At TuneAfrique, we are all about self-service as a deliberate option for independent artists in this day and age, our platform is as Artiste friendly as it is to Record Labels and Aggregators. The evolution of technology and the consistent transformation of the IT space makes it even more adaptable for users such that you can single handedly now run your music projects without much external help.

For social connections, information is now shared the New Media way; online, with the ability to connect with the world from the comfort of your mobile device. How interesting it is, to build a whole career and monetize it through simple do-it-yourself means, but is everyone catching up to these opportunities? It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information we now have online especially when on-the-go, a new Artiste's information can be drowned out by the multitude of mainstream artistes' info. So this week, we are exploring simple ways for upcoming artistes to use social media to their advantage and get the most out of it all.

1. Create Artiste Accounts: The same way you have Artiste accounts on the major digital platforms is the same way you should create a separate account on every possible social media platform especially Facebook and Twitter where you can post all the content that pertains to your music career. Your regular account remains for regular gist and will serve a purpose of sharing information from your music account to your regular followers. You can then build an actual fanbase that relates with you based on your music, and grow with them.

2. Link your social accounts: Isn't it nice, to create one post and have it replicated exactly on another platform or linked correctly to that platform? This is a hack worth exploring so you don't tire out looking for individual posts per platform, and then you can have a simple social media calendar plan and follow it up weekly.

3. Update your bio regularly: It's a fast paced world now and information quickly gets stale, so keep your audience engaged by putting out new information on your Artiste profile. It's the first information new followers will look at, so change your profile picture, switch up your Artiste description, add new music links and spice it up as often as possible.

4. Share song links directly from the Digital streaming platforms: Digital platforms have caught on too, for instance, you can share your music directly from your Spotify app to your Facebook stories and it will play a snippet and provide a link for listeners to go straight to the song on the app, instead of the stress of typing out the Web link.

5. Get familiar with Stories: On Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the 24hrs status and story profiles are your news update zones, you can update followers of your daily activities, your interests and your views on certain subjects. You can run polls, share content that you don't want on your profile and redirect links when you build a large following.

6. Create threads of song links on Twitter: Make it easy for your fans to listen to your songs directly on the platforms that they enjoy by creating digital platform specific posts with the links. This helps them save the time of clicking on the main shortlink and looking for the preferred apps, and listening as well as sharing directly.

7. Interact with your fans: Saving the best for last, this is the most important hack of them all. Connect with your followers by responding directly to them, answering their questions and liking our sharing the posts where you are tagged.

Learnt something new? Already practicing any of these hacks? Share with us your thoughts on these, based on experience or new practice. If you have any brilliant hacks that we can learn from, share that with us as well, on [email protected] let's hear your stories.

image culled online from Titanstar digital marketing, MX

Hembadoon is a Singer, Songwriter and Artiste & Label Services Director for Nigeria and Anglophone West Africa with TuneAfrique Distribution. With the team, she is currently on a drive to get as many artists in the inner cities of Nigeria to take advantage of the DIY opportunity available on TuneAfrique.com to monetize their music. Her music "Lady", "Hey Lover", cultural single "Kule Kule Hemba Ayem" among others are distributed through TuneAfrique and available on all digital music platforms. FB @hembabubba | IG @hembabubba | T @hembadoonmusic