Using Social Media for Bands and Artists

You know what people hate? When a band is constantly harassing people to get more fans or followers so they can reach a certain number of fans

Aside from gaining credibility when people first look at your page to see how many fans you have what else do you gain? Aside from a bunch of people who were forced to like your page who probably won't buy your album or anything of that sort?

 Loyal fans are not bought, they're earned! 

It's very important when using social media for anything to earn your fans, not buy them. When you earn your fans you get people who actually liked you at a show, or who had your album passed down to them with your Facebook or twitter link and you can do this by keeping your current fans happy with what you're posting. These people are likely to follow your music in the long run! And what's even more awesome, is if they actually become loyal fans and follow you through social media outlets, they'll probably spread the word for you when the time comes!  It'll keep them Liking, RTing, and sharing your stuff on their own sites and you'll earn even more fans. 

Assuming you've already created a great cover picture with your bands name for your Facebook Timeline and taken care of the "bandpage", "band camp", or "band player" player applications for your band, here are some tips and ways of taking full advantage Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Instagram for your band.

1. Keep A Consistent Username

One of the most important things that you have to do in order to grow your social media fan base is make sure your usernames are on everything you give out. Business cards, demos, CDs, Fliers, QR codes, etc. Many people make the mistake of just putting the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram logos and think their fans will figure it out, that doesn't work. People aren't just going to search for you or even know what to search for. Therefore it's much more effective to have the social media site logos with your bands URLS and usernames next to them. I know that may seem very elementary, but some of the biggest brands who advertise on billboards and on television still don't understand that concept. 

2. Using Pictures To Interact With Your Fans 

Have fun with pictures! Take pictures backstage or of you prepping for the show! Your fans will love that you're giving them a sneak peak of what's to come. It makes them feel more connected to you!

One of the most common things done by bands right now is taking pictures of the audience at shows from the point of view of the stage and later posting it all over their social media sites, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. To effectively do it, it should be on all three.

 If you're using Instagram, you can actually share that picture of the audience on all three sites simultaneously, however I would highly recommend solely using that feature to post on twitter. Hashtags are not received very well on Facebook, and posting to Facebook through 3rd party applications receives a much smaller reach. You can still use the same Instagram photo (that's saved to your phone after you post it on Instagram) and upload it to Facebook and you can type the same caption without any hashtags.

You can also use Instagram/Twitpic pictures taken by your fans to run contests and giveaways!

Say you're at the stage and you want to be more interactive with your audience then and there, assuming there's reception somewhere during the beginning of the show you can say "Alright everyone we're gonna give away a free merch package to two lucky fans at the end of our set. One on twitter, and one on instagram, take a picture of us #(bandsname) and whatever caption and we'll pick the best ones at the end of the show."  Then at the end of the show you can do just that. Go on your phone really quick and pick a winner before you get off the stage. Of course it would help a lot if you have a team mate at the merch table doing this for you and just expediting the selection process for you so you don’t look like you’re just killing time.

If you're a big enough artist and people want to take pictures with you before or after the show, another great way to get fans more involved with your page is to get pictures taken with them and have then post them on your wall. Pass out a flier that says something along the lines of "Find your picture with (bands name)!  on Facebook.com/(bandsurl), Twitter @(bands username), Instagram @(bandsusername)" 

3. Keep Your Existing Fans Entertained!

Nothing is worse than a dead page. Hopefully if you're posting pictures with your fans and of shows, you'll have enough buzz on your page. But it's good to post at least 3 times a week to remain active. 

"But what do I post?" 

Glad you asked. There's plenty of ways to create content for bands. 

     - For starters you can post pictures of you or your band in the studio or working on a new song with an interesting caption.  

     - You can post a Snapshot of what you're listening to once or twice a week so your fans know who you're being influenced by. 

     -  Most importantly post things that your fans will be excited to interact with. Ask them questions, like "What's your favorite lyric in any our songs?" or "What's your favorite one of our songs?" You can even use Facebook "Questions" to make a poll of which one of your songs off one of your albums your fans love best. 

One of the greatest social media networks you can use to your advantage for creating content is YouTube.

If you don't have a YouTube account as an artist you should create one IMMEDIATELY,

Videos can become a vital portion of your online content, whether it's making a different cover video and posting it on Facebook & Twitter every one or two weeks, or even posting videos of you performing your own songs, full band, acoustic, or whatever the occasion calls for. You can even see if the venue you played at has footage of you playing and post snippets of that on your sites. The great part about it is you can gain subscribers on YouTube, generate content on Facebook and Twitter and slowly but surely increase your following.

Any other tips? 

It's extremely important the way you go about doing your posts. Syncing your Facebook to automatically post to Twitter is great; However, don't sync your twitter to automatically post your tweets to your Facebook. It may seem like a great idea but it's not at all. As mentioned before, using third party applications on Facebook reduces your reach. 

It's OK to post very often on Twitter, I’m not saying to spam your followers but you can use post at least 4 times a day on twitter and it wouldn't bother anyone. You can post about upcoming shows and you can mention and hashtag the location and area that you're going to be playing. For example if you're gonna play an open mic in Miami you could tweet "Playing an open mic night @thecoffehouse at #Bayside in #Miami tonight at 7pm!" that way anyone searching for the hashtag Miami or Bayside would see it, the coffee house could retweet it and you could get people to come. 

Use Instagram to post to Instagram & twitter in order to take advantage of using the hashtags on both networks (they do work the same exact way)  post the same thing to Facebook but use the Facebook application and upload the picture manually, this way you can write the same caption without the hashtags and avoid looking foolish on Facebook. 

I hope these tips come in handy and you're able to grow your fan page for yourself as an artist or band :)

-BeBonta

References: 

"How to host a photo campaign on instagram"

<http://help.instagram.com/customer/portal/articles/95801-how-to-host-a-photo-campaign-on-instagram>

Robley, Chris (March 16, 2012) "12 Ways to Grow Your Band on Facebook Timeline" 

<http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/03/12-ways-to-grow-your-facebook-fanbase-using-timeline/>

3 Ways To Use Instagram For Business

Alright, so as many of us know Instagram was recently acquired by Facebook for 1 BILLION DOLLARS.

This got me thinking, "what's the big deal behind instagram, isn't it just an app that makes your pictures look vintage?" Well it can be just that, or it can be so much more if we look at how we as marketers can harness its marketing potential. First lets explain how instagram works, then I'll explain 3 key ways on how we can use instagram for business.

Basically, you take a picture with the application, add a "filter" so it looks more interesting and then you add a caption which, similar to twitter, lets you hashtag words with. The application is essentially its own social media network of people who follow other people for the pictures they post. Benefits of the app: They're also able to link their posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and most of them do.

Now to the 3 key ways you can use it for your business:


1. Make a campaign around taking pictures of your product. 
Lets say your business is a pizza place, you can put a sign next to the register, or on all of the tables that have your social media tags and info. The simplest campaign would be. "Take a picture and #(yourpizzeria's name)"  best picture of the week gets a free pizza, or whatever deal you guys decide to run.  By having them hashtag your restaurants name (assuming it's a small local business) you're then able to look at all the posts under that hashtag and keep a flow of fan pictures of your food and by doing so they're promoting your business to their social media network!

2. Managing Instagram Aside from Running Contests 
Keep involved with your instagram community. Lets use a real life example Shake Shack is a very respected high burger joint. Last week I personally went to Shake Shack and instagramed a picture of my burger. I hashtagged it as #ShakeShack #bestburger and within an hour "ShakeShackFans" (ShakeShacks Instagram account) liked, commented, and then reposted the picture and tagged me in it calling it the fan pic of the day.

By doing this they were able to create customer interaction at the same level as I would have had with one of my friends. I then followed them on instagram, and since have seen a few other pictures of their burgers and THE PICTURES MADE ME WANT TO GO BACK AGAIN! Isn't that perfect? Free marketing!

3. Don't limit Instagram to Instagram, use it on other social media sites as well!
In the points above I've discussed how getting people to post pictures and tag the restaurant could be effective on instagram, now lets think about the other social media networks. Say you decide to do "fan Instagram pic of the day" or something like what Shake Shack has in place, you could also post that same picture to facebook, and twitter. What does that mean for you? FREE CONTENT!  it means you can use it as part of your posting schedule, by creating something fun for your fans to do, and not hound them about deals you have or why your product is better.  By letting potential customers see that other customers are loving what you have to offer, it just makes things more real and personable on your social media networks!



-BeBonta



Sources:
Henn, Steve (April 2012)
        <http://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150372288/instagram-sells-for-1-billion-despite-no-revenue>
Instagram Help Page (2011)
       <http://blog.instagram.com/post/8758155131/is-your-business-on-instagram>

E-Marketing and Politics: How Social Media Plays a Giant Role

The 2008 election was the beginning of a new era in politics. Not because there was an African American president in office, but because of a revolutionary tool his campaign used: Social Media. No other presidential candidate has ever been able to realize the full potential of the E-marketing as much as President Obama. Case studies have shown that millions of people supported Obama's online campaigns and that they even brought him millions of dollars in fundraising.

The graph above shows the online support Obama received through social media and other internet platforms. By looking at it you can see that both of these presidential candidates receive millions of viewers on their YouTube videos, and millions of unique website visitors. This doesn't include the ridiculous amount of impressions their ads on both YouTube and Facebook received. 

The real issue with understanding how social media and other forms of E-Marketing change presidential campaigns is seeing the way in which campaigns that attack other candidates. The fact that everything has the ability to go viral isn't necessary a positive thing, the fact that everything has the ability to go viral in a matter of minutes makes it so much easier to spread the word across social networks. A prime example of this is Rick Perry's political campaign, one that I saw crash and burn hours after it was launched. The second his team publicized the some of his campaign commercials it immediately invoked a negative response among the Tumblr community. Whether or not Rick Perry was severely against the Gay Community wasn't even a question anymore, everyone had already spread the word that he was a kind of Gay Community Anti-Christ because he mentioned something along the lines of there being something wrong with the world we live in because of the fact that gays can serve openly in the military. His video was passed around Tumblr with hate messages so much that people began to dislike his ad on YouTube, here's a screen shot of what his video likes and dislikes were at at one point:

Rick Perry's campaign on social media was an example of one that fails, although he one the race in the state he ran for, had he run for president he wouldn't have stood a chance due to the power of social media. As for content going unsupervised one can see an example with this gif image I found on Tumblr. 

On online ad campaigns

It's important to realize how many impression online ads receive through both YouTube and other social media sites. On YouTube ads work very differently than they do on Facebook. Instead of just being an impression on the side of the page, ads on YouTube show in the following way.

Most of the time we are obliged into watching propaganda and political advertisements on YouTube, and while we can skip them after a few seconds the propaganda is done whether the information in the ad is true or not. There are absolutely no barriers to entry when you are making an ad for a social media site. Unless a ton of people report you there are no true boundaries as to what you can put in an ad, as long as you have a working credit card and follow the few guidelines YouTube and Facebook have for their ads that mainly restrict certain products and mimicking their own elements and logos, you're in the clear. 

I believe that a lot of the information put on the internet is based on truth, and it's important to verify sources and check several different reliable sources before jumping to conclusions about anything you see online. Propaganda and politician ad campaigns are never 100% true. It's important to realize that before deciding on what we vote for and what we decide to give our full support. 

For more info on Obama's Presidential Social Media Campaign visit: 

“Applied lessons from the Obama presidential campaign” singlegrain.com Web. 04 Mar. 2012. <http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/social-media-applied-lessons-from-the-obama-presidential-campaign/ >.
"Barack Obama 2012 Campaign"  Huffington PostWeb.04 Mar. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/barack-obama-2012-campaign_n_886280.html>

-B.Bonta

Using Facebook "Questions" Effectively

Sooner or later we will all find ourselves in the predicament where we have to write a "Question" on Facebook to try to gain attention to whatever business or cause we're trying to reach. Occasionally you will write a question that's longer than you expect and you will find yourself in the following situation:

I highly recommend against writing anything other than the question it's self in the "Question" box, simply because it looks cleaner and less cluttered, but sometimes we have to do what we must to direct attention and drive traffic to the page. 

So the real question is, how many characters is the limit before the question cuts off and becomes a "..." "see more" kind of question? 

The answer is: Roughly about 20 words or 100 characters with spaces. 

As long as you're under that cap, your question should be fine.

Now does this mean we should take up all 100 characters? 

No. 

The truth about social media is that your audience has the attention span of a goldfish. Every second they are getting flooded with loads of statuses and updates. In one article by The New York Times they make a point that TV and Radio are getting progressively shorter with time, showing that companies are considering dropping to 5 second television spots to adjust to their consumer attention span (New York Times.)  With that being said about TV and radio, how much attention are you really getting when it comes to posting updates on social media?  Probably a split second while they’re scrolling down their screens. Which is why it’s important to emphasize – Short, Sweet, and to the point.

-Bennett Bonta

References: 


"Commercials Adjust to a Shorter Attention Span" - New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/business/media/08adco.html