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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Twitter Can't Get Young Users

If you're an artist or in a band then you're probably on social media to reach your existing fans and to expand your fanbase. There's a problem though, in that it's getting a lot harder to do that, especially with the biggest social platforms available.

This is especially evident with Twitter, which still has 320 million monthly users, but most of those seem to be business, sports and celebrity users or journalists. Gen Z and younger millennials are staying away like the plague.

It seems that, unlike Facebook (which they reluctantly use), younger users really don't have a good reason to use Twitter when other alternatives like Snapchat, Instagram and Kik fulfill their needs in a better way.

Twitter is hard to define and even harder to describe why you need it, but any social network is in trouble if the user doesn't have any friends on it, as is currently the case with Twitter and the Gen Z and millennial crowd.

Brands are beginning to recognize this as well and spending less on the platform, understanding that it probably won't be growing much in the future, and that you're buying current users, not future ones.

That's why it's important that you know exactly where your fans are before you invest your time in a social platform. You only have a limited amount of energy and as a result, can't be everywhere, so go where you can get the most bang for your buck in terms of time invested. If you know that your fans are on Twitter, spend your social capital there, but if more are on Instagram (for instance), that's where you have to be.

Also, be aware of the ebb and flow of social media platforms, because they change every year both in terms of users and features. What works this year might not work next, and vice versa.

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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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Bose Turns Superbowl Tweets Into Songs

Bose didn't pay for an ad during the Superbowl broadcast, but it did figure out a unique way to capitalize on the event.

The company asked a number of artists and bands to turn Superbowl related tweets with the #LetsHearIt hashtag into some short songs for a campaign it called Fantracks.

A variety of artists from different genres turned in 30 second songs recorded on the spot at the Bose studio and then posted them on social media and a dedicated Tumblr blog.

Not only did the artists use the tweet's text, but emoji's as well, which added a fun element to the process.

They're all pretty good and fun to watch and listen to, and it's hard to get bored since they're all so short. In fact, some of them are so good I wish they were longer.

Check out the Fantracks here.

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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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A Look At The 7 Types Of Twitter Contests

We all want to increase our fan engagement on social media, and a great way to do it is with contests, since it definitely tweaks the interest of your followers.

Adweek recently ran an article about the 7 types of Twitter contests that can be run, which you'll find below along with my comments on how it applies to your fanbase.

1. Photo Contests - Ask the entrants to post of photo of themselves showing a piece of your merch or a CD, or at one of your shows.

2. Most Creative Or Funny Answer Contest - Ask your followers to submit a creative or funny answer to a question that you tweet. Make sure to include a hashtag as part of the campaign.

3. Retweet To Enter Contest - All your followers have to do is retweet your contest tweet and they'll be entered to win.

4. Follow To Win Contest - This is a bit of cross-promotion across some other social networks, where you let them know that if they follow you on Twitter they're automatically entered into the contest. Please note that you can't ask someone to follow you directly on Twitter as it violates their terms and conditions.

5. First To Answer Contest - This happens really quickly, which means the contest is quick as well. It's simple - ask a question, and whoever tweets the correct answer first wins.

6. Tweet A Hashtag Contest - All the follower has to do to enter is include a hashtag that you create in a tweet.

7. Caption Contest - Ask your followers to tweet a funny or interesting caption for a photo that you tweet.

In all cases, make sure to retweet and thank each entry, then give a winner a lot of Twitter love.

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Pinning Your Tweets For More Attention

There are times when you post a tweet that's so important that you want as many of your followers to see it as possible for as long as possible. There's a way to take that tweet and push it to the top of your profile where it will stay even after subsequent tweets. This is known as "pinning" a tweet.

Here's how to do it.

   1. Select the tweet that you would like to pin.

   2. Click the three dots (...) next to "View Tweet Activity" beneath your tweet.

   3. Click "Pin to your profile post" in the dialog box.

Refresh your screen to make sure that the pin appears at the top of your profile.

Pinned tweets are not reposted; they're just pushed to the top and will stay there until you unpin them.

What should you pin? How about:

• a tweet about a new release or video
• a tweet about an upcoming gig
• a question that you've asked your followers
• a great photo
• an old tweet that you'd like to revive without tweeting again

There are tons of other ideas for pinning as well, but no matter what you pin, you'll find it a very effective way to increase a point you're trying to make.

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3 Ways To Discover New Hashtags

Hashtagify.me

When it comes to many social media platforms, hashtags are the bread and butter of organic SEO. Finding the ones that work is always a challenge, but a number of websites can help you along the way. Here are 3 that I've found to be especially good.

1. Hashtagify.me. This is one of my favorites. Just search for a hashtag and Hashtagify.me will show you its popularity as well as other connected keywords and their relevancy (see the graphic on the left). It also shows the latest trending hashtags, influencers who use the hashtag, and the latest tweets.

2. Topsy. Topsy is a great tool to check on the popularity of a hashtag. It will give you the number of people who have used it in a tweet in increments from a day to a month as well as a sentiment score. There's also a trends chart so you can see if there are certain days when the hashtag seems to be working the best.

3. Twitter Advanced Search. I've always been big on a basic Twitter search at search.twitter.com, but its Advanced Search takes it to the next level. It allows you to zero in on a keyword phrase, a URL, a person, place or date and see the latest trends and tweets.

The next time you're going to post anything that uses a hashtag, check it out on a couple of these sites to see how powerful it is or find an alternative. It could mean the difference between someone reading your post or not.

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Twitter Ups Its DM Limit

This may or may not have a bearing on your Twitter use, but the company has just dropped the 140 character limit on Direct Messages. The new limit is 10,000 characters, which should be more than enough for a long winded conversation.

Keep in mind that this new limit is only for private DMs and doesn't affect the 140 character limit on public tweets. As a result, the new DM limit might be moot for those that use Twitter mainly as a promotional tool to broadcast news to a fanbase, although it will be a benefit if you're using the new Group DM feature.

The change is set to roll out within the next couple of weeks across both Android and IOS platforms, as well as Twitter.com, Tweetdeck, and Twitter for Mac.

In other Twitter news, the company has made available every public tweet ever posted in Twitter's 9 year history to the social tracking service Gnip. It's just one more reason to always stay civil on Twitter, because those nasty tweets can someday be resurrected.

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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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7 Tips For Tweeting A Live Event

Adweek recently ran a great post about tips for Tweeting a live event. They were thinking more about a business conference than a gig, but many of the tips apply to a live show anyway. Here they are, but with a music spin.

1. Use the right hashtag(s). If you have a following that regularly attends your gigs, start your own hashtag that you can consistently use. Something like #(yourband)live could work. Also find out if the venue has a hashtag and include that as well.

2. Let your followers know. If there's going to be a flurry of activity in a short period of time, let your followers know beforehand. No one likes their feed dominated by one poster, but at least they can tune you out if they're not interested if they know its coming.

3. Be interesting. Try to give a unique perspective that only you can give. What's the venue like? Did you meet anyone interesting (give them a  shoutout)? Is there a meet and greet or something happening preshow or aftershow?

4. Retweet others. If there are others tweeting about the gig, retweet them as well.

5. Take pictures. Tweets are a lot more interesting when a picture is included and the engagement is increased as well.

6. Follow other tweeters. This includes the promoters, venue and other bands on the bill.

7. Use Vine and Periscope. Twitter is more than just text, so don't forget to share a video about meeting a fan, what's happening backstage, from the stage, etc.

Twitter is especially cool for communicating at events, and that's the perfect time to engage your fans. Follow these tips and you'll keep everyone happy.

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Everything You Need To Know About Hashtags

Here's a great infographic from SocialCaffeine.com about Twitter hashtags. I've posted a lot about them here in the past, and this graphic reinforces that info.

Pay attention to the bottom right hand corner - the Where To Find Popular Hashtag section. It has some great suggestions about where to find find the right hashtags for your content (remember that what you post doesn't always have to use #musicians, #music, #studio, etc.).

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Instagram @Music Community Tries To Succeed Where Twitter Failed

Instagram has announced a new community dedicated to music and musicians called @Music, in an effort to leverage the platform’s user interest in the topic.

Unofficially, music has always been a large part of Instagram, accounting for an estimated 25 percent of all the platform’s activity. Recognizing this, Instagram executives have instituted this official music category as well as a number of subcategories as well.

For instance, #LocallySourced is designed to cover unsigned artists and bands (which will be handled by a team of curators), #15SecondLessons will include short music performance lessons, and #DoubleTrack covers musicians interests outside of music. 

The account, which was announced this morning on the Instagram blog, will update six times a week with an emphasis on unsigned acts. This might be deemed an unusual tactic as the music portion of Instagram is currently driven by music superstars like Beyonce (with 30.8 million followers and the platform’s most followed artist), Arianna Grande (30 million), Selena Gomez (28.9 million) and Taylor Swift (28.2 million). Read more on Forbes.

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Twitter Updates It's Homepage For Those Not Signed In

New Twitter Homepage Categories

Twitter is getting a somewhat bad rap because it's user numbers seem to have flattened out at around 280 million, but it turns out that active users aren't the only ones on the service.

More than 500 million people check out Twitter every month who aren't signed in, and more than 125 million of come through the Twitter.com homepage.

That's one of the reasons why the network has updated its main landing page to cater to those not signed in.

Now new visitors will see a collection of curated timelines that show off the most popular parts of the Twitterverse, with choices such as pop artists, cute animals, space news, tech blogs & reporters, business news, and actors, among others.

The reason behind the change is two-fold. First, it makes it easier to check out real-time news and conversations without needing an account or signing in. Second, it now can also serve up ads to those people to make additional revenue.

Of course, if Twitter can convert just a fraction of these visitors to active users it could finally get around the user plateau that it seems to have encountered. And it would also help if it found a way to show Wall Street that there's more to user numbers than those that are actively signed-in.

For the musician this is all good news. The fact that there are more people viewing the service than the numbers suggest means that it's not yet time to bail on the network like many have suggested. Twitter is still an especially powerful tool for an artist or band.

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How Many Hashtags?

Hashtags are such a successful feature with Twitter that other social networks have adopted them. They're great as a resource for finding topical posts fast, at least on Twitter. On other networks, not so much. This was the case with Linkedin, who experimented with them for a while before giving up.

There's been a lot of study on effective hashtag use in terms of the number that can be effectively used. Here's the latest.

Twitter - 2 hashtags work best, with the amount of engagement decreasing with the more you add. That said, there's 100 % more engagement if you use them, and tweets with them are more likely to be retweeted as well. Remember not to trivialize your hashtag, since they're best used to categorize a tweet. 

Facebook - It's been found that hashtags actually decrease engagement. Don't use them. 

Instagram - Contrary to all other networks, the more you use, the better since on Instagram, hashtags are used primarily to build community. 11 hashtags or more get the most engagement. 

Pinterest - Once again, it's been found that hashtags actually decrease engagement. Stay away from them here.

One thing to remember is that they now turn up in a Google search and many people do search for them, so they're worth using.

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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.

Twitter vs. Facebook For Artists And Bands

Some recent Facebook and Twitter data have made it a little clearer which platform generally works best for most artists and bands. Here are the most recent numbers from the platforms themselves.

Monthly Active Users
Facebook - 1,317 million
Twitter - 271 million

Celebs With Biggest Followings
Facebook
Shakira - 102.3 million
Cristiano/Ronaldo - 94.7 million
Eminem - 93 million

Twitter
Katy Perry - 53.9 million
Justin Bieber - 52.4 million
Barack Obama - 43.4 million

Time Spent On Each Platform
Facebook - 68% mobile/32% desktop
Twitter - 86% mobile/14% desktop

But the biggest difference is the fact that Facebook drives more than 20x as much traffic as Twitter does.
Facebook - 23.4%
Twitter - 1%

There's always the people that will say that Facebook is dying, losing teens, or irrelevant, but the fact of the matter is that right now, it does a lot better job of driving traffic to websites of artists and bands that know how to use it (check out my Social Media Promotion for Musicians book to discover more about how to do this).

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Twitter Launches The Buy Button

Twitter is such a huge platform for many artists, but except for the social currency involved, you wouldn't exactly call it a sales platform. There have been ways in the past to sell things with Shopify, but the sales method was a workaround at best. Now Twitter is trying out a new "buy" button that allows fans to purchase merch, music and tickets from within a tweet.

Although not rolled out to all users yet, the service has a number of artists, brands and charities taking part initially. These include Brad Paisley, Eminem, Panic at the Disco, Wiz Khalifa, Ryan Adams, Soundgarden, Home Depot, Burberry, GLAAD, and Global Citizen.

Twitter has partnered with Fancy, Gumroad, Music Today and Stripe, which have long histories of direct-to-fan commerce, to act as fulfillment centers, but others will eventually follow as the service rolls out more fully by the end of the year.

There's no word on how much Twitter will take from each sale, but there's not doubt it's an income stream that the service really needs. That said, artists with large followings will also be happy at the new opportunity to offer their wares as well.

Lest you might think that Twitter will now turn into sales-only platform, remember that Twitter etiquette still applies, so everyone expects excessive sales hype to be self-regulating.

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Social Network Info You Can Use For Promotion

Social media is constantly changing and evolving, and the stats that worked last year can be enormously out of date only 6 months later. That said, here's some of the latest social information of 2014 gathered by Digital Insights, and how it can be useful to bands and artists.

• 75% of engagement on a Facebook post happens within the first 5 hours. Don't post too many close together or too far apart for maximum engagement.

• The most common reason to unlike something on Facebook is an uninteresting post. Make sure your content is always informative and relevant. Don't just post for the sake of posting.

• 53% of interaction between a Google+ user and a brand is positive. You've discovered and established your brand already, right?

• 22% of adults visit Google+ once a month. It's not as big as Facebook, but it still has over 540 million monthly users, so it's worth being on.

• 44% of users on Twitter have never sent a tweet. That doesn't mean that they don't read what you're tweeting though, so don't worry if the engagement seems lower than other networks.

• 84% of women and 50% of men stay active on Pinterest. It's a great network to be on if your audience is there. Poll them to find out.

• 23% of teens consider Instagram their favorite social network. Once again, it's a great network to be on if your audience is there.

• Weekends are the most popular time to send Vines. This is contrary to most other networks, where during the week sees more activity.

• 40% of YouTube traffic comes from mobile. Make sure that your videos look good on mobile devices.

• Marketers using blogs generate 67% more leads. Blogs are a great way to build and engage an audience if you're willing to spend the time and do it on a consistent basis.

Information is power, so use the above info to help expand and engage your audience. You can also find out some powerful ways to use social media with my Social Media Promotion for Musicians book.

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9 Twitter Etiquette Rules

Twitter is all about engagement, but if you don't follow the unwritten rules of etiquette, you'll find yourself with fewer and fewer followers. Here's an excerpt from my Social Media Promotion for Musicians book that explains the 9 Twitter etiquette rules that every user should know.

"This is a fairly simple medium, but there are certain unwritten rules that attempt to keep people from annoying one another. Despite this group etiquette, you’ll still no doubt run into situations that may make you want to scream, but keep in mind that it’s probably bugging others as well. Rest assured that sooner or later the offender gets the message and either mends his ways or leaves. Let’s take a look at what you should know.

1. Don’t use all caps. One of the things that netizens universally hate is someone COMMUNICATING IN ALL CAPS. This is considered the equivalent of shouting, is more difficult to read, and just plain impolite.

2. Don’t be rude. What’s rude in real life is rude on Twitter as well. The problem is that people are more easily offended online because they can’t see any facial expressions or body language, and as a result, what you consider to be a rather harmless tweet can kick up a firestorm. The way around this is to think through every tweet before you send it and stay away from any provocative language.

3. Don’t use an affiliate link in a tweet. Links in a tweet are a good thing, but it’s bad form to include one that’s blatantly trying to sell something or make money.

4. Don’t ask someone for a favor publicly. Just like doing it in a crowded room, it’s uncool. Better to ask in a private conversation. Use DM instead.

5. Don’t auto-DM. It’s possible to set up an automatic direct message welcoming someone when they follow you. Save your time and money as this is considered bad form. If it’s not personal, an auto-DM can do more harm than good.

6. Issue a high volume warning. If you’re going to be tweeting more than normal (like from a show, conference or event), tell your followers in advance. No one likes their Twitter feed to be controlled by one person.

7. Don’t be negative. Nothing turns off followers faster than negative commentary. If you can’t say something nice and be positive, don’t say it at all.

8. Don’t provide too much information. Twitter isn’t a place for details. There’s not enough room in the limited number of characters that you have, which means that you have to resort to more tweets, which puts you into the realm of over-tweeting. As with most things online, less is more.

9. Pause between tweets. Another thing that makes people crazy is a big volley of tweets one after the other. Take a break before your next tweet. Give other people a chance to get their tweets seen as well.

Following these online etiquette rules will not only help you keep your followers, but will keep you in good Twitter standing. It’s just a little bit of courtesy, but well worth it."

If you'd like to read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion for Musicians and my other books, go to the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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