Small Business - Market Yourself with Social Media

Music is a huge part of my life. I've created a lot of playlists for different occasions. One of them is filled with songs from The Piano Guys. So imagine my excitement when I learned that they are touring to Boston this October. There's no way that I would let this opportunity go so I am going to their concert next week! Can't wait!

The Piano Guys are a music group consisting of Jon Schmidt (Piano), Steven Sharp Nelson (Cello), Tel Stewart (Videographer/Editor), Paul Anderson (Videographer/Producer) and Al van der Beek(Music and Studio). Unlike most of the mainstream artists, they gained their fame via social media. They first started on Youtube, posting self-filmed and edited videos of mash-up pop songs, and already have over 2 million subscribers. After they were founded for six months, they did a "Without You" Cover dedicated to their fans and invited them to be a founder of the Piano Guys and help release their first album.

As their social media fame grew, The Piano Guys became increasingly interactive with fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

They basically just marketed themselves using social media and it has been a great success. Now they are touring around the world, releasing new albums, and producing accessories like posters, calendars, caps, etc. 

This got me thinking: social media is definitely a great marketing tool for small business; it's low cost, low risk, and high gain. But the question lies in “how”: how to best utilize social media for marketing yourself?

1. Locate your target customer. "Locate" doesn't mean you need to know where they live, where they work, but rather, are they online and which social media platform they are most active on. Then step by step build your stage and stretch onto other platforms. As for the Piano Guys, their target audience age is from teenagers to people in their 50s. And thus most of them are really active on social media. Choosing Youtube as a start is also very smart. Who doesn't enjoy good music with great scenery? Hence they've gradually built up a big fan base there.

2. Be interactive with your fans! Social media is all about creating relationships. And the Piano Guys are really good at this. They listen to their fans opinions and also would pick from fans' suggestions of songs to do mash-ups or covers on Youtube. Steve even asked the fans to help name his new born daughter! Also, they interact with fans on Facebook by letting them decide album covers, posters, etc. Recently (actually just yesterday), they hosted Live "Q&A" on Facebook and answered 1343 questions posted by the fans. 

3. Be humorous and be their friend. People are long tired of the traditional downward marketing campaign. So if you want success out of social media marketing, you need to be your audiences' friends. The Piano Guys have always been genuine, funny, and sometimes silly to their fans. It shows in their videos, interviews, social media posts and also their replies to the fans.

Well, obviously there are a lot of other tips, and you should never simply copy someone's success. But the Piano Guys definitely set a great example of how to market yourself with social media if you have limited budget. 

So if you are running a small business or thinking about starting one, why not give social media marketing a try!