Social Media Marketing Trends For Music Producers In 2022

Now is the perfect time to dive into the Emerging Social Media Trends for Artists & Music Producers for 2022!

I don’t know about you, but I feel as though this year has flown by so quickly and so I wanted to give you some ideas heading out of 2021 that will inspire you to grow your socials in new ways.

It’s important to develop a thought process that asks;

“How can I incorporate this trend to align with my brand and deliver it to my audience”.

We need to strategize and stay one step ahead in this quick, ever-changing social climate.

Not all trends are trends we want to delve into, let’s look at Tik Tok, it’s such an incredible tool for Musicians and can result in explosive growth, however, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. So for those of us who are looking for other ways to grow without the use of Tik Tok, I wanted to remind you that there are other ways.

Staying on top of your socials can be hard work, creating long form videos is extremely time-consuming, planning, editing and then promoting the final product takes hours away from time that could be better spent building a social network/audience in ways that bring you quality results but are also more fulfilling.

Quick story time

I struggled for 4 years trying to grow my Twitter account using musicians and fellow music producers as my target audience with no luck.

So earlier this year I decided to use a different approach and chose a hobby/niche that I was interested in and tried to build a following around that, still keeping my Bio as ‘Music Producer/Artist’ and had my Spotify link there as well.

After switching up my content to focus mostly on my niche/hobby I was able to grow my Twitter account from 830 followers to 12,600 in just a few short months simply by conversing, posting relatable tweets, and using hashtags. Those new followers organically found my music and responded well whenever I posted a music link or video content of my music.

You can read more about how to grow your audience and earn loyal followers on one of my previous blog posts here

Unless you’re an established/well-known Artist or Producer with a large following, or a Producer who solely makes beats/instrumentals it can be extremely difficult to grow your socials by only posting musical content, especially on a social platform such as Twitter which relies heavily on written words.

Whilst assisting hundreds of different artists/producers to grow their social accounts, I noticed that the majority of them were targeting other artists and producers and not getting the results they expected, it was almost as if they were creating content solely for other artists/producers to consume and it just wasn’t working.

It’s much easier to gain the attention of your audience to promote your music when they are already in lust with WHO you are

You should make effort to highlight other areas of your life, to showcase who you are as a person, and give people the opportunity to enjoy who you are so that they feel more inclined to want to listen to your music and learn more about you.

This is much easier for Producers who are also artists and release their own music. For Producers who solely make instrumental tracks for other Artists, this approach is obviously not ideal, and so your focus should be on networking with Artists and Labels which you should be doing on Twitter.

My take-away for you is to use your hobbies and interests outside of Music as your leverage to grow your audience and find ways to incorporate them into your work and across you socials.

I’ve been watching emerging trends closely and have done some brainstorming for you below but before we jump into the trends, here are some interesting stats I found through surveys;

More than 74% of businesses indicated in Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Media Trends Survey found that these businesses are planning to invest in audio-only content in the next year

Short-form videos are still taking the lead. According to video hosting software company Vidyard, 60% of all videos published on the internet in 2020 were under 2 minutes long, 37.3% were 60 seconds, and under

Listeners are spending more time streaming podcasts on Spotify than ever before, according to the company. Spotify estimates that the number of new shows added to its platform has surged 240% this year compared to 2019.

Social Trend 1

Social Audio/Audio Content

Hosting/leading audio live streams as thought leaders (Twitter spaces etc)

Whilst similar to Podcasts, live social audio content is much easier to create, a lot less work involved, and can be super fun to host. The only downside would be that you really need to be in the mood to talk on the day you’ve planned to go live.

I’ve had a lot of people tell me they’re not confident to host a live audio session or that they feel they don’t have the best conversational skills to host a live audio session but I really disagree, I believe that with a bit of practice and some planning and preparation, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. It can truly be a rewarding experience connecting to your audience and potential new fans in real-time.

An upside for people who dislike the sound of their own voice is that when it’s live, you won’t need to re-listen to yourself talk when you’re editing and then cringe after you release it hehe

It’s especially interesting to listen to people from other countries with different accents and unique stories to tell, it’s something that never gets boring!

Treat these sessions as a way to open up discussions about your niche/hobbies, music you’re working on, challenges you’ve faced recently, and ways you’ve overcome hardships over the last 2 years, it’s an incredible tool to become more connected to your audience.

As Live Audio emerges, we will see more apps integrating a live audio option, for now, I found Twitter Spaces to be the best option over other apps such as Clubhouse.

Social Trend 2

Interactive Content/Sessions

Having your audience interact with your posts dramatically increases your organic reach, this has been proven time and time again on social apps such as Instagram and Twitter.

When posting an Instagram Story and adding a YES/NO poll or similar, it helps increase your engagement which tells IG’s algorithm to show your content to more of your followers. Since interactive content and the move to VR & AR (Augmented Reality) emerges, we need to brainstorm ideas of how to incorporate Interactive content without the use of AR (just for now and until more people adopt the technology)

So, I had a cool idea the other night which might not be original but I figured I’d tell you because I am yet to try this out and haven’t come across another producer or artist doing this but here it goes!

How to create a piece of Interactive Content

Step 1.

Create a song or piece of music with 2 or 3 alternative chorus or verse ideas.

Step 2.

Record the first part of the song and then record all alternative choruses so you will end up with 2 or 3 versions of the same song. You can do this as a video or as audio depending on which type of content you prefer to use on your socials, also depends on which app you choose to use

Step 3.

You will post the content on your socials and ask the audience which chorus they think is best. You can get super creative with the way you make this content interactive. For example, you can post as an Instagram Story and have people vote on a poll, you can create an interactive version for your website, you can post a video on Tik Tok asking people to comment on which is their favorite version, or you can post it as an audio piece on SoundCloud and then post the link on your Facebook page or in a Facebook group.. there’s probably plenty more ways to create/market this type of interactive content.

You can also do this during an Instagram Live and have your listeners choose based on the first impression/listen.

So it’s kind of like those 90’s ‘Give yourself Goosebumps’ Books that let the reader choose their own ending/adventure

Your audience absolutely LOVES clicking on Yes/No, Left/Right, 1st or 2nd type posts, everyone loves feeling included and Interactive Content is something I don’t really see a lot of people doing.

Another benefit of allowing your audience to chose their favourite version is that it teaches you a valuable skill of pushing your creative limit to think outside of the ideas that you’d usually settle with or choose first.

Social Trend 3

Twitter

I’m astounded by how many artists/producers I know that are not utilizing Twitter, it’s probably one of the easiest and least time-consuming (unless you’re addicted to scrolling the feed) apps out there in terms of how long it takes to create the content.

Tweeting is super easy and only takes a few seconds, the organic and hashtag reach is great, unlike Instagram which has severely limited organic reach for most accounts lately.

On your main Twitter feed, you can share written tweets, video, images, GIFs, or voice tweets. There’s also the ability to host audio conversations via Twitter Spaces (which can be monetized with Ticketed Spaces), Twitter spaces falls under Emerging Trends for 2022 as I mentioned the 1st trend, I’d love to see more artists utilizing Twitter Spaces.

In Q3 of 2021 Twitter had 211 Million Monetizable daily active users that you could be targeting

One other really important benefit of using Twitter is that you can tag your favorite audio brands and usually get a retweet super quickly! As an example, I posted a tweet with an image of my fav Manley Mic’s and tagged Manley Labs, they retweeted within a few hours and I gained a few new followers.

This is also a great way to network and if you’re interested in learning how best to network on socials you can read my blog post here

Fun Fact: Apart from Barack Obama who took the first spot for most Twitter followers in March 2021, the other 3 below him were Musical Artists; Justin Bieber, Katy Perry & Rihanna.

So that basically sums up the trends I think Music Producers & Artists should give some energy to in 2022, hope you enjoyed and we wish you a beautiful Christmas and a successful New Year x

Love,

Noella

About the Author

Noella Nix is a Music Producer, Songwriter & Artist from Australia. She teaches Sound Production, Music Business & Social Media Marketing at University and has written 4 Music Industry eBooks. Connect on Instagram