Absolutely. Here is why.

An online profile is often the first point of access for venues and booking agents.

What your online presence says about you

Before social media, bands were often noticed at live shows by industry professionals. It became clear that the more you perform, the higher your chances were of being noticed and ideally signed.

ENTER SOCIAL MEDIA. 🤯

It is no longer necessary for booking agents to attend a show to find acts to put on their lineup. Why put in the effort when you can just log onto Facebook or Instagram and watch a band’s latest video content? Your online presence can be likened to your digital resume for booking agents on the lookout.

Making sure you have a presence across several platforms is also important and it tells the onlooker a lot about your audiences. For example, if you only have a presence on Facebook and nowhere else, the booking agent might assume that you are of an older demographic and that your target audience is too. This alone might be enough of a deterrent. The booking agent may dismiss you, knowing that the patrons who attend their venue are a younger demographic. Having regular and up-to-date content on your pages that reflects the current status and sound of your band is crucial as well. This gives venues and booking agents a clear and accurate picture of what your band sounds and looks like from the outtake.

Widen your audience

In addition, when you have a presence across multiple platforms, other bands, brands, festivals, venues and industry professionals you support or collaborate with can tag you. This puts you in front of their online audience, increasing your chances of more follows. With little or no online presence, you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to widen your online audiences. These are the people who if nurtured correctly, will eventually physically attend a show.

Furthermore, by having an online presence and staying active, you allow viewers to follow your journey and keep tabs on you. Maybe they couldn’t make it to your next show but were hoping to make it to the one after. How will they know when that is if there is no up to date information online to alert them? This could be as simple as adding a Linktree in your Instagram bio for those who want to navigate elsewhere to find more information about you. Or even scheduling a post about your future show dates.

In the reverse, an online presence makes it easy for an attendee of your live show to locate and follow you.

Make it easy for anyone to find and follow you

If someone is lucky enough to stumble across your show by chance, it should be near effortless to find your page if they resonate with your sound. Telling patrons at your live shows how to find you online is a great way to deliver physical fans to your online doorstep. At the beginning and end of a set, consider telling people your band name, which platforms people can find you on as well as your handles.

This is where consistency is key. Be consistent with your online presence. Use the same handles and profile pictures across multiple platforms. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you and recognise you on their preferred platform. If all your handles are different, the extra effort might be enough for them to give up mid-search. That’s one fan that you certainly had, now lost in the ether. Similarly, if someone noteworthy like a manager, agent, or label rep is at your show and has akin difficulty in locating you online, that may be an opportunity lost.

These are such simple things but make a world of difference.

An online presence shows dedication and professionalism.

Represent yourself as professional

It is clear when bands or music businesses have put time and thought into their online presence. When you first enter a website, you get an initial sense of what the music might be like based on the colour scheme, the font, how bright the images are, whether band members are smiling, whether it is straightforward to navigate through the site etc. Even though these are small things that you probably don’t even realise you’re noticing, your subconscious is picking up on these aesthetic cues to bring you to an overall assumption about what you might hear and experience before you have even listened.

Show viewers who you are

Your website and online presence speaks for you, so make sure it is representative of the real you. A website and your social platforms should all align with the “you” that you are trying to exude. If there is consistency and the branding and aesthetic are clear, it shows viewers that you put effort, thought and dedication into this. You know who you are, which makes you easier to identify with as an audience member.

An online platform like a website is the perfect place for you to brag and offer social proof. Social proof works by tapping into the basic human instinct to follow the actions of others, building trust and credibility, and lowering barriers to making purchases online. Testimony from fans and other bands helps bolster your credibility. You can also list any achievements, awards and other notable bands you have supported. All of this serves to convince the viewer and gain you a new fan or opportunity.

High-quality live performance is still incredibly important.

Online presence should support your live show, not replace it.

With the level of technology nowadays, it is so much easier to create incredible music that sounds nothing like a live show. It is now normalised to play live with backing tracks and just one other musician. This cuts costs and makes it more manageable when touring and travelling. However, if you are especially convincing online, but underwhelming in a live setting, you will lose traction and followers fast.

Live performance is just as important as an online presence. The live show is your product, and you can have the best website in the world, but with an average product, it won’t matter. Don’t forget to hone your craft and make your live show special. The more eclectic your live show is, the better the content will be for your online identity. Think ahead about how you can capture these moments so they can be relived online for others to see. Your online presence is the support your live show needs to be successful and longevous.

Want to know the steps to creating an exemplary online presence? Read our latest blog >> How to build an exemplary online presence 

What does an online presence look like?

It means you are present across all online platforms that are relevant to you and your audience. To do this, you need to know who your target audiences are. Or, in other words, who you are hoping to reach and impact with your music.

How do you know which platforms musicians should be on? 

What you can do to determine which platform you should be on – ask yourself the following:

  1. How old is my audience?
  2. Where do they live?
  3. What are their interests?
  4. What time are they active online?
  5. Are they still studying or are they full-time employees?
  6. Are they avid phone users?
  7. Which platforms do they most frequent?

Once you have an idea of who your audience is, you can decide which platforms you should be on. As a rule of thumb, all musicians should be on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Bandcamp, Linktree, Spotify, Amazon Prime and Apple Music. Why? These are the largest platforms in the world, with the most monthly active users.

It is always a good idea to have your own dedicated website. Not only does this look professional, but it allows viewers to navigate through and find out more about you. This builds further audience engagement. Additionally, you can use data tools like Google Analytics and Meta pixels to track the kinds of audiences who are frequenting your site. Furthermore, you can retarget them through ads once you have this data. This is very useful when you have new music coming out and you want a wider warm audience to see and hear it.

Additional platforms you may want to be present on include Tik Tok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Soundcloud, Twitch, Pinterest, BandsInTown, SongKick, Tidal, Deezer and Pandora.

Determine whether it makes sense for you to be on these additional platforms, will your audiences be active on these and is it worth the extra time and effort posting and maintaining these platforms? It is better to be on fewer and have high-quality content than to be on all of them with minimal activity and low-quality content.

Before you dive in, plan ahead.

What you need

Once you have all the above ready to go, it’s simply about setting it all up. Use your work email to sign up to all the different platforms you have chosen so your work and personal stay separate. Upload the correct sized images to all profiles. Make sure you use the same images for all profile pictures so there is consistency across platforms. This will make you instantly recognisable if someone wants to tag you on both Instagram and Facebook. They can tag you and be certain they tagged the correct profile because the same image will give this reassurance.

For website building, you can use tools like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress etc. You can do this yourself or brief a designer, all depending on how complicated you want to get design-wise. This is when having assets ready in advance comes in handy! However, be careful with this. You don’t want to always have to contact your designer when you need to update site information. Your website can have an array of tabs including but not limited to:

Home
This is where people are first sent when entering your site. You want a high-quality image and your logo front and center. It is also important to include things such as your latest releases. A home page can also be a summary page and allow the user to navigate wherever they are most interested.

About
This should include your story/biography.

Music
Any releases, new and old. If you are signed up to BandsInTown or SongKick you can embed your incoming gigs in this section as well. This means they will automatically populate each time you add a show on your account.

Videos
Preferably high quality and not too large. Most sites let YouTube be the video host and use links or code to just show the video. This means you are not going to run into the issue of long loading times.

Gallery
Your best action shots! Give the audience a solid idea of what it is like to be in a crowd at your show.

Contact
A direct email address, preferably capturing first name, last name, mobile number and postcode so you can track where your audiences are located.

Stay active and maintain what you created.

Without online activity, it’s not truly an online presence. Having a curated plan for what to post and how often can be helpful in maintaining your online profiles. Try to document your live events and upload them regularly so that people can keep track of your achievements and incoming shows.

Be sure to keep your website information up to date and accurate as well. There is nothing more frustrating than going through a website and noticing the clear neglect and inaccurate information. It’s important to only have upcoming live performances on your website and old ones either deleted or archived. Have your newest music at the top of the music page and the same for your videos. If you are using a Linktree in your Instagram bio, make sure you regularly update it to reflect current shows and press. It only takes one click on a dead link for someone to give up and navigate away.

Another way to maintain your presence is to be present! Respond as quickly as possible to message inquiries on all platforms. This also includes responding to comments and reactions that you get from users. The more you engage with your followers, the more likely you are to keep them as followers.

Want to know more useful things about online? Vampr Academy is launching a new course called Content Creation Deep Dive. Head to Vampr Academy to learn more >> www.vampr.me/academy

We are ecstatic to announce that one of our Vampr artists Navarre has procured not one, but two syncs in the span of two weeks! Congratulations Navarre and to the team who made this a reality. 👏

This wouldn’t be possible without THINK Music LA and we are thrilled to announce we are now working with THINK Music LA as our LA sync partner! 🙌

In case you’re not across it, Sync (or synchronisation) is the process of combining a music track with moving images (e.g. movies, TV show, video game or advertisements). Songwriters rely on music publishers who represent their catalogue of tracks and negotiate with the music supervisors in charge of choosing which tracks get syncs. The publisher makes sure the songwriter gets paid when their track is used.

We know how difficult it can be to get a foot in the door when it comes to publishing and obtaining syncs, so Vampr is here to leave all the doors wide open for everyone. You can register for Vampr publishing for free via the app with no exclusive contracts!

Will you be the next Navarre? 👀
Let’s top ourselves and go three for three!?

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