What Social Media Means to Composers is a special contribution from German composer Alex Pfeffer who’s sharing what he put into practice.

First of all before I lift off into social media spheres I wanted to mention that of course the most important thing is to be a good composer. What do I mean with being a good composer?
 It’s fairly simple: You are skilled, you have experience, you know what you can do (and what you can’t), you know your gear and you are a nice person, which I consider the most important thing at all – nobody likes to work with assholes, we all know that. Period!

Okay, so now what is social media?

Generally social media consists of all those socializing platforms you should have at least heard once. If Twitter, Facebook or MySpace doesn’t ring a bell, you are either a very successful composer who doesn’t need it at all … or you do something wrong! Seriously, I mean it … look back a few years into the past and think about a few “vintage” social media platforms. There were letters, then there was the telephone, then we had emails and messengers, … and now we simply have social media. It is just the next step of communication – nothing else.

So, if you think that Twitter is just good for people who want to tell how their apple pie is tasting or that you are becoming too transparent when using Facebook you should stop reading here. Everyone else who is further interested in this topic and what social media can be for us composers, I would welcome you to read on!

Generally I want to add that if you don’t like social media, there is no problem at all. There have been people who don’t like to talk on the phone or don’t like writing letters or email. This all is absolutely no problem and there are always solutions to make it and reach your goals – but you have to admit that it can be a disadvantage to tell a customer that you don’t like to talk on the telephone, which has kind of an insulting touch – something like: No, I don’t like to talk to YOU!

And what does it mean to we composers? 
It’s really simple again, the two main reasons why social media is important to we composers is:

1. publicity
2. staying in touch with people

I am sure you know the situation. You received a call from a client, you talked about the project and all its details, you started working together … and after the gig was done there have been those obligatory words:
Thanks for all your good work, let’s stay in touch! … and then there was silence! 
Okay, there are several different reasons why there is silence. Humans are just complex chemistry and sometimes it just doesn’t ignite, .. but most of the time it is simply the case that everyone is so damn busy that you or your client just forgets about to send that “Hey, how are you” message from time to time. Now, here comes the strength of social media platforms … and now let’s dive into it and how we can make advantage and use of social media as composers.

In my opinion the most important social media platforms for composer are: Facebook,
 Twitter
, MySpace
, YouTube,
 Vimeo,
 Soundcloud, 
and ReverbNation

Disregarding your profession you should make sure to be present on LinkedIn and XING (if you are living in Europa) and of course have your own website!

FACEBOOK
In my opinion the best way to stay in touch with your friends, customers and fellow composers. I always like to see the timeline as a customized newspaper about all the news from people and topics you are interested it.
The options are to either publish your projects and valuable thoughts through your personal profile or via fanpage. It really depends on what you prefer. Don’t get irritated by the word fanpage. I simply see it is as a good option to separate your private from your business life. Also there is a variety of applications (such as MyBand, powered by ReverbNation) to help you boosting your profile or your fanpage.

Basically you can do everything you think is right and fair to boost your career such as publish new tracks, post news when a video game or movie has been released etc., but there are a few important things I would not do:

Facebook Don’ts
There is an option to invite friends to your fanpage. It is okay to suggest your page once … maybe a second time to all your friends after a few months (remember, we are all busy, some things are simply not that important or get lost over time). It’s also okay to suggest your fanpage to all new friends, but never ever suggest your page to everyone in your friend list every week. This makes an impression of aggressively trying to boost your fan count. Remember you are dealing with real people here, not with words or little icons. Just compare all those situations when dealing with social media with real happenings. Would you call your client every week and trying to convince in your studios guestbook once he friendly rejected the offer?

Don’t publish content for the sake of publishing! What would be the purpose of reaching out for a lot of people but deliver them tracks which are done in a hurry? Most important thing is, there are a lot of experienced and professional composers out there and they can easily comprehend how long one actually worked on a track and how much passion was invested! What’s even worse is to post tracks with the notice that it is WIP – “work in progress”. This is by far the poorest excuse to always have the perfect excuse if someone throws you a negative comment!

Never react angry to negative comments! Be nice! If someone posted a negative comment to a track of yours, be thankful! 
In the end someone invested time to react on your action! You wanted comments?! Here they are, now also deal with the negative side. You simply can’t expect the whole world to love your stuff. Even if you would have the writing and creative potential of hundred combined skilled and experienced writer, there would be simply people disliking your stuff. Why? Pretty simple – Taste! 
But of course, if someone writes something like: This track sucks!!!11!!!11one … it would be okay to at least ask that it would have been nice to know WHY the track sucks!
Most people see that you are interested in their opinion and that you care. Maybe you get even more valuable information, maybe you get even more stupid comments. Live with it!

Never tell anyone that he/she doesn’t have a clue about what he/she is talking when it is about your music. Remember, you are the guy who did the music, but others are the ones who have to listen and deal with it. If they don’t like it, then maybe because there is TASTE?! (again). If someone states that he/she didn’t like the track, it doesn’t mean it is bad. It just stated that it is something which simply doesn’t fit his/her taste.
On the other side, we all agree that it is always nice if the commenter would write something like: Certainly not my style and I don’t like it, but it is well done! … but again, live with it and simply be thankful that people took the time to listen to your music!

TWITTER
This is a really cool way to quickly let people know what you are working on, what you are doing, where you are etc.
Twitter can be also very very informative. Not only you see what all the people you are interested in are doing, I also added all the companies I am interested in.
Within a few minutes of reading every morning you are totally aware of new released vsti’s, plugs, gear and updates. Considering that there are people out there who shake their head when they hear “Miroslav”. I think you get the idea! … I think it is very important to stay in the flow technique and soundwise.

As mentioned in the beginning. I know a lot of people who think that Twitter is just good for writing stuff like: Going for a shower, eating a burger, feeding the dog.
Let me ask the other way round. A one million bucks piano can be lame too if you just play one key over and over again and don’t care what this thing is capable of – it is what YOU make out of it!

Twitter Don’ts
Don’t try to force people to follow you. It becomes pretty obvious when a person is just trying to boost the follower count. If you post valuable information, people start following you automatically.

Don’t use words like e.g. hate in combination with your profession. If you write something like: “I hate working on my current track”, the client you are currently working for can easily comprehend. If you feel like expressing yourself, then maybe write it down on a piece of paper, ball it up and throw it in the corner of your room. Never express negative feelings regaring your own work to the public!

It is a nice move to follow someone back. Don’t think you are a superior composer than anyone else, even though the guy is only working on hobby projects. Things may happen even quicker than you think and suddenly that guy is in a major position and providing others with lots of work. I know it is a lot of if’s and when’s but you guys all know how life can be!

Even though there are tools such as Twitlonger etc. you basically have 140 signs. Think well about what you write!

You are a human being and there is no mistake by showing it to the world. If your little profile description or your posts just say: “We deliver the best music, we create awesome sound, all for the lowest price” … does that sound good? 
Let people decide if you are awesome and deliver the best music. You like to ride your bike? Cool! Maybe that one client who is thinking about hiring you for his next projects is a passionate bike driver and likes to ride in the mountains. Not only sh*t happens!

The follow friday! … if you “meet” nice people during the week you have the chance to feature them on the follow friday (which is basically setting the hashtag #ff in your post).
To be honest I am just a few months into Twitter, but I certainly fell in love with Twitter … I experienced the follow friday quite a few times now and I find it is a cool feature which is going on there. So remember, write some valuable stuff and people might think of featuring you on the #ff

MYSPACE
To be honest I don’t have too much to say about MySpace. If you are not really into HTML or other languages making your MySpace site look fancy can be very time consuming and mind boggling.
General usage of MySpace is kind of clumsy and kinda constructed out of little pieces … to me it seems it’s not really a complete thing such as e.g. Facebook. Nevertheless you shouldn’t ignore it, since you will meet very nice people!

MySpace Dont’s
Lots of people use the comment section to feature their own material. To me this is okay, but please dear posters – if you post material such as YouTube videos, make sure that autostart is off. 
I experienced the situation that someone posted a video to my comment section and as soon as someone, including me, visited my MySpace site, I heard someone else’s music. This can give a wrong impression.

YOUTUBE/VIMEO
The same here, not much to say about those two platforms. It is simply great to not only have your audience listen to your latest track, demos or project but also combine it with pictures or videos.
Most people are visually driven. Meaning if they listen to something they try to go back to something different. If there are pictures or a video going on, they might stay a bit longer with your compositions.

SOUNDCLOUD
By far the most fancy player around. If you don’t have a host or a place where to put your files, Soundcloud is really a cool thing to go with.
Besides the fancy player you get a lot of sharing and embed options. Definitely worth to check out.

REVERBNATION
This place is simply awesome! The features, options and widgets on how to present your music and yourself is awesome. Without a doubt even this platform would burst this post!
Just go and try it yourself!
Some more important things? YES!

Now, we have gone through the most important social media platforms. To get a clearer picture on each, you simply have to check it out. Also you have to be patient. It is not enough to simply create a Facebook fanpage you will get your first contract to a Hollywood movie the other day. It takes time and effort to care about those profiles. It is important to stick with it and don’t let your fans, followers, friends or simply interested people hang. You want attention? Work for it!

Now since you created profiles on some, most or all of these platforms it is important to kind of close the circle. Make sure to feature each of those platforms on your website. Make sure to get a Twitter plugin on Facebook and link back to your website. Then again make sure to post about your YouTube or Vimeo videos on every other platform. Most, if not all platforms offer you crosspostings, means that you can activate your Twitter stream inside ReverbNation or LinkedIn. The reason should be obvious to do so. Once someone shows interest in you or your music it is the most important thing to keep his/her attention and – in a positive sense – catch and hold this person as long as possible.

Now it’s up to you! I hope you enjoyed this article and you can gain some info from it … and always remember, social media is not the holy grail to your goal, it is just another tool to present you, your company and your music. Don’t expect million dollar deals within the first weeks, but if you stick to it, you will see all kinds of little wonders happens.

Finally and of course, I would be very happy to get connected to you guys. You will find all my social media profiles at the very left of the screen. Let’s get connected!

Oh! And since we’re talking of humanity and not being perfect! Just in case I forgot about any important platforms I would be happy to hear from you!
 Use the comment section below.

Thanks a lot for your time and now spread the word!!