Many musicians find navigating the likes of TikTok, and other types of short form content such as Reels and YouTube Shorts, to be a minefield in terms of creating engaging content that fits their brand. To quickly address the elephant in the room, having to create, direct, film and edit additional video content on top of your already busy workload can be, and is for many, very off putting. This blog post is designed to provide some helpful hints and tips to make this type of content easier and more efficient to create.
Part I: Understand The Platform
In previous blog posts, a piece of advice I have shared is that you can cross post content. This remains absolutely true and is an effective way to make sure that you are able to post *something* on all of your band’s social media channels and show that you are active. It is also important to recognize that different platforms operate in varying ways and creating specific content, when you have the time and resources to do so, can assist in boosting your profiles.
For example, TikTok is more open to ‘spirit of the moment’ type content. It’s common to see videos filmed as and when people feel like it, without necessarily having fancy bells and whistles edited in afterwards. These videos often feel more personal and more relatable. Relatability is a major driving factor of successful accounts on the platform.
In contrast, Instagram generally leans more into higher quality videos that have had extra time spent on them during the production and editing process. Additionally, Instagram is geared more to the share-ability of content within the app, e.g., sharing to stories. So work on producing engaging content that viewers would want to share to their own followers.
These are not hard fast rules but rather generalizations for each platform. If you’re finding certain types of content are not performing as well on particular platforms, it may be worth adapting specifically to each and see if that improves your engagement.
Part II: Timing
There are a few aspects to consider around timing, the first relating to your video’s relevance. If you’re making a reel of a reaction to a new song from a major band, this will have more of a limited time frame in terms of its relevance for when it is most likely to grab the attention of viewers. If, however, you’re making a humorous TikTok about the life of a musician, for example, that is more likely to gain interest irrespective of when it is posted and will have a longer life span in terms of relevance. This type of content doesn’t go ‘out of date’ in the same way.
Getting into a posting schedule that is consistent is another key factor. Realistically, most bands cannot create content and post every single day. If high volume posting is not feasible, focus on making sure your posting schedule is as consistent as possible, even if that means posting a couple of times or even just once a week. It is better to do this than to post everyday for a week and then disappear from your social platforms for a month. That will negatively impact your channels to a greater extent.
Extra Tips:
- Engagement – make sure your audience has a reason to continue watching to prevent them scrolling onto other videos.
- Content ideas – think about the type of content you enjoy, this is a great way to start out with conjuring up video ideas.
- Look at your data – use the information provided on your videos to see what performs best, which times are most successful for posting new videos, and which types of videos get the most shares and comments.
Check out the Heavy Business Podcast episodes below for further discussions on this topic: