[Music]
hey guys it's Jonathan here from set
sail and as some of you may know one of
the main aims of set sail is to equip
encourage and inspire artists and
creators
now often having conversations with
artists you create amazing things that
people aren't really seeing and hearing
and often telling them you really need
to get this stuff out there like there's
people that would really enjoy the stuff
that you're making one of the most
common things I hear is oh I'm not very
good at social media or I really don't
like self-promotion but the thing is if
you've put a lot of time and effort into
creating something and working on
something then it's worth putting a bit
of time into actually letting people
know that it's available so they can
enjoy it too and feel a part of it so I
think there are healthy ways to post
about things that you create on social
media and today I'm going to share five
do's and don'ts of sharing things you've
made on social media
he's number one don't convince people to
support your work but do make it
available so we've all seen those people
on social media that constantly posting
about their things and saying buy this
download this and it can be pretty
irritating and nobody wants to be that
guy for me the big difference comes in
how you communicate it nobody minds if
you're just letting them know it's
available but no one wants to hear you
convince them of why they should buy
your thing so for example with our band
when we release an album or a new video
what we like to do is post about it in a
way that says hey guys we've just put a
new album out here's where it's
available here's where you can buy it I
hope you guys enjoy it there's no sales
pitch there's no convincing people why
they should get this and not another one
it's just literally saying hey I've made
a thing here it is number two don't spam
people but do be strategic now people
will get annoyed if you're constantly
posting about the same thing over and
over again and they might even unfollow
you you don't need to constantly post
about the same thing if you can do one
or two really good well-timed posts and
to do that you want to have a look at
the analytics and the insights on all
the different social media platforms
pretty much every site now especially if
you registered as a business will have
options available so you can look at the
insights look at your audience and even
in some cases the times that they're
browsing and some of the best times to
post it is worth taking the time to
understand your audience and in our case
we're a UK band but the majority of our
listeners are in the States and so if we
post something at 8 a.m. in the UK
nobody in America is even awake yet and
you might think why does that matter
won't they just see it later on when
they wake up but actually there is so
much content that goes out on these
social media platforms these days that
most of them we use in some form of
algorithm which is a way of showing the
posts that are getting the most
engagement and the ones that are having
a lot of interactions and pushing down
the ones that don't seem very popular
they're not trying to do that to be mean
it is a way of creating better content
for the user so that people are seeing
the posts that are actually valuable
posts and interesting posts and one of
the main ways that they look for that
engagement is by looking at what happens
on that post as soon as it's put up in
the first couple of hours particularly
on sites like YouTube if you upload a
video a peak time when you know that
your audience is a week and using the
website and it gets lots of comments and
engagements straight away then YouTube
will go oh this has been a popular video
people are engaging with this one it
must be a really good one let's start
pushing this up the algorithm and make
sure it shows up on people's home pages
and recommended pages so it's worth
taking the time to figure out when is
the best time
number three don't just inform people do
create a dialogue so this one's a biggie
because a lot of these social networks
are stunt chains the way that they
promote certain content and again this
algorithm is pushing certain kinds of
things you have to think about the
websites themselves and the apps
themselves things like Facebook Twitter
YouTube Instagram many of these sites
make a large portion of their income
through advertising and to be able to do
that the main goal of those websites is
to keep people on the website for as
long as possible
Facebook recently announced that they
were going to try and change the way
that the newsfeed works to show more
content from people's actual friends and
less from businesses
apart from posts that actually generate
dialogue and discussion and meaningful
discussion hopefully so as an artist or
a creator
one way that you could do this is to
think about how can I create a dialog
and bring people into the story of this
thing that I'm creating rather than just
saying hey guys I made a thing you can
actually ask people about it and say
alright we just put this album out which
songs your favorite at the moment and
why you can even involve people in what
you create so through set sail sometimes
we ask people what kind of videos would
you like us to make over the coming few
months and when people suggest it and
things will actually take some of those
ideas and make those videos and people
have played a part in shaping the
content of this channel which is really
cool for them because they get to feel a
part of it really good for us because we
get to hear straight from our audience
what they want and this is actually one
of the biggest advantages of social
media being able to communicate directly
with your audience and hear from them
and get direct input it's such a
valuable thing and it's not just a good
marketing tool when it's only a
marketing thing and people are just
constantly asking questions every day
just to try and create this dialogue you
can kind of see through that and go okay
this is just a marketing technique so
this isn't something to do all the time
but it is a good thing to do every now
and then engage with your audience
create a dialogue around the things that
you create know before don't post the
same thing on every platform do
understand the platform that you're
using all of the social media sites
they're not the same and it's not built
around the same kind of content and also
if you don't have time to post on
everything try and find the ones that
are appropriate to the things that you
create if you're a photographer then
it's probably not worth worrying about
how many followers you've got on a site
like SoundCloud so as a quick overview
Facebook works well for sharing news
video content update
all those kind of big announcements it's
a big site with a lot of tools and you
can be very strategic for example you
could advertise tour dates to that exact
area and make sure that you're reaching
the right kind of people we find that
with Facebook it works better to post
infrequently but make sure they're
important posts that you want people to
see Instagram is more of a magazine
style social network it's primarily
visual so imagery is very important try
and post things which are visually
interesting and eye catching it's also
mostly entirely a mobile platform and
even though it does have a desktop
website the number of people the user is
very very small so think about what
you're posting don't post screenshots of
three paragraphs worth of text that
people can't even read on their phone
Twitter is about short regular posts so
it can be multiple posts a day it
doesn't have to be groundbreaking
massive news every time you post you can
post funny things random thoughts in the
day different quotes retweet videos and
songs that you like it's also a very
public social network which means it's
not really the place for private
conversations with your friends nearly
everything you put out on Twitter is
public unless you've set everything to
private but it's also a very powerful
tool in that way because you can find
people that are posting about your
business or the things that you create
even a link you could create a video and
see who's sharing this link and you can
engage with those people and say hey
thanks for sharing this so it's very
public which is something to watch out
for but also a really good tool number
five don't just be a business do show
some personality so imagine social media
as being like a social event if you were
hanging out with your friends and all
you did was tell people to buy your
album or go and like this new picture or
video that you've done it would get on
peoples nerves a little bit but if you
engage in conversations and listen to
people and share some of your
personality let people get to know you
people won't mind if you want to share
about something you've made every now
and then it's totally fun many people
think about social media as just media
and forget the social aspect of it a big
part of social media is creating dialog
communicating with your audience and
showing some personality with things
like Twitter and Instagram stories you
can just post fun little things
throughout the day and that way people
do actually feel more engaged with the
things that you create you can even
livestream now in a lot of these
platforms which is very direct way of
actually communicating with fans and
hearing direct feedback and this may not
be for everyone not everyone enjoys
going on live streams and showing their
personality all the time but try and
inject a little bit of personality into
the things that you post about even if
it's a big announcement post you could
do more than
I've made a thing you could actually
invite people into the story of that
sometimes when I share about an album or
something that we've created we'll share
a bit at the journey of it as well and
say you know 7 years ago when I sat in
my room with a piano and a laptop making
these little songs I never imagined that
we'd be doing what we're doing now and
it just shares a little bit of the
journey and the story and you bring some
of your personality to it and people
feel more part of the things that you've
created so I hope you guys found that
helpful as ways of posting on social
media if you have any more questions
feel free to leave them in the comments
and I'll try and get back to as many as
I can as well as leaving your own tips
and things that helped you in posting
things on social media any advice you
might have it'd be great to hear from
you guys so thanks for watching the
video we'll be back soon with another
one so bye
[Music]
[Music]