Archives for the category ‘Social Media’
February, 7th 2012 20:08
As an artist with a band page or website, wouldn’t it be useful to be able to see how many fans you’re able to reach, or if you have fans in different countries that want to find out more about you? If you haven’t tried these features out before, you’d be surprised at the number of free tools there are online to analyse the statistics of your social media sites – information which you can use to your advantage!
Here are some of the free tools available online which will help you to keep a track on fan analytics.
bitly (http://bitly.com/)
As well as a means for shortening links to fit into tweets, this website also includes a very useful analysis tool. You can create a free account with bitly, add the links that you want to post, and keep track of the statistics of each link.
By accessing the “Analyze” tab at the top of your bitly page, you can see the number of clicks on a daily basis for all the links in your account. You will also be able to see the percentage of referrals from each site, for example your Facebook or Twitter, which will enable you to see which of these has had the most clicks from the links you’ve posted. The Analyze tab also tells you which countries your fans are based.
By entering your bit.ly link followed by a “+” in the address bar of your internet browser (http://bit.ly/xxxx+), or adding “/info/” in the middle of your link (http://bit.ly/info/xxxx) you can also bring up the statistics as above for that particular link too, which is super handy! The “Conversations” statistics also shows you how many tweets and Facebook shares, likes and comments this link has had – another very useful feature.
More information on how to analyse your links on bitly can be found here.
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Tags: analysis, audience insights, bitly, Crowd Booster, demographics, Facebook, Free social media analytical tools, klout, online presence, playback locations, Statistics, subscribers, target recommendations, traffic sources, true reach, YouTube, Zimbalam, Zimbalam backstage
Posted in Social Media | No comment »
December, 15th 2011 17:30
Twitter started to roll out its new look last week, the biggest change of which being Brand Pages. Early screenshots shows examples, they come across as a mix between Google+ and Facebook Pages. So what are the real changes? and when will it be available to use?
Enhancing your profile page
Add a banner to your page -
Customize with your logo, tagline and any other visual branding you please. The banner must be 835 x 90 px
Promote a Tweet-
Have a particular promotion/competition/release you are working on? Simply promote the tweet with this info on so that it stays visible on your page instead of disappearing amid everything else you tweet.
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Tags: American Express, Best Buy, bing, Chevrolet, Coco-Cola, Dell, Disney Pixar, Facebook, General Electric, Google, Heineken, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, JetBlue, Kia, McDonalds, Mission Impossible, Nike, NYSE Euronext, Paramount Pictures, Pepsi, Staples, Subway, Twitter Brand Pages, Verizon Wireless USA
Posted in Social Media | 1 comment »
November, 17th 2011 13:19
Product placement in music videos isn’t a new trend, but it’s certainly an expanding one. MTV used to be the primary place where people could watch videos – but for product placement it was useless as the channel had a ban on obvious plugs. With the invention of the Internet, music lovers had a fast and immediate destination to watch videos – which gave advertisers and labels a chance to benefit by working together.
Back in 2010 American firm PQ Media revealed that revenue from product placement in music videos had doubled in the past ten years, and had increased by $5 million in 2009 alone. The labels now had the outlet and the ability to reach millions of people, and the advertisers were willing to pay big money to be a part of that.
Whether you’re an established artist in the industry or just starting out, product placement can work for you. As an established artist, you can get away with subtly placing well-known brands in your lyrics – take Jamie Foxx for example. In his song ‘Blame It (On The Alcohol)’ he mentions ‘Henne’ – other wise known as Hennessy, and ‘Goose’ as in Grey Goose Vodka. Although this is understated brand placement, it’s placed in the catchy chorus that is repeated, and is the first thing people remember when they think of the song. You’ll find product or brand placements likes these predominantly in urban music, and not all of them are paid for by the advertisers.
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Tags: Beyonce, Blame It On The Alcohol, Britney Spears, coke, Diet Coke, Grey Goose Vodka, Hennessy, I'm Loving It, Jager, Jagermeister, Jamie Foxx, justin timberlake, McDonalds, Monster, MTV, Pepsi, PQ Media, Red Bull, Red Hot Entertainment, Skating, Sunkist, Telephone, The Neptunes, Virgin Mobile, vybz kartel
Posted in Social Media | No comment »
November, 10th 2011 12:42
Google + have added some new features this week that allow a company, band or musician to create a page. While the social network still has some improvements to make, this is definitely a big step in the right direction. So how can Google + work for artists?
Find our page on Google + here
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Tags: band pages, Facebook, Google, Google Analytics, MySpace, Pepsi, search engine, Social Network, The All American Rejects, YouTube, Zimbalam
Posted in Social Media | 1 comment »
October, 20th 2011 14:55
When Facebook announced their music service it raised a great deal of questions and excitement about how this could change the delivery, marketing and purchasing of music online. They seemed to promise to revolutionize the way that people could interact and share music with each other, encouraging new fans for bands and artists.
The basic idea was that on the newly instated timeline ‘ticker’, users could see what friends were listening to, and stream that track straight onto their computer. From this, the listener could then like the artist, or even click a widget to take you through to buy the song – It’s a well-known fact that if a friend recommends something, you are more likely to trust their judgement and give it a try.
- So far, so good, but what happens when the elements that make all this happen smoothly aren’t up to scratch? Facebook Music is, granted, in its infancy, and they are making changes as they go along – but for now there are some issues that are affecting it working well, if at all. (more…)
Tags: Artists, Deezer, Digital Music News, Facebook, Facebook Music, Muscians, Opinion, Rdio, Record Labels, Spotify, stream
Posted in Social Media | No comment »
August, 11th 2011 15:23
So, you have your social media and networking sites all set up, you’re interacting with fans, and your YouTube channel is growing all the time – but there’s something missing: your blog. Your very own website where you can give your fans more content so they can get to know you better; where you can build a brand for yourself, or your band.
Music marketing guru, Bob Baker (who also runs thebuzzfactor.com) states that a blog should be the hub of your online activity, with your social media sites being the out posts – increasing your presence online, but ultimately there to drive traffic back to your own website. Many bands and artists use MySpace for this purpose, but with the uncertainty about whether it will shut down, it’s important to have a website that YOU control the fate of. With a blog, you also get total control over the layout, and the decisions about your branding. On social networking sites, there are many widgets and distractions for people viewing your page, whereas on your blog you can have a personal relationship with your fans without the clutter and competition that social media sites have.
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Tags: Band, Blog, Blogspot, Bob Baker, Brand, Content, Email Grabber, gigs, Hosting, Marketing, music, MySpace, News, Self-Hosting, Social media, thebuzzfactor.com, Traffic, Tumblr, twitter, Video Diaries, Wordpress
Posted in Industry Advice, Social Media | No comment »
August, 4th 2011 16:38
At the YouTube Partners MeetUp in New York in June, Ryan Nugent of YouTube’s NextUp Lab gave a presentation on the YouTube’s Partner Playbook – ways to optimise people finding your video by using metadata correctly. Here are our top 5 tips to get your views up on YouTube, and make it easier for people to find you, and your wonderful musical sounds.
YouTube is the the second biggest search engine in the world, which means that in terms of success and reach online, it’s very important that artists understand how to use the tools it offers effectively, optimizing the chance of people finding their videos.
Speaking at the presentation event last month, Ryan Nugent said that, “Fifty per cent of the work is making a great video, and the other fifty per cent is what you do when you upload it”, meaning that even if you have a brilliant video, people aren’t going to find it unless you get the metadata side of it correct.
Let’s start by clearing up a few terms – ‘metadata‘ simply means the title, tags and description of your video. It’s paramount that these are all used in the most effective way, so that your video can be easily found in a search.
Now, because YouTube is a part of Google, it uses Google ‘algorithms‘ , which basically means when someone searches for a keyword(s) on YouTube, it trawls through all the titles, tags and descriptions of every video on the site, and returns the most relevant results to the viewer. Therefore it’s very important to get your keywords correct, to optimise your video coming up in search results.
So, here are the top five ways that artists can use metadata to optimize their YouTube views: (more…)
Tags: Algorithm, Annotations, Artists, Bands, Common, Description, Insight, Keywords, Metadata, Music Video, Optimize, Ryan Nugent, seo, Specific, Tags, Thumbnail, Titles, Tools, Video, Views, YouTube
Posted in Industry Advice, Social Media | 9 comments »
July, 29th 2011 16:14
Continuing on from the previous post, in part 2 at our look into social media sites we’ll be casting our eye over twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn, to see what they bring to the table.
Twitter. Although reports show that Facebook is better than twitter for connecting with fans, twitter is still one of the main three (the other being MySpace) social media sites to have.
- Song.ly – Twitter has some great add-ons that are useful to artists, one of these being song.ly. This app allows users to type in a song title or link, and then post it as a tweet. This allows people to listen to your music, or a song you like, without having to download it -meaning exposure for your music.
- Tweetdeck – Allows artists to schedule updates for the days you’re not near a computer/are too busy playing amazing music. TIP – scedule a tweet in the middle of a gig asking people to tweet back requests. Instant audience participation right there
- Twitterfeed – also a good thing to use, as it automatically updates a new blog post or an RSS feed to twitter. Simple.
- ‘@’ tweet and re-tweet – The power of the ‘@’ tweet and the re-tweet are also not to be underestimated. Or actually just the power of the tweet in general. The minimum you should tweet is 2-3 times a day, but people who have the most followers tweet 22 times a day – you probably want to aim somewhere in the middle. Follow people that you want to network with so you’re on their radar, and re-tweet a lot of what other people say/news/funny tweets etc.
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Tags: LinkedIn, Musicians, MySpace, Search Optimisation, Sites, Social Ntworks, Song.ly, Tweetdeck, twitter, Twitterfeed, Virtual Networking
Posted in Industry Advice, Social Media | 2 comments »
July, 28th 2011 17:26
Last week we imparted our wisdom on the top 10 mistakes that artists make on social media. Following on from that post, this week we’re focusing on the five main social media sites out there, with today’s post being about seasoned pro Facebook, and newcomer Google+. Tomorrow we’ll be giving an overview of the other social networks out there, and what they can offer up to artists.
With the addition of Google+ to the already diverse social media market - and speculation over Facebook ‘Vibes’ - what social networking sites offer the most to artist, by way of tools and features, in terms of promoting yourself online?
Speculation has been rife across the media that Facebook will be adding a streaming, and possibly downloading, service, potentially called ‘Vibes’. A hacker, who goes by the name of Jeff Rose, claims on his blog to have discovered an indication of this new service in html coding for the new video calling app launched by Facebook three weeks ago. If Rose’s revelations are true, and Facebook does in fact go the route of offering a download service, it could rocket the social network into competition with iTunes and Amazon for the top downloading provider. Originally it was rumoured that Facebook’s ‘Music Dashboard’ would be a partnership with Spotify, but new reports from Giga OM suggest that it will be a collaboration with lots of different providers. (more…)
Tags: Amazon, circles, Daria Musk, Facebook, Facebook Connect, Facebook Vibes, Giga OM, Google, Google Music, Hangouts, iTunes, Social media, Social Network, Zimbalam Player
Posted in Industry Advice, Social Media | 5 comments »
July, 21st 2011 14:06
If you followed last week’s advice, you should have the format of your newsletters sorted. This week, we’re focusing on the mistakes that artists make when using social media. It’s not enough to just have facebook, twitter and MySpace – there’s a great deal more that you have to do to ensure that your online presence is successful.
So, here are the most common errors that artists make on social media, and how to fix them:
- Not providing basic information – You have all your pages, complete with videos, pictures and updates, but when it comes to the most basic, but essential, information, your lacking. Your fans want to feel like they know you, not just what you do. You need to include full names of all members, what you all play, where you come from, and when you started. If you haven’t got the simplest of information, it will keep your fans at a distance- not good for holding down a fan base
- Not creating connections – It’s important that you connect with your fans. Not doing so will massively decrease your chances of new fans joining, and of maintaining your following. People want to feel like you care about them – not having a community in your fans will put people off and will stop your fans generating new ones. Create a community where fans can speak to you and each other – whether that be a topic discussion on facebook or replying on twitter. Not having a relationship with your fans is a massive mistake, as they’re the ones that will get you where you want to be.
- Not writing about yourselves – You’re in a band! Its interesting! Don’t just write about upcoming gigs and post links to buy new tracks. For the same reason as giving your fans your basic information, they want to feel like they’re part of something – so let them know what you’ve been up to, in the studio, on tour, or just in general. A great way to do this is a blog. It’s as essential as a facebook or twitter account for keeping fans up-to-date. (more…)
Tags: Blog, Creating connections, Facebook, fanbase, links, mistakes made on social media, MySpace, niche market, Social media, twitter, website, Wordpress
Posted in Industry Advice, Social Media | 6 comments »
