Breaking Into The Music Industry Through The Social Media

From www.dearartiste.com

Written by 4LaH



Breaking into the music industry has changed, and artistes no longer need to rely on getting record contracts before making a career out of their art. Technology has made everything so much easier. Electronic media distribution as well as social networking has taken over the industry in a big way. In this article, we will focus on how social media can help you break into the industry with ease.

CONSIDER WHICH SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES TO USE

MySpace used to be the social networking site of choice for most upcoming artistes. The once popular site has been attributed to launching the careers of Lily Allen and Soulja Boy, as well as boosting sales of already established artists. But, MySpace dropped 10 million unique visitors at the start of 2011, bringing users down to 63 million compared to Facebook's 500 million users.

As an upcoming act, you need to be on Facebook and Twitter. It's really important that you're accessible because you need to be closer to your fans and interact with them. These days, you can't afford to ignore your fans. Every facebook friend or twitter follower is a potential fan.

You should also know that beyond facebook and twitter, special music sites like ReverbNation or Bandcamp, is also a great way to promote and share your music electronically.

CREATE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

There are several applications on facebook that you can use to build a special Band Page where artists can upload not only information, but also add tracks (with the option for fans to listen, download and buy) The app lets you pull in your Twitter feed, as well as YouTube videos, making it the easiest way for your fans to get what they need in one place. Using Facebook means that your fans can also share your content with friends, spreading word of mouth about you, and helping to increase your chance of breaking into the music industry.

SHARE AND ENGAGE

You should get into the habit of uploading your songs and engaging your fans. ask for feedback, discuss inspiration behind the song, answer questions and be ready to engage in conversations with your fans.


"Social networks are a huge platform for artistes these days , especially if you are unsigned and doing everything yourself."

You also need to keep it in mind that Social media rapidly changes and your tactics one month may be completely wrong three months down the line. So you need to be constantly updated about what is going on in the industry and be aware of the necessary changes. keeping an eye on both the music scene and the social media scene means you'll be well placed to succeed.

According to Claire Field, here are ten top tips on how to break into the music industry using social media:

1. Research what sites you want to use based on your music style, fan base and goals. See a solid run down of available sites here.

2. Create your Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and, if you see fit, a MySpace page – whatever sites you think will be most engaging with your fans.

3. Devise a strategy for your social media presence and stick to it. You may be on tour playing gigs, but with smartphones there's no excuse for not interacting with your fans.

4. Write blog posts, upload videos and share exclusive content with those fans who like your page. These are great ways to keep fans engaged and interested in your music.

5. Keep an eye out for competitions that will gain you exposure and therefore more fans.

6. Fans also like competitions – run competitions of your own offering out signed photos or CDs.

7. Don't become too big for your boots – so you've got some fans and things are going well, but that doesn't mean you can stop posting and engaging. Content is key. Sure, you're not expected to release a new song every day, but sharing an anecdote or link you like will stop your fans from unfollowing you.

8. It's not just sharing, you also need to interact. It may not be possible to reply to every fan, but replying to some is better than none, as is posting out general shout-outs to all of your fans.

9. Build up ties with other emerging artists. Recommending someone else's music won't lose your fans – it can only gain you both fans if other bands recommend you. Make the most of networking!

10. When you do make it, it doesn't mean you can stop using social media. Remember, nothing positive will come out of ignoring your fans, whether you have ten fans or ten million.

REFERENCES: thenextweb.com, articles by Claire Feild

Restaurant Social Media Marketing Results In The Flesh

By Jason Yormark from www.business2community.com

I’ve worked on my fair share of social media campaigns, and every once in awhile, a project comes my way that I have an extra ounce of vested interest in making a success. A few months ago I had the honor of taking on doing some social media consulting for one of my favorite local restaurants Emory’s, a fine dining establishment north of Seattle and in my neck of the woods. I’ve been a regular there for some time, and had a good friend that opened up the door for me to work with them.

Emory’s has an interesting history as the original building actually burned to the ground a few years ago and was completely rebuilt and re-launched. It’s a fantastic restaurant right off a small lake, and their are very few options like it in the area. Good food, great environment, and fantastic service. They were doing good business, but wanted to ensure they didn’t suffer from the same early year drops in business.

They turned to social media as an area to focus on and I had the opportunity to craft and implement a plan for them. The plan consisted of:

1. Give their FB page creative a facelift


2. Create and launch a promotion


3. Use a FB ad campaign ($500 budget for Feb) to target users within a 10 mile radius of the restaurant to promote a gift card giveaway to increase FB likes.


4. Increase their Twitter reach by identifying users within close proximity of the restaurant.


5. Re-vamp their engagement/content strategy to incorporate more interaction, photos of food/daily specials, and highlighting nightlife events.


6. Re-design their website to include a blog and better social integration.

We launched all this work at the beginning of February and within 1 month achieved the following results:

1. Grew FB likes from 1,200 to over 6,000


2. Over a 1500% increase in engagement (combination of likes, shares and comments on wall postings)


3. Grew Twitter following from 30 to over 1,200 targeted users

And the absolute most important stat:

1. Grew restaurant guest count rate in March 1.7% over previous year after an 8% decrease in January, and 6% decrease in February.

Emory’s overall was projecting a 5% decrease in guest count for 2012, mainly as they had a good 2011 being the first year post fire. However by putting a small investment in time and money into social media, they were able to turn around negative guest count rates, into a positive one by the 2nd month of the campaign. I also predict that if they continue with the momentum and utilize these strategies, they can expect staying in the positive with guest counts, or at the very least, leverage social media to counter the doldrums they are accustomed to experiencing during certain times of the year.

The moral to this case study is that social media can work, especially for restaurants within a budget that can be profitable. And it is extremely measurable.

Predicting the Next Social Media Trend Using Social Media Analytics

Posted from www.SocialMediaToday.com

Track Social's Social Media Zone is a portal for assessing the activity of all Social Media Brands on the major platforms - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

We looked at the leaders in Audience Growth Rate in order to predict what might be the next big thing in Social. Some of the growth leaders you've probably heard about in the news, others maybe not.

Social growth measures how many new connections a brand is making across the already well-established social media platforms.

In other words, how well are these new social utilities leveraging their visibility on more established social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in order to spread their name, generate buzz and sign-up new members?

Track Social's Social Media Zone shows the Social Brand Map, which plots how social media sites are performing on, well, social media. The color of the balls represents how quickly it is growing - with red and orange indicating hot and fast growth. This means the hottest social sites are establishing new connections with online users faster than the rest of the pack. Only 5 social media sites out of our list of 147 can claim rights to a sizzling hot ball - here's the top 5 in social growth rate:

1. Instagram: Humans. Love. Photos.

We love taking them. Looking at them. Sharing them. And of course, digitally tweaking them so we appear to be much better photographers than we actually are.

At least that was the great insight of Instagram founders who are now a cool billion dollars richer thanks to Facebook’s recent acquisition of the uber-popular photo sharing app now downloaded by over 50 million mobile users.

So now that Instagram has officially joined with the Zuckerburg and company, how is it using Facebook to engage with fans and recruit new users?

Instagram posts on Facebook are mainly re-posts from its official Instagram blog, which offers creative thematic challenges for the community, inviting users to submit their instagram-ed photos related to specific themes.

One regular challenge, the Weekend Hashtag Project, recently invited submissions for vacant places and empty chairs. These posts highlight the usefulness and uniqueness of Instagram’s app - no wonder Instagram is on track to hitting 100 million users.

On Twitter, Instagram has managed to rack up over 3 million followers. This is largely due to Instagram’s auto-follow policy. If you use Twitter to distribute an Instagram photo, you’re essentially agreeing to “follow” Instagram. And while that might make it easier to get people signed up, keeping that audience requires facilitating engagement through fun, regular challenges the Weekend Hashtag Project.

Instagram owes a lot to Twitter for popularizing both the format and language of a “sharing community”: “Feeds” and “Followers” are common to both and this overlap helps account for the large number of users who routinely use Twitter to distribute the photos they take with Instagram – a partnership we expect will continue to grow – unless Facebook decides otherwise.

[And just for good measure, the immanently shareable Pets of Instagram.]

2. MyYearbook: Engineering Serendipity

A recent marketing piece from one of MyYearbook’s co-founders helps define this new kind of social network as an alternative to traditional online dating sites. What makes them stand out from all the other dating sites? MyYearbook stands behind the idea that people prefer to start out as friends before jumping into a romantic relationship. According to the company, MyYearbook has signed up over 33 million members since 2005 - meaning over 33 million people are also on board with this idea.

The rise of social networks and the ubiquity of mobile devices have given way to a new crop of mobile social networks – the Meeting Networks – which threatens to eat the dating industry’s $4 billion lunch by making them a subset of a larger “meet new people” space.

Notice whose lunch they are not out to eat: Facebook’s. In fact, MyYearbook offers a “one click” registration if you sign in through your Facebook account, a clear indication they’re staking out a different kind of social media territory.

Call them Meeting Networks, call them Social Discovery Sites, MyYearbook attempts to connect people through playing online games, sharing videos, and giving virtual gifts (via an online currency called “Lunch Money” – we’re not making that up). It’s a space intended to facilitate new connections that might ultimately lead, according to satisfied customer “Mike, 33” to finding your “soulmate.” Mazel tov, Mike.

3. Pinterest: Come ye pinners.

Our number 3 seemed to have blown up overnight, so it's no surprise that their significant audience growth has also given them office growth.

Technically, Pinterest is not just a photo-sharing site. It invites users (called pinners) to create boards where they can “pin” anything of interest they find on the web. If you've been living in a dark hole or haven't noticed yet, there has been a storm of "Pin It" share button that has hit so many sites - making it easy for internet browsers to quickly pin away.

Pinners compile collections on an infinite number of topics: wedding planning, say, or recipes. Or physics. It’s an organizer’s dream. If your users are mining the internet for cool stuff, some of those “pins” might just stir some buzz. A Dirty Dancing Page, for example, received over 13,000 LIKES on Facebook. As we stated earlier with Instgram, humans love photos.

4. Bebo: Didn’t AOL pay $850 million for this?

Sure did. After buying Bebo for $850 million in 2008, AOL unloaded the networking site in 2010 for $10 million. Bebo may have originally been conceived as an alterative and rival to Facbook but those ambitions (delusions?) seem to have been left behind. These days, Bebo is trying to occupy the same space as MyYearbook – with a dedicated dating site attached and you guessed it - its own gaming outlet. It looks like users are looking for a space where they can combine the perks of both Facebook and MyYearbook - which steers them toward our number 4 - Bebo.

5. Scoop.it: Make your own magazine

Scoop.it is an online content curation platform allowing users to create their own blog-like spaces that allows you to pull content from all over the web and re-publish it into attractive templates. Effectively, you become the editor of your own online magazine. It’s part of the mash-up movement the web has sparked, repurposing, remixing and re- contextualizing content into something new.

Scoop.it is promising because of the nature of their service. Just like Pinterest, Scoop.it offers users an easy way to collect and curate the things they discover online. Spotlighting some user-generated gems might be a great way to attract Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers, as well as showcasing the value of the app itself.

Rounding out our top 10 social media sites and apps with the highest growth rates are:

6. reddit
7. Buffer
8. Bit.ly
9. Draugiem.lv
10. Hacker News

Outsourcing Social Media

From www.WindMillNetworking.com

Ways to Ensure Peace of Mind When You Outsource Social Media

 By Courtney Ramirez

Coming to the decision to outsource social media isn’t easy. But once your organization decides it’s the right move in order to maintain consistency and grow your presence online, there’s a lot you can do to confidently get the help that your company needs.

When you pay attention to these four areas, you’ll experience better results with outsourced social media and help your outsourcing team provide you with great service.

Establish Benchmarks and Know Where You’re Coming From

Before your company even begins looking for outsourcing solutions, you need to take a clear look at your current social presence and results. A consultant or outsourcing team will need to know how you’re currently performing so they can help you improve your results.

Taking a look at your current results and benchmarks will also help you understand what type of help your company needs. If you’re very active on social media but aren’t seeing the results you expect, you need to bring in a team or consultant that specializes in engagement rather than page or profile launches.

Understand the Contract and Know What Your Responsibilities Are as a Client

Before the project starts, you’re obviously going to read the contract so you understand what services you’ll receive. But as you go over the contract you need to take note of the responsibilities that your organization will have at the start of the project and while the project continues.

All professional consultants will need information and resources in order to get started. They’ll want to know about your goals, your objectives with social, your existing stats and other important benchmarks. This should be outlined in the contract or in the supporting documents that accompany the start of your outsourcing project.

If you and your team are prepared to give the outside social media experts what they need, the launch of your project will be a lot smoother.

Get Your Team on Board with the Social Media Outsourcing

One of the biggest problems with any type of outsourcing, social media outsourcing included, is smoothing the transition between in house and outsourced services. Even if you’re just having consultants come in to refine and perfect your approach to social, there can be some ruffled feathers.

Before the outsourcing service begins, be sure that anyone involved on your side of the fence is fully invested in what you are going to be doing. Share the benefits of the outsourcing service. Help everyone understand how it will increase your company’s success with social and streamline internal resources.

Manage Your Expectations for Outsourcing

When you outsource social media training and begin implementing that training in house, don’t expect the world overnight. It’s very common to have a pent-up demand for social media. Your company may have been waiting for expertise in the area or made limited investments up until the point you decide to outsource.

If either of these is the case, it is going to take time for the social media team and your internal team to get the ball rolling in an efficient and effective way. Don’t try to do too much at once and manage your expectations of how much your team can handle and what results you can expect.

With these four areas, you can make the outsourcing process efficient, effective and as stress free as possible.

Have you outsourced social media training or services? What made the difference between a successful experience and a frightful one?

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This monthly Social Media Outsourcing column is contributed by Courtney Ramirez. Courtney is a content marketing consultant and SEO Copywriter. As owner and head copywriter at Six Degrees Content she creates optimized web pages, blog posts and other online content pieces for companies in both B2B and B2C industries