Why Artists Should Blog

It probably doesn’t surprise you at all when I say I love blogging (I am a blogger after all), but it shouldn’t just be me that loves it. As an artist, I highly recommend that you learn to love blogging. Here’s why (in no particular order):

Why Artists Should Blog:

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1. Networking

Let Your Fans Get To Know You

A Twitter bio doesn’t really allow you to show people who you are, but a blog would. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about someone just by reading about their day, and if you’ve got those die-hard fans I’m sure they want to know every last detail.

Reach New Listeners

Of course, a blog should never just be about you- it needs to be balanced between you, your music, and other topics. For example, you could blog about an industry related issue or another artist’s album that you’ve been listening to. This way people looking for articles on this topic will find your blog and may, after reading the article, give your music a listen and become a new fan.

Reach Artists

You may even find artists with similar ways of thinking end up at your blog and want to work- everyone loves a good collab.

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2. Web Presence

Fresh Content

If your website never really changes, what’s to keep people visiting it? What reason does one have to return to your website? None. However, if there are fresh posts each week then visitors are more likely to return.

Boost Your SEO

Now, I’m not going to get deeply into SEO, but it’s basically how google finds you and where you rank in search results. If you’ve just got a contact page and a gallery, google’s not going to rank you very high, but if you’re trying to rank highly for the search term ‘London DJ’ and you’ve got lots of content relating to that you’re going to rank higher.

Establish Your Online Presence

Okay, you may be on ALL the social networks, but blogging will really establish your web presence and drive traffic (as said before). It’s your voice (when you need more than 140 characters at least)!

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3. Sanity

Better Than A Twitter Rant

I’ve seen artist after artist rant without thinking on Twitter about some music related issue. Blogging about the topic will not only force you to structure what’s you’re saying in a better way (i.e. not a rant full of swear words), but it will also mean that the content is easy to find as it’s all together instead of spread across multiple tweets.

Express Yourself

Yes, music is there to help you express yourself, but we can’t rhyme all our feelings now can we? After all, do people want a song about how much you hate the length of time uploading to bandcamp takes? Not that I’m suggesting you write a blog about that either to be honest, but you get my drift.

Share Your Happiness

Being an artist is tough, but sometimes things go right. If you’ve had a good day in the studio let the world know!

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4. Business

Make Announcements

Got a show coming up? Why not personally announce it on your own blog? That puts all the information in one place (where to by tickets, venue, timings etc.), making it easier for fans to attend.

Post Your Music

When you release a mixtape you can post about it on your own blog with a personal commentary about what it’s about, what inspired it etc. This helps people understand your music and where you’re coming from- enabling to them to relate. It’s also (really) useful and interesting for bloggers and journalists to see what you meant to do with the music when they’re writing about you.

You could even post your lyrics for those that want to sing along!

Find Collaborations

Need a female vocalist? Use your blog to advertise, for all you know there’s one sitting in your audience.

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I hope after reading this post you consider blogging. If you’re looking for a platform I highly recommend WordPress.com (which is free) or Tumblr. For busy artists I’d probably reccomend Tumblr. It integrates well with other social media, has many customisable themes and it’s easy to post from the mobile app for when you’re on the go! If you want a blog with more functionality though, I’d go with WordPress.

I’m Aysh Banaysh, an 18 year old music blogger and digital marketer from London. Owner of AyshCreamEnt.co.uk. Follow me on Twitter: @AyshBanaysh

Comments

[Darealex]

Nice one....bravo!

i love this!!