Many people are trying to make it in music, but what makes you different? How will you get people to care about your music? I am a musician, and I often face these struggles when marketing my music. In the ’90s, you needed to be signed to a label to get your music heard. These days, anyone can write, produce, release and market their music independently. Social media is an important tool in modern-day music marketing, and in this article, I will share a simple guideline to grow your fanbase online.
Define your music niche
It is more effective to market your music to a target audience, rather than the general public. Yes, gaining streams is important, but 50 dedicated fans who will buy tickets for a show are more valuable than 1000 casual listeners who listen to your song once or twice. Social media algorithms also tend to push content of specific niche interests to the target audiences. For example, a punk music fan might get pushed TikToks of punk bands releasing new music on their For You page.
Engage with your audience on social media
After defining your niche, you need to create content that resonates with your audience. Start by viewing social media pages of successful musicians of a similar genre to see what content performs well. It is also important to add a personal touch to the videos to engage with your potential fanbase. Diversify your content with examples below:
- Fast moving, dynamic “music video” snippets featuring your music
- Behind the scenes content of shows & music production
- Covers of popular songs with a twist, in your music style
- Relatable content, eg “POV: you just got broken up with” to market a breakup song
- Musician challenges/ trends, eg. Guess the Drummer
In 2025, the average attention span is around 8 seconds (Lee, 2025), so you need to grab viewers’ attention with hooks in the first few seconds of the video.
It is hard to know exactly what will go viral, but social media algorithms value consistent uploading and will more likely push your videos out. When releasing a new single, create a content calendar and plan out a few videos a week to promote it. It may feel discouraging getting few views on some videos, but just one video going viral is all it takes to put your music on the map.
References
Lee, R. A. (2025, October 2). Social media attention span statistics 2025: By platform, age, and content type. SQ Magazine. https://sqmagazine.co.uk/social-media-attention-span-statistics/