12 Social Media Tactics For Artists

Here's an excerpt from The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media ebook that looks at the basic concepts for artists to use social media more efficiently.

"Heidi Cohen at ClickZ post a great article regarding the 13 tactics to make social media work harder. I've adapted her post for Music 3.0, since her points are excellent, but I've found that only 12 of them apply. They are:

1. Understand how and why your fans use social media. This is the best way to make sure that you're interacting with the majority of your fans in the first place.

2. Develop content that meets your fans needs and interests. This shouldn't be too hard. They like you already and will probably want anything you give them. Don't be afraid to offer rough mixes, rehearsal and studio out-takes, and behind-the-scenes videos.

3. Use a variety of forms of content and understand the role that each plays in social media. Blog posts, video, forums posts, Twitter and Facebook posts are all important. Many fans prefer one over another, so it's best not to ignore any of them.

4. Encourage your fans to share content. The key to a healthy fan base (or Tribe" as "Seth Godin calls it) is not only their interaction with you (the artist), but also with each other.

5. Support and promote consumer-generated content. Mash-ups of songs and videos can be as important as your own releases.

6. Integrate product information into your content/story. Don't sell or hype your fans, inform them. They'll do the promotion for you.

7. Use content in social media to help build organic search optimization. Always think of SEO (search engine optimization) when developing content. Using the proper keyword phrases in your copy and metadata (even for videos) is crucial for being found, and therefore getting the word out.

8. Listen to, interact with, and recognize your fans. Communication can't be just one way. When they reach out, you must reach back.

9. Provide immediacy and nimbly react to events as they unfold. Social media is immediate by nature, so your fan base expects a more-or-less immediate response.

10. Participate in social media with a human voice. For social media to work well for an artist, the artist herself must participate. Certain communication can work through a surrogate, but fans can see right through a post that's supposed to be you but isn't.

11. Encourage band members and crew to participate in social media. The perspective of everyone involved with an artist is valuable to the fan, that's why it's important that everyone in the artist's circle should participate at least a little.

12. Track relevant conversations, responses, fan relationships, and sales across social media forums. The real key to effective and efficient social media management is measurement.

All these points are worth considering in order to ensure strong social media management."

To read additional excerpts from my books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The Best Time To Send Your Newsletter

Just like there’s a best day to send your newsletter, there’s also a definite science behind the time of day to send your emails. It’s been studied extensively, most notably by Dan Zarrella and Pure360. In this excerpt from The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media, we'll look at all the time periods in the day and evaluate email success in each. Remember that all times are Eastern Standard Time.

• Most opens occur between 5AM and 7AM. Most people check their email first thing in the morning even before they leave for work. Remember that open rates are as much as 53% higher in the mornings.

• 7AM to 10AM: The second most prevalent email opening time is at the beginning of the working day.

• 10AM to Noon: Consumers are not opening marketing emails, choosing instead to focus on work.

• Noon to 2PM: Consumers are unlikely to open emails during their lunch break, choosing instead to spend their time on news and magazine alerts.

• 2PM to 3PM: Right after lunch consumers remain focused on work, responding mostly to email offers related to financial services.

• 3PM to 5PM: Consumers start thinking about their personal situation and as a result, more emails relating to property and financial services are opened during this time period than any other.

• 5PM to 7PM: Consumers tend to open business to business (B2B) promotions during this period, but also open more holiday-type promotions during this period than any other.

• 7PM to 10PM: The time period when recipients are most likely to respond to consumer promotions is when they get off work.

• 10PM to 6AM: This is an email dead zone, as most sent during this period are ineffective.

Remember that these are trends and might not apply to your particular audience. The best way to proceed is to use these timings as a starting point, then experiment to see if another time works better. It's easy enough to schedule blog posts or emails to do so, just make sure that you have enough of a sample size before you make any ironclad decisions on exactly what's working.

To read additional excerpts from this and other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

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

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media

I've been posting on this blog since November of 2009, which amounts to almost 900 posts. If you've ever tried to do a search here, you know that the Blogger platform isn't the most friendly for finding archive material. That's why after continued requests, I've gone back and collected the best posts and categorized them into an eBook called The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media: Tips and Tricks For Using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

This first volume primarily looks at social media concepts for musicians, and examines the various tips and tricks for using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ as a promotional tool.

Among the concepts covered in the book are:

• the principles of fan communication
• tips for growing your online audience
• the best way to measure your social media exposure
• the best days and time of day to tweet or post on Facebook
• the secret to increasing your Twitter audience
• YouTube tips and tricks from the pros
• the features of Google+ especially for artists

The book also includes a chapter of useful links, an extensive social media glossary, and tips for using social media for promotion. Best of all, it's only $2.99! and available now from Amazon, and Barnes & Nobel, and soon from the iBook store.

This is Volume 1 of the From The Music 3.0 Blog series, with Volume 2 covering music and merchandise sales and touring coming in a month or so.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did putting it together.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.