Radiohead Erases Its Online Presence

Radiohead has always been groundbreaking when it comes to their online presence (the "pay what you want" campaign for In Rainbows being a prime example), but now it's entered some new territory by slowly but effectively erasing its entire online presence.

Yes, that's right. It's pretty hard to find any trace of Radiohead online right now.

There are no longer any Facebook posts or tweets on the band's accounts, and singer Thom Yorke has deleted his tweets as well. The band's Google Plus account is now blank too. And most bizarre is that its website has been slowly fading away as the opacity has decreased until it too went totally blank.

Then over the weekend, fans received postcards from the band via old fashioned snail mail that simply said, "Sing the song of sixpence that goes 'Burn the witch'."

There's speculation that there's a new Radiohead album about to be released since the band registered a new company called Dawn Chorus LLP in February. Previous to the the band's In Rainbows and The King of Limbs albums, the band also established companies in their names.

So there's a new album coming, and we can be pretty sure that won't be online, since the band has long shown it's contempt for streaming. It should be interesting to see exactly what the marketing play is this time.

Update: The band reappeared this morning with a couple of short animated clips on Instagram, then a new music video presumably from their new album on its website.

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Facebook Finally Launches Its Version Of Content ID

Content creators have been complaining for months that many of their YouTube videos have been showing up on Facebook posted by someone else - an action called "freebooting."

In an effort to alleviate the situation, Facebook has now officially launched its version of YouTube’s Content ID called Rights Manager. 

This is an admin tool for Facebook Pages that lets them upload video clips, then monitors Facebook news feeds for copies of these videos that might be later illegally posted to Facebook. It can then either automatically report them as violations to be deleted or notify the original publisher.

Rights Manager allows copyright owners to set up whitelists of Pages that are allowed to distribute their videos, and upload unpublished videos they don’t want anyone else using even if they haven’t posted them themselves.

It will also show what Page posted a video, how many views it has gotten, and sort alerts about freebooting by these parameters, too.

Live videos can be monitored as well, which is designed to prevent people from rebroadcasting pay-per-view TV content like boxing matches, which has become a huge issue that has put Periscope in the television industry's crosshairs.

Rights Manager isn’t available to all Facebook users yet, although content owners can now apply for access.

Interestingly, there's been no discussion about monetizing Facebook videos yet, although it seems like only a matter of time now that Rights Manager is in place.

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Keep Your Eye On These Next 3 Social Trends

Social media is the lifeblood of so many artists, bands, musicians and record labels in terms of engaging and growing their fanbases. That means it's important to stay current on the latest developments so you don't get left behind.

With that in mind, there are 3 new trends in social media that are really heating up that you should keep an eye on, according to Kevan Lee of of the social posting tool Buffer in a post on thenextweb. Look out for the following:

1. Purchasing items directly from your News Feed.
We're already seeing this on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest where your fan can make a purchase from within the app, which means she's avoided linking to the multiple steps in an external shopping cart and possibly losing the sale. Facebook has also been testing a Buy button for more than a year, and is slowly rolling it out to a specific group of advertisers.

One of the downsides of News Feed purchasing in the current crop of social platforms is that you usually need to be involved with a third part app like Shopify, Stripe or Gumroad to use as a payment processor/gateway, but if you're selling merch online already, chances are that you're already connected.

2. Custom social networks at work.
Companies are beginning to see the advantage of having their own internal social networks. The thought being that if employees are going to be on social media during the workday anyway, the company might as well have some control over it. Facebook at Work is the first network to jump into this game with a customized work version, but expect others to follow.

There are still a lot of unknowns here, but the trend is worth watching since it could affect the timing of your posts. In other words, it might be better to wait until after 5PM when people are away from their work networks so you can catch them on their personal networks. On the other hand, a work network might be able to be penetrated by a certain type of post, which then gives you the inside track at engagement. We'll know more as it rolls out.

3. How to reach people who aren't checking their feeds.
Social media is more broadcast while messaging is more personal. Many people prefer messaging because there are no algorithms involved, nor are there ads. As messaging becomes more popular, the influence of social lessens, as does your ability to reach your fans who depend less on a social platform. But what would happen if you could broadcast to a group of fans over a messaging app? Whatsapp has already started something like this with a newsletter that is broadcast to a wide group of people, and Everlane for Facebook allows a broadcast over Messenger.

The upside of this is that it gives your fans another way to hear from you if you give them multiple options when subscribing. The downside is that it can definitely clutter up a service with unwanted messages.

Many of the social distribution companies are also trying to wrap their heads around this one, but the hope is (at least from me) that messaging stays private. Don't be surprised if ads start to pop up in places that you never expected though.

(Photo: Sebastiaan ter Burg via Flickr)

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How Gen Z Is Using Social Media

Gen Z is coming of age and they have a whole different take on communication than the generations before. Gen Z is generally defined with birth years ranging from the mid or late 1990s through the early 2010s or starting from the early 2000s.

A study by the college marketing insights agency Fluent examined the online active of Gen Zers and found a number of interesting points.

• Facebook is still the top network for many users. 51% use the platform for keeping in touch with high school friends and family, while 39% used it for keeping in touch with college friends. Gen Zers like the fact that the platform keeps on top of new technical trends like messaging and video.

• Snapchat and Instagram were used to keep in touch with closer friends, particularly at college. 34 and 35% used Snapchat and Instagram several times a day.

• They spend their time online looking for content rather than social interaction.

• 24% sample new apps every month.

• YouTube is a major destination with 80% of respondents.

• That said, Facebook has become a major video destination as well for 79% of respondents.

• 32% watched at least 1 hour of video a day, 30% watched 2 hours a day, and 21% watched 3 hours a day.

• They cannot live without the following brands in order of popularity: Apple, Samsung, Google, Netflix, YouTube.

Notice that Twitter isn't a part of the social mix. This goes to show that pictures and video are a big part of the Gen Z lifestyle, so if you're fan base is in this demographic, this is something to strongly consider in future marketing campaigns.

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Facebook Integrates Spotify Into Messenger

Facebook and Spotify are trying to make it easier for fans to share your songs. The latest version of Facebook Messenger now incorporates a button so you can quickly jump to Spotify to choose a song and then share it in the message.

While on the surface this seems like a great idea, the problem is that the integration isn't as seamless as expected.

It's a bit clunky to get to Spotify, although once there it's pretty easy to select the song you want. The real problem is for the person receiving the message, since the tiny "Open" button beneath the image isn't totally obvious. Once clicked, it then sends you to the Spotify app so you can listen to the song there.

Both companies are quick to point out that this is only an early version and the implementation will be refined over time.

Any time a social platform can be combined with streaming music distribution it's a good thing for both consumers and artists. Word of mouth is still one of the most popular music discovery methods, and anything that extends that is most welcome when it comes to social media.

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Facebook Encourages Ads With No Audio

There are a lot of videos on Facebook and many of those are ads. Facebook has now decided that your ad begin without audio so that you don't annoy the viewer or those around her, so it now encourages that you design your ads with the sound off.

It's been found that 80% of people react negatively when a video ad pops up and blasts the sound, and that reflects not only on the ad, but Facebook as well. That's why it's now incorporated new tools to help advertisers out with their silent ads.

It now offers a new automated caption tool for videos to help give context to an ad that's scrolling in your feed without sound. What's more, the caption tool learns and becomes more accurate over time, although the advertiser has the ability to review and edit the captions before posting.

The problem is that a study found that 41% of the video ads on Facebook were meaningless without sound, that's why it's now encouraging advertisers to rethink their ads to work minus the audio.

You may be advertising a gig or a new release, so keep this in mind before you post.

Here's more from Facebook that explains how the new capturing feature works.

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Facebook's Still Growing

Recently there have been reports that not only has Twitter use peaked, but it's even beginning to fall, with active users dropping from 330 million down close to 200 million.

That's a good example of what typically happens with social networks, where they're hot for a few years and then replaced with something newer and hipper.

The exception so far is Facebook, which continues to grow despite predictions that its use plateaued long ago. Indeed, it's active users are now up to 1.59 billion, and incredibly, still growing.

Facebook shared the following statistics regarding it's growth (especially in advertising) in an email to SocialTimes:

• There are more than 43 billion connections between people and businesses on the social network.

• Southeast Asia is the fastest-growing region, and the top five countries in terms of year-over-year growth were the U.S., Brazil, the U.K., Italy and Australia.

• 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook per day.

• There are 1 billion users on Facebook Groups.

• 80 million users on Facebook Lite.

• 500 million users on Events and 123 million events were created in 2015.

• More than 1 million advertisers on Facebook are creating ads via mobile devices.

• More than 20 million active pages are using the social network’s Pages application.

• More than 70 percent of Facebook’s 3 million-plus advertisers are outside of the U.S.

• More than 50 million small and midsized businesses are currently using Facebook pages, and more than 80 percent of the social network’s users in the U.S. are connected to SMBs. More than 2.5 billion comments are posted on those pages each month.

• The top three verticals building Facebook pages are services, local commerce and e-commerce.

You may find that more of your fans are currently on other platforms, but ignore Facebook at your own peril.

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Bandpage Is Acquired By YouTube

Bandpage, the app that allows artists to monetize their followings, has been acquired by YouTube for a fire sale price of $8 million.

The app allows artists to set up a store and syndicate it to numerous social media and streaming platforms.

Bandpage started as an app to create a special tab on an artist's Facebook page, and had about 32 million users when Facebook shut that feature down in 2012. The company reportedly lost 90% of its traffic in 3 months.

The app then disconnected from a single platform, instead allowing artists to syndicate their pages or stores to most of the artist-friendly platforms available instead.

The company claims to have over 500,000 users, among them superstars like Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake.

Investors had poured over $32 million into the app, so a sale of only $8 million is somewhat surprising. It should be interesting to see how YouTube integrates it, especially now that the YouTube Red service has launched.

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Rumors Untrue - Twitter Not Changing To Facebook-Like Newsfeed

Twitter was in a panic last week as rumors circulated that the service was moving towards an algorithm-based feed that would select which tweets you see instead of by the time posted as they are now. The company's president, Jack Dorsey, has now made an official announcement denying the rumor, stating that it's trying to make it "feel more, not less, live."

In Facebook, an algorithm selects the posts that you see in your Newsfeed by how popular they are and how relevant they are to you, which means that you miss around 98% of the things posted by your friends and followers.

With Twitter, you see everything posted by those that you follow, but chances are that you won't want to dig back through a few hours or more of tweets, so usually the ones seen are the most recent.

A change to an algorithm would mean that tweets would be selected for you based upon your preferences and viewing habits, which means that the element of live news would be somewhat replaced. Thankfully, that's not the case as the company says it has no intentions of changing.

This is a big deal if you're using Twitter for promotion in that the Facebook algorithm means that only around 2 to 3% of your friends and followers are seeing your posts, unless you pay to promote them.

This is a good move for Twitter in that its user numbers have flattened at around 300 million, and the last thing that it needed was any controversy that might have caused users to flee to another service.

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UPDATE: It turns out that Twitter introduced the algorithm anyway, but it's not turned on initially. Users can choose to turn it on in their preferences, but this might change over time where it defaults to on and users can choose to turn it off.

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7 Tips For Publishing Facebook Videos

Facebook is becoming more and more a force when it comes to online videos, so it's important that you optimize your videos for the platform in order to get the most out of them.

Here are 7 tips from Facebook video product manager Anaid Gomez-Ortigoza for get the most out of your post.

1. Schedule your videos so the most fans see it and the content stays fresh.

2. Set expiration dates to help with any licensing restrictions.

3. Add captions to tell your story without sound, since many viewers watch the video with the audio turned off.

4. Edit and manage your videos with Facebook's video library tools.

5. Take advantage of Facebook's embedded video player to be able to embed them on other platforms.

6. Utilize secret videos that must be accessed through a dedicated URL so they're only available to fans.

7. Track your metrics, especially your top videos, engagement and retention graphs.

Facebook videos allow you to reach more of your audience without have to pay for the privilege, so they're a powerful way in extending your brand and growing your audience.

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Facebook To Release A Live Streaming Feature

A feature that many artists, bands and labels have been asking Facebook for is live streaming, and it looks like it's coming soon.

This has been something available to big "verified" brands for a long time, but now the company is beginning to beta test a version that will be rolled out to all users in 2016.

Facebook has been under some minor pressure from Periscope and Meerkat, although their 12 million users combined pales when compared to FB's 1.5 billion. That said, the company hates to be left out of anything related to social media sharing, so look for a new icon to pop up allowing for the live streaming option soon.

Beta testers have found that you'll be able to see both the people that are currently viewing your broadcast as well as the real-time comments.

Facebook's live streaming is different from other platforms in that you'll be able to specify exactly who will be able to see it. That means that you can designate your broadcast to be seen just by your fans, followers, a group, or even a small group of friends or family.

The other thing that separates the upcoming FB feature is that it will live indefinitely in your stream, unlike the limited lifetime for both Periscope and Meerkat.

One disadvantage is that your broadcast can only be seen on Facebook, unlike other platforms where the broadcast can be shared on other networks. With 1.5 billion potential viewers, that doesn't seem like much of a limitation though.

Look out for this new feature in early 2016.

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Facebook Launches Music Stories Post Format

Facebook has launched a new feature that helps users share and discover new music called "Music Stories."

Music Stories is a new post format that allows people to listen to a 30 second preview of a shared song. The preview is streamed from either Apple Music or Spotify, and can be either purchased from or saved to the streaming service.

The previews are available directly from Facebook, but if you want to hear more you can click through to the streaming service.

To use the feature, just copy the link to the song or album, then post it to your status update box. This creates a preview that others can interact with. An animated spinning record with a pause button shows as the track is played.

This is a great way for artists and bands to get their music in front of their Facebook fans, and is a tool that can be especially valuable on an artist's profile page.

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Facebook Lead Ads Make Growing Your Email List Easier

Facebook is introducing a new feature to advertisers called Lead Ads. This feature makes it easier for a viewer to sign up for a newsletter, event or more information.

Until Lead Ads, an artist would have a link on a Facebook ad or page that would go to a separate landing page with an opt-in form in order to get someone to sign up for a mailing list.

With Lead Ads, when someone clicks on the ad, a form opens with the person's contact info automatically populated, based on the info they've already shared with Facebook.

This makes the form as easy as two taps, one to open the form and the second to submit, making it far easer to sign up. As we all know, the easier it is to fill out the form, the more likely that you'll get that person to opt in.

There have been a number of large companies already testing this feature like Oracle, Marketing Cloud and SalesForce, and all have found this to be more effect than the previous link on the ad to the landing page method.

You have to log into the Facebook Power Editor to take advantage of the Lead Ads feature. Here's a link to the Facebook page with more info, including a quick video on how it works.

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10 Best Facebook Practices For Artists And Bands

Facebook is one of the best social networks for artists and bands, but execution is everything in order to take full advantage of it. Mashable ran a great article about the 10 best practices for bands, and you can read the article here, but what follows is an abridged version with mostly my comments.

1. Reach out to other artists. Ask a band whom you’re tight with to post your new music video/track/album art to their wall with a link back to your Facebook Page, and remember to return the favor. This is one of the best ways to use the network to expand your audience.

2. Take your fans backstage. Everyone loves to see behind the scenes, but fans are especially interested. It might seem insignificant to you, but any kind of backstage access is a big deal to them.

3. Go beyond the music. As I've said many times before, music is your marketing, but don't forget to make available any merch or touring info. That said, don't try to sell to your fans, just make it easily available if they want it.

4. Ask for input from fans. Communication is a two-way street and fans love to be asked their opinion on just about anything. Besides, they're your fans so they know what they want.

5. Be visual. Music is an aural medium for sure, but either still or moving pictures add so much to entire package that you can't ignore them any more. Besides, it's so easy to take pictures these days or make movies, you can't use gear or expertise as excuses anymore.

6. Make everything an event. This is one of the secrets of multiple singles releases rather than full albums. Every release becomes an event. You can expand upon that idea in just about any direction, from gigs or giveaways on your birthday to your best fan's birthdays, to making every gig a special occasion. Use your imagination.7.

7. Don't just ask for things. Once again, communication is a two way street. You give some and you take some and vice versa. If you ask for information, give something away for free. This goes a long way in keeping your tribe happy.

8. Don't forget the basics. Bios, press kits, pictures, logos are still important so be sure to have links to where people can get them if needed.

9. Offer exclusive content. The way to a fans heart is through exclusive content. If a fan can get exclusive mixes or movies that no one else can, that legitimizes his or her fandom and makes them want even more. Alternative mixes, outtakes, interviews - these are all inexpensive and easy to make content that any fan would love to have.

10. Use some tools. Make sure you take advantage of everything that Facebook has to offer, but also check out apps like Bandpage or Reverbnation for their event, sales and music plugins as well.

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Facebook Finally Cracking Down On Video Pirates

Facebook has really been pushing its video service as a real challenge to YouTube, but it's failed in a couple of big areas - monetization and piracy. Now it looks like the service is finally rolling out a system to at least take care of the pirates.

On YouTube, if someone is using your video or music without permission, a technology known as Content ID sniffs it out and notifies the copyright holder. The channel using the video or song without permission is then given 2 choices - either taking the video down or allowing advertising to be placed on the video, of which most of the income will go to the content owner.

This is how money is made on YouTube. Not so much on the video you post, but on the many others that repost it virally.

Unfortunately Facebook hasn't had any method of doing that - until now.

The service is rolling out what it calls a "video matching technology" that will let content owners tell Facebook that a video clip belongs to them.

This is an important first step to monetization, which is crucial if Facebook wants to give YouTube a run for its money.

Facebook says that it now fields more than 4 billion daily video views, but some estimate that as many as 70% are videos that were illegally lifted from YouTube. Now there's a way for the original posters to begin to take advantage of what Facebook has to offer.

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Instagram May Have Hit A Plateau

Social networks are a lot like artists, bands and music - they're hot for a period of time but usually don't stay that way. This looks to be the case with Instagram, which may have already hit a plateau in terms of users and engagement.

According to social analytics company Locowise, Instagram follower growth is down to just 0.34% in July, a decrease of 77% from May alone.

Engagement was also down by 19% from May.

Both these figures are still better than Facebook, although not by much, and way better than Twitter.

That said, the days of Instagram being the hot new network on the block may be numbered.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't abandon the service though. If your fans are there and they're actively engaging with you, then there's no reason to change your strategy.

If your posting and no one seems to be home, then it might be time to re-evaluate whether Instagram fits into your long term online goals.

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A Look At Facebook's Big Video Problems

At over 4 billion video views a day, Facebook now claims that more people watch videos on the platform than on YouTube.

That figure may be deceiving however, as it's come to light that the social network has a much less stringent method of valuing a view than YouTube does.

For instance, Facebook counts almost anything as a view, regardless of how long a person watches, or even if they watch with the sound off.

YouTube doesn't count a view as a "view" until around the 30 second mark, or a sufficient amount of time has past to signal real engagement.

As you can imagine, this has lead both creators and advertisers to look at Facebook video views as far less valuable than on YouTube.

Another major problem for the network is that it has no way of monetizing a video, so a content creator with millions of views won't earn a penny. Even worse, there's no Content ID-like system akin to YouTube where you can monitor if anyone else is using your copyrighted material.

The one thing Facebook Video does have going for it is that it currently favors videos over all other content, and therefore pushes it out to 100% of your following, as compared to posts, which currently are seen by 2 to 3% if you don't pay to promote it.

Facebook is too large and too smart to let these problems stand for long, so look for either workarounds or true fixes soon. In the meantime, don't take the view count too seriously.

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Here's Where To Put Your Social Media Promotion Energy

I'm frequently asked the question of which social networks to concentrate on, and the answer is a moving target. Social networks tend to trend and wane, and we're see that right now with two of them.

Take a look at the following infographic by WebpageFX. It shows that Twitter is stagnant at best while Snapchat is quickly on the rise, as is Instagram. Of course, Facebook is still the 800 gorilla of social media but you have to pay for most of your exposure these days.

If I were just starting fresh with my social media promotion, Snapchat would be high on the list of networks to concentrate on, followed closely by Instagram.

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Facebook Changing Its News Feed Algorithm Again

Just when you thought that Facebook couldn't get any worse in distributing your posts to your friends and followers News Feeds, it goes and changes its algorithm yet once again.

Right now your News Feed is determined by how much a post is liked, commented on, or shared.

The company will now measure how long that you look at posts, photos and comments in your feed to determine your interest in certain content as well. The thinking is that the more time you spend on a post, the more likely your friends will like to see it as well.

Of course, the main problem with its current algorithm is that it's cut down on the number of followers that you can reach with any one post. 5 years ago a post would be seen by all of your friends and followers. 2 years ago that was down to just 15%. This year it's around 2%.

Of course, you can still reach all of your friends and followers by promoting a post (meaning, paying for distribution), which is what Facebook really wants.

It's probably too early to tell whether this will be a positive or negative, but my bet is that for most artists, it will fall on the negative side. Of course, the best way around it is to post really compelling information that people spend a lot of time reading.

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The Social Video World Is Changing

Until recently, YouTube had the market cornered on video both by users and brands. If you wanted the greatest interaction with your fans, that's where you'd go.

That's all changed recently since Facebook has put such a huge emphasis on video. As a result, a number of surprising facts about social video have come into play thanks to data from Socialbakers. Here's what they found.

• The top 1,000 profiles on both YouTube and Facebook are uploading 4X the number of videos on Facebook now. Many big brands have even stopped posting on YouTube altogether in favor of Facebook. That said, there are still brands and large media publishers that still enjoy big gains from posting on YouTube.

• In terms of interactions, Facebook videos perform much better than other platforms. Organic fan reach is 3X higher than YouTube. They're also shared a lot more. 

• Instagram is still mostly a picture platform, but it's being used more and more by brands for short videos. The problem is that most people still don't relate to videos on the platform, and would prefer to get their videos from elsewhere.

• YouTube videos are still the most commonly shared on Twitter.

The takeaway is that YouTube is losing market share to other platforms, and what that means is you should also consider other platforms besides YouTube for your videos. Don't abandon YouTube though, because it's still a powerhouse.

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