Turkey with a Side of Punk

3 ways to use social media to get what you want.

Thanksgiving Eve, I got to spend some time out at State 48 Brewery in Surprise, Arizona. It was a great night filled with good friends, great conversation, and some much needed live music. The music was provided by the cover band Cannonball.

Cannonball is an awesome cover band that focuses on what they call beach reggae and includes songs from 311, Slightly Stoopid, Pepper, Sublime, and more. The band is made up of Matt Pukasch: Guitar/Vocals, Sean Bowman: Bass/Vocals, and Ryan Frye: Drums/Vocals. Let me just say, Holy. Shit. I was super impressed. They are good. Especially when it comes to covering Sublime. I kept stopping our conversations only to repetitively say,” Can you hear these guys?! They sound EXACTLY like Sublime.”

But okay, what’s the deal? Why am I telling you about my night out on the town?

I bring this up because we ended up hanging out with the band for a bit at the end of the night because one of my friends connected the band with the bar and the conversation veered to their next few gigs and how they promote themselves. My jaw was on the ground when I found out they didn’t have a Facebook page (or couldn’t remember if they had one, they do, it’s @cannonballtunes). I thought I was going to pass out when I found out there was no Instagram or Twitter either. I didn’t even ask about a website… I already knew the answer.

After talking with the guys for a bit longer I got to understand more about why there is no social media push. These guys have no interest in being signed by a label, they are in their mid to late thirties and are dads. They enjoy their day jobs, families and want to just continue playing gigs locally.

Something that also came out in the conversation: the guys’ priorities. They mentioned that gigs because they are a side thing, even though they are super fun, they do take time away from their family. So they have to make sense to do them. This is where the conversation about having a social presence and not wanting to be signed met head-on at about 2:30 in the morning. I can’t help it. This is what I do.

This conversation stuck with me into Thanksgiving and really prompted me to write this article.

Social Media is Flexible

I started thinking about how social media is flexible. Your content molds your pages, your posts, and your writing to get out of social media what you want. People use social media every day to promote different businesses or services. While everyone does it a bit different, they all have one thing in common, promoting their business to make money.

Here are a few ways to ultilize your social channels to get what you want:

1. Identify Your Audience

If your goal is to continue playing gigs around town, your audience is going to be more focused on event planners, general managers, and bar-goers. When you identify your audience, you need to realize what type of content they are going to want, then deliver. Make sure to address them in your writing, tag them in crowd photos from your gigs, and share their photos from events or fan hangouts.

2. Go Guerrilla

Guerrilla marketing is one of my favorite ways to advertise. Probably because it’s cheap and ninja-like. For bands, this could be as simple as having a sign that is set-up while the band plays. At the brewery, there were so many people live streaming, posting to Instagram, and taking photos. A sign would allow the band’s name to have a lot of exposure, and become a talking point to the attendee’s circle.

3. Build A Website

A website is your digital business card. Though, this is probably one of the most intimidating factors for people when starting their marketing plans. To try and help ease your panic, start with what I call a Starter Website. A starter website has a homepage, about, some sort of portfolio or services page, and a contact page. Keep it simple and to the point. Once that is up, you can expand and grow from there. Pairing your website with your social media does marvelous things behind the curtain, but we will leave that for another day.

Tie It All Together

Does it take work? Yes. But when you have all of these things in place you control the narrative. When you control the narrative you get to start molding and develop a storyline. In the case of Cannonball, a social presence for them would lead to more gigs around the city instead of working the same bar each month. It would open up the door to building a reputation that would allow them to charge more for their gigs. All of these things allow them to keep their life, make playing gigs worthwhile to them from a financial standpoint, and grow their fan base… It doesn’t have to lead them down the path of trying to get signed by a record label.

If you’re still a bit intimidated by this, start small. When you identify your audience, know what social platform they use most and start there. Start by posting 3x a week, and make sure there is some sort of branding (shirt, sign, etc.) in your photo background. As for the website, bite the bullet and get this done.

If you are looking for someone to help make content or manage your social platforms, let’s talk.