#BandBrand – Aim for loyal fans on Facebook

A Facebook page for your band lets people show appreciation by giving a “like”. By liking your band’s page on Facebook, your fans can get updates sent to their newsfeed. Setting up a Facebook Page is relatively quick and painless – be sure to use a good quality profile photo and cover photo of your band (take a look at how your favourite international bands on Facebook have done it) and be clear as possible about the band’s general information as this will be the first information that new fans will be seeing. Most people like dozens and dozens of pages already, so the trick is trying to make your band stand out. How can this be achieved? Images.

 

Captivate the eye

 

People are a lot more receptive to images than just standard text updates in their Facebook newsfeed. By sharing an image of the band, a new EP cover or anything else that is relative, you will be able to captivate the eye of the viewer while they are scrolling down their newsfeed. It is okay to add personality into your posts, but don’t take it over the top as that can be left for Twitter. You will find that most bands post between 3-5 times a week, this a good frequency of posting. 

 

Unfortunately, Facebook limits the number of posts shown to fans if you do not run an Ads Campaign. Roughly one out ten of your page’s posts are shown to fans. This is a sad truth about using a Facebook page. To reach more people, you will need to implement a campaign – thankfully this doesn’t cost too much to set up and you will be able to target the age group and demographic of people your music appeals to. I would highly recommend setting up an ads campaign if you are a page owner, not that because your band will be suddenly flung into stardom, but with more likes comes more awareness of the brand you are building. There is currently a debate about how genuine some of the “likes” are that come with creating a campaign, but having 1000 likes looks a lot better than 50. Read more about Facebook Ads. 

 

Be active

 

Facebook gives you the ability to log in as your own page as if it were your own profile and “like” other pages – this is an effective way of interacting with your favourite local and international bands, because chances are, at least some people will notice your page by doing this. Be as active as possible when using Facebook as your own page.  

 

No matter how slowly your likes are coming in, always remember to keep at it. I remember being disillusioned some years ago about how few likes my page was getting, but I kept at it and started to see results. Probably the most important thing to know about your Page likes is that it is better to have 100 loyal fans who interact and like your posts than 1000 fans who never interact and like your posts. Build a following of loyal fans and the rest will take care of itself. 

 

Check back here next week where I will be discussing additional social media platforms to use to better your band, such as Instagram, Soundcloud and a blog. 

 

If there are any questions, please tweet me at @cityliferblog. Keep it fresh and see you next week!