Build Your Cover Band's Online Presence

Before anyone hires you, the first thing a booker is going to do is look you up online. Make sure that what they find looks professional and is easy to navigate.

Building a Website

If you’ve never built a website before, you’ll want to use a website builder like Squarespace or Wix. There are plenty of others out there, but those two are easy to use even if you have zero experience.

Choose from one of the many templates available (no need to reinvent the wheel) and start adding in your content. As long as your website is easy to navigate and contains all of the necessary information, you’re good to go.

Website Content

Now, what exactly is the “necessary information”? The goal is to showcase your band and make it easy for people to book you. You want your website to have:

• A great, high-resolution picture of your band. This can be a professional photo from a photoshoot or a picture of your band in action–as long as it’s high quality and shows what you’re all about.

• A good quality demo video. If you’re not hiring a professional to make your demo video, ask a friend with a steady hand and a good eye to help. For your website, make sure that your video is filmed horizontally so that it will look good on YouTube or Vimeo.

• An “about the band” page. Help people get to know you! Include the story of how the band got together, a short bio for band members, and any fun stories about your band.

• Description of the type of music you play. You can even provide a sample set list here!

• Dates for any upcoming gigs/events that you’ve already booked. This will show bookers that you’re already in demand and will help you show up in search results in the areas where you play.

• Reviews from any past gigs. Include the names and locations of the venues. Again, this not only makes you look good, it also helps with search engine optimization.

• Your contact information. Phone number and/or email address. A clear call to action will be helpful here too (ex. For booking availability, email [name] at [email address])

• Links to any of your band’s social media accounts.

• Mailing list sign-up form. Email is one of the easiest, most accessible ways to market yourself and musicians have some of the highest open rates of all email marketers! In addition to collecting email addresses at your shows, put a form on your website so people can get updates from you.

If creating an email newsletter feels overwhelming, check out our simple guide, How To: Write a Cover Band Newsletter in 15 Minutes.

Social Media Profile

If you don’t have a website yet, that’s ok! A social media profile can get the same information across. You’ll want to include all of the above, but will need a slightly different approach when adding this info to your profiles.

• High-resolution pics of your band for both your cover photo and profile pic.

• Good quality demo video in the best format for each social platform. For TikTok and Instagram, that means a vertical video format. For regular YouTube videos, use a horizontal format. For Facebook, horizontal or vertical will work. Pin your demo video post to the top of your page.

• “About” Page. This will vary depending on the platform, but for most platforms, this is where you’ll include a short bio, a description of the music you play, your location, and your contact info (email & phone number). Fill out as much info as you can on each platform and make it easy to contact you!

• Dates for upcoming gigs/events. Facebook events are a great, easy way to promote your upcoming gigs. If the venue you’re playing hasn’t created an “event” for your gig, make one yourself and include as much info as you can.

• Reviews from any past gigs. Ask bookers/managers to leave reviews for you after your gigs and send them a link–again, make it easy for them to help you out!

• Links to any of your band’s other social media accounts. Different people are active on different platforms: give people multiple ways to follow you.

• Mailing list sign-up. Social platforms aren’t always going to show your content to your fans–even though they follow you because they want to see what you’re up to. Turning social followers into email contacts is a great way to reach them directly. Most email services (like MailChimp or Constant Contact) have contact conversion forms that you can use on your social profiles. If you’re not quite there yet and are not using an email marketing service, it can be as easy as asking people to send you their email address in a DM and then manually adding them to your email list.

Once you have your social profiles set up, check out our Demystifying Social Media for Cover Bands post!

If you’d like to see how you can drive people to your website and social profiles during your gigs, set up a demo with us and we’ll show you all of the things our free artist tool NextSong can do to help drive your music career!