How do you use Facebook for bands? Let’s start with something you might not have expected…

You are NOT building a promo page to sell stuff

Instead, you are building a community of like-minded people. You want to attract people who listen to your style of music and enjoy the culture around it. Don’t try to appeal to everyone and instead cater specifically to your ideal audience and the fans that respond to that will be your most valued asset.

And please, don’t do the ‘Check out my band’ driveby posts. Nobody will be impressed. Here’s an example:

Why would I be interested in clicking on this?

This post would be much more interesting if it included some information about the music that would intrigue the viewer, for example ‘Love psychedelic hot-dog inspired folk tunes? Listen to our new song from our upcoming album’. Even better, add a Spotify link to your post so that I don’t even have to leave FB to listen, just press play right in the post.

Posting guidelines

• Post consistently. You can schedule your posts in advance directly from Facebook, or across different social media platforms with a free web app  www.hootsuite.com
• Think of what theme does your music present. Play Celtic metal? Post  LOTR, castles, weapons, etc.
• Pretend like you are talking to one person when building your sentences.
• Don’t ask people explicitly to share and like. It will work against you.
• Track which posts get the most shares and comments, repost them again in the future for new people that liked your page since.
• There is a huge metal audience in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Learn how to post in multiple languages here.
• Videos will get you best reaction. Images are ok and text-only posts are something you should try to avoid.

What to post

• Post viral videos that you like (could be a wine repurposed barrel table). Check Buzfeed or metal memes. If you can download the video and post, that’s great. If no, sharing is ok too.
• A story about a show, or rehearsal.
• Images that go with your theme (‘choose your weapon’, ‘I would like to retire here’, etc.).
• Use open-ended questions (not a ‘yes/no’) to get a conversation going. It could be feedback on merch, asking for help to choose a design, etc.
• Take a photo of your fans during a gig and tag them.

Here’s an example of a post that works. It uses images that is funny, specific to the genre, and it knows its audience well.

Tagging

This is an important aspect of Facebook that many people do not utilize well. It will help to promote you and your fellow bands.

• Whether it’s a personal, or band post, always tag well. Instead of writing ‘We had a great night with my band, Apicura’, type ‘@’ first, then start typing the band name. This will create a link, so it’s easy for people to see your band page.
• Tag other bands you played with, venues, specific people you want to mention.
• Do not overdo it, as it can be overwhelming for some people to keep getting notifications.
• If you are posting about a specific piece of gear, tag the company. They might just share your post and give you free exposure. Just make sure only their product is visible in the photo/post.

Interacting

Comments and shares are your most valuable Facebook currency

• Get on the same page with your band members and have everyone share posts from your band page without being sarcastic about it. If you are not fully committed to your music, why are you doing it in the first place?
• ‘Like’ and comment back on people’s comments. It will make them feel special.
• Delete negative comments. You don’t need assholes hanging around your awesome community.
• When you have a popular post, check the likes on it and invite these people to like your page.

Page setup

• Set your FB page template to ‘shopping’ and add your albums as for sale items. This will show a ‘shop’ tab on the left that can link to Bandcamp and will also let you add little ‘buy’ icons underneath posts.
• Set topics to similar musical genres. These are ‘tags’ that will help people discover your page based on the style. Use autocomplete to set things like ‘Melodic Death Metal’, ‘Orcs and Trolls’, etc.
• If you have Bandcamp or website, put the link in ‘About’/’CONTACT INFO’ section of your page, so people can easily listen to your song.

Facebook and hashtags

Hashtags on Facebook are very different than onInstagram. Here, they are not widely used and while they can help you get your content to new people, they can also hurt you. As shown in this article, using more than one hashtag on Facebook actually hurts your reach. Facebook does that to prevent spamming and people seeing irrelevant topic under hashtags.

A word about ads

What do you when you already have great content but somehow still don’t reach as many people as you would like?

‘Ads’ might seem like a dirty word and often this business stuff is the last thing a creative person wants to deal with.

However, ads are a super important part of getting noticed. After all, how can people know how cool your music is if they never had a chance to hear about you?

Ads can greatly speed up your growth but you have to be very careful about how you set them up. This deserves a separate article but the bottom line is that you want to be very specific about who will see the ad. If you just advertise to everyone on Facebook, it might be detrimental to your reach.

The good thing is that it’s not as difficult as it might seem in the beginning and after having run a few successful FB campaigns, I can tell you it’s not very expensive either. If you don’t know where to get started, ask your friends, check YouTube for tutorials but whatever you do, don’t just ‘boost’ a post and walk away without setting up any campaign details.

Action Items for you

• Think what kind of community you can build around your band. What is a theme that will bring a lot of people together?
• Prepare a library of funny/viral videos and photos that match your theme and schedule the posts in advance
• Practice tagging

I hope these tips helped you get some inspiration for your band page. What strategies have you found working well for you?