A lot of digital marketers have a social media speciality. Mine’s Instagram.

I LOVE INSTAGRAM.

Whether my timeline is filled with my friends looking BOMB in selfies; perfectly curated aesthetic travel bloggers or pictures of my favourite musicians/actors chilling in their widely expensive homes, I just love it!

It does have its downsides though, filters, photoshop and more can contribute to body dysmorphia and there are plenty of trolls out there just waiting to take a good person down.

But here, with me, Instagram is a well of opportunity just waiting to be tapped.

In this blog post, I will be guiding you through how to make an instagram account that best suits what you’re after. Instagram offers many amazing features to customise your account to get the most out of it, with variations such as a business account and a creator account.

Signing Up

First things first, you need to actually sign up to the app!

I recommend signing up with your musician/business email as opposed to your personal one. That way if you receive any emails, they will be sent to the account where you manage your gigs/business.

If you don’t have an email like this, just make one! Its so quick and simple to make new email addresses, it will take you 5 minutes max.

Make sure your password is secure. Some good ideas for making a safe password are:

• Using both lower and UPPER case
• Adding at least 1 number
• Use a special character such as !_-^ etc

If you can’t think of anything, a tip I learnt about is looking at 3 things around you and combining them. For example (and no, this is NOT any of my passwords before you ask) if I combine 3 items near to me, using lower and uppercase letters and using a special character, my super secure password would be Chair_Phone_Desk132. Who on earth would guess that! (Just make sure its something you can remember!)

Username Time

This is hard.

I can spend ages agonising over what my username will be when I join a new website.

But since we’re creating an account for your music/ music-related business, it narrows the name choices down massively.

For example, this blog has an instagram!! It’s @artemis.project.music.blog (give it a follow https://www.instagram.com/the.artemis.project/).

The @ is clearly the name of the blog and tells you what it is. It used to be @the.artemis.project but it was changed to its current @ as there is a board game of the same name, along with a few other variations for other peoples accounts. (But this is the best one 😉 definitely)

Let’s say your name is John Smith, its very likely that someone will already have taken the username @johnsmith or even @johnsmithmusic. If you’re finding it hard to think of a username that is similar to what you want, or is taken, try out these variations:

• @john_smith_music
• @john.smith.music
• @johnsmith_music
• @johnsmithmusician1
• @j.smith_music
• @johnsmith87

You don’t want a username that is too long, otherwise it won’t be memorable!

Changing your account type

Now that you’ve created your unique username and password, it is time to change your account from a personal account to a creator account.

Why should you do this? Because a creator account means you can host ads, look at follower statistics, see when your followers are most active and see your insights for each individual post.

A business account also exists but I personally prefer to use a creator account. If you have a business, check to see if a business account is more suited towards your needs.

To do this, click on the three lines in the right hand corner of your screen. This will bring up a menu. Then click on settings. Find Account (for me, its the third from the bottom) and scroll down. At the bottom of the menu, you should see Switch to Professional Account in blue.

This screen should pop up:

Click on creator and then you’ll find yourself with an option to select your category. This doesn’t change anything about how the app works for you, but it does help to show other people what you are when they click on your profile. Search for one that feels right for you. For @artemis.project.music.blog, I chose Blogger.

You can choose whether or not you want this to appear on your profile, but why not! If you are a musician, why not have everyone know it when they arrive on your profile.

Now you’re ready to start posting- but WAIT!

Before you start posting, its important to remember your brand voice and target audience that we spoke about in the last blog post.

If you haven’t had a chance to read the Brand Voice blog post- go and check it out before continuing.

Where can you put these things we’ve learnt into action? In the caption!

Captions

Deciding what to write to go under your photos is a tricky business. There are only a few lines that appear before you have to click to ‘see more.’ If you’re writing a shorter caption, it has to contain all the info you want to share in a few short lines button the other hand a longer caption has to be able to draw your follower in to make them want to click to see more.

Doing some competitive research on similar accounts to see how they structure their captions is worthwhile. Also, if you have the opportunity to link to a blog post or video containing more information, you can keep the caption short whilst directing readers to the link in your bio.

Aesthetic

When you click on someones feed, if it isn’t visually appealing, its much less likely that you’ll want to follow them unless it’s someone you already know.

Don’t get me wrong, its super hard to create a consistent and attractive looking feed. As well as working on this website and the instagram that goes with it, I have been running a travel blog for a year and a half and still hugely struggle!

Although she isn’ a musician, check out @girlwiththeredbob. Now I’m not saying your feed has to look anything like this or even be consistent in colour, but when it comes to aesthetic feeds, this girl is a queen.

A quick tip to remaining consistent even when your photos look nothing alike is to have consistent brightness. If you have a mix of light and dark based photos, post all the light ones together and let them lead into the dark ones- it is far more pleasing to the eye than a jumble!

Got all these down? Now it’s time to get posting!!

Keep your eyes out for the next post where we will talk about Hashtagging, using your analytics and more.

Thanks!

Before we can create our social media pages, there are a few things to that we need to consider first.

First of all we need to decide on our brand voice.

So… what is a Brand Voice?

A brand voice is how you want to sound to your audience. The way you word your captions, posts and even the way you speak in videos is your brand voice.

If you want your target audience to relate to your content, it is important that you can communicate with them in a way that reflects their personality.

Not sure what your brand voice should be?

Here are a 5 handy steps to figure it out:

1. Figure out what you will be posting

Are you an acoustic singer songwriter, a DnB DJ or a professional wedding band looking for work?

Your tone of voice can change how people perceive you. A Wedding Band, aiming to present themselves as professional and reliable musicians, would post pictures of themselves performing at events or photos of them in a studio session. The language they would use would be different from an upcoming DJ, who would want to relate to fans who are a part of DnB culture. Their posts may be short samples of their work, shots of their setup or photos of them performing in venues very different to that of the wedding band.

2. Who are your target audience?

For some, this can be more difficult to define as music is listened to by all sorts of people!

An example of this would be, if you are a late teens-twenties male solo pop singer, by looking at the fanbases of people like Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes, you can guess that your target audience would be majority female and mainly from the age bracket of 13-30.

But how do you figure out your target audience?

Before creating social media pages, it is understandable that you’re only going to be able to create an approximate range. Once you’ve been on social media for a while and have access to statistics and measurements (which we will talk about in a later blog post) you can narrow it down.

But to start off, look at the fanbases of other artist that are within your genre. It’s likely that they will share that target audience with you.

If you’re selling a music product, research who the type of people are who would buy your product, or something similar.

There are a few things to consider when defining your target audience. These are a few examples: Age, Sex, Location and Interests.

One thing that will make it easier for you is to start where you are. If you’re a pianist in Singapore, there’s no use marketing yourself to people in Croatia! Once you have built a fanbase where you live, then it is time to think about expanding.

3. Describe Your Ideal Follower

Who do you want to reach?

Create a table or graphic that describes your ideal fan/customer.

For example, I want to start creating electro pop music and would like to appeal to people in their twenties or late teens. I feel like the music I want to make would resonate more with people identifying as female who like a mixture of classic pop but with electronic influences. They would live in the UK, and whilst I am only just starting out, they would live in the North of the UK because if I were to perform, I’d like it to be somewhere nearby.

What would your description be? Comment yours at the end of the article!

4. Brand Voice Chart

The Content Marketing Institute talk about creating a Brand Voice Chart.

(Link to the original article- https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/10/define-brand-voice/)

It is helpful to decide on your tone of voice.

When planning how I wanted to write these blogs, I decided I wanted to be professional and authentic (I hope I’ve achieved this!) as I want to share accurate information with you guys, but not be stuffy about it! Adding a bit of personal flair to let you know I’m a person, researching and sharing all these experiences alongside you is how I try to add authenticity.

Creating one of these charts is helpful to make sure you stay on brand when writing. In the far left column, write 3 words that could be used to describe how you want your brand voice to be.

Then, following the chart above, write a description of how the word would be used with your brand.

5. Keep On Top of it!

Once you’ve made your social media pages and have been on them for a while, you should have access to a bunch of cool statistics that tell you the Age, Sex, Location and Interests of the people who follow you. If you’ve been targeting females in their thirties but it turns out the people who interact with you the most are males in their twenties, change it up! You are never stuck with anything when it comes to social media.

So there you go! There are 5 handy tips to help you create and keep on top of your brand voice.

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Thanks!

The Next Step

Now that we’ve spoken about Verses, its time to move onto the next (and arguably most important) part of the song structure- the Chorus!

Almost all genres of songwriting have the use of a chorus in common, from Jazz to Rock and Roll. They are often the most melodically catchy part of the song, the bit that you always want to sing along to.

What makes a Chorus so Catchy?

Choruses almost always have the same melody and the same lyrics. Since a chorus is often repeated at least twice in most common song structures, the repetition helps to get the chorus settled into memory.

One way to make sure your chorus is memorable is to not overcomplicate it. Create 1 or 2 simple Motifs and build from there. It is often the simplest choruses that are the most memorable!

For those who don’t know what a Motif is, Tunecore defines it as ‘A short musical idea that is used to build up phrases, melodies, riffs and grooves.’

Where Should the Chorus Go?

Where do you place a chorus in the song? There are so many options that below are some structures frequently used to help you decide:

• AABA– This structure is Commonly Used in Jazz Standards. The chorus is sung, then repeated, followed by a verse and then a final chorus with variations.
• After each Verse- An incredible common place to put Choruses is after each verse, creating an ABABAB type structure
• At the start and before each verse- the reverse of the above, sometimes starting with the chorus is the way to go
• After a pre-chorus– Pre-choruses are something we will go into in a future post, but they are usually 2-4 lines that come (as the name suggests) before the chorus!

Using the Chorus to Sing the Title

One of the biggest uses of a chorus, is to bring the title into the lyrics. This adds to the ‘Memorable’ factor of the song as you get the title stuck in your head.

Much like the placing of the chorus, there are a few different places you can place the title. Here are some examples.

• 1st Line- Often, songs have the title in the first line of the chorus. One such example is Alarm by Anne-Marie
  • The Chorus goes as follows: And there goes the alarm ringing in my head, Like somebody said, “don’t you trust him, no, Texting from his ex, what did you expect? Now you’re lying here knowing where he goes… etc
• Book Ending– This is where the title is present in the first and last lines, encompassing the chorus like- well- book ends! An example of this is I Am The Fire– by Halestorm
  • The Chorus goes: I am the fire, I am burning brighter, Roaring like a storm, And I am the one I’ve been waiting for, Screaming like a siren, Alive and burning brighter, I am the fire.
• AABA- In many songs, the title features in the first two lines as well as the last. A well known example of this technique is the song You Raise Me Up
  • Here is the technique in action: You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains, You raise me up to walk on stormy seas, I am strong when I am on your shoulders, You raise me up to more than I can be.
• Final Line: Many songs save the title for the final line of the chorus, putting emphasis on it to get it really stuck in your head. I Prevail use this technique in their song My Heart I Surrender.
  • Will our stars ever align?, Will two hearts, beat in time? These words you should always remember, To you, my heart I surrender Chasing love that can never be mine Maybe one day you’ll realize These words you should always remember, To you, my heart I surrender.

Using These Techniques

Using everything I’ve learnt above, I am going to write 4 variations of a chorus, each with the title being places in one of the 4 scenarios. As far as lyrics go, I’m sat outside as I write this so I will use that as my inspiration.

The title of the ‘song’ will be Sunshine

Chorus 1: First Line

I see Sunshine through the trees,

Hear the birds and hear the bees,

There are no clouds in the sky,

Nothing but the summer breeze.

Chorus 2: AABA

I see Sunshine in the Sky,

I’ve Got Sunshine in my Eyes,

Even on the cloudy days,

There’s Sunshine when you’re with me.

Chorus 3: Book Ending

I see Sunshine through the trees,

Hear the birds and hear the bees,

Nothing but the summer breeze,

I see Sunshine through the trees.

Chorus 4: Final Line

The sky’s always blue,

Because you are mine,

There’s no clouds in sight

‘Cause you’re my Sunshine.

Whist slightly basic (and a tag cringey) the 4 choruses above showcase how to use the title techniques.

Try them out when you’re next writing lyrics and see which one works to make your song the most memorable.

Thanks for reading everyone, happy songwriting!

Artemis x

Sounds like Songwriting 101 right?

But when you think about it, what actually is a verse?

What does it do?

What is its purpose?

Sure we all know that a verse is a piece of music that goes before and after a chorus (or is it?), is the same each time (or is it?) and doesn’t really matter as much as the chorus (or does it?!).

What does the Verse actually do?

Songwriting is not an exact science so verses do not always provide the same thing to each song, but in a lot of songs the verses provide the exposition. Jason Blume (writer of the book ‘6 Steps to Songwriting Success’) describes the content of verses as ‘the information that will lead to the song’s hook or title.’

Essentially, its story time! A catchy verse without context is just a set of words. What the verse can do is provide this context, set the emotion/tone and put your storyline into the song.

Hallelujah! for Storytelling

One example of a song that utilises the story telling capabilities of verses beautifully is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’.

I guarantee you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t know the chorus of Hallelujah. It’s essentially just the word repeated 4 or 8 times (albeit beautifully!).

The word Hallelujah is a Hebrew word meaning ‘Praise be to God‘ and Jewish songwriter Cohen translated this into his work by referencing stories from the Torah throughout.

This can be seen in the first verse which is arguably the most well known.

Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord,
That David played and it pleased the Lord,
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

King David of the Jewish people (fun fact: my school was names after him!) cleansed King Saul of evil with his spiritual musicianship on the harp. You can see the references here in lines such as ‘that David played and it pleased the Lord’, which refers to this act.

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him” – 1 Samuel 16:23

Cohen also references moments like Delilah cutting Samson’s hair and robbing him of this powers (She tied you to the kitchen chair, and she broke your throne and she cut your hair) and David seeing Batsheva for the first time (You saw her bathing on the roof.)

Verse Structure

Whilst verses tend to have the most melodic and lyrical variation of a song, there are a lot of common structures that a lot of songwriters often use.

Here are a few key rules that most (but not all) verses follow:

• Verses all have the same melody each time
• Often 8-16 bars long
• Often consist of 4-8 lines of lyrics
• New lyrics per verse
• Same chord progression as previous verses
• Lyric lines have emphasis in the same parts as the other verses

(Most Pop songs that you hear on the radio follow these rules but other genres, such as Jazz, can be more fluid with their song structures.)

As well as the points above, many verses follow either an AABA (e.g. Dance Monkey- Tones and I) or ABABCB (e.g. Sorry Not Sorry- Demi Lovato) structure.

The Importance of the Verse

When you listen to a song, it is very likely that the first verse is the first thing you hear.

That means it has got the be engaging or any listeners could very easily click next.

Some methods to try out to make your verses more interesting are:

Vary your rhythms: Take influence from things like Iambic Pentameter in Poetry or try to Sing as you speak, not adapting the stressed syllables of sentences to fit a line.

Change up your structure: Maybe give AABCA or ABCBC a try?

Use external influences: Like Cohen did with stories from the Torah, mix it up a bit and write verses inspired by things you normally wouldn’t write about!

Giving it a go!

Since the aim of this project is for me to become a better songwriter, I thought I would take a page out of good ol’ Leonard’s book and write a verse that could fit into the Hallelujah structure.

This means I will:

• Keep the rhythm the same as the other verses
• Have the same number of lines
• Stick to the same melody (please imagine it! Sadly I can’t come into your home and sing it to you :P)
• Take inspiration from a story of the Torah (I’ll choose Noah’s Ark)

So here is what I came up with!

And so they came in two by two,

So less would be destroyed by you,

Your hand casting a shadow few can live in,

And while the waters fall around,

Your anger doth destroy the ground,

And from the sea they all cry Hallelujah!

Thank you for reading! Tune in for the next post where we will be breaking down the chorus.

If you enjoyed reading this or have anything to share, drop a comment down below!

Charlotte x