Video should be your ‘killer content’ to bring awareness to your music and your brand.
Your smartphone gives you a TV studio to record and TV network to distribute your content, all in the palm of yourhand.  Here are some essential tips to help you get the most out of your video content:

Speak To Your Fans ‘One On One’

This is the biggest and best tip I can pass on to you.  Using a phone to record a message for your fans is the most effective type of marketing you can do.  It creates a connection and a closeness between yourself and your audience like nothing else.  If you want to pass on any sort of information (new release, forthcoming gig, crowdfunding campaign) video messages are the best way to do it.

KT Tunstall knows that video is the best way to announce her competition!

Get Dis-’Cover’-ed

The easiest way to reach out to a new audience is to record cover songs.  Do covers from artists in your genre and put your own spin on artists who are diametrically opposite to your musical style.

Covers help you get discovered.

Mix Up The Quality

Don’t think that your video content has to be filmed using a 1080 DLSR.  Go lo-fi with your smartphone for authenticity, then go hi-fi with a DSLR to show people your ‘art’.

Place Your Videos EVERYWHERE

Put your video content on ALL social channels. Consider YouTube is an ‘all time’ depository for your content and social media as an ‘announcement’ and display opportunity. Here are some further tips for individual social networks:

• Facebook: Unlimited video length. Cut to the chase. If uploading music videos, consider trimming so that the video starts when the vocals kick in. If you don’t people will ‘scroll on by’ before the song gets going.
• Twitter: Maximum of 2 minutes.  Consider reducing video size to 960 x 540 to reduce filesize and make it easier to stream.
• Instagram: 60 second maximum.  Instagram will ‘square’ all video in a 1:1 ratio, make sure any videos you produce have the talent ‘front and centre’ for this format.

Get Some Kit

You can improve smartphone recordings with a dedicated directional mic and tripod adaptor.

Go Live

With Facebook Live, Periscope and now YouTube Live Streaming you can get in front of your fans in real time and create an ‘event’ for them to watch.  Facebook Live records the comments as they happen and you can reply to them after the event, great for engagement.

Boost The Best

Want to grow your audience?  Use your best and most attractive video content on Facebook or Instagram as a marketing tool to reach out to a new audience to try and get new fans. If you know who your audience is, you can pay to run a video from your timeline as an ad or simply ‘boost’ a video post to your intended audience. Your video content needs to be visually attractive however!

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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