10 Top Twitter Tools

Here's a recent post that I spotted on the great Hypebot blog regarding the "Top 10 Twitter Tools Used My Social Media Experts," which originally came from KISSmetrics. You don't have to be a social media expert to take advantage of these tools, and at least some of them you'll find very useful if you're a Twitter user.

1. Bit.ly. 
Bit.ly is just a URL shortening service right? Wrong! Used by @techcrunch, and @problogger, a free Bit.ly account will give you access to a dashboard where you can shorten and share links to multiple Twitter accounts. You can also see the stats for any Bit.ly links you share through your dashboard and plug your Bit.ly API key into Tweetdeck, Twitterfeed, or Seesmic to get stats for links you share through those applications as well. As an added bonus, you can even create your own custom short domain to match your brand so you can have branding similar to Mashable’s on.mash.to and Amazon’s amzn.to custom URLs.

2. Buffer

Buffer is deemed the smarter way to tweet, and is used by @tweetsmarter, @jaybaer, and @askaaronlee. It allows you to simply schedule your tweets to be spread throughout the day so you don’t go through a reading spree and inundate your followers with 20 tweets within an hour. You can also get great analytics on your tweets which will help determine what your audience loves, or doesn’t, out of the content you share as well as the times of day you get the most action on your tweets.

3. CoTweet

CoTweet, used by @nealschaffer, @chrispirillo, and @emarketer, is considered a Twitter marketing tool for companies who want to engage, track, and analyze conversations about their brand. The free version allows you to manage your Twitter accounts, collaborate with multiple users, track clicks and limited analytics, schedule tweets, keep conversation history for 30 days, and more. The enterprise version (starting at 1,500USD a month) allows integration with Salesforce, advanced user roles and permissions, workgroups, and full analytics.

4. HootSuite

HootSuite is one of my personal favorites as far as Twitter management is concerned, and is also quite popular amongst the social media elite including @chrisbrogan, @tweetsmarter, and @tamar. It is a freemium tool, meaning that you can use the free plan if you have fewer than five social profiles to manage. But the Pro version for unlimited social profiles including enhanced analytics isn’t too steep at only 5.99USD per month.

5. Paper.li   

Paper.li is a unique application that allows you to collect tweets and curate them manually or automatically in a newspaper-style format which can be automatically shared daily on your Twitter account. Used by @scottmonty, @guykawasaki, and @leeodden, this app is a great way to collect the top tweets from your followers, people on a specific Twitter list, or even anyone who mentions a particular #hashtag. It does drive a nice bit of traffic to sites mentioned by top users, so while some people may not like to be mentioned, others greatly appreciate it!

6. SocialOomph  

SocialOomph is another freemium service used by @mike_stelzner, @smallbiztrends, and @jeffbullas that allows you to schedule tweets, track keywords, extend your Twitter profile, and much more with an unlimited amount of accounts for free. If you choose to go professional for 29.97USD, you get additional features such as Facebook scheduling, tweet via email, have others update via email, manage DM spam, broadcast DMs to all Status.net followers, and again, much more. Plus, for an additional 3.97USD you can automate following those who follow you and sending welcome DMs to new followers.

7. Triberr

Triberr is an invite only community used by @lewishowes, @seanmalarkey, and @nealschaffer that allows you to join “tribes” of like-minded bloggers in order to expand your reach on Twitter. Simply plug your RSS feed in and members of your tribe will tweet each new post. As a member, you can set yourself up to do automatic tweeting of other member’s posts or manual tweeting when you have reviewed and approved of the posts. I personally just copy my Triberr tweets into HootSuite for full scheduling control.

8. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a desktop Twitter management tool used by @jasonfalls, @problogger, and @marshallk. It has features similar features to HootSuite in terms of creating columns to organize your Twitter activity as well as the ability to send longer messages using their Deck.ly service which creates a shortened URL that directs followers to the rest of your tweet beyond 140 characters. I love the interface of this one, but since I use multiple computers, it makes more sense to use a browser-based application instead of one you have to install on a local machine.

9. Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed, used by @sengineland, @amyporterfield, and @cindyking, allows you to add RSS feeds (yours and others) to be shared automatically through your Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts each time there is a new update to them. You can customize the tweets to show the title of the new post, the link (shortened by your preferred URL shortener), and even add a RT @username or via @username so you let the blogger know you’re always tweeting their posts. It’s a great way to curate content for your audience automatically, but just be careful that the blogs whose feeds you use always publish quality content.

10. Visibli

Visibili is a free service used by @brett, @davepeck, and @denisewakeman that lets you create a custom sharing bar that goes with any links you share through their service. This custom share bar can have your name and social sharing icons as well as links to your website and even a Tweet button which recommends your Twitter accounts and Facebook Like button that connects to your fan page. It can be connected to your Tweetdeck or Seesmic desktop apps, installed on your blog for outgoing links, and installed as a bookmarklet on your browser bookmark toolbar as a quick way to share with your customization at the top of every link!

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The 3 C's Of Networking

Here's some great advice for networking online or good old-fashioned person to person. Whenever someone helps you out with an introduction or a referral, it's customary to reward that person with one of the "3 C's."

What are the 3 C's?

1. Credit. Give the person that gave you the introduction the credit for the referral every chance you get.

2. Contacts. A good way to compensate someone who gives you an introduction is to give him a contact back. Everyone could use some help in one way or another, and this is a great way to reciprocate.

3. Compensation. If and when it's appropriate, there's nothing wrong with an exchange of a gift, finders fee, or a little cash bonus.

I've heard these also termed as the "3 R's" as well (recognition, referrals and revenue), but whatever you use, keep in mind that nothing is for free, and even if it's not expected, it's a common courtesy to reciprocate when someone does you a favor.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The Artist Roadmap To Social Media

Here's a nice infographic from receptivemusic.com that covers just about every aspect of using social media in Music 3.0. It's simple and to the point and only lists the major players in each category (although it does miss some others), but it's the best way to see in a glance the services available to an artist or band today.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

10 Reasons Why YouTube Beats TV For Marketing

Here's an interesting list from reelseo.com regarding 10 reasons why YouTube is better than television for marketing. Obviously most artists and bands aren't going to use television to marketing themselves unless a major label is involved, but the same reasons also apply to radio as well.

1. There is no need to be at home to watch it. In pubs the television is usually on in the background only but groups will often look online for certain things while they are out.

2. YouTube is free. Television advertising can cost a great deal and the more popular the program the more expensive it will be. It is hard to target as so many people watching will not be interested.

3. More effective advertising. With television, many people use the advertisements to leave the room to make a drink or a phone call, so often times the advertisement will be screened to an empty room.

4. Some people don’t bother with television as much as they used to. As television programs can be watched on a computer, some are choosing to watch a lot of programs online. As there have been developments with the ways in which programs are watched many either fast forwarded the advertisements or in the case of Catch Up TV they are taken out altogether.

5. Variety of content. YouTube has short to the point clips that have plenty of similar clips attached. If you pick a clip you are interested in there is a ready prepared list of others to view without the need to start searching for them.

6. “Always on“. TV may show a lot of repeats but a YouTube clip can be watched as often as you want.

7. Consumer presence. The Internet is a good research tool and many look here before they make a purchase so a YouTube advert will be seen by them.

8. YouTube is less restrictive. Television will not allow certain things to be broadcast but as long as it is legal it is very likely that you can say what you want on YouTube.

9. Links can be sent from YouTube. If something is on the television it will be seen once and then gone. There will be the chance to tell others but not send them a link. This way even people who are not watching YouTube can get the information.

10. Anyone can put up a video. If you have a happy event that you want to share you can put it on YouTube. Most people could not put a wedding video or a day when the cat was being playful on the television but with YouTube it is easy.

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The Rock Timeline

Here's a funny but true infographic about the music biz through the ages. They say a picture tells a thousand words, and that's certainly true here.

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7 Steps To A Great Performance Video

Most bands think that just showing up to a gig with a camera is enough to get a reasonable live performance video, but there's more to it than that. In this excerpt from The Musician's Video Handbook, you'll find the 7 steps to get a great performance video on a technical level. The performance is up to you.
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"1. Check The Venue Lighting
You can’t shoot it if you can’t see it, so make sure that you have enough lighting so no one is in the dark. Many bands and artists rely on the venue for their lighting, which may be adequate but still has to be adjusted for your needs.

• One of your first questions to the powers-that-be at the venue should always be, “What kind of lighting is available?” to find out exactly what you’re dealing (or not dealing) with. Ask the promoter, venue manager or sound man - whoever you think is the right person - if it will be possible to ensure that all the stage lights are working for your show. The usual reason that they don't work is because the person responsible (if there is a person responsible) usually can't be bothered to replace the blown lamps and/or fuses. Ask them in plenty of time too - they may need to order or pick up bulbs or fuses from their supplier. The morning of your shoot is going to be too late!

• On the day of the shoot, give yourself a fighting chance in the lighting department. Put some new gels on the lights and focus them (get them pointing in the right directions to light up the band). In order for the camera to see your face, you need to be lit well from the front first. 99% of the time, stage lights are paired up symmetrically (one color on the stage left and another on stage right), so you’ll want to put the same gel color in both lights of each pair. 

• Be very aware when positioning lights because a lot of bad things can happen if you’re not careful, like getting hit with a jolt of electricity, getting burned by hot metal, dropping things on peoples' heads, or falling off things while reaching for the lights. Take care! Also, you’ll be thankful if you have a set of heavy duty gloves to keep you from getting burnt, but remember that they won’t protect you from electrocution!

• Sort out the lights before there's any band gear (or musicians) onstage. This eliminates the possibility of dropping things on people's heads and it’s just so much easier to move the ladder around. And remember, beer crates, barstools or flight cases (especially if they're on wheels!) are NOT the things to use to reach the lights. I learned this the hard way with a tumble from a large flight case that fell on my ankle, resulting in a severe cut and a trip to the ER!

• It’s important that you pay attention to what the venue people tell you about the lights. It’s a common occurrence that turning on all the lights at once in a small venue will blow a fuse somewhere, plunging the whole room into darkness - and Murphy’s law says its fuse box will be in a locked closet somewhere! Turning on all the lights at once usually looks like crap, too.  

• Give your light man a set list for the show with indications of what you think might be good. Something like, "First song- up tempo - lots of flashing red" or "the big ballad- mostly blue then white for guitar solo." If your light man has got a sense of rhythm, he'll be swinging along with the band, but tell him that continuously flashing lights soon gets on everybody's nerves and looks like the visual equivalent of mud. Try changing the color only once every every bar or so in a rock tune, and for one song maybe just find a nice lighting look and hold it all the way through (the big ballad is always good for this!) That way, when the band kicks in with another rocker and the lights do the same, it'll be even more effective.

• What’s Your Color? - If you think about your band, your songs, your show, and colors, you'll realize right away that certain colors suit certain types of songs better than others. Quiet, introspective acoustic guitar songs in a minor key might work best in a blue or lavender. If you're a booty shaking funk band, hot reds and ambers might fit you best. Brutal nu-metal? Then try reds, greens and cold whites.  The idea is to enhance your show by choosing the best colors that best fits your music.

2. Don’t Over-light
One thing that cameramen who are not used to shooting music will do is over-light by having too much of the venue lighting turned on all the time. This is definitely not rock n’ roll and should be avoided at all costs. It’ll make you look flat and uninteresting, and will actually take away from your show instead of adding to it. Before hiring the cameraman, tell him that he has to deal with the stage lighting as is and will only be allowed to embellish it slightly if there’s a dark spot on the stage that can’t be fixed any other way.

3. B-Roll Is So Important
As you’ve seen many times in this book already, B-roll is cutaway shots that are used to cover up an edit of an interview, audio narration, or a picture edit that might jump or look funny. A close up of a guitar pick, pictures on the wall, an empty stage or a stage with just your gear on it, a close up of the kick drum head with the band name on it, a pan across an amp head, hands on a keyboard - these are all examples of B-roll. You can never have enough B-roll so shoot everything you can think of. In the hands of a good editor it will all be used somewhere.

4. Shoot Establishing Shots

An establishing shot would be something like a marquis with the band’s name on it outside the venue, the venue exterior and sign, a flyer or newspaper advertisement with your name in it - anything to establish the time and place of the event. What if you don’t want anyone to know the time or place of the event because you want people to think you’re playing in a larger or different venue? That’s OK, shoot it anyway. It might come in handy somewhere down the road like as B-roll on another video, and is invaluable when it comes to reminiscing.

5. Shoot More Than One Take
More than one take allows you to shoot multiple camera angles if you only have one camera, and if you have multiple cameras then it allows the cameramen another chance to get that perfect shot. If your edit is good she can cut between several uneven takes to make one good one. Of course, this doesn’t apply if you’re shooting a show.

6. Shoot A Lot More Than You Need
The more you shoot, the more good footage you’ll have to choose from and the more easily you’ll be able to cover up a funky audio or video edit.

7. Take Care With The Audio
You can have a great video that shows each band member exactly how you envision, but if the audio is crappy, so is the picture. That’s why it’s important to pay as much attention to getting the best, cleanest audio signal that you can. Go back to chapter 4 (the audio chapter) and follow the tips provided. If the sound is bad then the picture always seems worse than it really is."

You can read additional excerpts on this and all my books at bobbyowsinski.com.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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Why Katy And Gaga Were Banned In China

China may be the biggest market in the world, but it's still one of the most difficult to crack. Just ask Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. While Gaga and Katy may have substantial followings in China, you still have to get by the Chinese government, who appears to not be buying what they're selling at the moment. Both Gaga and Perry made a list of 100 songs that China's Ministry of Culture has ordered Chinese websites to remove by September 15.

According to a Reuters.com story, "Gaga racked up six songs on the list, all from her most recent album Born This Way. "The Edge of Glory," "Hair," "Marry the Night," "Americano," "Judas" and "Bloody Mary" were all included in the ministry's announcement, while the album's title track was included in an earlier list that the government issued. Perry placed twice in China's latest banned-songs collection, with "E.T." and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)."

But they're not the only ones. Beyonce's "Run the World (Girls)," Britney Spears' "Burning Up," and even the 1999 Backstreet Boys hit "I Want it That Way" all made the list as well.

So why did the government choose to ban these songs? According to the ministry, allowing the songs on its list to be shared and downloaded over the web has "endangered national cultural safety" for one thing. For another, the tunes in question had not been registered with and reviewed by the ministry, which makes you wonder how they decided that they were a threat to national security in the first place.

According to ministry guidelines, all imported digital music needs to be translated into Chinese and submitted to the government before online distribution is permitted. The crackdown applies to all websites, including personal sites.

While these songs may not be the height of taste and culture, they're about as far away from a dissenting political voice that you can get. It just goes to show that even though the Internet allows you to access the world and for the world to access you, sometimes there can be large impediments in the way.

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The Internet Of Things

Here's a very interesting infographic put together by Cisco that shows the exponential growth of the Internet in terms of the number of everyday items connected to it. Internet connectivity is what Cisco does, so I think I trust these numbers. The graphic isn't very easy to read, but here's the gist of it:

* By the year 2020 there will be 50 billion items connected to the Internet, or about 7 times more than people on the planet.

* Even organic lifeforms will be connected, as the graph shows how cattle already are. Each cow transmits 200mb of data per year.

* By the end of 2011, a mere 20 households will generate more traffic than the entire planet did in 2008!!

* We recently ran out of Internet address in the old system called IPV4. In the new one now being used, there are virtually an unlimited supply. How many is that? More than 100 for every atom on the planet!

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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What Different Generations Do Online

65% of adult internet users now participate in a social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, but they spend a lot more time on doing other things as well. Pew Internet surveyed a number of people across all generations and came to a number of surprising conclusions:

1. Although article after article seems to state that email is dead, email is still the number one use across all generations.

2. Search is the #2 online activity, no surprise here.

3. This one is the real surprise.  Health info is the third most popular activity.

4. Government websites ranked surprisingly high with everyone except the millenials.

5. Blogging and virtual worlds were surprisingly low.

Of course, this survey was from 2010. It will be interesting to see how much things have changed in 2011.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.