Influencer marketing in recent years has seen first a massive rise and then a near-crash of the bubble. Also, it is not something most people would associate with the music business.
However, influencer marketing is not bound to one industry like the beauty industry. Of course, this was one of the first industries to adapt to influencer marketing.
Important to realise, many other industries like fashion have seen a massive switch from traditional TV advertising or printed ads to influencer marketing.
You might be wondering. What is influencer marketing and how can I use this in the music industry?
What exactly is influencer marketing?
The idea is that people on social media can use their platform to promote products that they believe in. Much as if a friend recommends you a good album or band.
You are much more likely to listen to that band then if you would have read about them in a magazine, right? That is basically what influencer marketing is about.
That someone with a need for marketing actions approaches social media people and ask them to promote their product. Therefore the name ‘influencer’ marketing, because you influence your followers on social media with your posts.
After a lot of grey zone activity, there are clear guidelines now on how to clarify if a post is organic or if you run an ad with it. Most of the time the #ad or #advertisement is being used to state the fact that the post is paid for.
This is another important part, that the influencer gets money for doing the post. However, not all #ad posts need to be paid. We’ll come to that in a second.
People care much more about what other people think than about what brands think.
*source: Jordan Pories
The price for #ad posts depends greatly on how many followers the influencer is having. The more follower the more you will need to pay. This is crazy, the impact of #ad on social media done with influencers is much higher than traditional ads in magazines or on the TV.
As a matter of fact, there are even influencer agencies that connect companies with influencers. They also look after all the legal requirements and contracts.
You can also work with Micro-Influencers
It isn’t always best-practise to search for the biggest influencers in your category and bust out a lot of pressures ad spend.
On the contrary, most campaigns could run successfully with a handful of so-called micro-influencers. Here’s the deal, anyone with a following roughly between 1000 to 100.000 people counts as a micro-influencer.
Also, micro-influencer tends to focus much more on a niche area. This is perfect for campaigns because the people who follow said micro-influencers are already super invested in the topic.
That means that the engagement with the content will be much higher. Therefore getting you more bang for your buck!
What tactics work best when doing influencer marketing?
There are different approaches that you can try out when doing influencer marketing. For example, you can hand out special promo codes to influencers that they can hand out to their followers.
Also, you can do a sale for your webshop or for merch and give influencers exclusive access to this. Everyone loves a sale, especially for really cool merch and vinyl! Compare this with having people sign up to your newsletter for access and you kill two birds with one stone.
If your music has strong riffs and rhythm in it why not offer it to influencers for them to use it their TikTok videos. This way, new people can experience your music in a fun environment.
In addition, you could reach out to influencers and go live with them. No matter if you do a duet on your best tracks. Likewise, you could just do a Q&A and give an insight into a day-in-the-life of a musician.
That were just some examples. You really can push the boat out in terms of being creative with influencer marketing. Find something that excites you as well as the people you want to reach.
Which tools can help you with influencer marketing?
- CrowdTangle: This is a browser extension from Facebook that can help you find out who shared a link and how often it was shared. Invaluable information when searching for the right influencer.
- Upfluence: This is a proper influencer marketplace platform. This means that this like LinkedIn just for influencers. Over Upfluence you can reach out to people and strike a deal!
- Burstimo: Here you have a music industry-specific marketing agency for influencers. Find the right people for your music marketing campaign.
- Spotify for Artist: Here is a super old school trick. Use Spotify for Artist to find out on which playlists you are happening. Also, search for your competition. On which playlists are your competitors happening? Can you find contact information for those playlists? Tada, there you have affordable influencer marketing!
- Instagram Followers: Go through your Instagram followers and check for everyone with more than 1000 followers. Since they already follow you, you can easily slide into their DM. Build up a relationship with them and get viral influencer marketing.
Don’t be held back by false ideas about influencer marketing. You can make it totally like you need it to be.
Make sure to do your research and find the right influencer. Then you can do a marketing campaign that will bring your music the push it deserves!