On a tight budget? Here’s how to seamlessly reuse creative assets
Being an artist in this day and age comes with some really unique challenges. We have more access to potential audiences than ever before, and a wider pool of resources to pull from. It sounds ideal, right?
But to really take advantage of all of this, we’d need to be creating quickly and releasing content often enough to break through the algorithm. If all of our time and money is spent on self-promotion, when are we allowed to simply focus on our art?
I don’t have all of the answers unfortunately, but as a video creative working closely with independent artists, I’ve picked up a few tricks to help you keep on top of all of your socials without draining your bank, or your time.
Planning is key
I know this is a boring one, but it’s the most effective way you can start to save time and money down the line.
When you’re in the planning stages for your next release, try to incorporate your marketing plan at this stage too. Not only will this ensure your creative direction stays intentional and coherent, but it also makes content collection feel more like second nature as you’ll already know exactly what to do.
Ask yourself these questions as a starting point:
Who is your target audience, and which apps do they use?
What’s the message or story behind your song, and what sort of visuals capture the vibe best?
Do you have any photoshoots, video shoots, studio sessions, prop making or any other fun creative days planned to support your release? Could you gather behind the scenes footage of these days?
💡 Top tip: Learn more about importance of creative direction here
If you’re still not sure, my best advice would be to capture photos and videos of anything and everything to do with the release. It could be a video diary, a short clip out of the window of your train on your way to a meeting, a makeup tutorial, short clips of things that inspired you, etc. Even if you don’t have a concrete plan for it just yet, these sorts of things can be repurposed in a variety of ways.
Create a personal brand library
Whilst you prepare for your new release, collect all of your visuals into your own personal library. The idea is to have a dedicated, organised space of on-brand visuals that you can dive into whenever you need to, instead of having to search for something every time you want to create content.
Here’s what you can include:
Photos
Videos
Inspiration
Fonts, colours and logos
Your library will naturally grow over time, and as it does, it will consistently reflect you and your artist brand.
When you come to create new content, having this in your back pocket will make the process feel a lot less overwhelming and it even allows you to react quickly to spur-of-the-moment ideas or trends.
Repurposing assets
So now you have a strong creative direction, your own personal content library, and a loose social media marketing plan. What now?
Repurpose them!
This is a much easier process than it seems. All you need to do is get into the habit of spotting the opportunities to repurpose something. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, it comes quite naturally.
Start with what you have.
First, look at all of your blog posts, social media captions, previous interviews, album reviews etc and try to find quotes that can be repurposed for socials. You can either take a written format (such as a blog post or newsletter) and make a video script or carousel, or you can take some impactful quotes and overlay them onto videos or photos to share.
Next, go through your photo and video library on your phone or camera. Do you have any BTS photos that you could write about in a newsletter or blog? Do you have a few videos sitting around from a gig that you could edit into a day in the life vlog? Do you have an aesthetic photo sitting unused that can be repurposed into a design for a lyric video?
Whilst you’re going through your assets, consider all of the social platforms relevant to your brand and what type of content works best on each. Different formats work for different people, but I’ve included a loose guide below to get you started.
TikTok: Imperfect videos that show your personality in an authentic way
Blogs / newsletters: An insight into your mind and creative process
Instagram: More curated, you can get away with being more ‘advertisey’ on here
YouTube: For committed fans who want to see longer form videos
The overarching theme in all of this is making sure your marketing is worked into your process organically. Doing this will hopefully make the social-media and visual side of marketing feel a little less overwhelming.
💡Click here to download a free PDF for you to refer to when you begin your content journey!
🍏 Need help putting together some visuals for your release? Get in touch below and see how I can help turn your ideas into music videos, lyric videos, short‑form visuals, and release‑ready content.
