Why you Shouldn’t Use Social Media for Marketing to Your Fans and Followers

In this article, we’ll explore why you shouldn’t use social media for marketing to your fans and followers…

Marketing is Important – Probably Even More than Making Music

If you’re a singer-songwriter, music producer, band, or musician, then you probably know how important marketing is. In fact, marketing is more important than your actual music. You could have a kick-ass song, EP, or album, but if you don’t effectively market your shit, it’ll get lost in the sea of 60,000 songs released every day on Spotify.

There’s a plethora of options available for marketing. And as a DIY musician, you probably want to stick to the lowest cost options available.

So, let’s explore…

Reach and Engagement Using Social Media for Marketing is a Joke!

Sadly, the organic reach on social media is a joke, especially Twitter. To understand why, let’s do some math. Using Twitter as our social media for marketing example, on average, your Twitter posts reach 3.61% of your followers.

So, if you have 10,000 followers, you reach 361 people. However, that doesn’t mean 361 people will engage! It just means 361 people, on average, will see your posts. Post engagement average on Twitter is even more pathetic, at around 0.05%. Not 5%, but 5 hundredths of 1%!

That’s 0.05% of your reached audience of 10,000, which comes out to 5 people! So, out of 10,000 followers, only 5 people, on average, will actively engage with your Tweets. And the percentage goes down even further if you look at the amount of people who actually convert (purchase, listen, download, subscribe).

These are general statistics, so the numbers can be higher or lower in different industries and on different social media platforms.

But these are the numbers – and numbers don’t lie.

Newsletters Have 6.5 Times More Reach and a Whopping 60 Times more Engagement!

A newsletter on the other hand, has much higher reach and engagement averages than social media for marketing. If you look at the statistics for email marketing, you’ll see that the average newsletter open rate for the music (entertainment) industry is a whopping 23.9%.

If we do the math on the example of 10,000 newsletter subscribers, that equates to 2,390. This means that out of 10,000 subscribers, 2,390 people will open your email (which is equivalent to post reach on social media).

Much better than 361 on Twitter, isn’t it?

Now, let’s use the same email marketing stats to analyze the CTR (click through rates), which basically means newsletter engagement (click, purchase, download…etc.). The CTR for the music industry is a generous 2.9%! Statistically speaking, out your 10,000 subscribers, 2.9% equates to 290. Compare this to the ridiculous average of 5 on Twitter!

Here’s a Recap of the Data on Social Media Versus Email

To recap, using Twitter as your primary method of marketing to 10,000 followers will reach 361 and engage 5 people. Using email marketing as your primary method will reach 2,390 and engage 290 people.

Bottom line is this – on average, given the example of 10K followers, you will reach approximately 640% more people with a newsletter versus using social media for marketing.

And your engagement increase would be ridiculous at 5,700% more than Twitter.

Using Twitter or Any Other Social Media for Marketing is a Waste of Time!

If you use Twitter or any other social media for marketing to your followers, you may want to reconsider. I’m not saying social media is useless by any means. It is great for many things. But for marketing, as the data above shows, it’s a waste of time.

Aside from the reach and engagement issues of using social media for marketing, there’s also the ownership concern. To be clear, all social media platforms own your content, and you can’t do shit about that.

Let’s dive deeper, shall we?

You can Lose all of your Content (Followers, Posts, Media) if Your Account is Deleted

Social media platforms are the most used methods of marketing. This makes sense considering they’re free to use and you have access to people all over the world. Social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TicTok, and YouTube give you the power to reach and connect with new fans of your music.

However, what they don’t give you is ownership. When you use social media for marketing, even though you post your own content, it technically doesn’t belong to you. Your photos, videos, and all other media? Sorry, they belong to the platform. Your list of followers? Nope, you don’t own that either!

When you use any social media platform, they are in control of your account. That said, if you post controversial content, or anything they flag as inappropriate, they can suspend and/or permanently delete your account. And if your account is deleted, all your posts, followers, and any other content is also deleted.

The same goes for if your account is hacked and/or deleted by some malicious asshole. If Twitter can restore your account (which can take weeks or even months), you are without your only method of reaching your fans. This could be disastrous if you’ve been building your fan base on social media for years.

There have been musicians that have lost their accounts with tens, even hundreds, of thousands of followers. Plus, years of content… poof – gone!

That’s why it’s imperative for you to not rely on social media for marketing to your fans and followers.

The Solution? Own Your Content! Build a Website and Start a Newsletter Subscription List

Okay, at this point, I think you get why social media shouldn’t be your primary method of marketing. So, enough doom and gloom about social media, and let’s get to a valuable solution…

Simply stated, you need to own your content and follower list! This is especially true if you want to reach and engage significantly more of your followers. The only way to accomplish this is to build your own musician website and start an email newsletter subscription service.

Don’t worry, it’s easier and cheaper than you think, because you won’t be doing it yourself. In my next article, I explain in detail how to outsource your website project.

To learn why you should build a professional musician website and navigate your social media followers to your newsletter page, read my article on how to build a professional musician website for under $400.