If you went for an interview with a real estate agency to get a job, would you blurt in middle of the conversation how pissed off you are with your neighbors blasting their music too loud? You wouldn’t. And yet, many of you do exactly this. As a music artist, you’re on a 24/7 interview with every single person visiting your profile and instead of talking about music only, you tell them about your son, your dog, your shoes, your food, etc. Dumb, right? Well, in the past one year plus that we’ve been working with a plethora of artists and managers, we’ve realized that it is not as much about what you should be doing as it is about what you should NOT be doing. Once you read the list below you will understand how you’re jeopardizing your own chances to succeed by repeatedly making the same mistake, often times mistakeS, on your social media profiles. If you want to one day make a living off your music, you must start treating it as a job and not as a hobby. Therefore your online presence has to reflect how serious you are about your job.
5. Stop writing one-liners for your captions.
You are not Miley Cyrus or DaBaby for people to read into your cryptic messages. Actually, the less they understand, the faster they will unfollow you. And even if they don’t unfollow you, Instagram and all social media platforms alike keep track of the miliseconds someone else spends reading your caption. Therefore, the shorter the caption, the faster you lose that visitor’s attention, thus your engagement score drops and they will show it to less and less people. Just because you saw Beyoncè saying one word and get a million likes, it does not mean it will work for you too. NEVER copy the behavior of A-list artists. They’re playing in another league that you’re years and years away from entering.
4. Stop spam-tagging people who have nothing to do with your song directly.
Only tag who is directly involved with your record, video, project, etc. People are too nice and won’t be on your back about tagging them but no one likes it. Actually people despise being spam-tagged. And you look hella desperate, and you lose credibility points, and you’re the one giving up the power you initially had by being the one who’s asking for favors. No one EVER got fans or any career advancement from tagging a bunch of people in their posts.
3. Stop talking using future tense.
“When I make it, Imma take care of my mom and sisters,” “One day Imma go in Top 100 and y’all will wish you’d supported me more,” “About to shoot a new music video. Excited!,” “I wanna record over 10 songs this year. Wish me luck!” Obviously the worst are the boisterous, pompous intentions such as becoming famous and having millions of dollars in your bank account. While to the average person this might say you’re ambitious and got your goals set high, to the people with actual money who can realistically aid you in succeeding, that’s rookie talk. Professionals only deal with people speaking in the present and in the past 2ndly, people who’ve achieved big things already. Talking big doesn’t equate sh*t. Seriously. Nohing screams more AMATEUR artist than talking big about your intentions. The difference is in taking that intention and making it become a reality. Very few are capable of it. As for the last 2 examples, where the artists were just talking about doing things in the near future, that too sucks. You should only talk when what you intended to happen has happened ALREADY. Hold your horses and only speak on checked boxes not on empty ones. We all got those so you’re nothing special when you show how many unchecked boxes you still gotta go through.
2. Stop resharing politically charged content.
Look man/gal, the world was never perfect and never will be. Humanity had plenty Trump-like leaders since forever. Whether you like him or not, your social media profiles are your BUSINESS CARD so what is your business card telling a new visitor about your music? That you don’t prioritize it enough to post music-focused content only. Leave the politics and debates to regular people. You are a damn artist trying to get his business of the ground, aka selling your music regularly and consistently as not to need the 9 to 5 job anymore. Plus you are BLEEDING fans if you take sides. If Warren Buffet, one of THE richest men in the world stays mum during elections, you are absolutely within your right to shut up and keep it moving.
1. Stop talking ish about other bigger artists.
It seriously achieves nothing for you or your brand credibility. To put it in perspective, 50 Cent went from music and rap legend to Instagram troll in the past few years for his online antics and constantly getting into it and provoking other artists. Azealia Banks – even worse. We know she called Sia the ugliest face she’s ever seen, Nicki Minaj – insecure, Cardi B – talentless, Tameka Harris – meth face, etc. If these two famous individuals decided to put out dope music tomorrow, people will forget about their BS and focus on their product. If you, however, talk too much about X being underrated, Y overrated and Z – wortheless, you sound like an observer, not a participant. You distance yourself from being considered as big as these artists you’re bad mouthing.
If you made it this far, please like and give a listen to our B.R.E. Spotify playlist where we’re helping and promoting artists we personally know and wrote about on this very website: