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Getting people to pay attention to your music is difficult, no matter the outlet. Most of the places where someone might go to hear your work – Spotify, iTunes, or even YouTube – are littered with every kind of music imaginable, and standing out can be difficult. This is especially true for YouTube, because the world’s most popular video site houses not only virtually every music video ever made, but also millions of other clips that have nothing to do with music, all ready to distract a potential viewer at any moment.

So, how do you stand out, and what’s a video gotta do to be watched?

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Love it or hate it, you can't escape social media. If you love it, awesome. You're already a step ahead and you know it's an indispensable tool to help promote your music. But if you hate it and think that we, as a culture and society, need to stop burying our noses in our phones and engage in actual, face-to-face communication and enjoy a legit connection with other people, well, I don't blame you. I know that I personally spend too much time on my socials. But even if you hate social media, you can't abandon this form of digital communication. It's just too much a part of our lifeblood.

You can, however, make it work for you without having to be addicted. Your online platforms do not need to take over your life and your existence. Here are the ways that you can make social media work for you.

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This article originally appeared on Soundfly.

Maintaining an energized fanbase is one of the foundations for success as an indie musician — and if you’re active on YouTube, turning those fans into an engaged subscriber base is critical. YouTube is essentially free marketing! And even better, it’s a platform that can bring you all kinds of incredible opportunities.

What many musicians don’t realize is that video can be utilized in so many more ways than just uploading music videos once or twice when you release an album. Video is one of the most electrifying and satisfying mediums through which we interact with our fans. It’s like a rolodex of visual memories to attach to music.

Plastic Pinks performing at Burger Records Hangover Fest in San Antonio, March 2016. (Photo by Greg Gabrisch Photography; used with permission)

It's always discouraging when turnout at your gig is lower than you expected, but it's especially disheartening when your hopes were extra heightened after seeing a high number of responses to your Facebook event. Of all the users who clicked “going,” only a small fraction actually showed. Were you wrong to think those numbers meant anything?

In a situation like that, it may seem like social media has little effect on your draw. According to the Pew Research Center, though, your posts on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms do help. A 2013 study showed a 33 percent spike in event attendance among adults who follow a music, dance, or theatrical group on social media.

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This article originally appeared on The Daily Rind.

Nothing has taken the social media world by storm recently quite like live-streaming videos. Tumblr is the most recent platform to jump on the live-stream train, following the lead of other sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Social media is all about "in the moment" content and engagement. We look at our newsfeed’s most recent updates to see what our friends are up to and even have to look at our Snapchat within 24 hours before content is dismissed as irrelevant and disappears forever. It’s really no surprise everyone has been so intrigued by live content.

Of course, live videos aren't exactly new; websites like Ustream and Livestream have been around since 2007. However, now that live-streaming videos are so rapidly being integrated into social media platforms, it's opened new opportunities for artists to engage with fans and integrate live streams into their marketing campaigns.

With all the live-streaming video options popping up and all the attention these features are getting, we thought we would put together a guide to help you understand and take advantage of live-streaming videos as it becomes more and more important.