Instagram Now More Effective Than Facebook Reaching Fans

It doesn't matter how large a social network is, it's all about how many of your fans you can reach. That's the message from a study by the research company L2 when evaluating Facebook and Instagram.

It turns out that brands, bands and artists are posting much more content on Instagram these days, mostly because the fan reach is so much greater on that platform. On Facebook, the only way to reach all your fans is to promote your posts, and even then it's debatable if you can reach all of them. On Instagram, their fans will see everything they post.

Although Instagram has only 300 million users as compared to Facebook's 1.3 billion, it doesn't matter much if it costs you too much to grow your fan base. That said, Instagram's audience is growing much faster than Facebook ever did even during it's peak periods of growth.

If you choose to post more on Instagram, there are a few things to remember though:

1. Photos on Instagram perform much better than video, which is the same on all social platforms, even though Facebook is pushing video sharing at the moment.

2. Instagram's Hyperlapse fast-motion feature has fallen out of favor after a big start last year. While it's a cool effect, it's definitely a special effect and using it sometimes makes it difficult to incorporate calls to action.

Social media is a constantly moving target. What works today may not work tomorrow, so you have to be prepared to roll with the trends. That doesn't mean you have to abandon your existing marketing strategy altogether, but it sure helps if you're willing to adapt as needed.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Will The $7.3 Million “Blurred Lines” Verdict Kill Songwriting As We Know It?

The jury awarded the estate of Marvin Gaye more than $7 million today in a copyright infringement decision against artist Robin Thicke and songwriters Pharrell Williams and T.I. over their huge 2013 hit “Blurred Lines.” The jury decided that the song was just too similar to Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give It Up” to be a coincidence, even thought that’s probably exactly what it was.

This is just another example of the blurred line (pun intended) between a copy and an influence that permeates not only modern music, but just about any creative endeavor. 

We’re all influenced by the art and/or craft that we love, and that influence seeps into our every creation whether we like it or not. Sometimes in music it’s totally obvious (the famous George Harrison “My Sweet Lord” vs. “He’s So Fine” by The Chiffons lawsuit), and other times its less so (Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” vs. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”), but with only 12 notes and a limited number of chord progressions that are pleasing to the Western ear, one might think that it’s surprising that there aren’t more lawsuits for copyright infringement than there already are.

Take the blues, for instance. Pick just about any blues album and you’ll find that not only does each song liberally borrow from countless blues songs by countless blues artists before, but even from songs on the same album. 12 bar blues is that for a reason, and although it’s nice when there’s a variation, you won’t find too many artists messing with a formula that’s worked for 75 years. Do we see any copyright infringement suits there? Read more on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

What The Apple Watch Can Do For The Music Business

The tech world is abuzz today with the official release of the Apple Watch, but the music business can look upon it as a possible boon as well. The Watch, which can be considered as either a utilitarian or luxury item, appears to do many things well and by the looks of it, music is one of them.

The music business has always produced plenty of music that it’s customers want, but it’s been each new delivery method that has lead to increased sales. If you look back through history, the music industry turns on a dime with new technology, and there’s one thing that each delivery technology offers - convenience.

For example, the original music business in the late 1800s was built around sheet music and piano rolls, but when the Victrola was introduced in 1901 music lovers discovered a new portability along with the ability to hear their favorite artist any time they wanted. That’s when the music industry as we know it today was born.

Those original records were made of shellac, which were very brittle and prone to breakage, but the industry once again experienced a bump in revenue when the vinyl record was introduced. Vinyl was thinner, lighter and didn’t break as easily. Convenience won again. Read more on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Why Twitter Users Unfollow

Twitter is a major tool for any artist or band, providing major engagement and promotion capabilities. That said, sometimes it's a lot more difficult to keep your followers than it is to add them.

The social media distribution service Buffer did a study to determine why users unfollow someone and they found out that the biggest reason by far is because of too many tweets within a short period of time, or bursts.

Followers don't mind a lot of tweets, but they hate when you seem to be monopolizing their Twitter feed.
Solution - Make sure that you space your tweets by using a tool like Buffer, Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

Other reasons that are fall far behind on the annoyance scale are uninteresting topics, mundane details, and politics.
Solution - Don't post unless you have something to say, and make sure that any details are relevant to the conversation. And unless your music or brand has a political edge, stay away from politics completely as you'll likely lose at least half your audience.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Your Facebook Like Count Could Drop Soon

One thing that you can always count on from social networks and search engines is that they'll tweak their algorithm frequently, and when that happens it can wreak havoc on your follower count or ranking.

Facebook just announced that it recalibrated its algorithm and starting this week, expect your Like count to drop.

The network is calling this a "scrubbing" as it attempts to weed out any deactivated accounts as well as "memorialized" accounts that belong to deceased users that are maintained by friends or family after the user's death.

Not only is it possible that your Like count will decrease, but the comments related to these accounts may get scrubbed too.

For many artists, bands and record labels, Likes are a measure of online success and a growing Like count means a growing audience. The problem is that the count can be deceiving if  you can't reach those fans because they're no longer on the service.

Facebook's scrubbing might make your Like and comment count look different, but it's a better measure of the audience that you have that still exists on the network.

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You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.