How To Make Use of Visual Content as a Musician?

It is super common to read comments like, “I clicked on this for the cover art and ended up falling in love with this song". Usually, the visuals are the last thing artists think about when it comes to their release. However, thoughtlessness and lack of planning around the visuals leave your music at the risk of missing out on engaging new fans.

When it comes to new releases, the visuals are something you should attach extreme importance to. You might have hired Grammy-winning producers and legendary instrumentalists to create a track that has the potential to change the entire course of musical history forever, but if you don't have great visuals to accompany your song, your song might fall flat.

With great visuals, you gain the unfair advantage of captivating listeners’ visual senses, in addition to their auditory senses. Unfair advantages are nice.

Visuals 101

What we’re trying to achieve with the visuals discussed in this article is that the buzz surrounding your release should always stay alive, both after and even before the release of your song.

To achieve that, we're going to run you through 2 types of visuals.

1. Pre-Release Teasers 
2. Post-Release Content

Let’s jump right in.

Pre-Release Teasers

Simply put, Pre-Release Teasers are photos and videos you put out on your social media handles before your song releases. This is to get your audience excited about what's to come and get the buzz rolling.

Photos

You want to be uploading photos on your social media handles that create anticipation and excitement around your upcoming release. You can achieve that via photos in several ways.

One of the ways you can do that is by doing count-down photos around 7-10 days before your release, or posts relating to your album art. Get creative and don’t be afraid of going extravagant with these posts!  

The reason you’re doing this is that you want to constantly remind your audience that something is coming and this, in turn, helps your release stay relevant. Also, do not forget to use your own unique hashtag for all of these posts, so that all of your release-related posts (made by you and your supporters) can be accessed just by clicking on the hashtag. Check out the Top 4 Mistakes Most Artists Make.

At this point, you should also start getting serious about your album/single artwork, and make sure you include your album art in posters and teasers.

But remember, more than just trying to push your music out all the time, your goal is to entertain your audience. Make sure to have fun with this!

Videos

To start a real buzz around your upcoming release, you need to go the extra mile and upload some video content too.

One of the options you have is creating small-duration teaser videos using your album art/royalty-free footage with a snippet of your song playing in the back. 

This can also be some behind-the-scenes footage, something even more exotic. A few funny GIFs or even memes related to your release certainly won't hurt either!

One thing you need to make sure of here is that all of this content is in the appropriate aspect ratio. You might create great visual content, but they won’t look great (or even complete!) if you’re not using the correct aspect ratios. 

Here's a cheat sheet:

Post-Release Content

Post-Release Content is things you put out after your song is released to continue to direct new fans to your release and engage your existing audience around it.

Photoshoot

We can't stress enough how important it is to do a new photoshoot of the artist each time they do a new release.

If you re-use older pictures in your marketing efforts for a new release, there wouldn't be any visual difference between your older release and your new release and fans won’t be able to tell that something fresh is brewing. We're trying to prevent something like two completely different articles looking the same:

Other than the fact that it’s always great to have a bunch of spare high-quality photographs lying around, these photos are also something that will be used in your EPK (electronic press kit). 

 

Videos

To make sure the buzz surrounding your release stays alive, keep uploading video content post-release to stay relevant.

These can be guitar playthroughs, live vocal recordings, studio session videos, break-down videos where you talk about all the different layers you used in production, fan reactions, lyric videos, or even get a full-blown music video shot. There are too many possibilities here, and the sky's the limit!

You can also take the time and effort to create an Instagram Filter. It is a super unique and engaging way of marketing your music.

Bonus Tip!

If you’ve made it till here in the article, you deserve a bonus tip.

Instead of wasting time and uploading your song on YouTube manually on the day of the release (video files are heavy), upload your music video on YouTube well in advance, along with a well-written description, and mark it as unlisted.

 

The benefit of doing this is, on the release day, all you have to do is, mark the video as “Public” and that’s it! No chances of unexpected delays, since the video has already been uploaded, the description has already been written, the title is already final!

Here’s a neat checklist we’ve made for you containing everything we’ve talked about until now.

Closing Thoughts

If you have a bit of a following, the most devoted section of your fans will want more from you than just your music. Things like photos, music videos, band photos, cover art, and posters are important ways to earn new fans and form a deeper connection with people who already love your music.

The music industry continues to transform in huge, unpredictable ways, but the visual aspect of an artist’s music is still a big deal.

Psst. You probably like making music. Do you also like making money? Check out How NFT's Are Revolutionizing The Music Industry.