How to Get More Online Followers

We all want to grow our online presence and audience, because let’s face it, if you’ve got a social media channel then you want it to work! Even better… you may want to monetise it! 😮

So, how do we go from 50 people following you online (inevitably, your friends and family) to actual classical music fans who take an interest in your music and style, willing to ‘subscribe’ to your channels, which could even lead to an income stream.

The big secret – guest posts. Straight out of the traditional marketing world, but can easily be achieved in the classical music world too.

1. Social Media Guest Posts

Most people and organisations have at least one social media platform. The other fact is that all of these people want fresh content to post on their platforms. So the best offer you could give someone is to create a free piece of content, in exchange for a ‘backlink’.

Guest posting is about finding other people or organisations who have the same audience you want and finding a way to get in front of them.

Perhaps you are looking for more wedding work as a string quartet or classical guitarist. Start by writing a list of 100 relevant wedding businesses (event planners, venues, wedding fairs, etc.) and offer to create a video for their channel, or something similar that would help their own marketing strategy (video content is most effective for online marketing).

You can easily create video content at home for free using the tools we recommend in this article.

Perhaps you want to start an experimental music project in art galleries, but finding it hard to get any galleries to take interest. List 100 art galleries and offer to create a piece of content for their channels, again, for free. This will spark a business relationship and if that post does well for them, it could open the door to a conversation about your creative project.

This will take a fair amount of time, but if you can produce a guest post for 50 of those 100 businesses you’ve contacted, then you’ve got yourself in front of thousands of new people and sparked 50 new business relationships.

The key thing to remember with guest posting is to have one clear Call-To-Action (CTA).

A CTA is what you want people to do with the content you’ve given them. So with your guest post (for example, in the description/caption of the social media post) make sure every link is going to one place to pick up new followers – probably one of your channels.

It would be a mistake to ask the person/organisation that you’re creating content for to backlink to several different places (i.e. your social channels, your website, a link to an upcoming concert, etc.). Too many ‘destinations’ and people get confused. Keep it simple, keep it clear.

If the audience on your guest post can go to your Facebook/Instagram profile to start following you, they’ll see your future content, where you can then promote upcoming concerts, albums, masterclasses, tours, etc.

2. Blogs – Guest Posts

All the same applies here as above, however this time we’re focusing on words.

You may think ‘blogging’ is for travelling millennials trying to find themself in the jungle, but really blogging is a fantastic way to get people to your website.

If you don’t have a website, here’s why you need one.

Do the same as I mentioned before – list 100 websites you can write a guest blog post for. Then contact them (email or DM’s should be fine) ask if you can write them an article on something within your expertise which also fits with their ‘content marketing strategy’ (you can word it exactly like that – it’ll impress them 😉).

Remember! Don’t include links to 400 different things in your blog post. Think about one clear CTA and link to it at least 3 times in your blog post. I would strongly recommend the CTA be your website because people reading a blog post tend to be digesting that content in a deeper way than we do when scrolling through social media feeds. So readers will be more willing to visit your website.

Once you have some people visiting your website – what do you do with them?!

GET THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS. 📧

It’s a hugely wasted opportunity to have people visit your website and then leave again with no exchange of details.

This article gives some more details about email marketing.

To build an online audience you want to get people to be in connection with you at multiple touch points – ideally two social media channels and email. This way you can grab them with a 3-pronged attack.

I realise this is starting to sound like a military operation, but we’re trying to make a living here…

3. Podcasts – Guest Posts

To be honest, at this point, there’s not much new to say here. All the same as before applies. If you can get on any podcast which may have relevance to what you do, then do it! Or a video chat with someone for social media streaming.

Again, with the CTA, try to talk about the same 1 project that you’re really keen to promote. During a conversation style piece of content, you’re bound to talk about various things that you’re doing. However, if you can really focus on the 1 big thing that you’re looking to push, that’ll help maintain a clear message and CTA to the listeners.

As a bonus, at the end of podcasts there is usually an opportunity to share where people can find you (i.e. social media and your website) and those links can be included in the show notes for people to find.

Wrapping up

If you can spend the time doing this for at least social media posting and website content (i.e. blog articles, just like this one) for at least 50 different people/organisations, it will pay off.

If you’ve got this far and read the entire article – well done! I’m sure it will be valuable for you. Maybe in exchange, you could do me one favour? I would love it if you shared this article with a friend. ❤️

And of course, if you haven’t already, please do sign up to our emailing group for more military marketing mayhem. 👊