of the Content Market Strategy. With this interaction, you build trust. With this trust you can eventually build up a relationship between yourself and your audience.

Examples of relevant content:

• A planning or tour schedule with your gigs
• High quality audio files
• High quality live performance video’s
• Reviews from Music Professionals
• Planning for the release of a single / album
• Distribution plans for the release of the single / album

This content is useful for both B2C and B2B markets. Based on this information, people can tell if they are talking to an amateur or a professional in the Music Industry. And they also can decide to follow this artist or not.

The team of Taylor Swift came up with a brilliant concept. They selected a few fans and asked them what they wanted for Christmas. They collected the ideas and bought the gifts. Taylor included a personal note and sent it to her fans during Christmas. This concept was introduced through YouTube (you can watch the video here) and got a lot of views and comments afterwards. A successful Content Marketing Strategy!

Taylor sends gift to fan

Various channels

The content needs to be colllected on one channel, the website. The website is where the B2C and B2B market come together. Throughout your website, they will have access to links to your different social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, YouTube and Instagram.

There is a lot of artists who are misusing these social media channels by buying likes. They think they have more potential with the B2B market, because they make it seem like they have a far bigger reach with their fans. But the B2B market is always looking at the music itself (quality, distinctive character). If it suits their style and what they’re looking for, then they look at the reach of an artist. So I wouldn’t recommend ever buying likes or followers.

Every social media channel needs to be approached separately

I advise artists to see every channel as its own. A website has a different way of showing content than Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel. Each channel has its own approach. The content must fit on the channel you’re using. When using Twitter it’s more interesting to use links to articles. And with Facebook photos and videos are very important to use.

Fans want to have personal contact

I advise artists to manage the contacts with the fans themselves, because fans appreciate this. They want to have personal contact with the artist. The posts of your social media can be taken care of by someone else, but it should be a good collaboration which suits your wishes.

Taylor Swift with fans

For example, Taylor Swift has invited her die-hard fans and her biggest influencers for a Secret Session. They could listen to her new album and they also could spend time with Taylor Swift at her home. She baked cookies and this way she could build up the interaction with every person.

These are all brilliant examples of successful Content Marketing Strategies. I hope this will inspire you to make content about yourself.

By business coach Marcella Smeele (owner of Synergy For Music: International Music Marketing). Available for Skype Coaching: marcella@synergyformusic.com