Digital marketing is essential for any artist. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the social heavens for online branding. As a musician, however, you might not have considered using LinkedIn as a promotional tool. We’re here to tell you the benefits LinkedIn can have for an artist and the ways to use it to your advantage.
You can find through LinkedIn music industry contacts that can help promote and book you as an artist. Certainly more professional than the other social media platforms, but still a useful tool for artists that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Using LinkedIn, music industry professionals can grow their industry network and develop an online presence. In this article, we will cover some of the benefits of using LinkedIn to convince you to use it for your own promotional purposes.
What Is LinkedIn?
Before we delve into the benefits, we need to discuss what LinkedIn is. It’s understandable as an artist you may never have considered using the platform before. Thus, you might not have a deep understanding of the purpose of LinkedIn and how people typically use it.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest site for professional networking. It can use used for different purposes.
Networking
Networking is the main purpose of LinkedIn. It offers a platform to connect with professionals around the world with that you have an interest. You can connect with experts in certain fields and look at what they are sharing and working on. You can connect with people working on similar projects to get advice.
Nearly all professionals are on LinkedIn, so the potential of connecting with others is huge. It’s like the Facebook of industries.
Other Reasons
The most common other use for LinkedIn would be job hunting. Many businesses post job opportunities and applications on LinkedIn making it a key job search site.
This is also true for internships and apprenticeships for example. You can share your experience and education as well as having your skills endorsed by professionals making it the perfect place to build a professional portfolio.
LinkedIn Benefits For Musicians & Artists
Now that we have established what LinkedIn is, it’s time to look at the benefits of using the platform. Let’s dive in!
Building A Team
As a musician, you need more than musical talent to make it as an artist. As an independent artist, you need artist management, graphic design, promoting, all matter of skills. It is unlikely you have the knowledge, ability, and time to do this all by yourself.
LinkedIn is the perfect place to find these people. Not only will LinkedIn be packed with music industry company profiles, but individuals and freelancers you can employ yourself.
Need some artwork for an album cover? There are countless freelance graphic designers with profiles on LinkedIn. They will typically share their previous work onto their profile giving you a reference to their skill and style. You can connect with as many people as you like and message them to find out more about their services.
Likewise, you will be able to find agencies to contact for managing services. You can then connect with your assigned manager on LinkedIn, connect, and share each other content.
Unexpected Opportunities
Your usual means of work might be concerts or DJing at an event for example. As a musician you can sometimes be limited to the environment you perform in. LinkedIn can be the perfect place to find alternative opportunities.
Maybe a company needs a piece of original music to pair with a public dance show. Or a business owner might want live music for a professional industry event. LinkedIn could be the way you find these opportunities. They might post about the opportunities as a job advert or notice your profile and contact you directly.
Using LinkedIn, music job opportunities can pop up that never would have otherwise.
Show Your Experience
Using LinkedIn, music producers have a place to list all their past works and achievements. You can share pictures and videos allowing you to build a portfolio of your work.
Furthermore, posts can be added to your featured board on your profile. If you’ve won any awards, done any interviews, made a hit song, etc, you can feature these at the top of your page. This makes this a better platform for showcasing your talent than any other social media. This is the basic purpose of LinkedIn, to be able to show off your talent in your field.
If anyone ever contacts you and wants some information about your music career, you can simply send them your LinkedIn profile like and they will have direct access to all the highlights and achievements in the music industry.
Connect With Professionals
There are some functions on LinkedIn that are comparable to other social media platforms. Having followers, likes and comments can have a powerful positive impact on your digital reach and awareness.
Connecting with as many professionals as possible makes your profile more visible and shows your active role in searching for opportunities. Even better, connecting with people within your specific niche in the industry connects you to some of the best people you will want to work with.
Having these respected industry professionals like, comment and share your posts will open more opportunities for people to find your profile.
Join Music Groups
There are many groups for different industries to join on LinkedIn. Included in these are many music industry groups. This brings music professionals all in one palace making it easier to find related content. You can connect with these people and see what opportunities people are posting about.
Having the ability to find these people without having to individually search for them is a very useful tool. No social media platform provides ht opportunity to network with music industry professionals like this does.
Professionalism
Appearing professional as an artist can sometimes be hard. The music industry is still one sometimes looked down upon by others in society and these misconceptions can lead to a false image of unprofessionalism. LinkedIn provides a means to prove this wrong.
The site is designed to look as professional as possible. You should add a clear headshot of yourself with a background related to your work. There are different sections throughout your profile that you can build on. Fill out each one and maximise the amount of information shared on your profile. The more you share, the more likely people are to notice your talents.
Find Artist To Collaborate With
Like we’ve already mentioned, a huge purpose of LinkedIn is to be able to connect with people within your field. You can use this opportunity for many different purposes.
Finding an artist to collab with can sometimes be tricky. Searching for artists who are similar to you might not be too hard, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you want to work with them. Producing a track is a lot of work, you want to work with someone who takes the project seriously and will contribute equally.
With the functions of LinkedIn, you can examine someone’s career and see how dedicated they have been. Through this, you can reassure yourself the person you want to do a feature with will be professional.
Market Your Music
You can also use LinkedIn to professionally promote your music. LinkedIn, for music producers, can be the perfect marketing tool.
Their mailing advertising feature has a 52% open rate which is higher than most other means of email marketing. For a cost, this is a great way to share new releases with potential listeners. LinkedIn’s ads also have a potential reach of 12% of the world population!
Using this tool to promote yourself can sometimes be expensive. However, because of the respect, LinkedIn has as a platform there’s a greater chance of people receiving your promotion better. Adverts and promotional messages are generally perceived to be annoying on other social media sites.
Due to the fact that LinkedIn houses a place of professionalism, these means of marketing a generally more respected. Users trust their information is relevant and useful. By using this method to promote your music, LinkedIn will target people who are most likely to be interested in you.
It Is Easy To Use
The creators of LinkedIn have made it an extremely easy platform to use.
For example, the recommendation section is a great place to find connections. Once you’ve built your profile and connected with a few people, LinkedIn will determine what type of audience you are trying to connect with. Then it can show you a list of profiles it thinks you would be interested to connect with.
Also in the recommendations section is pages and companies. Here you will find agencies, graphics companies, accountants, whatever you could want related to your industry.
Keep Connected
Our final point is maybe one o the biggest advantages of LinkedIn for music industry professionals over other platforms.
As an artist, you probably have countless numbers and emails you have collected over the years. You want to keep all your contact in case an opportunity arises, but emails and phone numbers change and you end up losing them.
With LinkedIn, all your connections will stay in the same place as long as the profiles stay active.
That Was Our LinkedIn Music Advice
That was our guide on why LinkedIn should not be overlooked by artists.
Having a place to connect with professionals and find opportunities within the music industry is a powerful resource for a musician. No other social media platform provides a single place to bring together all this information and people that can benefit your career. To be a professional artist you need to be professional, LinkedIn is the best means to achieve this.
Make connections, share others work, promote your music. Use all of LinekdIn’s functions to your advantage. It’s important to remember, however, not to get carried away. This is a platform that should strictly be limited to professional interactions. This shouldn’t be a place for connecting with fans and sending out casual messages. Keep it for business and showcasing your skill.
Marketing yourself as a musician can be tough. Because of this, we provide a wealth of information to help artists survive and thrive in the music industry. Why not check out our guides on SMS Text Marketing For Indie Musicians, What Does A Publicist Do For A Music Artist and How To Get Connected In The Music Industry to get you started!
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