How to Create a Social Media Posting Schedule to Gain More Followers

Social media offers the most cost effective way to market your music. It can easily help you gain more fans and sell more music or merchandise. But, there are a few basic rules that you need to follow.

If you want to maximize the benefits of social media for promoting your music, you need to:

• Keep your personal and professional accounts separate


• Respond and interact with your fan base


• Share original and curated content with your followers


• Continue to post on a consistent basis

The first rule is to keep your personal and professional lives separate. It’s not that hard. Post music related posts through your business accounts and share family updates on your personal accounts. You should also respond and interact with your fan base. You need to respond to comments that they leave and ask them questions to keep them engaged.

But, that’s only part of the equation.

You Need to Avoid Over-Sharing Promotional Posts

You also need to share content. A portion of this content can be content that you’ve found elsewhere.

For example, you might come across an interesting music-related article that you’d like to share with your fans. Other commonly shared posts include:

• Music news


• Shared posts from other musicians


• Links to interesting music-related blog posts


• Other topics that you believe your fans will enjoy

The rest of your posts will contain updates about new gigs, tours, and new music – or any other upcoming or current events.

Your posts shouldn’t include shameless self-promotion. Instead, present your content in a stripped-down style.

Here’s an example. Say that you’ve got an album coming out and you’d like to share a preview track through your website.

Your diehard fans will check out the track. Some of your casual listeners may as well. But, if you include too many of these posts in your feed, you’ll lose followers.

So, in order to balance the self-promotion posts and the posts linking to interesting things that you’ve found online, you should create a schedule.

Determine the Frequency of Your Posts

First, you’ll need to decide on how often you want to post. The frequency isn’t as important as remaining consistent.

Don’t decide to post 4 times per day if you don’t think that you can keep it up. If you can only post once per day, then stick with that for now.

You should at least post once per day – Thursday through Sunday. These are the days that social media users are most active.

On Monday, people are too busy starting their work week. By Thursday, they’re anticipating the weekend. They start to check their social media profiles during the day and spend more time on them in the afternoon.

The time of the day that you post is also important. Studies show that posts sent at 9 AM receive the most interaction. People share, like, retweet, and click on these posts more than posts sent during other times of the day.

Along with 9 AM, you could send posts at 1 PM and 4 PM. These are the second and third best times to post on social media.

If you post more than 3 times in a day, then spread the remaining posts out. Post later in the afternoon.

After you’ve determined how frequently you’ll post, add up the total for the week.

For example, if you’re going to post twice per day, Thursday through Sunday, you’ll post 8 times per week.

Up to 1/3 of these posts can be self-promotional posts. The rest should be content that you’ve found online or shared from other social media profiles that you follow.

With 8 posts, 2 of them would be self-promotion and the remaining 6 would be curated content. With 9 posts, 3 of them could be self-promotion.

Plan Your Posts in Advance

When you know how many posts you’ll need, it’s easier to plan in advance.

You can spend an hour or two on Monday finding all the posts that you’ll need for the week – other than your self-promotion posts.

Bookmark the web pages or social media posts that you want to share.

Another way to simplify your social media schedule is to use a social media management application. You can search for “web-based social media campaign platforms” that will allow you to schedule posts – both curated and original.

Boost Your Following with Your Shared Content

The content that you share from other sources can be incredibly helpful for growing your following. It offers several important advantages:

• It gives you something to share – other than your promotional content


• It helps you remain active on social media


• It keeps your fans engaged and listening


• It can help you attract more attention

It’s the last advantage that can be the biggest help for your social media game.

When you search for shared content, you should look at the accounts of related musicians. Look at the social media profiles of other artists in your scene and occasionally share their posts.

By sharing posts from other artists, you can attract more attention – from the other artists and from their fans.

This is a form of influencer marketing. If you share content from an artist with a large following and leave a positive, truthful comment on the post, there’s a good chance that they’ll notice the share and the comment. Depending on the artist, they may check out your page.

If you can develop a positive online relationship with the other artist, they may be willing to share some of your posts and recommend your music to their fans – increasing your exposure.

For more tips on social media marketing, check out this short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–s2sfm9JkI

Final Thoughts on Creating a Social Media Schedule

The main thing that you need to remember is to remain consistent. You need to continue posting on a regular basis, whether you post once or five times per day. And, you need to limit your self-promotion posts.

As a final suggestion – you can post more frequently than what you’ve scheduled. If you have a sudden update or announcement, don’t keep yourself from posting about it just because you’ve already met your quota for the day.

Source: ArtistPR Music Marketing