How To Get More Facebook Likes
One of the most common questions I get asked by artists is “How do I get more Facebook Likes / YouTube Views / Twitter followers?” (delete as appropriate) Since the advent of Social Media, starting with Myspace in 2005, the pursuit of Friends/Follows has been the holy grail of music marketing. The common belief is a high number is good, since the Media / Booking Agents / Promoters etc will take you more seriously and therefore are more likely to offer you airplay / a gig / a deal. It’s true that nothing breeds success like apparent success. However, there are many hugely talented bands that release their album and then sit back waiting for the numbers to rise and are subsequently disappointed at the low numbers of people who support them with a ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’.
One important point is that Facebook and the other sites don’t break down the total number to distinguish ‘Advocates’, ‘Fans’ and ‘Followers’. An advocate is the fan who will share and evangelise while a Follower is someone who fleetingly clicks ‘Like’ because they happen to like a certain track or even just the name of your band. Therefore it’s important to measure engagement, shares and comments. Furthermore, these statistics usually only reflect a small percentage of people who actually read your post at a given moment.
The answer is to continuously ‘gift’ content or ideas that give people a reason to Like, Share, Comment, Engage or Follow. Simply posting your album and expecting a flood of Likes is probably not going to happen. Posting video footage, artwork, stories, collaborations, remixes, competitions or news is vital. Posting other people’s content is also a valid way – your fans probably like similar things that you do and will Like or Share something you find and post online. But keep pushing fans to join your mailing list, visit your site and buy product – even low priced product – since this is the only true measure of how many true Advocates you have.
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