You all know by now that paid advertisement on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and newly TikTok, brings in the highest results for businesses and musicians alike. But do you understand WHY that is? Do you know the backbone logic of this strategy so that when you get approached by individual promoters you know exactly what to look out for? Because some of you independent artists run with the largely accepted ideas but then when a self-acclaimed promoter with apparently more knowledge than you goes for your money, in your ignorance of thinking they know better, you give them what they ask for. Well, here we come to the rescue and offer you the 10 ironclad reasons why you shouldn’t hire third-party promoters to run your social media ads.
10. You oversee your insights and analytics.
If you are the one running the ads, you get updated every 30 minutes about the incoming traffic, likes, comments, conversions, sales, audience, etc. If you pay someone else to do it for you, you will remain oblivious to that data unless you specifically ask for it and very often, third party promoters don’t even hand over these insights as they claim they have many other artists they’re overseeing and that you’ll be given a final report when the campaign will have been concluded. The truth is, they don’t want you to know your audience so that you keep going back to them instead.
9. You can pause and readjust your audience, timing, and budget.
Let’s say you put out a new music video. You thought the ideal audience would be women age 18 to 34. But then you realize the click-through rate is much lower than when you advertised in the past to both men and women of the same age. Respectively, in this very moment, you are losing money and getting fewer clicks. What do you do? If you’re the one in charge, in literally seconds you can pause the campaign and adjust your targeted audience, the allocated remaining budget, and the duration of the ads. If on the other hand, it is someone else doing the targeting for you, they don’t care if you’re losing money and whatnot because as long as they’re getting THEIR fee paid, the one losing money is YOU. We’ve even seen digital companies photoshop their analytics and campaign results for a more satisfactory experience with the customer.
8. You can retarget the same audience.
Psychologically and neurologically, resistance to change is deeply rooted and fiercely acute. The way this scientific fact translates for your brand is scary. It simply means people would much rather click an image containing the face of someone they’re already familiar with than risk discovering someone new. The good news is that everyone who is known today, once was just as anonymous as yourself. The way you persuade people to give you a chance is by consistently showing up on their newsfeed. They may not click the first time, the second, the third, or even the fourth. But they will on the 8th. Indoor Media reports that for a message to sink in, the average time your ad has to be displayed is 8. We know you think this is a lot, but back in 2012 this number used to be 11. So be happy. If you’re wondering why the number decreased, it is because customers are now used to processing ads faster and have a rather accurate perception of the potential value the product will bring them. So if your music and visual are out of this world, retargeting the same audience three times should be enough to convert doubters into fans. Oh! and of course, if it’s a third-party company managing your ads, without them, you’re doomed as they hold the key to your audience.
7. You finetune your visuals and message depending on the reception.
Let’s assume you’ve always delivered your ads containing a certain color scheme and certain font. This time, you’re feeling experimental and want to see how your audience reacts to new visuals. Well, changes usually go great or straight down the drain. If your analytics show higher engagement and better response to the new visuals, you will start implementing these more often and give up on the old stuff. Respectively if your report shows that your usual fans are resistant to the new look, you can decide to put a stop to your loss and go back to what works. Now… How will you know ANY of this if someone else is doing YOUR job?
6. You save money.
Need we say more? Instead of leaving a huge chunk of money into someone else’s pockets, be it by the hour or commissions, you get to spend a lot less on the same advertising results, or equally, you get to spend double the budget for direct engagement. Let’s make a parallel. If you have $100 to go grocery shopping but you pay $50 to a bike messenger to do it for you, you’re only left with $50 to spend on the products you need. If, however, you take your ass to the supermarket yourself and do the shopping, you get to spend all of the $100.
5. You create and keep your social proof.
When you pay for example an Instagram shout-out account to repost your music video, you get to enjoy the feedback of new comments and likes on the post referring to you until… you realize you can’t export that engagement to YOUR profile. If that IG account got banned tomorrow, which they often do, all that you paid for goes with it. Whereas when you run the ads for your NATIVE posts, the likes, comments, and saves are always there and you get the much-coveted long-term benefit called social proof.
4. You build direct relationships with your fans.
Similar to number 5 yet different, if you’re smart, you will reply to all those new comments and take a genuine interest in discovering your new followers. Sure, you can leave your social proof to fizzle out as it normally does without the creator’s direct response, but what good will that do to your pockets and reputation? You might as well not run any ads if you don’t plan on replying back to people afterwards. But when you do… Your brand flourishes overnight! If you treated every new comment as a potential million-dollar investor, you would never lament the lack of support from the community. Sure enough, if there’s a middle man, you won’t be in the position to nurture ANY organic relationships.
3. You increase your SEO.
If company XYZ promotes their own marketing services through your ads, which is the norm (they’ll make sure to leave their own hashtags and backlinks to their services when they promote you), guess whose reputation and digital presence increases? Not yours. If on the contrary, you promote your official artist website with clean backlinks and direct traffic, Google and all main search engines take note of the new activity and rank your website higher. Now, why would you pay to boost someone else’s SEO?
2. You sell directly to your fans and keep all the profits.
You got a new show coming? Sell your tickets straight into your fans’ inboxes. New merch? A custom landing page on your website should do the trick. New Kickstarter campaign? Ask for donations directly from your followers. New tour to promote? Advertise the trailer to your already existing fans. Whatever it is you have to sell/offer, it is infinitely easier and more profitable if there’s no middle man. Trust us. Actually no, follow the money and thank us later.
1. You can start a trend around your release.
By using the proper hashtags, call to action, and final destination link, you can start a trend around your newest song faster than ever in digital history. You will also have the absolute freedom of checking the entries to the contest, should you put one in place, and deciding the winner. We’ve seen some foul play by marketing agencies where they promised the artists they would initiate a dancing competition to prompt the organic creation of a trend for a song, and then the only people adhering to the hashtag are themselves and their secretaries and the award also goes to one of them. And the artist? Well, he/she thinks there are legit people in this world giving a sh*t about their music when it’s just 5 individuals looking to take them to the cleaners.
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Blue Rhymez Entertainment 