Social Networking (Advice from Ariel Hyatt)

My notes from the CD BABY PODCAST #029: Ariel Hyatt - Social Networking Online (re-organized, no necessarily in order)

Participation is MANDATORY! You need to have a PRESENCE, even if you don’t spend loads of time.

Your fans WANT to connect with you! When you don’t social network, you’re not allowing them to connect with you. (whether you have 10 or 10,000)

Making a community online BEFORE meeting them VS. bringing people INTO an online community after meeting them (i.e. at a show)? Be human! Remember that fans want to connect with the random/cool/silly/deep/hobby things about you rather than just you with your marketing hat on.

Larry Sharp: (“How to Make Sales” coach) “Be a Shark in a Sea of Tuna”. Get OUT of your comfort zone, not just hang around musicians, but try some other kind of COMMUNITY that you could relate to personally, and also offer your music services. i.e. go to a food convention to meet restaurant owners, etc. Get creative! REMEMBER its good to put yourself in the position where you’re the ONLY one who does something in a group instead of one of many, because then people in that group will consider you the go-to guy/girl when they need that particular service.

Spyder X (software for Mac ~ $30) – Myspace Friend Adder Bot to find people who have particular interests in particular locations. i.e. find people in DE who say they’re into “The Clash” or interested in gardening, etc.

Social networking is not about YOU! You have to make it about others—whats in it for them? That is how you develop community.


APPROACHING SOMEONE ONLINE

Figure out who you’re trying to approach? i.e. men, women, Jewish, they like Feist, etc.

Making April (Band): Selling 1000 tracks on iTunes/week JUST from Myspace. (article on Ariel's site)
-Identified short list of bands like them (popular)
-Went to those band’s sites, said hi to fans (use their name!), we noticed you’re a big fan of…“people have said we sound like…” “pease come check us out!” *People always believe what OTHER people say about you than what YOU say about yourself (other people say” part is important)
-Daily Bulletin list – every day a silly question – people will interact!
-IM – kept IM open, people will chat
*NOTE TO SELF – maybe try a regular time weekly or something? Video chat? Even ½ hour? “Come and IM me and get…?”
-Had lots of music available for free download. After 18 months, had made a lot of friends by now, took free downloads away, and directed fans to iTunes.

Social Networking should be used to BUILD a list of people who will buy from you in the FUTURE! You need to communicate and get people to trust you before asking for a sale.

You should use ALL of them (as many social networking sites as you can), even if you use certain ones a lot more. ESPECIALLY b/c there are lots of tools you can use to interconnect them (i.e. post a message from twitter to facebook, etc.)

Utterz (Voice Blogging System) [now utterli.com] – call in, talk, record your voice, and put it immediately on your blog! Also announces on Twitter.

Fav 6 FB Apps. (article on Ariels site)

9 Steps to Music Success by Ariel

Lots of articles on Ariel’s site

*NOTE TO SELF – RESEARCH HOW TO USE TWITTER BETTER

Don’t necessarily just look to the BIGGEST sites with millions of people. You might have the best luck at a smaller site that will connect you with the right people for your music and gain you more VALUABLE fans. (Niche marketing) i.e. – Christian communities? WHO would be interested in your kind of music, and WHERE are you most likely to find them?


HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO GO TO YOUR SITES:
-Leave “breadcrumbs”
-Links on CDs, Website, POSTCARDS (hand out at gigs) give out pieces of you, led back to you.
-AT shows: bring clipboard w/ mailing list sign-up. BRIBE them onto your list! (Biz Kicks cards?) free single? – or raffle?
-Before about to play, have people TEXT you – start a text messaging list.
-Mozes.com(free fan-based text massaging email list!)
*BEFORE YOU START PLAYING AT A SHOW – “Please shut off your phones, but before you do, TEXT ME your info and next time I have a show I’ll text you!

Raffle – hold up prize – collect biz cards, or have them fill out a form. Have winner come up on stage and collect their prize!


MYSPACE

-Myspace – 100 million active users
-Guaranteed delivery of MESSAGES (as opposed to lost emails etc.)
-You CAN use myspace to create authentic relationships!
-BUT study, there is some METHOD!
-Bob Baker – Myspace Marketing Guide (interviews a lot of artists)
-Google effective Myspace marketing tips
-Google did a study – the average person waits 3.5 seconds before moving on. Be careful that you don’t have too much on your page to lower loading times.
-Keep it simple and streamlined. Have a LINK to YOUTUBE rather than filling the page with videos.
-Try to make it match your WEBSITE! Make them feel like it runs together.


FACEBOOK

-Much harder to find people that you DON’T know, but the friends in your FB community tend to be much more real. (no bots, etc.)
-Dependable, loads quickly, etc.

Radiohead Lets Buyers Set Own Price (Including FREE!)

From (middle of) the CD Baby Podcast #015 : Roundtable Edition - Can Free Downloads Help Your Career?


Radiohead sold their album on their website, let buyers set their own price, even if it was $0. About 1/3 chose $0, but some paid up to 4 times the list price. (though probably wouldn’t work for indie/not well known musicians.

Live Video Concerts! (An alternative to touring?)

These are my notes from the Stream Your Concerts to the World! CDBaby Podcast #065 (http://cdbabypodcast.com/?p=537)

(Interviewing Matthew Ebel about ustream.com)
Matthew Ebel: http://matthewebel.com/ustream
-Since 2006 been promoting himself mostly online.
-Has been using ustream since 2007.

USTREAM - host LIVE video feeds! (like youtube, but live) http://www.ustream.tv/
-Can be password protected! – sell tickets?
-Can record and save, and DOWNLOAD. (then put on youtube? ☺)
-Live chat room for “audience”
-TALK to the audience, interact!
-Audience can interact with you AND each other, can make REQUESTS.
-You can make someone in the chat a “bouncer” or moderator while you’re playing who can ban troublemakers from posting. You can even make registered ustream members permanent bouncers anytime they’re logged into one of your shows.

Tips from Matthew:

-Try to do a show fairly regularly, or even a scheduled regular time.

-Drive up viewers/sell CDs: - get fans to embed the show on THEIR site. Tell them to have an affiliate program to CDBaby/iTunes/Amazon etc. to sell YOUR CDs, then they make a little money selling your music for you!

-There are sliders for audio quality and video quality. If you crank the quality too high, it will lower the ability of some people to view it properly. (He recommends about 75% video, higher % audio…if I understood correctly) The higher the quality, the higher the bandwidth.

-He uses a Sanio Exacti (sp?) Video camera. (need to use Windows)

-Uses Mainstage (part of Logic Studio), MOTO UltraLite interface

-DEFINITELY has seen an increase in sales from shows. Without fail, has sold at least 1 CD per show, join mailing list, coupon codes for subscription service, check out website.

-You can set up OVERLAYS (like streaming words at the bottom of the screen) that you can turn into links! i.e. “Join my email list and get 3 free songs! Click here!”

Keywords, Keyword Density and Search Engine Optimization

(Full article by Trevor Lyman)
Taken from http://www.musicSUBMIT.com (music promotion index)


Most of you have probably heard the term "keywords" by now and you know that they are important in terms of search engines. But what exactly can keywords do for you and how can they help you get more visitors to your site?

note: When we use the term "keyword" in this article we are NOT talking about "meta-tag" keywords. Instead we are talking about the actual words used in your web page.

What is a Keyword?

Every single word on your web page is a keyword. That means if you have the word "music" on your web page there is a chance you will show up somewhere in the search results for the search term "music".

Keyword Density

If the word "music" occurs several times on your web page you will stand a better chance of showing up higher in the search results than if you only have the word "music" one time. The number of times a word appears on a web page is referred to as it's keyword density.

It's a good idea to keep your keyword density to about 3% to 7%. That means you should have your keywords appear three to seven times for every one hundred words on the page.

Each page on your website should be optimized for only 3 keywords. You shouldn't try to focus on any more than that on one single page. And remember that your index page should be optimized for the three words you feel are most important to you.

Put it Into Action

1- Make a list all the keywords you want to appear in the search results for.

2- Group these words into lumps of three and make a list of each web page you have and what terms you are going to optimize for on that page.

3- Adjust your web pages so each page has the proper keyword density for the three search terms chosen for that page.

4- Save and upload the changes.

Taking these steps will give a huge boost to your search engine rankings. It's well worth your time and effort!

Keywords Density Tool

How can you quickly and easily tell if you have the proper keywords density? Rather than have to count out the words by hand and then perform all kinds of basic math to get percentages there is an easy to use and FREE tool for you here:

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-analysis-tool.shtml

Just type in the web page you want to check and it will give you a list of all the keywords and their keyword densities.