5 Things All Musicians Need BEFORE Starting a Digital PR Campaign

For independent musicians, a digital publicity campaign can be a critical component to the overall marketing strategy that will help to:

1. Reach new fans

2. Increase online influence

3. Create new content that can be used to continue to build strength of existing fan base through social media  

While all three of these are important goals for musicians to have, and there is no doubt that a PR campaign can help artists to achieve them, many musicians decide to jump into this too early. Without the proper assets, the likelihood that you will actually achieve these goals from a PR campaign are greatly decreased.

In order for a PR campaign to truly be successful, you must have the 5 following assets:

1. Music Ready For Release

Let’s get this out of the way right now. If you don’t have music ready to go, then there is no need for a PR campaign. No matter what direction or niche is targeted during a PR campaign, if you don’t have music available to be shared with media makers (bloggers, podcasters, iradio station DJs), then you’re wasting your time and money.

The ideal scenario is that you have at least an upcoming EP (containing at least 4 songs) that is planned for release around 1 to 1.5 months into the PR campaign. For the most part, bloggers don’t like to mention an upcoming release if there is any more than 1 month of lead-time between the feature and the release.

That said, it IS certainly possible to do a PR campaign for music that has been released previously. As long as the music is available and a unique story can be told, a digital PR campaign can be done effectively.

Bonus Note: Your songs MUST be professionally recorded. Live tracks are fine if your are promoting a live release, but even then the mix needs to be of professional quality.

2. A Professional, Compelling Bio

A professionally written bio that weaves a compelling story about who you are and what makes you unique is THE #1 asset that you need for an effective PR campaign (after the music of course).

While many bloggers still write their own content, it is often the case that a blogger will re-purpose the bio in order to create enough content for their blog on a consistent basis. This is bad news for you if you’re bio is one paragraph saying that you are a musician from so-and-so making rock music that will blow everyone’s mind.

This is, however, good news for you if you have a strong bio! That fact that many bloggers will re-purpose the bio means that you now have the opportunity to control the messaging of their features, telling their readers the important points about you that may stick out to fans as unique and intriguing.

A professional bio can run you a few hundred dollars, but it will not only mean the difference between success and failure of a PR campaign, but it will be a critical asset that you’ll be able to use long after the campaign has ended. 

3. Professional Promo Photos

All bloggers (and even some podcasters) will want a photo to go along with their feature that includes your music. Many new media makers have a quality standard to uphold and poor photos of you and/ or your band could actually be a deal breaker.

On the other hand, unique, creative and well-shot promo photos can actually be the ice breaker needed to get new media makers to check out your music. Here are a few great promo photos of a few Cyber PR® clients that absolutely helped them to have great campaigns: 

Lila Rose - @lilarosemusic

The Midtown Men - @TheMidtownMen

Derek Webb - @DerekWebb

4. A Niche to Conquer

Identifying a specific niche to target is a critical component to any successful digital publicity campaign.

It is important to note that your niche does not, in any way, need to reflect your genre of music. Anything that you are passionate about, anything that has inflicted you as a person (such as a disease or disability) or any part of your upbringing that has helped to define who you are as a person and a musician can be a great niche.

The idea here is that on music blogs, you are just another musician being covered, however on, say a positivity blog or a yoga blog, you are the one, or one of very few musicians being covered making your story and your music far more unique which can help it to resonate with the reader-base.

A few niches that we have worked with in the past that present great opportunities for independent musicians:

• Tech
• DIY Music Marketing
• Positivity
• Yoga
• Gay Parenting
• Early-Childhood Education
• Songwriting
• Human Rights Advocacy
• Politics

5. A Social Media Presence

Too many musicians under-estimate the importance of a social media presence to a digital publicity campaign.

While the music, the bio and the promo photos are all critical assets to have when planning for a successful campaign, there are two reasons why it is so important that you also have a strong social media presence:

1. With so many musicians and digital publicists inundating the inboxes of new media makers, it is inevitable that they will check out the social media presence of each submission as a filter for who to, and who not to consider for coverage. 

 This certainly doesn’t mean that you need to have a HUGE social media presence with hundreds of thousands of fans, but it does mean that you need to be consistently posting to your socials, and engaging with your fans. Ultimately a new media maker wants to know that if they are going to take the time to cover your music, you will be able to return the support by sharing the feature with your fans, helping them to build their own following as well. 

2. In order for a digital publicity campaign to truly be effective, each feature delivered within needs to be properly leveraged through social media to mobilize the existing fan base. 

 In other words, each feature is new content that you can use to engage your fans without having to say ‘listen to my music’… this form of sharing your successes is a much more subtle form of self-promotion than the much dreaded shameless self-promo that all too many musicians practice.

Again, having hundreds of thousands of fans isn’t the point here, but rather you need to have a consistent content strategy that covers all 6 rooms of your social media house, which includes (but isn’t limited to) Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Blog, Newsletter. Here is a quick outline of how often you need to post to each platform in order to remain ‘consistent’:

Facebook: 1 Post Per Day 

Twitter: 2 - 3 Tweets Per Day 

Blog: At least 1 new post every other week 

Newsletter: 1 newsletter per month 

Youtube: At least 1 new video per month (note this doesn’t need to be a professional music video)

Pinterest: Posting at each of your boards at least once per day

What Has Helped YOUR Digital Publicity Campaigns?

These 5 assets can absolutely help you to achieve your goals through a digital pubilicity campaigns, but there are MANY other potential assets out there that can assist in this process as well. What have YOU used to help you to achieve your goals through digital publicity campaign?

Comments

[Gwendal]

I think you can also get good results working with the concept of series. For example, with my band we are working these times on a series of videos in order to get 3 months of high level activity to get new fans and supports. I think it's something that might work, seeing our firsts results.

[Straton-Shea]

These are some awesome tips and ideas to get started with a digital pr campaign. I feel like at a certain point there's a time when you can hire a PR agent to accomplish some of these tasks once the musician/band has garnered enough support. At which point does this additional help become necessary, or is it at all necessary?