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.

Filed in touring

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