Posted by Ann Bernard

I subscribe to HARO (Help A Reporter Out) and this query came across this morning. I asked Karen for permission to blog her query since  I know many of you who read this blog are using social networking sites and social media; this is a wonderful opportunity to get some publicity and share your experiences.  Karen’s email is included.

Artists who use social networking

Name: Karen Leland

Email: kleland (at) scgtraining (dot) com

Title: Freelancer

Publication: Artist's Magazine

Deadline: 5:00 PM PACIFIC - December 1

Query:

"I'm looking to interview visual artists (painters, sculptors,
photographers, etc.) who have used social networking sites such as
Facebook, MySpace and others to promote and sell their art. Also
any artists out there who are using art oriented message boards or
forums."

Filed in query

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

…and what else? What’s it call? You know, come on…oh yea, Interact.  Entice me, feed my curiosity and interact with me. 

It’s doesn’t matter what aspects of the entertainment industry we talk about; doing the following three things – enticing fans, feeding their curiosities and interacting with them will lead to greater interest in your offerings and people attending shows, concerts and events. 

The internet, social media and utilization of web technologies make enticing fans, feeding their curiosities and interacting with them EASIER. It just takes a little bit of creativity and understanding of the tools that are available.

Social Media for Performing Arts: The Metropolitan Opera
Possibly one of the best organizations that’s making use of social media and strong overall marketing/promoting of their upcoming season is The Metropolitan Opera. 

Entice:  To entice a potential client/new fan is to share the experience, in this case of the opera, with them.  The Metropolitan Opera entices various audiences by offering broadcasts of their operas over a variety of mediums…to include radio and live in HD.

 

The Met’s new online subscription service features 13 HD videos, 37 historic TV performances, and 120 radio broadcasts delivered on demand. They certainly figured out how to deliver content to their audience when and how they want it.

Other enticing factors on The Metropolitan Opera website include a well stock picture gallery, some previews and audio highlights.  Visual and auditory features are key to sharing the experience and enticing people.

Really wish there were more previews.

Feed My Curiosity:  The Metropolitan Opera website is full of interviews, commentaries, and blog posts.  The comments are turned off on the blog posts which is very unfortunate. I also think they would do well to have more video interviews.

Visitors can definitely find the information they’re looking for and learn a lot.  If you can’t find what you’re looking for…you can always Ask Figaro!

 

I love this feature.  Let’s face it, operas aren’t the easiest things to understand so getting help from an expert on the topic is an excellent addition to the site, which by the way, also falls into the interact category. 

Interact:  Another interaction feature offered is the Ask Figaro Quiz “a highly un-scientific personality test to find the right opera for you!”

 

The Metropolitan Opera could do a little better with the interact portion of their website…they definitely could engage with their audience more by asking questions of their audience, looking for feedback and member reviews.  Adding a forum to their website would probably go a very long way to allow opera fans to interact together while participating as well. 

Parting Thoughts – What’s Completely Missing
The Metropolitan Opera is doing a pretty good job on their domain…however, there isn’t a whole lot of ways to spread the data on their domain to outside sources. 

No way to share the Metropolitan Opera trailer of Madam Butterfly or any other videos on the site.

And I have to note again – the comments are off on the blog, which is a prime method for people to interact with them.

It really isn’t that hard nor is it expensive to get involved in leveraging web technology and tools to entice, feed curiosities and interact with people.  It’s also not about doing perfectly, but at least getting started in engaging with your audience.

Filed in performing arts, social media

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

I started doing a lot more homework and research on social media for the arts (museums and art galleries) as well as for performing arts (theatre, opera and classical music).  It’s definitely more challenging to find information and people who discuss social media for the arts/performing arts. 

However, I did find some and they are full of great information. Some are blogs while some are blog posts.

Rohit Bhargava wrote a post called 4 Ways Social Media Could Save The Arts. My favorite recommendation is #4 – Allow Patrons to share their experience.  I’ll be writing soon about that.

Arts Marketing – written by Chad M. Bauman the Director of Communications at Arena Stage is an open discussion about arts marketing related issues and often addresses social media and creating work of mouth campaigns.

Arts Organizations and Artists 2.0: Social Media for Arts People is a blog post I found on Blogher by Beth Kanter. It’s a thorough look at how a few organizations are leveraging social media…the post is complete with examples and many outside links that will lead you to some additional information and fabulous blogs.

Technology in the Arts is a blog about just that…the latest technology for the arts which touches on many great tools and topics.

Museum 2.0 explores ways that the web 2.0 philosophies can be applied in museum design.

What’s Your Story? Is a personal branding, PR and New Media for artists blog written by Beth Dunn, the Director of Communications and Technology for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

Filed in linklove

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

I came across a write up of Indie on the Move on gigDoggy’s blog so I went and checked out the site…what a great concept!  It’s really like Yelp but specifically for music venues.

The concept was created by the band members of Zelazowa.  Zelazowa is an experienced band that has toured the US and Europe that has apparently decided to give back to the indie-music community. (everyone go ahhhhhhhhhh…) 

No seriously, this was an investment of dollars and time for Zelazowa to create this site which is priceless to other indie artists and even more so to a band who is preparing to tour for the first time. If you are preparing to tour, be sure to check out the Touring Tips section.  I’d add this to the question: Where do I sleep tonight – have a look a CouchSurfing.com

What is Indie on the Move?
Indie on the Move is a collection of venues and reviews of venues across the United States where bands are welcomed to play.  Each listing for a venue has contact information, website, MySpace profile, location and a basic description of the venue…along with reviews of the venues submitted by other bands and artists. 

As an artist you can create an account and you can start planning your tour, as well as contributing content to the site. 

Community Effort – Be a Contributor
Now that Zelazowa has established the site it’s up to the indie music community to make it useful.  The success or the failure of this site will be an excellent demonstration of strong community participation or weak community participation. 

The site can only get better if bands add venues, verify information and add reviews. NOT ONE individual is capable of making this site a success ONLY a COMMUNITY. 

Sure, huge money could be invested to pay for someone to look into each and every venues across the US but the data wouldn’t be as powerful or useful. 

It’s the real experiences that matters. It’s the sharing of information with others that matter. It’s the helping and assisting of those who are less experienced than you that matters.  It’s being part of a community that cares to help each other out that matters. 

Filed in community, music

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

Oddly enough this isn’t my venting session, but one brought to you by Brian Devine from New Media Strategies.

Brian’s annoyance is rooted in the counter intuitiviness of people choosing to disable embedding on their YouTube videos…as he goes on to say, here are two major problems with that:

“There are two major problems with a band disabling the embedding of its official content.  The first is that you are directly disrupting organic online word of mouth promotion of your content – this is contrary to the best practice of making your not for profit material, like YouTube videos, as easy to be shared as possible in order to maximize your reach.  

Secondly, disabling the embedding of official content you are encouraging the spread of unofficial content.  Locking down the videos on YouTube will ultimately not have the effect of forcing consumers to go to the official YouTube Channel – people online will find other avenues to embed and share the content in other places and ways.  This will cause disabling embedding to only be a short-term snag to those looking for the content that will really only be at the expense of the artist who didn’t need to disable it in the first place.” 

Brian ended venting with: “My only hope that this outdated thinking is the result of management, labels, etc. and not the band themselves. “

Here are two examples that Brian noticed and mentioned: Glasvegas video for Please Come Back Home and Morrissey video for Alma Matters

 

Until Brian mentioned this…it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would choose to disable embedding capabilities for their videos.  After all, two factors that make a video potentially viral: Good content and the ability to share the video.

Andrew Parker author of blog The Gong Show wrote a blog post on this topic almost two years ago to the date and these are his thoughts/opinions on why someone would disable embeds on YouTube: 

"YouTube must be paying a rev share for this content. Content owners likely don’t want their videos to be played if they are not paid for the play, and YouTube can only do a rev share on videos played on their own site (until they develop ads embedded in the video). So, disabling embedding is a natural conclusion from these circumstances. This is greedy. 

Another reason why content owners might want to disable embeds is they want to control the messaging around their video. Content owners like Domino Records want to stop users from presenting their videos along side offensive, insulting, or otherwise unacceptable material. This is less greedy, but still lame. 

YouTube is turning off the feature that allowed them to become the 800 pound gorilla in online video. It was MySpace and blogosphere embeds that let YouTube rocket past previously established competitors like Veoh. YouTube has reached a critical mass, so I don’t think disabling embedding for a limited number of videos will effect their growth at this point. But, it’s pretty odd that YouTube would allow owners to disable the feature (more so than any other feature) that defines YouTube."

Bottom line question that can’t quite be answered is: “Why would someone limit the ability for their content to reach a wider audience?” Any thoughts?

Filed in venting, youtube

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

RerverbNation is far from being a new kid on the block…launched in 2006 to respond to the changing music business paradigm.  The folks at ReverbNation believe: 

Nothing is more important to Artists than the relationship with their Fans. All of an artist's financial success comes down to the strength and breadth of the relationships they have with their fans. It is from those relationships that artists can earn a living selling music, tickets and merchandise. It is our mission to provide the tools artists need to create, nurture, and strengthen fan relationships. We call the total value of these relationships an artist's Band Equity™, and it is our mission to help artists maximize this.

Active Fans are the best promoters of music on the web. Fan attention has become fragmented across the web in a way that mass marketing no longer makes financial sense (see the demise of radio, music TV). Today is the age of social networks. Artists cannot be everywhere they need to be at once, so they need to focus on activating their most rabid fans to promote them in every corner of the web.

A Music Community is more valuable if includes all of the members of the community. We believe that fans, labels, venues, and other folks all deserve a voice in the community if it is going to be representative of the entire music ecosystem. At ReverbNation, we invite all members of the community to take part.

Those are pretty powerful beliefs and sentiments. 

ReverbNation was ahead of its time when it launched and they introduced widgets to musicians and fans.  They design the site/network with the ability to spread information across the web…taking what fans are looking for to them.

ReverbNation Street Team – Join and Get Off the Sidlines
Pretty catchy guilt embedded slogan they have going on and solid methods of implementation. 

Artists who join ReverbNation have the option to enable their Street Team feature.  The feature is built around the concept of “missions” which are assigned to you – the fans.  Examples of missions are:

• Spread Music
• Promote Shows
• Recruit New Fans
• Drive Traffic
• Offline Involvement
• Custom

Once an artist/band launches a mission…the mission is tracked in real-time and progress is displayed in a “Leaderboard” that both you and the artist can see.

The real cool part is that there is a blog for each Street Team mission for the artists to interact with their fans.  The artist also sets what the reward(s) and prize(s) will be for the winner(s).

Joining and Participating in a Street Team

You need to have an account on ReverbNation to join a Street Team but once you’re a member it’s really easy to join.  Find your favorite band on ReverbNation and look for the Street Team Tab…that’s where you join.

Ideally, your favorite bands already have active missions going on that you can get involved in right away, but if they don’t – you can join their Street Team and you’ll be automatically contacted when a mission is launched.

Also be on the lookout for this widget on your favorite bands’ online profiles:

I would think the coolest part of being on a Street Team is that the artist(s) you are helping out knows you are helping them out and it opens a great line of communication between you and your favorite artist(s).

Not Interested in a Street Team – What else can you do?
ReverbNation gives you a lot of options to promote your favorite artist(s).  You can promote their music, videos, upcoming shows, and latest press information through a selection of widgets and applications.

Find out more about what ReverbNation has to offer Fans. 

Filed in fans, promotion, reverbnation

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

Lots of newly generated talk about twitter in the music side of the industry thanks to a blog post written by Ariel Hyatt (@CyberPR) & Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) called the Musicians Twitter Roadmap.

I’ve written a few post on twitter already on this blog which you can find under twitter in the category section of the sidebar.  But one of the blog posts I hadn’t gotten around to writing yet is the Dos and Donts of twittering…so here goes. (Some of it is a refresher from the other posts – hint, hint…that’s because they’re really important.)

DO

• Do thoroughly fill out your profile
• Do add a picture
• Do follow people back
• Do learn something about the people following you
• Do interact with people
• Do @people
• Do ask questions and for feedback
• Do provide feedback and answer questions
• Do be entertaining (but yourself)
• Do be informative
• Do be engaging
• Do tweet on a regular basis (preferably a few times a day when starting out)
• Do tweet 12-18 times before following anyone to include @people
• Do use DM for one on one interaction when sending out to everyone is inappropriate
• Do assist in promoting your followers – they’ll return the favor
• Do retweet tweets that are worthwhile
• Do promote you’re on twitter on your other social network(s) and blog(s)
• Do learn some of the twitter terminology – and IM terms to shorten your words
• Do try to maintain a resemblance to using proper English
• Do take your extended twitter conversations to IM, email or DM
• Do realize things can be taken out of context
• Do know you can actually say A LOT in 140 characters
• Do look into tweetups in your area to meet people in real life
• Do look for twitter applications that will make your life easier 
• Oh…and do prepare to be frustrated at times. Twitter isn’t perfect

DON’T

• Don’t be a self-promoting fool
• Don’t DM someone your website after they start following you
• Don’t make all of your tweets 5-7 words
• Don’t follow 2000 people in one shot
• Don’t publicly send personal information over twitter
• Don’t publicly put someone on the hook for something
• Don’t publicly embarrass, bad mouth, or criticize someone
• Don’t go nuts welcoming and thanking all your new followers
• Don’t go nuts retweeting tweets that aren’t worthwhile (informative, funny or relevant)

It’s a simple Do and Don’t list that if followed; you’ll find success on twitter.

Filed in twitter

Comments: 3

Posted by Ann Bernard

Someone pointed out to me that the film/movie industry leverages social media better than any other genre, niche, and other industries within the entertainment industry.  I tend to disagree with that statement…while at the same time, I’ll give props to the movie industry for doing good marketing.  The exception perhaps being…Cloverfield

Of course, you could now bring the argument in that solid marketing on the web is leveraging social media.

Marketing Online = Word of Mouth for the Movie Industry
Okay…so this isn’t necessarily true for independent films.  They have a much lower budget and therefore limited abilities to plaster trailers all over the internet so more grassroot work is needed.

However, when it comes to blockbuster releases…the high dollars are invested in online marketing which generates the buzz.

People Love to Talk About Movies
A friend of mine that I talk to every few weeks asks me almost every time we talk “Seen any good movies lately?”

It’s a top rated question – it’s part of the American small talk dialogue. The movie industry just needs to give us something to talk about.

Whether it’s in person, movie review sites, on twitter or other social networks…what movies people have seen, are watching or movies coming out; those are all common and natural topics of conversation.

 “Quite the weather we’re having” right into “Hey, have you seen xxxxx?”

We naturally took those conversations online.

Recommendations

People love to make and get movie recommendations.  It’s probably the safest unsolicited advice to give “You should go see xxxx”

You might not have opinions about much, but I bet you have an opinion about pretty much all the movies you’ve seen. It’s probably, the few, if only opinions people seek and tolerate listening to.

Already Slated for Markets
Take the genre of a movie and the rating and Bang…you’ve got the majority of your market identified (age, sex and preferences).  With a little knowledge of where those people hang out online, you can easily target them.

The span of the various genre of movies pretty much reaches everyone – making for an unlimited market.

Appeals to our Senses
Movie trailers tickle our fancies.  The sounds, the pictures, the plot…the actors.  We watch movie trailers.  We just do. They’re entertaining.  They cater to our short attention span, they wet our appetites, they get us thinking about our opinions of the movie’s potential…they hit the mark. They even give us something to look forward to and get excited about.

Interaction
Interactive websites and video games add a layer to the icing on the cake.  So does our obsessions with actors and actresses.  

Movie fans are drawn together and like we already covered; they engage with each other.

The movie industry has a really good thing going.  Will anything change that? The economy – cost of tickets?

To other industries…you don’t quite have it made that way.  Even independent films…what can they do to generate more buzz without the budget.  What about performing arts, what can they learn from the movie industry?

Filed in movie

Comments: 2

Posted by Ann Bernard

I had to write this blog post because visiting this artist’s website really “moved me,” as cheesy as that might sound.

I was hanging out on Twitter reading the stream when this came across: DavidEckoff is excited to be seeing one of my favorite musicians tonight, the infamous Bob Schneider from Austin, TX. Listen (link to website)

I clicked and landed on one of the most innovative and “communicative” artist website I’ve found so far.

First off, it’s cool.  The CD case layout is pretty neat.  Cooler yet, if you click on the moving people inside the CD…talking bubbles pop up with funny stuff.

So after the cool factor comes the, WoW factor.  Unlike other musician websites I’ve visited, Bob doesn’t just let his music play.  He introduces each of his songs and the story behind the song…then the song plays.

A really simple thing to do to communicate with your audience, an easy addition to be memorable, and an upfront way to engage your listeners. 

You get to know Bob listening to him tell the stories behind his music.  You discover he’s a funny guy.  You connect to him and realize he would be a cool guy to have a beer with.  You realized that going to one of his shows is probably a total blast. 

Bob brings you into his world…in the process of doing so you realize you want to know more about him.  I bet he clocks in an average of 5-7 minutes out of each visit…if not more.

Once you decide you want to know more about him, you go exploring and what you find is more coolness. Click the menu button for more…this is one of my two criticisms of the site. The fact there’s a lot more to find from the menu isn’t necessarily intuitive.  Second criticisms is that you have to go offsite to see his tour schedule.

Anyway, the biography area is the best biography section I’ve ever seen.  It’s set on a timeline with pictures and it’s narrated by Bob. 

I’m not going to go through each parts of his menu but I recommend that you do go and have a look.

I’d love to hear from you. What do you think of the site?  How did it make you feel? Did you connect with Bob? Did it leave you thinking…I want to go to one of his shows?

Filed in music

Comments: 3

Posted by Ann Bernard

I already started to explain Stereo Fame last Friday and I invited a few local DC based bands that I’ve come across on MySpace to join Stereo Fame so I could sign them on to my label.  Only one band took me up on the offer so far, 23RAINYDAYS.  They now somehow have 3,000 more points than me…the bums!! 

So yea, I’ve been spending a good amount of time listening to music on Stereo Fame…much like Brew Dad who said in a blog post “…it has taken the place of the radio when I do my writing.”  If I were a musician or in a band, I know I’d be spending time on Stereo Fame…here’s why: 

Ten Reasons To Join Stereo Fame
1. It’s New and Easy.  Ever dream you could have been on MySpace when it first started out? According to the Stereo Fame homepage…there are only 3,415 artists on the site, to a 5,551 number of labels and listeners.  You can become a sought after artist now…and as the site grows; you’ll keep benefiting from it.  Getting started is real easy.

2.  Feedback on Your Music.  After listening to one of your songs (15 seconds of it) listeners can give it the thumbs up or down.  Pretty useful information because you can use it to narrow down who is and isn’t into your music.

 

3.  Knowing Who Listened to Your Music. You can find out who listened to your music. The site tracks the music each member is listening to.  Guess what that also does? Every time someone listens to one of your songs…it shows on their profile; fabulous visibility.

4.  It’s Only for Music.  You’re not competing with the attention of any other entertainers, cladly dress women, or whatever else might distract someone on another site.

5.  Exposure to All Kinds of Listeners. There are other people, just like Brew Dad who come to the site and just let the music play. Passive listeners who use the site as their new radio station. You also have extreme listeners looking for the latest and best new artists for their label.

6.  Downloads.  You can make your music available for downloads. 

7.  Technically Sound.  The site is well done. This isn’t a tech blog or startup blog so I won’t get into this…but trust me when I say, this site is well though out, designed and executed.  Plus, you have all kinds of widgets and banners to help spread the word.

8.  Collecting and Using Data.  You can look up in the charts area who the top labels and listeners are and the top played tracks for the last 7, 30 and 90 days.  Lots you can do with that information to help yourself.   

9.  Points and Prizes.  Yep, you get points for taking part in the activities on the site too, which means you can win prizes as well.  You would do all this work anyways…now, you get rewarded for it.

10.  Get Signed On to a Label.  So what if it’s a virtual label!?!? It’s a person/fan who enjoys and believes in your music.  It’s a fan who is going to help promote your music.  What’s better, earning a friend on MySpace or getting signed to someone’s label?

Although I say, and will keep writing that some of your time online is well spent expanding the ways in which you communicate online with your fans…for musicians, the most important thing is and will always be, to have your music listened to.  Stereo Fame offers great ways to make that happen.  Not only is your music listened to, but it is also promoted – the site is built to do that.

Filed in music, stereofame. promotion

Comments: 1

Posted by Ann Bernard

I left you with the question “Do you really think you can afford to not communicate with your fans?” in my first write-up on this topic of talking with your fans not to your fans. 

If you haven’t answered that question for yourself yet, consider this:

The internet has drastically changed and improved communication and interaction between people.

The internet has made a large world smaller and people in it more accessible.

Word of mouth exchange (recommendations, reviews, opinions) are on steroids within a person’s social network because of the size and accessibility of online social networks.

The internet has increased our requirements for immediate gratification.

The internet has increased our desires to be connected and in the know.

The internet has increased our human need to belong.

The internet has increased our ability to get away and take part of other worlds.

The internet has mostly definitely changed your fans expectations. 

We’re having this conversation because of how much the internet has changed things.

Do You Care About Your Fans?
A fan is an ardent devotee; an enthusiast.  A fan is someone dedicating their time, interest, passion and love towards YOU and your work/product.  Fans have a curiosity and interest in you.

The days of not being able to communicate with someone who is a fan (per the above description) are long gone.

Since communication is so much easier and simpler due to the internet: What signal do you think you send out when you can’t be bothered to communicate and engage with your fans?

Talking With Your Fans
Aren’t you curious about who your fans are? Aren’t you interested in what your fans have to say?

Talking with your fans is creating connections, personal interaction, exchanging information, recommendations and feedback.

Talking with your fans is building rapport and facilitating relationships. 

Engaging with your fans is showing you care about them.

Engaging with your fans is adding value to what they care and are passionate about.

“Do you really think you can afford to not communicate with your fans?”

Filed in fans

Comments: 2

Posted by Ann Bernard

As you might have noticed, we don’t have a blogroll…actually if you notice there is absolutely no widgets, links or other blog candy in the sidebar.  It’s semi intentional and unintentional. Unintentional, in that, we are using Mephisto and it isn’t the easiest blogging platform to work with or add widgets and plug-ins to.  Intentional, in that, we want the focus to be on the content and we don’t want you getting distracted and clicking off the site.

None the less, there are obviously great blogs out there for you to read to compliment what I write about so on Mondays, I’ll share the sites I know about and discover during the week. 

The following sites/blogs focus on marketing, self-promotion and leveraging the web

New Music Strategies: Andrew Dubber attempts to unpick and explain what’s going on in the online music environment - and from that, develop strategies to help independent musicians and music businesses cope and thrive in a changing media environment

gigDoggy:  gigDoggy loves writing songs and networking with bands. He first started asking around for advice on how to book gigs. Amazed by the support he got from other bands, gigDoggy soon realized that he wanted to share this advice, so he began blogging.

The Opening Note: Music, Industry, News, Resources

Bob Baker’s The Buzz Factor: Music Marketing tips and self-promotion ideas for independent songwriters, musicians and bands.

Music Think Tank: Where the Music Industry Thinks Out Loud

ArtistsHouse Music:  Helping Musicians and Music Entrepeneurs Create Sustainable Careers

Ariel Publicity - The official CyberPr Blog: This blog is part business ideas, part music industry tips and ideas for promotion and who knows maybe a personal entry or two… read on and do talk back.

C.J. Darlington.com: Thoughts on writing, books & publishing.

I realize the theme seems to be mostly on music…I’ll focus this week to find what’s out there for other entertainers for next Monday.  

Filed in linklove

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

Friday night I went to see the Washington Capitals play at the Verizon Center.  They played against the New Jersey Devils and won 3-1. I tweeted while at the game…came home and started doing some homework on how well (but found how bad) the Washington Capitals leverage twitter. 

Don’t get me wrong, the Washington Capitals have a twitter account; they just aren’t doing anything useful with it. 

Twitter is a powerful communication, promotional and grassroot marketing platform for organizations, businesses and corporations…but it’s a KILLER communication, promotional and grassroot marketing platform for a team like the Washington Capitals.

Twitter is most powerful when used to do the three following things:

1. Delivers interesting and timely information/news
2. Connect a community of fans, loyal customers or people of similar interest together
3. Act in support other grassroot efforts – inner and outer connectivity
   

If I Were Tweeting for the Washington Capitals
The First Basic Steps

1. Tweet the Games.  There is no live tweeting happening from the @washcaps account.  I know…I mean come on!?!?  That’s a pretty basic way of delivering interesting and timely information/news. 
2. Follow Fans Back. This is seriously basic. Follows your fans back…get into the a conversation with them.  How do you suppose to turn your fans into bigger fans and supporters (hence promoters) if you’re not communicating with them. 

Here’s how I would do it – let the fans know that during each games (at home or away – watching on tv or at the game) that anyone who tweets @washcaps during at game will be followed back.  That way you find your active game twitterer.

 The Next Steps

1. Tweeting in-Between Games: Break the news (at least some) of what’s happening over twitter. Run facts about the players, information about practice and other happenings within the organization.
2. TwitPic: Send out some twitpics during the games and in-between the games.
3. Post Fan Blog Posts: Find who is writing up the games, NOT mainstream media wirte-ups…but your loyal fans who blog their heart outs about the Washington Capitals. Send traffic and fans their way. 
4. Engage with Fans: Send out questions, ask for feedback and communicate with the twitter followers.

Going the Distance 

1. Washington Capital Fan Tweetup:  Once the Washington Capital Fan start coming together over twitter…arrange a Washington Capital Fan Tweetup – be it before the game or going the real distance and brining them all together in one of the suits at a game.
2. Show the Live Tweeting on Screen: How cool and encouraging would it be to have some live streaming of people tweeting the game at some point on one of the screens?
3. Find Who is Tweeting Sponsorship:  During the games, prizes are given out that are sponsored by different companies…so run a contest where the answer is delivered over Twitter with a HashTag and make someone a winner that way.

The Benefits of Good Twitter Usage

Do I really need to spell this out? Really!?!?

1. Awesome crowd engagement
2. Bringing together of your fans/community
3. Engaging in communication with your fans/community
4. Discover your major influencers
5. Excellent and extremely inexpensive marketing
6. Bringing the hockey and Washington Capitals experience to a much wider audience which will generate greater ticket sale.

Filed in advice, promotion, twitter, utilization

Comments: 2

Posted by Ann Bernard

We got all kinds of goodies on this blog!  You’ll see these types of interviews, Social Media Interviews, every so often.  I’ll pose questions to different types of entertainers to find out how they use social media and what they think of it.

Our first interviewee is international romantic recording artist, Michael Paige.  I met Michael at BlogWorldExpo 08.  I was very impressed that he was in attendance since you didn’t find that many entertainers there…mostly all social media types, PR folks and bloggers. 

At any rate, I really enjoyed getting Michael’s point of view on social media and I had the pleasure of introducing him to Twitter.

Michael can be found on the web on his own website where he runs a video blog and on a few social networks.

Check out his interview and his web presence.

Interview
Q:  You’re in the process of establishing a strong web presence…when did you realize this was something important to do? 

Michael Paige:   Creating a strong presence online has been on my agenda for the last three years.  The more time that passes the more I realize how much business is being done on the web.

Q:  What do you perceive the value of social media to be to you as an independent artist?

Michael Paige:  Social media can do a lot for anyone online.  However I think it’s easy to get completely sucked in by wanting to be everywhere.  As an independent artist it’s important to be able to know where to spend your time and energy online.

Q:  What aspect(s) of building a relationship online with your fans are you enjoying the most?

Michael Paige:  People in general are great, and unique.  It’s a blast getting to meet, get acquainted and communicate with so many people that enjoy my music.

Q:  What’s the most useful/valuable social network/social media platform to you and why?

Michael Paige:  All of them are important.  I think where you spend your time the most is what’s really important. 

Q:  How much time a week do you spend on social media (communicating with fans, interacting on social networks) and what does the breakdown of that time look like?

Michael Paige:  I don’t spend a specific amount of time on a daily or weekly basis.  It depends on my performance and recording schedule.

Q:  I see you run a video blog on your blog/website. What made you choose to do a video blog?  Which post has been your favorite so far and why?

Michael Paige:  I’m not sure which is my favorit e blog post.  The reason I decided to start blogging was that people were asking questions about me, my family life etc.  So I thought it would be a good idea to let them in on what I spend time doing.

Q: Any  words of wisdom or advice to independent artists getting involved in social media?

Michael Paige:  Pour your heart and passion in to what you’re doing, and enjoy the journey.  Music/entertainment has always been a difficult field to be a part of. The most successful people in this industry have had their ups and downs.  So enjoy every moment you can.

Web Presence
Michael On: Blog, Website, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Viddler (he’s got more but those are where he seems to spend most of his time)

What I like
Michael’s web presence leverages the 3/4 out of the 5 ways to communicate and interact with his fans. 

He interacts with his fans and the people who interact with him. His profiles are public so he is accessible. He creates quality content for his video blog allowing people to get to know him.  He even conducts interviews of people in other communities other than music and recording.

All his profiles that can be branded are professionally branded…the others have the cover of his new album.  If he can sell his music on a site…he’s selling his music, but of course offering a listen for free.

Recommendations
My recommendations to Michael to have greater success with social media are 1) To leverage his video content more. 2) Add profile information to his Viddler profile.  3) Be a little more active with the Viddler community. 3) To not be shy or afraid to annouce his new blog videos to Twitter, MySpace and Facebook - must create cross promotion across all the networks. 5) Consider starting a YouTube channel and post there as well.  6) When the time is right (touring) leverage the use of pictures more.

Be sure to listen to Michael's beautiful and romantic music!  

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Posted by Ann Bernard

What better way is there to show your favorite bands and musicians support than by signing them on to your own label?

That’s exactly what Stereo Fame allows you to do.  Once you’re a Stereo Fame member, you create your own labels, go around listening to music and select which artist you want to sign-on to your label. 

The other aspect of Stereo Fame is that it’s like fantasy football except for music.  They call it “ The Social Music Game” because you can earn points and win cool stuff. You can also download music for free!!

According the Stereo Fame site:

“Each Label earns points based on the popularity of each artist they've signed. When an artist or song gets a thumbs up it benefits the label. Also, Labels earn more points for being the first to sign a band, and extra points if an artist gets a lot of attention during a small period of time.

All Stereofame members earn bonus points just for playing the game. Actions like voting for a song, referring a friend, leaving a comment, etc. add more points your score.”

Promoting Your Label and The Artists
How does this help you promote your favorite bans?  Once you’ve signed on your favorite bands and/or discovered new bands…you go around promoting your label which brings people around to listening to the artists you’ve signed on. 

The more people that listen, the more points you make…and the more exposure you bring to the music you love. (You can redeem your points to win cool stuff)

Great Communication Tool
From what I’ve gathered of Stereo Fame it is rather new….can’t find a definite date it launched but my guess is it was in the last few months.  What does that mean??

It means a lot.  It means that many bands and musicians don’t know yet about Stereo Fame.  It means you can introduce Stereo Fame to your favorite artists and be the first to sign them (hence getting more points).

Here’s what I would do:

1. Sign up on Stereo Fame
2. Do a search for my (meaing your) favorite bands/musicians
3. Find them – Sign them onto your label
4. Can’t find them…send them a note on MySpace, their website and wherever you know they’ll see your message or use Stereo Fame and invite them to join
5. Once they’ve joined, signed them unto your label
6. Work hard and take them to the top – make them the artist of the week

I guarantee you that all the bands and musicians you do this for will love you for it.

Musicians…look  for the blog post on Stereo Fame for you next week.

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Comments: 1

Posted by Ann Bernard

TGIF!! Happy Friday everyone and welcome to Fan Friday on the Your Path to Stardom Blog. 

Six days out of the week this blog is mostly focused on entertainers except for Fridays. On Fridays, this blog is now for the fans.

Fans have a lot of power to make or break an artist…particularly an independent artist.  There are many ways you can help promote the entertainers you enjoy the most, but you might not be aware of all the different things you can do.  You might also not be aware of how to be heard, listened to and properly interact with the entertainers you idolize.

I would be remiss in my duties to not inform you (the fans) of your powers of influence, abilities to help and duties to keep entertainers honest/straight.

Fridays is also going to be Feature Friday in honor of loyal fans who want to see their favorite entertainer(s) featured here on this blog.  Email me to let me know who you want me to get in touch with or leave me a comment.

We’re going to have a lot of fun on Fridays courtesy of  FANS!!

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Posted by Ann Bernard

Going to have some fun venting while passing on some pointers.  I’m mostly nice, encouraging and supportive but I’m also extremely opinionated and sarcastic so once a week I’m going to vent and unload on what really fires me up on the web. 

 Feel free to vent back!!

 

Top Three Annoying Things on MySpace Profiles

Obnoxious Backgrounds

1. If I can’t read a damn thing on your profile because of your background…you have an obnoxious background.
2. If your background is a picture of yourself or your band…you have an obnoxious background.

Scrolling Right or Left Profiles
I expect to scroll down to view the information in your profile…not left or right. People want their information within the right and left lateral limits of their screen because it makes it easy to read, view and interact.  Having to scroll all over the place sucks and makes it difficult to navigate your profile.

Relocation of Add Friend Request
This isn’t so annoying if the add friend request location is moved and is obvious to find…extremely annoying if it’s difficult to find.  If you’re wondering why you don’t get friend request – I recommend looking at how easy it is to add you. 

For those Add Friend Request that are in the same location as the original MySpace profile layout but you had a specialized user interfaced implemented to your profile…guess what?  Your Add Friend Request might not be properly lined up so when people click on it they end up with IM or Send Message.  Which means your new wannabe friend has to waste their time lining up their mouse just right to add you as a friend.  You know what happened to me?  I left.

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Posted by Ann Bernard

The premise and success behind properly leveraging social media isn’t in the technology…it’s in the communication and engagement that takes place because of the technology.

Corporations, organizations, small to large businesses, government agencies, and non-profits are embracing social media in order to find out what their customers want, to find ways to better serve their customers and to participate in the conversation that’s taking place about them.

The web has changed things…people don’t want to be spoken to, they want to be engaged in a conversation with.

Is Being Idolized Enough?!?
Interestingly enough, some bigger acts think they can afford to not communicate with their fans and they also think they can afford to blow them off. 

Exhibit A Lil Wayne:  Lil Wayne not only cancelled a few of his shows (Raleigh, NC and Atlantic City, NJ) but he also simply didn’t show up to two other shows leaving Ludacris and Jay-z hanging in the last few months. The record-selling breaking Rapper didn’t apologize for his disregard to his fans, fellow artists or record label.

Some fans commented that they think Lil Wayne (Weezy) has earned the rights to do behave this way…while others were clearly upset.

Entertainers are idolized in the American culture…they sometimes behave, act and do things that frankly other people (organizations) don’t get away with doing.  A business does not survive endless bad customer service.

Are you counting on your fans idolizing you simply based on your talent?

How long do you think that can last?

The Buck Stopped for Them
Big companies used to think they were too big to be impacted by consumer reviews and conversations online…but they quickly came to realize that was a fallacy and false sense of security. They needed to engage online and not just engage, but communicate with their clients and customers.

You fans are your customers.  Much like any industry and company…your art/product has competition.  Your fans don’t have to spend their hard earn money on you – they can go spend it on someone who engages with them and provides them more of what they’re looking for – a greater sense of connection.

In my opinion, entertainers have been to some extent sheltered from any significant backlash from fans online…I don’t think that will last forever.  Probably the most “targeted entertainers” in the industry are athletes… 

Not a Big Star Yet
Even if you don’t agree with me and you believe that big rock stars, rappers, movie stars, athletes, and other entertainers making millions will keep being able to get away with what they’ve always done…where does that leave you? 

Do you Really Think you Can Afford to not Communicate With Your Fans? 

Filed in fan, interaction

Comments: 1

Posted by Ann Bernard

This is coming to you courtesy of  Finn Riggins who are now touring – Eric (keys, synths, organ, accordion, sampler, guitar, vocals, misc) for Finn Riggs wrote me on MySpace:

"right on ann, sounds like some great stuff... pretty swamped in the middle of tour right now... but would love to keep up with this stuff..." (by stuff he’s referring to social media)

So turns out that this stuff (social media) is actually best done while on tour (book tour, comedy, music or any type of road show).  It’s best while on tour for the very reasons you don’t have time to do it…there’s a lot going on, you’re on the road, you’re meeting your fans and playing back to back shows.

Social media and leveraging the web is about communicating, engaging and connecting with your fans…You tour to communicate, engage and meet your fans.  See the connection? 

Since Finn Riggs is on tour right now (as many of you might be as well) we’ll do a quick crash course. 

Emergency Crash Course: Social Media while Touring
Back to loose-leaf-social media conducted on your landing and extension networks and the five means of online communication. 

Communicate and engage with your fans with videos, pictures, and words.

Lets go for the sake of this crash course with your blog or MySpace blog, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube or 12second.tv.

Communicating with Your Fans

• Capture your life on tour – write about it, video it and take pictures. POST them online
• Let your fans know where you are
• Let your fans know what your are doing
• Let your fans know where you are going

Engage with Your Fans

• Ask your fans to give you the low down on their towns you’re about the visit – repost in a blog post.
• Ask your fans to send one picture of their favorite “part of town” post them up
• Ask your fans for other input pertaining to life on the road…

Acknowledge Your Fans

• Make it a habit to meet some of your fans – write down their names and get one of their online profiles.  Write up a post with 20 of the fans you met at each of your shows.
• Ask your fans to write up your show and tie back to their write-ups (the good and bad)

The reason you want to establish a strong loose-leaf-social media presence prior to leaving on tour is to make the interaction while on tour more exciting, active and rewarding…but since you are on tour – you already know you have some fans so engage with them; you’ll turn your fans into more dedicated fans and find new ones.

Blog
Blog if not daily – a few times a week.  Tell stories about life on tour. Doesn’t have to be pages of it.  But write up the memorable things that are happening, funny incidents, a day of your life on tour.  Mention your fans (per above recommendations)

Twittter
140 characters or less. You’ve got time for that. Send updates of your travels, show times, report what the other members of the bands are doing, share your feelings, emotions and outlooks of life on the road.

Flickr – Pictures
Pictures are worth a thousand words.  Take pictures. Have someone else take pictures.  Leverage your fans and have them send you pictures of the shows.  You take pictures of life on tour.  The unexpected shots are the best!

Video
Record short videos.  Interview each other.  Talk about your performance, the crowd, the people you meet.  The more your mention your fans…the better off you are.

Post Immediately
Everything you do on tour is time sensitive.  Post your content and keep real time interaction with your fans.  Being on tour is one massive push to expose yourself and maximize impact with your fans.  Don’t waste your opportunities to have a more successful tour than ever before.  Make the extra effort.  Carpe Diem.

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Posted by Ann Bernard

The other day I started a meetup group – it’s called: Social Media and Biz Development for Entertainers.  The first meetup is this Wednesday, November 12^th, 7pm at Murky’s Coffee in Arlington.

The meetup group to no shocking surprise is for entertainers; artists, musicians, actors, writers, and comedians who want to be more proactive in using and leveraging social media.  We’ll discuss in greater details the things I blog about here.  Everyone will be an active learner and teacher.  I envision a group that learns from each of the members.

I’m not sure if I’m being over ambitious, I’ve scheduled meetings for every Wednesdays in order to make the group and myself easily accessible on a weekly basis for entertainers looking for help, assistance and guidance on how to get involved in social media and business development.

If you’re an entertainer in DC...I would come check this group out.  Guarantee you’ll learn something, you’ll be able to help someone else out and it will help you take what you’re doing to a new level.

Bring a laptop…this will be a hands-on group! (If you don't want to signup with Meetup to RSVP - leave me a comment you're coming.)

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Posted by Ann Bernard

Do this right now, Google yourself and find out if you’re having one way or two way conversations.

If the first few pages of results are all write-ups about you, your album, cd, book and shows…more than likely you’re engage in one way conversations.  Particularly if you click on the links and guess what…you’ve never left a comment on the review, engaged with the people who read the review or listened to your interview.  Worst yet, you’ve never linked back to those reviews or interviews…you didn’t even get involved in a communication with the person who promoted you.

On the other hand, if there’s a healthy dose of your own online profiles, your website and blog(s) than you’re also engaging in two way conversations.  Your name is linked to comments, your own reviews of others and things other than self-promotion.

As an entertainer you probably get really, really excited when someone agrees to interview you, review your work or take the time to interact with you in some way.  You got through the interview and than you sit back and wait for your sales to increase and for new fans to show up at your door steps…you wait, you wait and you wait.  Hmmm…but wait – only a few show up, if any at all.  So what do you next?  Line up more interviews??

STOP.  Start interacting and communicating.  Start building a community.

Guess what those folks who are interviewing you and reviewing your work are doing?  They are building and nurturing their community by featuring you.  They are communicating with their community.  What are you doing?  How are you interacting and engaging your fans?

STOP having one way conversations – Start having two way conversations

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Posted by Ann Bernard

What we’ve been discussing thus far is something I’m going to coin as “loose-leaf -social-media.”  That is to say, we’ve been doing some talking about having a presence on a variety of social networks.  I call it “loose-leaf” because hanging out on social networks and creating content without a plan is like having loose leaf papers with writing on them blowing in the wind…you don’t know what’s going to come of them and who is going to read the pages. 

Don’t get me wrong, some amazing things can and will still happen; particularly the ability to build some great relationships with your fans.  But, what we want to eventually get into is creating a social media campaign.  Having an understanding of your landing points and extensions is NOT a social media campaign.

A social media campaign is about leveraging your  loose-leaf-social-media together around a plan to accomplish a specific  purpose.  A social media campaign requires having 1. a plan 2. a purpose 3. a desired outcome and 4. a method to track its effectiveness.  It’s also called a campaign for a reason – it doesn’t happen overnight (even if it did happen overnight…it required a lot of planning and prep-work) and it will require continuous work.

You would launch a social media campaign for:

• The release of a new album, book, movie…etc.
• An upcoming tour
• A special show or event
• Recruit new talent

…just to name a few

First Step of a Social Media Campaign: Establishing Strategic Loose-Leaf-Social-Media Presence.
Having an established, strategic loose-leaf-social-media presence prior to initiating a social media campaign is advantageous.  It means you have some, even if meager, presence on the web and within a few communities. 

If you aren’t involved in loose-leaf-social-media and you engage in a social media campaign; you run a higher risk of coming off has only promoting, marketing and selling to the communities you belong to.  On the other hand, if you’ve been involved in loose-leaf-social-media than you have a greater chance of having the communities and relationships you’ve developed work in support of your campaign.

Communities and Relationships
It’s time to get into the importance of properly establishing yourself on the web and in your communities.  We’re going to explore social networks, blogs, websites and talk about the keys to being a successful, contributing member of a community.

It’s going to be awhile before we talk about creating a social media campaign again, so if you feel you have a well established loose-leaf-social-media presence and you’re ready to launch a campaign – contact me and we can discuss it.

Otherwise, since this blog is in its infancy and from what I’ve gathered of my readers you’ve been hanging out on MySpace and not venturing out too much; I’m going to take the time to explore with you.

Filed in lesson, social media

Comments: 1

Posted by Ann Bernard

Yesterday I mentioned that using third party applications (sites and communities) are better than using the ones built into MySpace.  Now, I’m going to explain why I made that statement.

You have five basic kinds of communities on the internet.  You have: 

1. Landing Points/End Points
2. Your Extensions
3. Your Hubs
4. Your Aggregators/Promoters
5. Traditional Communities
   

We’re going to be to talking about what’s more relevant to you: your landing/end points and extensions.

Your Landing/End Points on the Web
A quick refresher – three days ago in the More Chatting About Social Media post I mentioned that people communicate on the web in five ways:

1. Words (blogs, microblogging, and through comments)
2. Audio (podcasts, internet radio)
3. Video (from 12seconds.tv, Seesmic to YouTube, Viddler and Internet TV shows)
4. Pictures (Flickr)
5. Presentations (mixtures of the above - Slideshare)

Your landing points/end points are sites on the web that have the capabilities of  combining all 5 methods of communication.  Another important characteristic of a good landing point is a large and relevant community.  Sites become landing points because a large mass of people have made it a habit of visiting those sites once, twice, multiple times a day or at least every week.

Lets narrow that down further – in a nutshell, good landing points for you as an entertainer are MySpace, to some extent Facebook and your own website.  I’m going to keep pushing the importance of having your own website.  It’s an excellent landing point and place to aggregate your extensions.

Other Landing Points for Entertainers

MySpace isn’t the only community focused on music or entertainers. There certainly are quite a few others out there.  I need to explore them more, but from what I’ve seen of them; they are more like traditional communities with limited abilities to combine all your communication means.

Would love to hear from you about you think of that statement.  Do you have other landing points?

Your Extensions
Your extensions are sites and communities where you produce a specific type of content and take part in participating in that community.  The content is exposed to the community within that site but the site is designed for you to extend your content to your landing points. 

Video and Picture Sites
Video and Picture Sites are excellent extension sites.  They are fun places to create and post content and are, depending on the site, relatively light on the workload for the community side.

Driving the point home from yesterday’s post – the reason it makes more sense to have an account and post your videos on YouTube rather than just on MySpace is for the extra exposure in a different community.

Microblogging Platfroms
Microblogging platforms (Twitter, Jaiku, Pluck, Pownce, Tumblr, etc.) require a great deal more involvement to create valuable, interesting content and become part of the respective communities.  The effort ought to be made though, in at least one of them, because of exposure to different audiences and another form of content.

Internet Radio, Podcast, Internet TV
This is a whole new level of involvement in creating content.  I definitely don’t want to get into what it takes to be successful in running an internet radio show, podcast or internet TV program.  But know that those platform and communities also exist as another source of content.

Instead of producing your own – I recommend looking at what show(s) you could be a guest on.

Wrap-up
Hopefully you’re starting to get the idea of what’s out there and you’re starting to see how it’s suppose to come together.

Knowing the difference between your landing/end points and your extensions is important because it’s how you’ll judge where your time is best spent.

The other sites, your hubs and your aggregators/promoters are also important but we can hold off talking about them.

Filed in educational, social media

Comments: 1

Posted by Ann Bernard

I was on MySpace back in early 2005 when it was a little social network that nobody knew about.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never been able to delete my old profile since I lost my login information and Tom won’t give it back to me…bonus points to anyone who can find it!

MySpace and the web have drastically changed since then.  There’s no doubt that I and MySpace have matured since 2005.  We both figured out how to be better at doing business...for MySpace, things started to change after News Corp bought them for $580M.  However, I would say that what really changed MySpace was opening up their platform to third party developers.  An effort lead by Facebook, social networks opening up to third party developers to make applications for their users became the thing to do in late 2007.  Open social followed and now with widgets, it’s very easy to add applications to all and any social networks and blogging platforms. 

I’ve been spending a great deal more time on MySpace again.  I’m scared by some of the profile pages I see and impressed by some others. What I’ve been looking for are the applications that make business sense.  What qualifies as a good business application – an application that meets one or all of the following criteria: 

1. It sells something – You make money from it
2. It captures information about your visitors
3. It allows your visitors to provide feedback
4. It promotes you and your shows

Five Applications That Are a Must for Your MySpace Page

Lets have a look at my selection (and this is aside of the obvious ones like the MySpace Music Player) and why I picked them.

Video and Picture Applications for Quality Videos and Pictures…Emphasizing the word Quality

Whether you choose YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo or MySpace videos or on the picture side Slide, Flickr, Photobucket or MySpace picture share – it’s a good addition to your profile to add video(s) and pictures.  Don’t go overboard on the videos, but if you have a song video, a live performance, an interview or some other video that compliments finding out about you and what you do…add it. 

 

As for pictures…people are totally into voyeurism and love pictures, so give them plenty of what they want. Don’t expect them to go click on your pictures in your profile – Add an application that’s on the main page.

Using MySpace applications is good but using 3^rd party is better and we’ll talk about why in a later post. (This falls under #4 above)

The Eventful Demand It Application

Every entertainer that tours or intends to tour should have that application on their profile.  It’s a great way of knowing where your fans are located and figure out where to plan your next show(s).  (This falls under #2 and 3).

Selling Applications

No brainer on this one.  If you have a product and/or merchandise and you aren’t selling it on your MySpace page... you’re a fool.  You need to be selling, selling, selling.

 

Email Newsletter Application

Obviously is you don’t do a newsletter or monthly email to your fan base this application doesn’t make sense (but we probably need to discuss why you don’t contact your fan base on the monthly basis…) if you do, then you really need to have this application on your profile.  Having ways to contact your fans is pretty important – this falls under #2.

Mobile Fan Club

I didn’t see this application on too many profiles but I think it’s definitely a must add.  You can use it to capture your fans phone numbers so you can text them when you have a shows coming up in their area.  Hey, if your fans are going to give you their phone numbers – take it!!  You can’t have too many ways to contact your fans.

 

 

Filed in myspace, social media

Comments: 2

Posted by Ann Bernard

I talked about The Social Media Train last month.  It was an analogy to help you understand the functions and various parts of social media.  Hopefully you understood what I was trying to say…it’s cool if you didn’t; we’re going to simplify it a little more in this post.

To it’s simplest form, social media is the act of leveraging the web (tools and applications) to engage in conversations with people.  People have been having conversation since Adam and Eve – the web just happened to have increased the size of the audience and slightly complicated the basics.

You can communicate with people on the web in five ways:

• Words (blogs, microblogging, and through comments)

• Audio (podcasts, internet radio)

• Video (from 12seconds.tv, Seesmic to YouTube, Viddler and Internet TV shows)

• Pictures (Flickr) 
  

• Presentations (mixtures of the above - Slideshare)
  

Basic Rules of Conversation

Who do you enjoy talking to and listening to?  Do you like being around interesting, engaging, funny and intelligent people?  Or do you prefer the dry, boring, snobbish, self-absorbed types?  Would you rather be lied to or told the truth?

Interaction online, in online communities, on your blog(s), other people’s blogs, is about decent conversation and human engagement.

Always remember that a conversation is a two way street. People don’t like being talked to or annoyingly sold to.  We’re all naturally more interested in what’s in it for us – so give people what they want and stop looking for what you want.

Where the Confusion Begins

The Technology
Under each method of communication are a plethora of means – as in, a crazy amount of applications, communities and sites a person can use to hold their conversations.  It’s a fact that some are better than other.  This is where people get confused, overwhelmed and lose it.

The Persona
Being that you are an entertainer and not a corporation, business, organization or association…deciphering your voice and who you are shouldn’t be difficult to do.  It’s the same voice you have at a show, when entertaining your fans or hanging out with your friends.

However, if you want to play a persona online – be it that of a playboy rocker, a-hole comedian, or lustful writer…that needs to be decided on and could add a layer of complications.

To alleviate confusion, one most PLAN.  The planning is called creating a social media campaign.  The complexity of social media resides in planning and executing a successful social media campaign…not in using the web to have conversations.

The Returns
Probably the MOST confusing aspect of (a) social media (campaign) is ensuring that it’s working.  This again gets into the use of tools and technology – the area where most people get totally lost.  We’ll work on changing that.

The take away from this blog post is this – you are more than likely already involved in social media on MySpace, YouTube, your own website and other places.  What you now need to do is create a social media campaign.  How to create a social media campaign is forth coming!!

Filed in media, social

Comments: 0

Posted by Ann Bernard

This is one of your first entrepreneurial (and social media) lesson.  Since you can only do limited business on MySpace it’s not sufficient to solely rely on MySpace.  I’m saying MySpace but it could be any other networking site you use. 

Where’s the Best Place for you to Conduct Business?

The answer is multiple places (we’ll talk at great length about that)…however, one main place on the web you need to be conducting business is on your own site and domain.

It’s natural as an entertainer to be drawn to and rely on MySpace…the social network is after all packed with millions of users and potential fans. You can brand your profile page so it’s also powerful for building your brand, you can blog, message people, post upcoming shows and with the addition of widgets and applications you can pretty much bring everything to your MySpace profile (something else we’ll get into great details about) but there are many pitfalls to only relying on one social network. 

Pitfalls of Social Network(s) – Find Solutions on your own domain

Biggest Pitfall – Conducting Business: Seriously, how much selling can you easily do from MySpace or other social networks?  Or how much serious selling can you easily do from MySpace and other social networks?  Even with the advance of widgets and applications…your ability to SALE is limited.

Solution: Creating a store on your own domain is pretty darn easy these days…why wouldn’t you do that!?!?

Pitfall – Reliability: MySpace has been around for awhile so it’s “pretty stable” but it’s not full proof.  Just a couple of weeks ago the blog features were down. I’ve also heard complaints about play counts.  No matter what third party site you trust to conduct business – you rely on them being and staying reliable.

Solution: Having your own domain is a forefront and a backup to all your other profiles.

Pitfall – Control: You don’t own your profile on a social network – the social network owns your profile.  You have to play by rules of the terms of services (TOS). Your account can be deleted if and when they feel like you’ve violated the TOS.  Or on the flip side, it becomes impossible to get your profile deleted.

Solution: You are the master of your own domain and the content there. You are the owner of the TOS.  You can say, add, delete and do whatever you want.

Pitfall – Wall Garden:  This can probably also go under the pitfall of control as well.  So pretty much all social networks require people to become members and users of their social network to communicate with you.  Do you realize how many people don’t bother to do that?

Solution:  On your own domain you make it much simpler and easier for people to communication with you.

Pitfall – Limited Ability to be Discovered:  As you will read below in the answers provided from great peeps on twitter: solely relying on one social network really limits your exposure to multiple audiences.  No matter how large a social network is – Not everyone is on it!!

scottpalmer @AnnBernard Like cell phone carriers, imagine only calling people on your network!! Don't know where folks are, you have to be everywhere.

wei_yang @AnnBernard Like all advertising, if you limit yourself to one channel, you miss out on testing and reaching the other channels

andrewbadera @AnnBernard haha PERFECT: 140 characters just ain't enough bandwidth, in the case of Twitter, to do everything one needs to do biz-wise.

andrewbadera @AnnBernard any one network fails to be universally inclusive. different features have different business value. etc. etc

JoeyN @AnnBernard not everyone uses the same social networks for the same reasons. Some cater to specific demographics & audiences

Solution:  Your own domain will get indexed in search engines and with proper SEO you’ll can make it super easy for anyone to find and discover you. 

I’ll be exploring the websites of artists in upcoming posts and we’ll find out how well it’s been paying off for them!

Filed in business, social media

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