Social Media Management

Let's face it, social media is complicated, especially for a musician who would rather be playing or writing than dealing with something that can be so abstract. It wouldn't be so bad is there was only a single network like MySpace or Twitter to look after, but the fact of the matter is that the typical artist or band has a presence on at least the following:

• MySpace
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Your email list

Plus you could add in Sonicbids, Reverbnation, blogs or any of the nearly 100 other social networks with over a million subscribers.

In order to use these tools efficiently so there's enough time left in the day to make some music, an artist/band needs a strategy to make social media into an effective tool of growing an audience and communicating with them. Social Media Management (SMM) is not only the overall strategy for using all of these social tools, but the way you use them as well.

Here are some of the strategic points that SMM covers:

1) How the email addresses of friends and followers are harvested to a central list
2) Which social media networks will be used and when
3) How the artist/band website integrates with the social networks
4) How social PR (public relations) will be used in conjunction with the social networks
5) How SEO (search engine optimization) will be used in all text copy
6) Crafting and controlling the message
7) Crafting and controlling any additional media
8) Measuring and analyzing the above

In upcoming posts, we'll be looking at the various aspects of social media management and how they can be employed to increase you audience and keep them happy without it taking 20 hours out of your day.