This 2-part post covers why you should use a Facebook music page or bandpage, aka Fanpage, instead of your profile. Plus, we look at Facebook groups, how to create a Facebook fan page, and grow your audience in the Right Way.
This 1st part of the Facebook (FB) element of our Social Media for Female Musicpreneurs Series aims to help you get started when setting up to promote your music. Part 2 focuses on how best to use using FB in your social media strategy.
Is an FB page necessary?
Like many online platforms, FB can be used to great advantage. However, I must state one tip that I ALWAYS give about using these platforms: before jumping onto FB, make sure it is relevant to YOU and YOUR fans. FB can be great, but it is not for everyone. You’re busy enough making this biz life work, so spend your time wisely – don’t waste it! Make the effort to find out if YOUR fans or audience are likely to be on it (how to do this is covered in depth in our How to Find Your Fans course and our Social Media Savvy Course Series), then you can REALLY maximise its benefits.
Know the difference between a group and a page.
A group helps you foster community around your page. It can be private or even secret! This means that you can have people join by invitation only. You can also make your group ‘findable’ by adding tags to it. Groups are ideal for hosting membership specials and even special membership site or community related interests. A page is public, so anyone can ‘like’ it, unless you’ve blocked them. Also, you can link your page to your group as a feature to encourage awareness of the brand and more likes, too. The great thing about these options is that you can do specific things as a brand instead of as a yourself – unless you want to. For example, you can comment and post as the page as opposed to posting as yourself, from your personal profile. Also, FB live broadcasts can be made from your page, and as your brand, instead of your personal profile.
 |
| About Facebook Groups ~ Image of group privacy settings by Facebook help |
What this means for you:
Know your purpose for setting up.
It might sound obvious, but I’d suggest that your decision on how you go forward with FB should rest on YOUR aims. Consider whether your goal is to build fan base or a community. Arguably, either can be built using a page or group, but groups can be more inclusive than pages as they more offer an intimacy or inclusiveness than a page does. On the other hand, the public element of pages gives your visitors a peek into your world. As such, this ‘shop display’ experience cannot be provided in groups.
So, if you want a special, private group for your most dedicated fans or community a page isn’t what you need for this purpose, as pages are public.
As stated earlier, if you’d like to broadcast Facebook live sessions to your music circle, you could do so in either a group or page. If your aim is to have a place for banter and interaction, either option could work. So, plan accordingly.
Setting Up Your Page
It isn’t wise to use your personal profile as a fan page. Of course, you could and some do, but it’s against Facebook terms, so using it in this way could get your profile shut down. From a clever female musicpreneur perspective, a music page’s specific features help you maintain control and offers features that will assist you in your busy music biz lifestyle and tasks, and help you in achieving your success. It’s business focused. For instance, you could add press contact and booking agent details. It provides insights so you can see how well your posts are working with reports. This is so handy! Why? Relying on the number of likes on a post to build your empire isn’t enough. Also, you can create offers, events, products to sell or giveaway, sign-ups, post FB lives, and more.
Here are examples of how you can use your page:
1. Page types
If you really want to increase your presence and income seriously, set up your page and use it. Now! There are two ways you can do this. Either convert your personal profile to a business page, or just set up a brand new page. Just keep in mind that the converted page links to your personal profile. This may cause complications if you eventually hand it over to someone to the manage. So it might be better to keep it separate and just start anew.
You only need click the link at the bottom left of your personal profile to get started.
Next choose a page type. As you can see below, there is an artist, band, or public figure option. 
What this means for you:
You can maintain your privacy, as you’ll separate your business and personal accounts. This is a good thing if you’re a musicians who finds it challenging to share your musical promotions (what? Promote myself? Nooooo…!). Also, such promotions could get annoying for friends, family and non-music related work colleagues.
Plus, you really want to grow with people who want to invest in you and your craft. Create a special place for that purpose. Personally, I only have my closest friends and fans on my personal profile. This was for personal reasons and deliberate while I was raising my daughter, for her and my safety and privacy, which I had to consider. Think about whether you are comfortable with strangers seeing your personal business and having access to your close friends. Mainly though, get serious about your business and don’t jeopardise your personal profile access and risk it being removed.
2. Page templates
There are different types of page templates to suit your needs. Depending on your main purpose for setting up, choose a relevant category by using the ideal template option for you. Standard, Services, Business, and Shopping options are available. You might want to focus on selling, showcasing your work, channelling traffic to your website, or mailing list, for instance. Experiment to see which is the best fit. If your main aim is to sell, the Shopping template may be ideal for you. While all templates have a shop option, they each have unique features, so think about what you want. Remember, the page type can always be changed, so you can experiment, too.
What this means for you:
You can make the most of these options to suit your needs. You also have the freedom to change or (in most cases) get rid of elements that don’t work!
Other great features
You can add a welcome video or music video as a feature to your page or group. You can receive reviews and show ratings. You can set up apps based on your gig/promotion calendar. You can also create a sign up button to a mailing list at the top of your page or embed a mailing list sign up form into the page. This allows instant sign ups to your mailing list without people having to leave the page. One feature I adore is insights. I’m stats obsessed. Sorry, can’t help it! As with my other posts, you’ll notice that I always big up stat features. You can use your FB stats to work in a smart and strategic manner and understand what your audience loves and wants, to improve, and attain your FB aims. Hurrah! To find out how, have a look at our Find Your Fans course, Social Media Savvy Course, or Stats for Success.
3. Set up properly
Make sure you set up your page correctly. Important sections to consider include your name, photo, banner, and your call-to-action (aka CTA – see next section). Some FB elements or features may not be necessary for you, such as messages. If you do want to be contacted and seen as responsive, consider creating an automated message response through the response feature. You can disable the settings if you’re unable to respond to messages, don’t want to, or want to prevent spam. Also, keep an eye on Facebook rules that could get your page shut down (these include advertising inappropriately, and guidelines for photos and pages). Take time to design your page appropriately for your needs.
At the very least have a bio, the band name in the FB url, good profile photos (including your banner image) which are consistent with your other online profiles, list band members, your great music (of course!), genre (this is another important aspect to consider), vids and merch, if possible, a link to your website, and clear CTA.
What this means for you:
You won’t miss out on the benefits of using the page properly or lose access to your page. Also, making sure the fields are filled in will help with web searches, and with you being found by the right people for you, so take the time to do this.
4 . Prepare Your Call-To-Action (CTA)
Make it easy for fans or your audience to sign up for your mailing list, book you, or buy your music. All you do is create a link to a website or page that you want the visitor to go to. You can set up a great one-click CTA feature that is displayed at the top of the page to entice visitors to take action. See the ‘Sign Up’ button below as an example. FB has different name options and purposes for these buttons. So have a look at the menu and select what works for you.
What this means for you:
You can drive traffic to a place of your liking and increase opportunities, sign-ups, sales, and more. This helps you to to have better control over your career and income.
5. Get help!
If you have a band, have everyone chip in with their best skills. Perhaps one person could look after images, another, audio, another, copywriting, even press contact or bookings. Assign roles to each person by using the ‘page roles’ option in the settings menu.
Make sure you’re aware that some FB roles allow more control than others. For example, admins have total control over the page/group. This means that they can delete the page or group, amongst other things! So, think carefully about who you assign page roles to. If you don’t have help and you struggle with making posts and content, hire someone. It’s worth it. Even if it’s from Fiverr. Upwork is another fab place. There are many freelancer sites out there. Just check the person’s ratings and reviews first though! There are also free resources on line to help you do this too.
What this means for you:
This takes the pressure off. If you have a team or band, it allows the work to be evenly distributed. If you’re solo, don’t think you can’t afford help and disregard the idea. If outsourcing saves you time and allows you to put your time to better and more productive money making uses, it could be well worth it.
W H A T N E X T?
Now you have the basics on setting up, you’re on the way to get the results that you want. So, kudos for being serious about building and making serious income as a music biz boss! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post. Look out for part 2, which focuses on how best to use Facebook in your social media strategy. Also, you’ll be able to get a lovely related freebie.
Want more?
For specific strategy planning, check out our soon to be pre-launched course which covers planning and strategies for busy female musicpreneurs to eliminate hustle, and get career control and income and they deserve.
Work with me
Ready to crush the rest of 2017? Click to book a FREE success strategy session in which I will help you to:
1. Create a crystal clear vision for your career.
2. Uncover or identify hidden challenges that could be sabotaging your success
3. Leave the session renewed, re-energised and inspired to make great strides and attain the success you deserve!
2. Uncover or identify hidden challenges that could be sabotaging your success
3. Leave the session renewed, re-energised and inspired to make great strides and attain the success you deserve!
Here’s to owning your career and blazing your own trail!
x
Danelle
Danelle
Your Music Biz Success Coach