The days of free organic reach have been well behind us. Basically, ancient history at this point. Although the perception of how TikTok serves content to users seems to be more favorable, the complaints have more so been with Instagram and Facebook (both owned by Meta of course). To be fair, the YouTube algorithm doesn’t share your new video uploads to all of your subscribers either.

What can musicians do to overcome this challenge with algorithms? Or is it even the source of the problem in the first place? In this blog, we’ll explore that and cover a list of tactics for you to try and “beat” the algorithm.
 

What purpose do algorithms serve and how does it work?

 
I won’t go into what an algorithm is as I’m sure everyone reading is well aware of what it is, or at the least, understands how it impacts (ruins) your social media experiences as the creator.

However, I really want to emphasize an important point that gets lost in the conspiracy theory that platforms intentionally suppress the reach of certain types of posts (i.e. sales related posts). I touch more on this on another blog and explain what I believe to be the real problem.

Algorithms serve a key role in helping to provide a positive user experience on social media platforms because it addresses the problems of content saturation and low quality content. (No, I wasn’t paid by any of those platforms to say that.)

Back in the days, the newsfeed on platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, would show posts in chronological order. This was around 10 years ago before we had the number of users and content creators we have today. The more you would post, the more visibility you received. There were businesses and creators scheduling like 8 to 10 Facebook posts a day!

Algorithms were introduced in social media as a way to address the problem that we would see today… an overload and saturation of content. One of the goals of the algorithm was to encourage/force creators to only make high quality posts/content that followers would want to see and engage with.

For the longest time, the algorithm was a big mystery. People wanted to know how it worked in order to try and game the system or “beat the algorithm”. Although we didn’t know all the exact signals and ranking factors they use and weight it plays, we’ve had a good understanding of what the algorithm looks for.

In an effort to be more transparent, Instagram eventually published a blog in 2021 explaining how their algorithms work and have since updated it recently. This has given us a bit more clarity on how they rank posts and determine what gets shown in the various parts of Instagram (Newsfeed, Stories, Reels, Explore). More importantly, it has given us guidelines on what we can do to improve the reach of our posts.
 

What does it mean to beat the algorithm?

 
It’s important to first define what “beating” the algorithm even means and why so many musicians constantly seek out this information in frustration.

In social media, it’s being able to dramatically improve your organic reach to your followers on a platform for free and not having to use their ad service to get your posts seen. You can look at it as making the algorithm your friend. If you post the right video at the right time, you may see an outburst of views and engagement as the algorithm continually pushes your content to non-followers. I helped create a few viral moments for an artist thanks to the algorithm and you can read more about that campaign here.

This is particularly true when trying to sell something that would benefit you financially. The long, commonly held belief (conspiracy theory) is that the algorithm used in these platforms will automatically suppress the reach of these types of posts in order to force artists to spend money to reach their followers. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true, but I arrived at a different conclusion.

I truly do not believe it is possible to “beat the algorithm” on any consistent basis, but there are definitely things you can do to improve your chances of getting better organic reach with your posts. Some of these tactics are features that these platforms intentionally created to help you beat the algorithm.
 

Tactics to improve your chances of “beating the algorithm”

 
Here is a list of tactics you’ll want to consider when developing your social media strategy and posting on social media if you want the best chances of getting free organic reach. It’s going to be a mix of things to do for more immediate results as well as for the long term. These tactics were not for a specific social media platform, but a lot of them are with Facebook and Instagram in mind.

1. Don’t publish “low quality” content. Let’s get the obvious out of the way. This is the low hanging fruit that everyone should be reminded of. Don’t post things half assed without much thought just to get something out there on social media. Quality matters! This does not mean it has to be “professional” quality. If you’re posting a dark, blurry photo of something that doesn’t even have a clear subject, don’t expect to get much engagement. If you post a busy, ugly graphic full of text, don’t get mad that the algorithm is shadow banning you. If the video audio has obnoxiously static noises and you can’t even make out the words, that will not get reach because people will scroll past it.

2. Ask or incentivize followers to turn on post notifications or add you to their ‘favorites list’. One sure way to get your posts ranked on top of someone’s newsfeed is asking followers to ‘turn on the notifications’ to get a push notification whenever you post. All the major platforms have this option to some effect. By default on Instagram, followers will only get a notification for some live videos. You can also ask them to add you to their favorite’s list which allows all your posts to be at the top of their newsfeed. Some of your biggest fans may have already done this on their own without you asking. I know I’ve done that with my top favorite artists. However, you may have to incentivize them to do so. Maybe if you did a random giveaway for show tickets or merch. Or you can announce a limited edition merch drop coming soon so “turn on post notifications for my posts and add me to your favorite’s list to to be the first to know before it sells out.”

3. Pay attention to what’s trending. Always keep an eye out on what’s trending on social media and in the news. Each platform will have their way of informing you of what’s trending. You also see search trends on Google. Whether it’s a new challenge or capitalizing on a story going viral, you want to take advantage of the increased wave of attention and try to ride it if it makes sense for you. This is also a great source of ideas for creating content to help build your fan base.

4. Vary the content mediums. The general consensus is that video content is generally more engaging than a photo. They’re both equally effective, but it really comes down to what your goals are with a post. If you’re trying to get more shares and reach new potential fans, then video would work better. Even a funny, motivational or relatable text quote graphic (for example, a screenshot of a tweet) can be highly engaging and shared. But the reason why you want to vary your content mediums (photo, video, audio, text) is because not all of your followers are the same. More specifically, not everyone that follows you is a die hard fan. Some may just casually know of you while some just like you for something that’s totally unrelated to music. This is why content variation and consistency is key. In the same token, not all of them prefer to engage with videos. Some may have a stronger history of engaging more with photos so the algorithm will more likely rank photo posts higher in their newsfeed. Because every fan is going to be different in how the algorithm understands their connection to you, you want to make sure you’re not limiting yourself to one medium.

5. Optimize your posts. Very simple and basic. Do your best to optimize your posts with a good caption that is appropriate, engaging thumbnails, include emojis, add a location if applicable and tag the appropriate people if they are actually visibly in the post. Never randomly tag people in your posts as that can be grounds for a penalty in the algorithm.

6. Send the right signals. Using hashtags, location tags and keywords naturally (as in, don’t force or overdo it) in your captions to signal what your content is about so that the algorithm can suggest your posts to the right people. These platforms want to use every little detail about your post from the text in the caption to the actual media contents to understand what it is about and who would be interested in that topic.

7. Optimizing your video content for a short attention span. For short form videos, you can optimize it in how it is edited by getting into the action quicker and avoiding long intros. If you’re posting a snippet of your music video, don’t start at the very beginning and jump into a chorus or the most visually interesting part. You may also want to consider doing things at the very beginning to get attention like a video effect and stop the scroll. This also means you are using text captions in your videos, which have become more increasingly popular in TikTok and Instagram the past few years now. Many people will actually watch with the sound off because they may be in the situation where they can’t have the sound on.

8. Post at the “right” time. Timing is everything. You’re never going to get it right every single time. With some trial and error, you’ll eventually get a good feel for what is optimal. Every social media audience is different so the best times are not going to be the exact same for everyone. But whatever you do, do not delete a post if you’re not seeing engagement right away. It’s better to leave it and post it another day and time. You wouldn’t want to make the mistake Noah Kahan almost made when he nearly deleted the TikTok video that eventually went viral. For help and guidance for how to find the best times to post on social media, you can refer to my blog.

9. Post multiple times. Depending on what it is that you’re posting and what your objective is, it makes sense to post the same piece of content multiple times. I wouldn’t do it back to back but I would experiment at different times and days. Because so many factors are involved, you can’t just assume that something doesn’t do well because of the “algorithm” or your content sucks. Also, don’t forget to give your content time to run its course. Because recency plays a role in how content is ranked, at least with Instagram, wait at least 12 to 24 hours until posting anything else after.

10. Try long form captions. It’s true that most people generally don’t read very long captions. And yes, a lot of the posts that I see that get tons of engagement or often very short and snappy, witty captions. But long form can work in certain situations too, especially for good storytelling, so it’s worth testing it out with the right post. Also, take into consideration that the algorithm uses the text in captions to help understand what the content is about so it knows how to better serve it to your followers.

11. Limit flyer-like graphics for promo. Although it can be useful to promote or inform your followers about a new show or merch, they traditionally don’t get much reach or engagement. One reason these don’t do well is because it looks like an ad with the text. Secondly, especially for show flyers, it’s usually only relevant to a small segment of your audience so it’s easy for them to just gloss over the post (unless you’re announcing a general tour with multiple dates). There are exceptions of course, especially let’s say you were added to a big festival for the first time and you’re sharing how excited you are. There’s no avoiding these types of flyer graphics since it’s still a staple that promoters and venues will create and use regularly. What I would suggest is to find a fun or creative way to use video to communicate the same message. This can be a fun skit or even a simple selfie-style video.

12. Do collaborative posts. The power of collaboration with another artist or creator is always a great way to generate engagement for both parties and increase reach while cross promoting to each other’s audiences. Maybe you’re actually doing a song with another artist and you created some video content to promote it. For something like Instagram or Facebook, you want to make sure you add the other person as a collaborator on the post so the post can show up on their profile as well. Be sure to coordinate this effort so that they can accept the collaborator invite. This will increase the chances that the post will get more engagement since it will be seen by both audiences and climb in the algorithm rankings

13. Stir up controversy. Unfortunately, we know that negativity, drama and controversy gets a lot of attention and engagement in social media. This plays well into social media algorithms but it’s not something you’ll want just for clout. It can maybe work if done in a fun and not so serious way.

14. Use carousel posts. It’s been well documented that whenever you post multiple photos or videos in a single post on Instagram, the algorithm will show multiple slides to your followers if they don’t engage with it initially. This means you get multiple opportunities for fans to engage with your posts and potentially help to boost your post in the algorithm. A common type of a post is an image dump where you just post a collection of photos, sometimes even random ones that all don’t go together. You can also do a slideshow type of post where instead of each individual photo being on one slide, you can have part of the next photo on the same slide so you have to slide to see what the rest is and so on.

15. Reposting viral videos. This one is a bit tricky. Reposting someone else’s content on your own account has become more common on social media. At least on Instagram, this is how many of us like to share content we like and not just repost to Stories. We know this works really well for engagement because these are proven videos that went viral after all. Anecdotally, I’ve seen posts that follow the viral video get a boost in the algorithm. But the issue will always come down to the ethics of using other people’s content for your own personal gain without getting permission. Most, if not all, artists I’ve seen do this will credit the original creators in some way but I doubt permission was always granted.

16. Encourage interaction in your posts. This is nothing new, but use your caption as a way to encourage interaction. It can be as simple as asking a question or asking them to tag a friend. If you’re on Twitter, let people know you’ll be answering questions for an hour or so. It’s something I see some of the established artists I follow do quite often. Other captions that encourage interaction include “caption this” or “wrong answers only” to go along with a fun photo of yourself. Maybe even offer a reward for the best response. One thing I will caution about is the specific language you use in your captions. Many years ago, Facebook and Instagram would limit organic reach for posts that asked followers to like, comment or share in the captions. I’m not sure if this has changed since, but it’s something to be aware of.

17. Respond to and like comments within the first hour of a new post. As soon as you make a new post, be on stand by and respond to comments as soon as you get them. Of course, this assumes you get comments depending on the quality and timing of your posts.

18. Go live. Going live on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, has lost a lot of its shine since the pandemic in 2020. Before that and the rise of TikTok, these platforms were giving creators a major boost in the algorithm which brought in a lot of engagement for live video content. The replays were even getting more reach. Nowadays, it’s still a great way to get engagement as people who happen to be on their phones will pop in to see what’s going on. At least for Instagram and Facebook, going live is the only thing that will notify your followers with notification by default. Plus, I feel there will be less algorithm bias since they can’t judge what the video is about beforehand.

19. Use engagement tools. Instagram allows you to add mini polls and a question box to do Q&As in Stories. The polls are great on Stories because you can see how specific people respond. That way you can DM them directly to follow up on their answer. Basically, you want as many followers to interact with you in any way possible, no matter how big or small. Whether it’s a comment on a post, a DM that you respond to or even a poll response.

20. Get fans to your email list. A good way to beat the social media algorithm is not to have to deal with it in the first place. This means building that relationship or incentivizing followers to sign up for your email list. To be clear, you still may have an algorithmic element to deal with using email marketing (avoiding spam filters) but at least you’ll have a better chance to reach fans directly. Start with the basics of having an email sign up link in your “Link In Bio” (i.e. Linktree) and on your website. Here are tips on how to build an email list.

21. Strategically share your interests. A few years ago around 2021, the Instagram and Facebook algorithms started leaning more towards interest-based signals in response to TikTok. I remember noticing more and more Reels were showing up in my newsfeed from people who I didn’t follow but were things that I may be interested in based on who my friends were engaging with. As a musician, there’s nothing wrong with just posting music-related content with the occasional personal post on social media. But as a brand, it may be beneficial to experiment with sharing other aspects of yourself like hobbies or other interests you’re passionate about.

22. Be careful with sharing links to other platforms or even mentioning other platforms in the caption. This is one of the more old school tactics or tips when Facebook was the top social platform attention wise. We were advised not to link out to other competitors like YouTube because Facebook wants to keep their users on their platform. They would de-rank posts in their algorithm when you would link out to YouTube to encourage creators to post the video content naivety for a boost in the algorithm. In a similar vein, you don’t want to repost your TikTok videos with a watermark to Instagram or vice versa for similar reasons. To maximize organic reach, post the content natively. Avoid mentioning other platforms with text on a video or in a caption.

23. Create a broadcast channel on Instagram. Instagram’s latest feature allows you send mass direct message updates to followers that opt in and bypasses any algorithm! The feature is called ‘Broadcast Channels‘ and it can be publicly visible for followers to join. When you send a message to your broadcast channel, fans will receive an Instagram notification and view the message as a DM. You can even create multiple channels for different topics or areas of interest (Music, Tours, Merch). As of this writing, it looks like most accounts should have access to it so here’s how to do it.

24. Follow your fans? This is more experimental but hear me out. The algorithm takes into account engagement history a fan has with all of the things you’ve posted. They also factor in your potential relationship with the person. If the algorithm thinks a follower is a friend or family, they’re more likely to show your posts in their feed. I imagine the big signal they determine this is by seeing if both people follow each other and/or have exchanged DMs. I’m not saying you should follow all of your fans but it’s something to think about.
 

Conclusion

 
Musicians and creators hate the algorithm as much as I hate trying to spell the word. But, my personal perspective on it is don’t get too caught up with the algorithms and let it dictate your life and business. You can optimize and prepare the best you can but there’s no sure shot way to bypass the algorithm. There are just so many variables and you can only control so much. Plus, algorithms are always going to be tweaked and there’s no way to know what has changed.

The post 20+ Tactics for Musicians to Beat Social Media Algorithms in 2023 appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

Whenever a musician posts about tickets to an upcoming show or new merch, there can be a noticeable dip in engagement and organic reach compared to other types of posts. I’ve seen it happen firsthand many times. Does this always happen? No. Have I seen sales types of posts do really well organically? Yes.

The commonly held belief is that social media platforms will intentionally suppress the organic reach of any posts that involve trying to sell something to force creators to buy ads to reach their followers.

I hear about it all the time within my circles. I’m no stranger to conspiracy theories myself but I also strive to be objective as a mediator-type personality and a professional in the industry.

Although this line of thinking makes a lot of sense and it’s hard to argue against this belief considering that’s their major source of income, there is also another major factor at play.

As much as we hate big corporations and the profit maximization motive that drives them, it’s also VERY possible that typical sales-type posts are inherently not as engaging. It’s also not something people will eagerly share with others either.

The algorithm wants to get posts and content in front of people that will likely engage with it so people continue to scroll and get bombarded with ads. If the initial response to a post is poor, the reach potential is going to be limited. Presentation can play a role in this as well, especially if a sales post comes off too much like an advertisement or busy flyer with a lot of text.

There are definitely exceptions like when an artist is announcing new music, a tour or even merch for the first time. If you’re announcing new music with the cover art, chances are that’s going to do well. These are definitely sales related things that fans typically get excited about from artists.
 

Not all followers are paying fans.

 
A big factor to consider is not all of your followers are paying fans, let alone super fans that will engage with everything you post.

Getting someone to start spending money on you is still a commitment not all followers are ready to consider. It is like expecting anyone who shows interest in dating you is ready to sleep with you or get married.

If you think of marketing as a funnel, the part of your fan base that is ready to buy or take action is generally going to be much smaller like the bottom tip.

On social media, you have to consider that all your followers are in different places of the fan journey. I follow plenty of musicians that I would never spend money on and have no problems scrolling by their sales related posts. While with some other artists, I will buy anything they release despite it taking me many years to get to that point.

It is your job as the creator to make and share content that helps them build a stronger affinity for your brand and ultimately care about what you’re selling.
 

We’ve been conditioned to tune out anything that looks like an ad.

 
Another angle to this is that the average user does not want to always be sold something on a social network that is often used as a form of escapism and social interactions with friends. The mindset or intent of the typical social media user isn’t to buy or spend money.

For decades, we know that people tend to tune out to anything that resembles an ad. We go out of our way to skip ads or fast forwarded through them. This behavior has been going on for decades on network TV and it has not changed online or on social media. Honestly, when was the last time you shared a regular ad post on social media?

So is it fair to say now that sales-related posts (with the primary goal of getting someone to spend money) are inherently not engaging? When ads are in the form of funny or entertaining commercials, we’re more likely to tune in. Maybe the lesson here is if you’re going to try to sell something, try not to make it look or feel like an ad?

At the very least, I hope that musicians will consider that the problem isn’t solely the algorithm looking for keywords in the caption to suppress the organic reach. The fact is, we will never know if algorithms have been programmed to de-rank posts based on certain words or intent.
 

If you can’t beat the algorithm, just pay!

 
The best way to get more reach for your sales-type of posts is to buy ads. Many artists refuse to pay to get better reach and engagement. The frustration is understandable but as musicians, there are some expenses you just have to pay to keep your business operating.

After all, the business model for social media platforms is to build a product that millions of people want to use and spend time on so they can gather all that data and charge businesses to reach certain people with ads.

Here are 3 situations where you want to pay for ads:

• You’re trying to sell something that would generate profit (shows, music, merch, membership).
• You have a post/content that is performing very well organically and you want to boost the success to reach more people.
• You want to test content that is meant to reach new people to grow your fan base.

If you really don’t have the budget or don’t want to pay, you’ll have to rethink how you approach sales post and be more creative with the content. The best type of ads are the ones don’t look like an ad. I notice more artists and entertainers will use short form video to disguise promotion for an upcoming show as a fun skit or funny bit.

At the end of the day, you don’t see Ford or McDonalds complaining that they have to pay money for ads on network television or social media. It’s the inherent cost of running a business when your audience spends time on property or networks that you don’t own.

Remember, social media is rented space even though you think you own your profile, the data and the right to reach your followers for free. These platforms have the ability to delete your profile and access to all of your fans. It’s more reason to build your email list or private membership community and take full ownership of your fan relationships.

The post Are Social Media Algorithms Intentionally Suppressing Sales Posts To Screw Over Artists? appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

Having a large fan base may help you sleep better at night as you anticipate your fans turning into buying machines. But before you purchase a money counting machine, stop, and think: how many are actually your true fans?

Just as important is the question, how can you tell if they are loyal fans that can support you financially for the long haul?

After all, there’s such an oversaturation of good music and entertainment out there, it’s difficult to keep a person’s attention for a long time. Just because someone hits the like or follow button, it doesn’t mean they are a fan for life. You have to know how to follow up on the relationship to keep it going.

You may be wondering, if likes, followers and subscribers are not the focus, how can you quantify your fans’ dedication?

Engagement.
 

The Importance of Engagement

 
This is probably not the first time you’ve heard this term and there’s a good reason for that. Your success as an artist is going to be dependent on how well you can keep an audience engaged online as well as in person.

Your fan base is a long-term commitment. It’s the same reason an artist who barely gives half an effort, won’t make it big. There’s a lot of patience and perseverance involved in building and more importantly, maintaining an interactive fan base.

You can fake how many social media followers you have, but you can’t fake the engagement levels. I know it’s easy to get caught up in the vanity metrics of how many people you have following you on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Even bookers and talent buyers have caught on. They know better than to just look at the social media following of an artist or brand when determining their ability to draw a crowd.

While growing an audience is important, it is not the be-all end-all number you need to focus on as a musician.

Engaging with your fans is about getting them to interact with you and deepening your connection with them. Your brand – what you stand for; your reputation; what makes you special – matters most because it’s how people will decide if you are worth their time and if they should put forth the effort to connect with you. A lackluster or muddled brand may not build the emotional connection that is needed to keep their attention.

Since most of you are not marketers or have any desire to be one (thanks for the job security), I will briefly go over how you can gauge your audience’s engagement. Don’t worry, I will keep the math very minimal.
 

Facebook

 
Facebook provides a metric they calculate and update on every Facebook Business page called “People Talking About This” that indicates the level of engagement for that page. It takes into consideration various interactions such as likes, shares and comments during a 7 day period.

You can see this number on any Facebook Business page, even those that you don’t manage or have liked.

To see this number, click on the ‘Likes’ tab in the left-hand column on the ‘Home’ tab of a Facebook page. You can also click on the actual number of likes on the right side of the page. As far as I am aware, you can only see this on desktop and not a mobile device.

Once you have this number, divide it by the number of Facebook page likes and multiply by 100 to get the engagement rate. The formula looks like this:

(People Talking About This / Total Facebook Page Likes) x 100 = Engagement Rate %

I consider 1% to 2% pretty damn good.

To put your engagement rate into perspective, let’s look at one of the hottest rappers in the game right now, Chance the Rapper.

People Talking About This: 100,722
Total Facebook Page Likes: 1,294,739

(100,722 / 1,294,739) x 100 = 7.9 %

He’s at a 7.9% engagement rate!

Obviously, with his popularity, he’s going to have a higher engagement percentage than most indie artists. If you haven’t already done so, go to your Facebook page and calculate your engagement rate to see where you stand.
 

Instagram

 
Unfortunately, there’s no easy number to look up on Instagram like there is for Facebook. However, if you converted your Instagram account into a business account by linking it to your Facebook page, you will get access to some analytics, or ‘insights’ as it’s called on Facebook and Instagram. Unlike Facebook, these engagement numbers are only viewable if you have access to the account.

To access the insights dashboard, click on the graph icon in the top right-hand corner of your profile page. From here you can access some useful information about your followers, impressions, top posts and ideal post times.

 
To view the insights for an individual post, click on ‘View Insights’ below the picture or video. Keep in mind this only works if a post was created after converting your Instagram account to a business account.

Once you click, you’ll see 3 numbers:
Impressions: the total number of times your post has been seen.
Reach: the number of unique accounts that have seen your post.
Engagements: the number of likes and comments on a post.

To calculate the engagement rate for this post:

(Engagements / Total Reach) x 100 = Engagement Rate %

What’s a good engagement rate for Instagram? Out of these 3 social media platforms, Instagram tends to see higher engagement rates on average than Facebook and Twitter. Back in 2014, Social Bakers released some data that found the average post engagement for the top 25 brands they tracked on Instagram was 3.31%. I would use 3% as a good benchmark to measure your engagement rate. However, Instagram has gone through some changes that caused engagement rates to decrease since then.
 

Twitter

 
Just like with Instagram, Twitter does not provide engagement rates that the public can view. However, you can see your average engagement rate for the past 28 days in the ‘analytics’ dashboard.

To access Twitter analytics, click on your profile image in the upper right hand corner. In the drop-down menu, select ‘Analytics.’

 
From here, click on the ‘Tweets’ tab up top to show the performance numbers for your previous tweets. There should be a column labeled ‘Engagement Rate’ that calculates the percentage for each individual Tweet. Also, next to it is your overall engagement rate for the past 28 days.

What’s a good engagement rate for Twitter? In 2014, according to Social Bakers, the average Twitter engagement for the top 25 brands they tracked came in at about .0007 or .07% for a Tweet. For simplicity sake, let’s say 1% is considered good.
 

Conclusion

 
Using these engagement numbers will help you determine the health of your audience based on their interactions with you. It may not be realistic for you to constantly track these numbers, but I suggest auditing yourself every few months to see how you are doing. Record the numbers you are using to calculate your engagement percentage so that you know if you are improving week over week or month over month.

At the end of the day, no matter how many social media followers you have, if they’re not engaged or paying attention to you, then the audience is not doing much for your career.

The post Stop obsessing over social media follower numbers! Focus on this instead appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

As you would imagine, this creates a lot of pressure for independent artists to bump up those like and follow numbers to influence a favorable perception. After all, you want people to have a good impression when they land on your Facebook or Instagram accounts.

Especially when starting out as an indie artist, I know it can be very tempting to boost your social media numbers when it can cost as little as $5 on some third party websites. With it being such a huge business, buying fake followers for your social media is more accessible and easier than ever. Even for those who have been in the independent game for years, the thought may have crossed your mind at one point. It’s frustrating to not see your fan base grow at the pace you hoped for. As a last resort, fake followers feel like it can help get you over the hump.

As someone who has seen a client get caught for purchasing fake social media followers and have it blasted over the local news, DON’T DO IT! Why? Buying fake fans does more harm than good and the gamble is never worth the risk.

Please note: There are legitimate ways to pay money to increase fans and followers within the platform itself, but I’m referring to using shady third party sites and services.
 

My experience with fake social media followers

 
Although I won’t say any names, let’s just say a high profile client (not music related) I have worked with in the past was busted and ridiculed for purchasing fake social media fans. To be clear, it was not my idea nor would I ever support such a thing, but it was done without me knowing.

I wish I could dive into all the details because it was interesting to see the fall-out from behind the scenes. Not to mention seeing all the damage control that this organization had to do was quite amusing. How bad did it get?

It was a disaster. The integrity, trust and credibility of the organization were heavily scrutinized, which gave the competition a huge leg up. Yes, it even was discussed in the local news for a couple of weeks while they become a joke on social media. In addition to the mockery, it also racked up some big costs for reputation management. As you could imagine, what this organization hoped to accomplish did not succeed.

Here are the 4 reasons why buying fake fans and followers is not a good idea:
 

1. You will lose trust and credibility if you get caught

 
“Your music sucks so bad that you have to pay bots to like your songs?”

That’s the type of stuff you’ll read if you were to ever get caught faking the funk. Of course, this assumes you have a reputation in the first place for people to even want to make it a big deal. The more established you are, the bigger the risk and more fuel for the haters. Most likely, it won’t be as extreme as my example but still. It’s not like there’s a public wall of shame for people who got caught buying followers that get publicized for the world to see.

On the other hand, it would be an embarrassing situation to be in for your current fans. It could lead them to question other things about you. Did he really write that song? Is that really her singing? No matter how you slice it, buying fake fans shows how insecure, impatient and impressionable you are as an artist.

Just remember that being authentic is huge in a culture driven by superficiality. To me, authenticity is such an important branding element that you do not want to risk compromising.
 

2. You will dilute the reach and engagement rates of your social following

 
The more technical reason why you don’t want phony fans is it just fills up space but does not do anything. Well, what it does end up doing is diluting your reach and engagement rates.

What more and more people are starting to learn is that there are algorithms in place that determine who sees your posts in their newsfeed. Facebook use to be the most well known for it as it’s been going on for years now, but Instagram and Twitter have adopted some form of it more recently. For example, if you post something on Facebook, only 1% – 2% of your fans will see your post organically. With fake accounts liking your page, you make it harder to reach actual people who like your music.

The other side of it is the lack of engagement. The most important thing you want to gain out of social media fans is to have them engage and interact with your posts. Engagement is what helps to make social media followers convert into loyal fans who will buy your stuff. The way I see, it’s one of the major keys to building your brand and developing connections with your audience. If you buy a lot of fake fans, you get no interaction from them, which throws off your engagement rates.
 

3. You will probably lose them anyway

 
Social media channels are constantly cracking down and purging fake followers from flooding their platforms. These fake accounts that are being created to inflate a person’s follower numbers are done in ways that violate the terms of services for their respective channels.

Most importantly, it’s in their best interest to get rid of fake accounts to preserve the accuracy of their data and the integrity of the platform. Remember that social media platforms are businesses too that make money off advertising. It doesn’t instill confidence for other businesses to pay money to use their ad platform if it’s reaching bots and not paying human beings.

When Instagram did a fake account purge, Justin Bieber made headlines for losing 3.5 million “fans” the following day. Other artists and accounts suffered hits too. This is not to say that all these people purchased fake fans, but it shows that these social media channels are proactive about the problem.

You may argue that these fake likes don’t cost much so it’s not a big loss even if Facebook or Instagram got rid of them. But it still damages your brand integrity and makes your fans suspicious of your intentions.
 

4. It’s easy to be found out

 
As suave as you try to be, you’re not fooling anyone. The thought of buying a few hundred, or even a thousand, social media “fans” feels reasonably low enough to not raise any suspicion. After all, I can’t imagine a no-name artist buying millions of followers and thinking they can get away with it. The outcome from either option will still leave a lack of engagement, or sign of actual human life, on your social media channels. When you have an ungodly amount of followers, people will notice and think either:

1. You have fake accounts following you to give the appearance of popularity where there really isn’t any.
2. Either your music or social media skills suck so bad that no one cares enough to interact with you.

Either way, people are not leaving with a good impression.

It’s so much easier to find out now if someone has fake fans with some tools and a little investigating. You just have to ask yourself, is your reputation and integrity worth all the trouble?

I’ll show you how you can go about detecting fake followers. You can look at it two ways. First, you’ll see how easy it is and it will discourage you from doing it. Second, you’ll see how someone can tell if you have fake followers to see if you can get away with it. It’s your career, not mine so do what you please, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
 

How to Find Fake Followers

 
Now that you know why you shouldn’t buy fake fans and followers on social media, here’s how you can detect them. I’ll go over how to do this with the following 3 platforms.

As I mentioned, it’s all about engagement. One way to tell is to see how many fans or followers they have on that particular platform and see if that number matches up with how much engagement their posts are getting. The one thing bots and fake accounts can’t do is engage. So if someone has 10,000 fans and the last comment they got was from 4 months ago, you can make a good bet that a lot of these followers are fakes.

Keep in mind that every account is going to have some small percentage of fake spam accounts, but it does not mean they purchased fake likes or followers.

Facebook

There aren’t any tools out there as far as I am aware that will automatically detect the number of fake accounts on your Facebook page. However, you can inspect one area on someone’s Facebook page that can give you clues about the legitimacy of the audience.

On the artist’s or band’s Facebook page, there are two sections you can click to lead you to analyze their likes and engagement. (See Photo Below) You don’t need to “like” their page to see these numbers, nor do you need a Facebook account to see it. If I come across an artist page that bought fake likes, I’ll be sure to use it. In the meantime, I’ll use my favorite group Atmosphere to show what to look for.

Please note: I’m not implying that they bought fake fans. I’m only using them as an example of where to click to examine their likes.

Once you click on either link outlined above, you’ll see these two sections that are potential signs of buying fake likes:

You use to be able to examine who has liked the page to see who was following the account but it looks like that was removed. However, you can do that with Twitter and Instagram.

Twitter

Twitter is one of the easiest platforms to detect if an account has a lot of fake followers.

These tools make it easier to identify fake and inactive accounts. Try them out for yourself:

You can also manually click on their Followers list and examine who’s following them. Here’s a list of what you can look for determine which profiles are fake:

• Spammy names, Twitter handles or profile pics
• The account only has retweets, no original tweets of their own.
• The number of people they are following is disproportionately higher than the number of people following them.
• “Egg” profiles that look like brand new accounts with no profile or cover photos.
• Fake accounts are always going to be bought in bulk so you’ll see similarities in how they are created that give it away.

Here’s an example of a Fake Twitter account:

This fake account was found on this person’s followers list. Tell me if you notice anything suspicious about all his other followers: https://twitter.com/AsherOakthorn/followers

Instagram

You can follow the same strategies from Twitter on Instagram. It’s not as easy to look through someone’s followers, but there are some tools you can use.

IG Audit (FREE): https://igaudit.io/ (This tool has discontinued unfortunately…)
 

These are paid:

https://hypeauditor.com
https://www.fakecheck.co
https://fakelikes.info

Just keep in mind that these tools are not going to be 100% accurate. I’ve tested a few accounts that don’t buy followers and gotten scores over 70%. Some accounts that I’ve suspected to contain fake followers that were bought scored below 50%. Examining engagement trends is going to be big sign.
 

Conclusion

 
If there are any numbers you should really focus on, it isn’t your social media fans. I know, I get it. The numbers make you feel more validated.

It’s easy for someone who may be a casual listener to just like you on your Facebook or Soundcloud account, which is fine. But don’t assume that all fans are the same or equally valuable. Your social media accounts should not be used to determine the number of your true loyal fans. Social media is more about nurturing your fan relationships so you can potentially convert those casual listeners to becoming the life-long fans you need to sustain a career in music.

What you should really focus on is building up the numbers of email subscribers. It’s not as easy, but to me, that’s a better measure of your loyal fans that are more likely to buy from you and see your shows. Those numbers aren’t going to be sexy. because no one else will see them but you.

In a future blog, I will share what are the best strategies to build up your social media numbers organically so stay tuned!

The post 4 Reasons Why Not to Buy Fake Fans and How to Spot them appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

As an independent artist, you put so much time, money and effort into your art and the content you create to promote it. Naturally, you want every post to have as much reach and engagement as it possibly can, regardless of the platform. The hope is that there’s a magic time that we can all just aim for and not have to worry if people will see it. Unfortunately, with how the algorithms work on social media platforms these days, it’s providing to be more challenging then ever.

So what are the best times and days to post on social media to maximize your post potential?

BUT…

There are recommended days and times that top marketing experts have found through research and analysis. The best times I put together below account for all industries, not specifically for musicians and artists. The most recent research that I use below comes from social media management platform Hootsuite. They analyzed thousands of social media posts on all the major social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter) to come up with these conclusions.

Keep in mind: The drawback to posting at these “best times” is that other people, who share this knowledge, are doing the same thing. This means there’s increased competition for attention in the news feed, which can decrease your post’s chances of getting noticed.

Here are some ideal times and days to test out for each platform. Even though it says PST (Pacific Standard Time), use your time zone or even more importantly, the time zone of your audience.
 

Instagram

 
New for 2023:

• Monday: 9am PST *
• Tuesday: 9am PST
• Wednesday: 9am PST
• Thursday: 8am PST *
• Friday: 9am PST
• Saturday: 10am PST
• Sunday: 10am PST

* Best for the week

Previous best times: 8:00am – 9:00am and 5:00pm – 6:00pm

Previous best times on each day:

• Sunday at 5:00pm
• Monday at 7:00pm (Worst day of the week)
• Tuesday at 10:00pm
• Wednesday at 5:00pm (Best day of the week)
• Thursday at 7:00am and 11:00pm
• Friday at 1:00am and 8:00pm
• Saturday at 12am, 2am

TikTok

• Monday: 1pm PST
• Tuesday: 2pm PST
• Wednesday: 1pm PST
• Thursday: 7pm PST *
• Friday: 2pm PST
• Saturday: 9am PST *
• Sunday: 1pm PST *

* Best for the week
 

Facebook

 
New for 2023:

• Monday: 10am PST *
• Tuesday: 10am PST *
• Wednesday: 10am PST
• Thursday: 11am PST
• Friday: 11am PST
• Saturday: 8am PST
• Sunday: 10am PST

* Best for the week

Previous best days and times:

• Best days and times: Mon to Fri at 1:00pm – 4:00pm
• Traffic generally builds up: 9:00am until lunch
• Top day and time: Wednesday at 3pm
• Worst times: 8:00pm – 8:00am
• Saturday & Sunday best times: 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Twitter

 
New for 2023:

• Monday: 7am PST
• Tuesday: 7am PST
• Wednesday: 10am PST
• Thursday: 11am PST *
• Friday: 9am PST *
• Saturday: 9am PST
• Sunday: 9am PST

* Best for the week

Previous best days and times:

• Best days and times: Mon to Fri at 12:00pm – 3:00pm
• Best general times: 12:00pm – 1:00pm and at 6:00pm
• Traffic generally builds up: After 11:00am
• Traffic generally fades: After 3pm
• Top day and time: Wednesday 5:00pm – 6:00pm
• Most popular time: 12:00pm – 1:00 pm
• Highest tweet volume: Between 11:00am – 1:00pm
• Fewest tweets sent: Between 3:00am – 4:00am
• Worst times to tweet: 8:00pm – 9:00am
• Times to avoid: After 3:00pm on Friday

Alternative Strategy: Use these times as a guideline, not as law. Experiment with posting outside the “best times.” Generally, there are going to be two social media traffic rushes in a typical workday – the lunch rush and after-work rush. I would definitely encourage testing out the evenings after 8:00pm or even early mornings, like 7:00am. After all, people often check their social media accounts when they wake up as well as before before bed. For one artist I work with who is based in California and has a predominate fan base on the west side of the United States, we found good results with posting around 7pm on Monday through Thursday. Although there may be fewer people on, there is also less competition for attention and your post has a greater opportunity to gain momentum on Facebook or Instagram. In other words, don’t let the “best times” limit the possibilities.
 

Other Factors to Consider

 
If you want to get a more accurate estimate for your own specific audience, here’s the long answer.

The problem is there are a lot of variables that go into what makes a good social media post reach its full potential. When you post is only one variable in the equation.

Here’s a list of other factors that influence post reach and engagement:

• Type of post (image, text, video)
• The quality of the post (Does your content interest your audience)
• Platform you post on (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
• What you write as a caption or tweet
• The day of the month or year (accounting for seasonality)
• When your competitors are posting. When I say competitors, I don’t mean just other music artists. Competition can be any other businesses, friends and family all fighting for your fans’ attention.
• Geography (Do you have fans in other time zones to account for?)
• The platform’s algorithm

I know we all want shortcuts to save time, but here’s the mindset you need to understand if you want to maximize your social media potential.

Every audience or fan base is going to be different no matter how similar the music or genre is. Of course, there is going to be overlap and patterns relating to geography, demographics and lifestyle. Start with the recommended times above but also think about who your fan base is and their lifestyle characteristics.

As an oversimplified example, if your fan base is high school kids in the same time zone, chances are you may want to post around 3:00pm when school gets out during the weekday.

If your fans tend to be working adults that work 9 – 5 jobs, you may want to test posting during lunchtime or in the evening after 6pm.

Ultimately, the best way to go about finding your best day and times for your audience is to experiment with different posting times each day and track the results. Use the analytics and insights these social media platforms offer to help you figure this out.
 

How to Find Best Posting Times Using Meta Business Suite

 
If you want to find the best days and times to post on Facebook and Instagram, you can use Meta Business Suite. They will provide the most active time for a particular day based on your audience activity. This is assuming you have a Meta Business Manager account linked to both your Facebook page and Instagram account. You’ll likely need to use a desktop to access this information as I have not been able to use their app due to an error.

1. Go into your Meta Business Suite account and create a post. Under ‘scheduling options’ right before you can post, select the ‘schedule’ tab and you should see a button that says ‘active times’.

2. Click the ‘active times’ button and a window will pop up to give you suggested days and times that your audience is most active for the platform you’re trying to post on. If you selected both Instagram and Facebook to post, it will show recommended times for both platforms.

How to interpret this:
At the very least, you want to use the active days/times they provide as a starting point for testing. Also, try posting an hour before or after the suggested active times to see what happens.
 

The post Best Times to Post on Social Media for Music Artists in 2023? appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.