How To Tag A Page Or Friend In Your Status Update

If you’ve ever replied to someone publicly on Twitter, then you’ll know how to tag a friend or page in your Facebook status update. Typing the @ sign followed by the first letter of the page or friend you want to mention will bring up a menu of possible selections.

Why It’s Great For Brands On Facebook

Encouraging users to tag your page is a great way to generate interest through word of mouth. Friends trust what their friends suggest or promote on Facebook. It’s very easy to track who tagged or mentioned your page by searching for it on Facebook then selecting “View All Results” then “Find Posts By Everyone/Friends.”

Foursquare, The Check-in Service

Foursquare is a location-based (sometimes referred to as ‘geo-location’) service that allows users to ‘check in’ to any venue while earning points, badges and the title of a venue’s “mayor” (someone who has checked in the most into a single venue over the past two months). The check-in service creates a competitive environment to explore new locales and share them with friends through its built-in social network.

Analytics

Foursquare provides access to powerful analytics. After going through the “Claim a Venue” process to confirm your business information (which has the tendency to be a bit convoluted despite Foursquare’s attempt to simplify this process), a venue owner can view their customer demographics such as age, gender and time of visit to the venue.

In-bound Marketing

Foursquare extends deal and specials. Coupons that have been distributed by outbound marketing means in the past—television, radio, newspapers, mail—are instead seen in real-time by Foursquare users within a venue’s immediate area. This is free advertising that people are actively seeking out. For example, Chili’s offers a free order of chips and salsa for any table that checks into the restaurant on Foursquare. The possibilities are limitless and the promotions welcomed. What are you willing to offer to get customers into your venue?

Linking to Other Social Networks

Foursquare users can choose to link their Foursquare account to their Facebook and Twitter profiles and Foursquare provides this information in the Analytics page, paving the way for targeted marketing.

Twitter, The Real-Time Network

Twitter extends your restaurant’s presence online by giving your establishment a voice that is often lost in direct advertising. A brand personality leads to improved customer engagement and paves the way for new followers.

Twitter is the best tool for sending quick updates to your venue’s community. Some updates can include new menu items, coupons and happy hour reminders. Your Twitter network receives your announcement instantly, can reply to what you say and retweet it to their entire Twitter network to reach an even larger audience.

Facebook, The Friend Communicator

If Twitter is the de facto micro-update network then Facebook is the be-all and end-all friend network. Its market penetration of 500 million users is the largest of any social network.

FBML (Facebook Mark-Up Language)

Facebook makes it easy for businesses, like your restaurant, to be a part of the Facebook community. Your restaurant can integrate HTML into your Facebook Page by adding the Static FBML application. This enables you to design and program a fully-functioning landing page within your restaurant’s Facebook Page. What should you put on your FBML page? The possibilities are endless.

Customer Service With Facebook

Social media acts as an open channel to provide stellar customer service by directly engaging with your customer base. Seek out your customers and inquire about their visit to your venue. Was the restaurant clean? Were the employees friendly? What did your customer order and would they order it again? If positive, thank them for their feedback and invite them to come back soon. If negative, apologize and thank them for the feedback. Tell the customer you will rectify the situation to make sure it never happens again. Your customers will be shocked (in a good way) at the intimate outreach and impressed that you’re listening. The ability to engage and learn from your customer is the key to building loyalty to your brand and learning how to improve your business.

Syndication

Like Twitter, Facebook also includes an instant update feature. If Facebook can do what Twitter does, why would anyone need a presence on both networks? The answer: not everyone has both a Twitter and Facebook account. While some do, some of your customers won’t. Each network functions differently with advantages and disadvatanges to both. Having a presence on both networks gives your restaurant guarantees a higher brand visibility than if you only choose one.

Local Search: The Review Guide For Customers

Word-Of-Mouth is a Powerful Thing

Customers trust unbiased sources. Google and Yelp provide local search tools for people to use when looking for local attractions, but they’re more than just an online version of the Yellow Pages. Aside from aggregating local data, the greatest thing about these services is the ability to write Reviews. Feedback from your customers is readily available for you and viewable to anyone who searches for your restaurant. Business owners are then able to e-mail their reviewers directly—again, proactively engaging your customers (see the recurring theme?).

Local Search Now As Mobile Apps

Many local search tools are available as Mobile Apps making it easy for anyone to find your restaurant when they’re out and about. This is where keeping your venue’s information updated comes in handy. Anyone searching for a restaurant will be more inclined to pick a venue that not only caters to their taste but also offers accurate information, including your address, phone number, website and business hours. Yelp also enables information on the price range of your menu, whether or not your establishment is good for kids, if you offer delivery service and more.

LinkedIn, The Industry Professional Connector

Professional Networking

LinkedIn shares many of the features you can find on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare: status updates, social networking, messaging and check-in tools. LinkedIn takes these concepts and applies them to professional networking. While you may be able to reach most of your customers through other social networks, LinkedIn is the only network that gives you access to a large number of professionals in your industry. This will be useful when you want to promote your business, offer catering for corporate events, gain advice from long time food aficionados or acquire knowledge to help your business.

Case Study: Golden Spoon

To illustrate the power of social media, here’s a look into the social media marketing efforts of Golden Spoon in Coachella Valley. I have helped manage the social interactions for Golden Spoon across the networks I have mentioned. Golden Spoon’s results clearly show that social media marketing is an effective way to create buzz, improve customer service, encourage store visits and gather invaluable demographics information.

Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter Cross-Integration

These three networks integrate ever-so nicely and create one of the best customer interaction tools on a localized scale.

Our scenario: a customer checks in on Foursquare to one of the Golden Spoon locations in the Coachella Valley. Foursquare allows me to track who checked in, at what time of day, and their Twitter or Facebook accounts if linked to their Foursquare profile. I then contact them using Golden Spoon’s Facebook or Twitter accounts to ask, “How was your frozen yogurt?” or “Did you try our newest flavor?” or “Did you see our Foursquare specials? We have free frozen yogurt for the Mayor!” Each reply generated a response coupled with feedback for Golden Spoon. I then add the customer to the Golden Spoon Twitter and Facebook accounts if they aren’t already a follower or fan. (Social Consolidation, oh my!)

Mobile Fan Club

While Golden Spoon’s Coachella Valley locations are promoted through the standard social media channels, customers can still receive updates about promotions through a mobile fan club which sends out text updates. The execution is simple and compliments the social channels already in use. The owner of these venues shares just how effective mobile messaging can be: “I’ve been in my store in the middle of the day when it’s absolutely dead. I’ll send a message to my mobile fan club saying, ‘Come into the store in the next hour for a buy one get one free frozen yogurt!’ The store will fill up in 20 minutes.”

Foursquare Analytics And Promotions

Here is a look into Foursquare’s analytics. These stats show who checked in, when, their age to and their most recent check-ins. What makes this really powerful is that you can interact with every single person who checked in to your restaurant if you’re using Foursquare.

Facebook And Twitter Engagement

In conjunction with Foursquare, Golden Spoon has utilized Twitter and Facebook to announce its promotions. We often give a short description of a deal and link back to the blog to provide detailed information. The important thing to remember is to include enough information in the Tweet for people to understand the offer without having to go to the blog (Tweets are limited to 140 characters). The post is only meant to elaborate on it; however, you may find it suitable to not include a Blog link at all, depending on the offer.

We also asked Facebook fans and Twitter followers their opinion on Golden Spoon’s flavors and their experience in the stores. However, we were careful not to make every status about Golden Spoon, or else fans and followers would think of our social media efforts as spam. We varied our posts with general questions to promote conversation and build a community. “How is Coachella Valley doing today? How are you going to beat the heat?” This is still relevant to Golden Spoon (eating frozen yogurt when it’s hot helps you cool down) but doesn’t hit you over the head with a self-promoting tone.

Now you have learned what Social Media is and how it can be used to increase business for your restaurant and how I’ve used it to increase interest. If you aren’t using Social Media for your restaurant, why are you waiting? You’ve learned about the tools, understood the process and read the results. Social Media will increase interest and traffic; there is no reason to wait any longer to engage online.

Create A Social Media Battle Plan!

Often times people dive in to Social Media without a clue on what to do. While using Social Media is great for personal use, if you’re leveraging it on a professional scale, you’ll want to create a game plan. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish, how you want to engage users and whether or not your target demographic can be reached easily online. These are all very important things to keep in mind when creating your Social Media battle plan. You wouldn’t create a start up without a product, why would you create your online identity without a face?

Be Social On Your Media Channels

The number one mistake brands and businesses makes is taking the wrong approach to Social Media by not being active. The whole point of Social Media is to actively engage your users and create a community. Unfortunately people are alienated from larger companies even on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

You need to be a participant in your own community otherwise people will feel alienated. The biggest advantage of Social Media is that you are able to connect with real people and get real responses instantly. Everyone dreams of doing something like this for their business but quickly ruin the opportunity when they use it without knowing what to do. Don’t make this mistake, create a Social Media battle plan.

Hire Someone Who Knows Social Networking

If you don’t know anything about Social Media, you would benefit from hiring someone who can actively monitor your online presence. Similar to a PR representative, they would monitor your social media activity. You can try it at home or you can let a professional handle it. The key thing to stress here, and ties in to my original point, you’ll need a Social Media battle plan and someone who can implement it.

If you’re just starting in the Social Media world make sure your demographic is targeted, engaged and in constant interaction. Those points will help jumpstart your Social Media strategy.

Digital Eye’s in-house web developer, Kanate helped created the FBML (Facebook Markup Language) landing page which presents users with a promotion for free coupons. After filling out the fields you will receive coupons for Panda Express, Knott’s Berry Farm, Weinerschnitzel and Wahoo’s. You’ll also be helping a great cause by having the opportunity to become a BigBrother or Big Sister and contribute to the local community.

In addition to the FBML graphics, Walter designed windows clings for Wienerschnitzel and Knott’s promoting The Big Brothers Big Sisters of OC campaign.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County was a pleasure to work with and we are extremely happy to create their Facebook marketing campaign which aims to raise awareness of such a great cause.

Vadim Lavrusik of Mashable wrote a great post on the future of Social Media in journalism. A lot of the points he touched on are current trends that are evolving in Social Media.

New And Old Media

Many of Social Media’s biggest proponents are Old Media’s largest detractors. While Old Media has slowly embraced the social outlets that we’ve been using for ages, I believe the two will coexist in some way; neither will totally cannibalize the other but rather work hand in hand. The ultimate goal for the news is to deliver timely content in an orderly fashion. Whether a news outlet such as CNN or Twitter uses traditional media to deliver a breaking story, old and new media need to be considered as two very viable platforms with two different approaches. CNN has taken some great steps in complimenting its old school reporting with real time feedback. A story could develop through an Old Media outlet and be expanded upon using real time reporting via Twitter and Facebook.

Accountability In Journalism

One of the best and worst things Social Media has done is amplify the Streisand effect and keep people in check through increasing transparency. Sites such as Wikileaks (which leaks documents through anonymous sources otherwise unavailable) and Facebook (which aims to put your entire life within millions of eye balls – for better or worse) will be a few of the vital tools journalists and readers will use to keep each other in check. With Social Media I have access to so many outlets for any one individual and vice versa, sites like Twitter almost become an automatic peer review machine.

We’ve seen time and time again factual errors being disputed, executive’s bad habits come to light and even empower an entire presidential campaign. I think this trend will continue as fact and integrity checking become even more widespread as the tools we use to do so become not only easier, but reacher greater audiences.

Company Interaction

Before the advent of Social Media, companies didn’t have channels to directly reach consumers. Often times it was the other way around as consumers had to go through an ardous process to connect to a company or brand on some level. Today, brands and companies are competing to connect to you. I’m not talking about ads or marketing (that might be an in/direct result of social media) but rather a brand connecting to you through a social channel like Facebook. This creates a more intimate relation between consumers, journalists and brands. It almost removes the smoke and mirrors of a corporate machine and puts a face to brands, or rather a Facebook profile picture.

This will definitely continue, companies and brand see Social Media as the next big thing and whether they want to market something to you or connect on some scale, they will compete harder and harder to do so.

The Move To Mobile

Mobile Devices have evolved at such a dramatic pace in the past four years. Smartphones were often cumbersome and target the business professional who wanted to take his work home with him. Today, we have great platforms like Android and iOS which have jumpstarted smartphones and have killed the preconceived notion that a device with push email would only be useful for a man in a suit. The side effect of this fast paced development is continued integration with Social Media.

Location aware mobile devices spew information about our surroundings and constant connections to the cloud allows us to keep in sync with our personal lives. I think we’ll see an explosion of Socially connected devices that will allow journalists and writer to do live reporting without the need to lug around tons of equipment, receive updates on stories and revise at anywhere, anytime and of course discover new, excited and localized content.

The future for Social Media is bright and we’ll see its continual use by writers, journalists and Bloggers evolve. I think in the coming years we’ll see new tools to better discover content generated by users and that fact/integrity checking will only become more streamlined.

Via: Mashable

Tweetdeck

iTunes Link

Tweetdeck is one of the best Twitter clients for the iPad. It brings the full experience of the desktop App and syncs with the accompanying iPhone App. Tweetdeck still maintains the clean interface many have come to love when using the App; it transitions extremely well on to the iPad and accommodates either portrait or landscape modes with ease.

Tweetdeck gives you a plethora of options when it comes to Tweeting. The interface allows you to Geotag your Tweet (taking advantage of either the GPS or Wi-Fi connection in the iPad), insert links and pictures and give you easy access to Twitter users you’ve replied to recently. One of Tweetdecks highlights is its support for multiple Twitter accounts. Scrolling through columns and browsing through replies is one of the main reasons I really like Tweetdeck for the iPad. It allows me to stay in touch with everyone I’ve interacted with across the Twitter-sphere. It’s clean and elegant interface really compliment the iPad.

Instapaper

iTunes Link

Instapaper is a great utility for Bloggers. We all come across the need to save content for future reading and Instapaper fills that need. It’s a simple App that works in conduction with the web site to save content and import it to read at a later date. Content is automatically downloaded as soon as you bookmark something using either the desktop App or bookmarklet in your browser.

Instapaper’s UI puts the focus on your material by bringing it up front and center; you can alternate between light and dark backgrounds for reading and adjust tex size or the font No matter what you bookmark, only the content you want to see will be shown.

I like Instapaper for its function. The ability to save content and revisit it when I’m ready to write about it helps my Blogging workflow greatly. I’ll often come across new items that I don’t need to act on right now but will need to later on. Instapaper for the iPad compliments any Blogger or writer’s content gathering workflow

Evernote

iTunes Link

I like using Evernote as my project HQ; ideas I need for projects I’m not working on, potential designs and whatnot often go here. Evernote for the iPad will likely be the epicenter for all your creative potential like it is for me.

It’s incredibly easy to sort and search your notes by criteria or tags. Notes, clippings and what not can be easily sorted. If you tag your content using the GPS, it can be plotted on a map in case you have something location specific or want to know where most of your creativity activity takes place.
Audio and pictures can be easily inserted in to any note which truly makes Evernote your creation HQ.

Evernote will help any Blogger during the content creation process. Ideas can be quickly jotted down and expanded upon then synced to your commuter or iPhone. I’ve used it for massive projects spanning dozens of Blog posts related to one topic or helping draft chapters for a small book. Evernote works and it’s available on the iPad.

WordPress

iTunes Link

The final App, and one I’m most excited to talk about is WordPress for the iPad. I cut my Blogging teeth on the iPhone and have loved using WP’s iPhone App. When an iPad version was released, I was ecstatic to start writing and for good reason; the App is one of the best Blogging tools for the iPad. If you’re using those other content management systems, this iOS App may sway you.

Our blog at Digital Eye runs on WordPress and I’ve written this entire post using the App. It’s multi-pane interface creates a straight forward experience; you select which Blog you want to write for, in my case the Digital Eye Blog and I can create a new post. When creating or editing a new post, I can insert a photo or load a quick preview of my work. One of the biggest advantages of using a native App versus accessing the web interface is the ability to cache your content. The iPad has the tendency to flush its cache of pages in Safari; this could destroy all of your work in WordPress if you don’t save.

If WordPress if your CMS of choice, this App should be one of the first installed on your iPad.

If you’re worried about your fingers becoming sore from the device’s on screen keyboard, you’ll be happy to know that it doesn’t put too much strain on your fingers. You’ll become well adjust to the iPad’s predictive text features and it’s different keyboard orientations. I referee the landscape orientation but I’ well acquainted with its portrait orientation mode. If you’re a Blogger trying to work an iPad in to your workflow, let us know how you’re doing it and what Apps you’re using.

This is a continuation from 10-Point Social Media Strategy For Bands To Interact Online – Part 1. Part 2 focuses on measuring analytics and your band’s influence online.

6. Band Metrics To Measure Content Playback

People love stats. It’s what pays the bills, provides genuine feedback and gives a sampling to create new content from. Band Metrics accomplishes this goal and more by giving musicians the ability to measure the success of their music online.

Sample output of Band Metrics stats which pulls in data from sites such as Last.fm, Reverb Nation, Imeem and Myspace.

According to Band Metrics, the Software is “a machine learning framework with natural language processing.” This gives musicians trend measurements, sentiment analysis and reputation management, pulling in information from all over the Internet with statistics on how well your content is doing online. Band Metrics effectively replaces the top song charts we’ve become long accustomed to in the analog world. The advantage? It pulls in stats from wherever your music is available.

7. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a valuable tool that tracks search terms and mentions across the Internet. How bands can leverage this tool online? Track mentions of your band name, individual members across the blogosphere for interviews, reviews about your music and videos and so on.

All of this is vital to gauge negative feedback and go into “disaster control” mode or reply to positive feedback generated by users writing about you.

8. Social Mention

Social Mention is a very powerful tool that offers real-time Social Media searches. By searching for your band name or similarly related criteria, you’ll receive search results from all avenues of Social Media. You’ll see results from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and be able to interact with that data.

Social Mention offers detailed analytics such as sentiment, strength, passion and reach. “Sentiment” gauges positive/negative feedback of the content. “Strength” is the likelihood of your brand being mentioned in social media. “Passion” is a measure of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly and “reach” is the measure of influence. In addition, you can view top hashtags, top users posting content, keywords and sources.

9. Twitter

Twitter will be one of the most important tools you’ll use to not only promote your band through Social Media channels but for measuring your band’s influence. A lot of tools will give you a measure of who’s interested in your band across the micro-blogging network but there are some ways you can measure organic feedback. Two of these being the reply function and hashtags, the building blocks for Twitter analytics.

If you’re looking to promote a new release, you may tag specific Tweets with the album’s name. Your sample Tweet would look something like “Our new release #newalbumname is coming 09/15 which includes a digital download in a variety of formats. bit.ly/albumname” The great thing about having a hashtag in your Tweet is the potential to start a trending topic on Twitter. If enough people Tweet that hashtag, it will show up as a trending topic on Twitter which gives it the potential to reach a larger audience beyond your loyal Twitter followers. The other advantage is the analytic potential a service like hashtags.org offers. By searching for your band name, release names or any other information associated with your band “song names, quotes, etc.” you’ll see a list of Tweets featuring those hashtags.

Disclaimer: I am not a Justin Bieber fan, but a significant portion of Twitter is.

A sample search for “Justin Bieber” shows Tweets that contain “#justinbieber,” “#justin” and “#bieber” which gives you an accurate sampling of Twitter’s preference to pop music. You’ll be able to see what kinds of Tweets your fans are sending out, when mentions of this particular hashtag came up on Twitter and a graph displaying results for that hashtag over a period of time. If you were Justin Bieber, you’d probably be gloating about your Twitter influence.

Nor am I a Lady Gaga fan, but a significant portion of Twitter is.

A sample search for Lady Gaga’s first album “The Fame” shows feedback about the album and important news that it was recently diamond certified worldwide with over 10 million sales. It’s an important milestone for the pop singer and a great example of Twitter analytics in action: fans are excited about the album’s diamond certification and are spreading the news via Twitter.

A similar service, Trendistic, functions much the same way as hashtags.org but expands its scope beyond hashtags. Searching for an artist, album or song name brings up any Tweet mentioning that search criteria.

Twitter still likes Justin Bieber

10. Facebook

Facebook is quickly becoming the number one social network for people of all kinds including celebrities, brands, bands (that’s you) and your normal everyday user. I detailed in part 1 why you should set up a Facebook page to update your fans on upcoming releases, concert dates and other important information. Now it’s time to measure the effectiveness of your Facebook page and to put ‘likes’ and friend requests into hard numbers.

Facebook has developed a tool that gives you access analytics and fan interactions called Insights. Insights generates a graph that shows detailed user interaction. A post on Facebook’s developer Blog details the advantages of Insights:

Websites: Fully-integrated sites and those that use social plug-ins, or add a non-integrated domain in one easy step.
Applications: Including canvas, mobile, device, and desktop applications.
Facebook Pages: Including Pages created on Facebook.com and those that are part of the Open Graph protocol.

Out of all the data visualization and analytics Apps mentioned above, Facebook’s offerings are the most robust and data rich. If you’re measuring fan interaction through the site, Facebook’s tools are definitely user friendly and will generate a lot of valuable information.

This concludes my 2 part special on how bands can not only leverage Social Media to promote themselves online, but measure feedback from fans; two very vital components working hand in hand to augment offline channels such as the radio, word of mouth and analog advertising.

Social Media is quickly evolving and takes on many different forms when bands and artists use it to interact with fans. It ranges from being an art medium to a communication medium to a distribution medium. All of these aspects have been touched upon by bands/artists and have been shown to be valid components to advertising and other traditional methods a record label may have used to promote a band. Hopefully I’ve removed any preconceived notions you have regarding the difficulty of using Social Media for your band and have encouraged you to take the next step in getting your music out to the vast amount of social networks waiting to listen.

All of us strive for something when it comes to music, whether it’s performing for hundreds of thousands of fans at the year’s biggest festival or playing your heart out to a couple hundred die-hard fans in a small, overheated club in downtown L.A. For now, you’ve got your first album recorded, have your bandmates ready and a ton of gear to play your hearts out in your first gig to a few hundred people. First live performance. Nervous? You should be: you don’t even have a Twitter account yet!

1. Get Social And Interact

Engaging fans using social media is critical for any band; it’s the new MTV. Gone are the days when your band hopes to get play on the local music channel because YouTube is your new video outlet. Radio playback? Last.FM, Pandora, Facebook and word-of-mouth are all your promoters. That doesn’t mean the old school channels are obsolete; they’re just not as effective as they were a decade ago. Getting social will help promote your band through local channels as well as the national (or international) scene. The basics will be needed: Facebook music page, Myspace page (if you’re in to retro social networking), official band Twitter account, YouTube/Vimeo channel, SoundCloud/bandcamp profile, Flickr profile, iTunes/Amazon/Tune Core account (to distribute music) and of course, your very own official website. Sound daunting? Social media may come off as a huge undertaking but it’s more than worth it in the long run. To have a massive social presence, it would be wise to hire an ad agency or independent just to manage it all.

The more social media outlets your band connects to, the easier it is to engage fans and promote new work. It also creates a more intimate experience knowing anyone can send an @reply to get some sort of feedback. In the era of Prince, KISS and Van Halen, such a concept would seem ludicrous and would tear down the veil of mystery that enhanced their image. Today, social media outlets are tearing down the curtains and bringing artists off to the stage right in to the crowd. John Mayer, Pearl Jam, Cold Play, Taylor Swift and even Snoop Dogg have all taken up Twitter and often Tweet about random musings, concert info and music releases.

2. Interact With Your Community

So your band is on every social media outlet known to man and actively engaging fans. You can’t just stop at the occasional fan who leaves a comment on Facebook saying how great your latest single is. Bring them into your band’s community. Social Media should be the tool you use to bring in fans and potential fans to your band’s website. If you’re not sending out that .com or, worse, you don’t have one, this leaves fans sprawling for info across all these outlets you don’t own. If you’re lacking a site for your band, invest in a good website design company to code up something great. Twitter is awesome for sending out updates, Flickr for posting live shots, YouTube for hosting your next video but when your next release drops, are you going to inform everyone through a Facebook status? All of these social networks should tie in to your band’s main website and work together. Create a gallery of live concert shots that streams appropriately tagged content from Flickr; catalog music videos through embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos; add a media player courtesy of Sound Cloud or create a flash equivalent. These networks will bring in fans, allow them to interact with your content and spread it by word of mouth when they leave.

Your website should prominently display concert information and be the “go to” place for ticket info and other offers. When a band announces their new tour, misinformation can spread across blogs and other news outlets, rumored ticket prices often confuse customers. You’ll need to take control of how ticket information is disseminated before other outlets do. Same goes for media distribution. If you don’t have information on your newest release and Amazon is already showing a track listing complete with description while Pitchfork has a scathing review in the works, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even if it’s leaked out piece by piece from any of your channels, your website needs to be the go to place for ANY information concerning media distribution. In short, if you created it and I can buy it, it needs to be acknowledged by you in some form. Amazon shouldn’t be the one giving me the only details.

Maintaining a blog adds additional content that goes far beyond what Facebook and Twitter can do. By having a central location that transcends the 140-500 character limit of Twitter and Facebook, you can get in to more details about any aspect of your music or band. Sending out a Tweet saying “New release – September 15th!” then linking it to a blog post with a full track list, release information, retail specials, digital download opportunities and recording information is the icing on your social media strategy. It is key for your website and social media outlets to interact hand-in-hand to bring in fans, engage with them and give them a reference for ANY information on your band. If you’re leaving discography info and a bio to Wikipedia or Facebook and not your website, this will create fragmentation of your band’s image. How Facebook sees you, how Twitter sees you, how Myspace sees you and how your website portrays you should be uniform.

3. Document And Archive Your Content

If your band has been around for a decade or is looking to stick it out in the long run, all of your content—whether it be photos, music, live shows, anything—needs to documented in some way. You can loosen the reigns and let fans have some control of this. This might sound contradictory to the hardline stance of taking command of every social media account you can get but this approach has worked. I mentioned in my previous post how Nine Inch Nails is innovating in the social media space and that they’ve been one to let fans have a significant place in their online presence, one of them being a fan run wiki dedicated to archiving the band’s concert dates, live recordings and information hard core fans would be interested in. The reason this works is that it’s maintained by truly passionate fans. The casual fan may not care about finding an obscure live recording or information on an ultra-rare release that only had 400 copies put out but there are people who do. These people will be dedicated to maintaining wikis and live recording catalogs online, they should be embraced as they are an essential part of shaping your band’s community. Other fan run sites should be credited in some way on your band’s website and receive some interaction on your end.

Bands such as The Grateful Dead (or simply “The Dead”) have garnered a massive following of fans that actively tape and distribute their live recordings online. While others have taken stricter stances on concert recordings, it’s still an area that needs to be acknowledged whether it’s shunned or embraced. Even if you ignore the taping community and try to instate restrictions, fans will always find a way to circumvent these bonds and sites that embrace the tradition of taping will flourish. While I can’t say which approach you should take in regards to this, you should at least do something about it. If you’re not willing to host or extensively catalog live material, at least let the fans take over in this area and assist when you can. Bands such as Metallica and Dave Matthews Band not only embrace live recordings, but monetize them through officially run websites that allow you to download any recorded performance in lossless form for the cost of an average CD.

4. Interact With Your Channels

You have your social media accounts set up, your website running and eager fans listening to your latest release. The next thing is to utilize your social channels. Fans are always looking for the latest information on their favorite bands; they’ll search through social channels and it’s very important to keep these organized and give them a definitive purpose. Keep all video content contained to one channel on YouTube/Vimeo and create playlists for music videos, interviews, fan interactions, teasers and trailers etc. Your Flickr account should be organized the same way; sets for live shots, album artwork, promotional images, original artwork, etc. When using Twitter you have more wiggle room. You will need an official account for your band to send out updates such as ticket info or other important tidbits. Individual members could have their own Twitter account but that is an optional decision. If you decide to go down that road, make sure each account is properly identified and differentiated from the official band feed. The same goes for Facebook: ensure each member’s profile (fan page or personal) is differentiated from the band’s page.

5. Use Tune Core

If you’re looking to expand how your music is consumed, you’ll want to set up an account at Tune Core, a company that handles online distribution of music through a variety of outlets. Tune Core does the one thing every band needs a record label to do: getting music out to the masses. Tune Core deals with the most popular online services such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, Myspace music, Zune Network, Emusic and a bevy of other online retailers. The upside to using Tune Core is its ease of use and affordable rates, something the modern day record label giant can no longer claim. While mainly used by smaller independent artists, Tune Core’s repertoire includes notables such as Zack Gross, Aretha Franklin and Trent Reznor (see the social media pattern?).

This concludes part 1 of the 10-point strategy your band should be using to promote themselves online. Part 2 will be coming shortly but in the mean time, tell us YOUR experience in using social media with your band.

The new feature which has been in development for the past 8 months allows Facebook users to check in to any location just as they would with Foursquare but adds a few unique features. The most prominent feature that potentially could put Foursquare back at the drawing board and get privacy activists up in arms is tagging friends during check-ins. The problem with this—like any Facebook privacy fiasco—is the feature being turned on by default for the social network’s 500+ million users. The ACLU has written up their opinion on the new check in service and urges Facebook users to read their take before they participate in it.

The check-in service, which works with the iPhone or any modern touch device sporting GPS, mimics Foursquare’s check-in service. If you’re using an iPhone, updating to the latest version will enable the feature if its available in your region. Fortunately, we were able to test the feature at Digital EYE: we’d say it works more in harmony with Foursquare and Gowalla than competing with them.

Places Beating out Foursquare And Gowalla

The battle of the check-in services is brewing, but it might not be as big as you think. The move seems natural for Facebook considering recent trends and that 20% of Foursquare check-ins are already pushed to Facebook. The two biggest competitors of Facebook’s newly introduced places feature, Gowalla and Foursquare, actually endorse the social networks’ new feature: “Facebook validates the market,” Luedorf of Gowalla said.

Check In From The iPhone App Or Mobile App

The newly updated iPhone App features Places but only if it’s available in your region. However, if your phone supports HTML5 and geolocation services, it will be compatible with Facebook Places. The feature works almost identically to Foursquare, it shows a list of nearby places and tapping a place allows you to check in with a twist; you can tag which of your Facebook friends is there with you. As mentioned earlier, it’s available in our region (unfortunately it’s down for others) and the feature seems cool, but more a component that fits in nicely with Facebook.

Places Has Some Privacy Woes

As with any major Facebook feature, there are some privacy concerns as well. The ACLU has published a post on what to expect from Places and how your privacy controls will be affected.

“Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say “yes” to allowing your friends to check in for you. But when it comes to opting out of that feature, you are only given a “not now” option (aka ask me again later). “No” isn’t one of the easy options.”

Above, is a video published by Lifehacker that details how to turn Facebook’s Places feature off and restrict how friends can tag you using the feature.

Do you plan on using Facebook’s Places? Why or why not? What are your privacy concerns?

Early 2007 saw Radiohead start what would become a growing wave of bands embracing some form of social media and breaking away from the traditional structure of using a record label to promote themselves. “In Rainbows” by English alternative band Radiohead, was released shortly after breaking away from their label EMI too much fanfare. What made the release significant besides it being the first in over 4 years from the band was the release method; a digital download that fans could get at any price, officially from the band itself. This meant that you could pay nothing, $5.23 or even $645 if you felt so inclined. What this would do for the music industry is jumpstart a process that would turn the traditional record label on its head, kick it down then slap it across the face with some Facebook, Twitter and Myspace updates along with a good helping of original band content on YouTube. What followed next was a massive jump to social media by smaller underground bands but major acts as well.

Interacting With Fans And Knocking Down The Record Labels With Social Media: Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nail’s frontman, Trent Reznor, has been very vocal for his disdain of record labels since starting the industrial rock band in the late 80′s. 2005 saw his return to the music scene with a new release and a new crusade in regaining some of the control over material he lost to his label. The band’s first release in 5 year, With Teeth was accompanied by source files for a few tracks from the album. Trent encouraged fans to download the source tracks and create their own remixes of his songs then release it under any medium they saw fit. No royalties, no red tape, nothing that would inconvenience anyone from the average underground DJ to veteran sound producers. Remixers were free to do as they pleased which led to an ever increasing connection with fans that transcended interviews and other traditional promotions.

In 2007 the bands newest release, Year Zero, started a trend of artists, especially Nine Inch Nails embracing piracy. The album, which foretold of an Orwellian future painted with industrial overtones and electronic soundscapes was given away free to fans through a means any record label would do a double take over; torrenting it. Touring in support of the newest album, Reznor encouraged fans to download the album free of cost from wherever they could just to spite his label.

At a concert during late 2007 in Australia, Trent urged fans to pirate his album to circumvent the high CD prices his label had set. On the surface it may seem like a marketing attempt that would’ve jumpstarted any failing band but the difference between Nine Inch Nails and any act looking to cop out for cash was passion. Reznor was looking to truly connect with fans and felt the chains placed on him by management and labels was far too constricting. This is the ideal mythology of Social Media but Nine Inch Nails took it many steps forward by giving fans and potential listeners something to line; free.

Year Zero and subsequent releases would have some sort of option to listen to the album for free whether it was embracing piracy, a freemium-like model or even just giving it away. This meant that anyone slightly interested in the band had absolutely nothing to lose when listening to Nine Inch Nails’ material but the band’s connection with its fan base was also strengthened. Over the course of the next two years, NIN put out two new albums that continued this trend. The follow up to Year Zero, Ghosts Vol. 1-4 saw a tiered model of release which would delight the casual music listener all the way up to the perfectionist. The first 9 songs from the album’s 36 song setlist were available for free with absolutely no obligation. Piracy of the album itself was often encouraged but contrasted with elaborate and intricate physical releases containing artwork and packaging that added a whole other dimension to the release. The band ensured everyone had an option in digesting ‘Ghosts’, the best thing to take away from this is the tiered release model.

When one thinks of a tiered business model in today’s digital world, there is rarely an option available for free and if so, it’s limited in scope. Trent was able to build interest in NIN’s back catalog as well as current releases by letting listeners try out the material without any loss. If they didn’t like it, nothing lost, if they did, that meant a potential album download, a few dollars donated for a higher quality version or even a ticket purchase for forthcoming tours. As a thank you to fans, another album, “The Slip” was released almost a year later in 2008 that contained 10 songs in lossless quality and available totally free. No copyright infringement or legal action scares from a label but pure, wholeseome, free content that was complimented with an extensive tour weeks later.

Trent won a Webby Award in 2009 for his free, online release of “The Slip”

Embracing The Social Aspects Of YouTube: Weezer and Ok, Go!

The internet has given us access to a bevy of information but one of its most prevalent aspects has been memes. They’ve cropped up in various forms, touching upon different aspects of society yet they’re an avenue of inspiration for bands Weezer and Ok, Go.

Weezer released their single “Pork And Beans” via digital distribution in April 2008 with an accompanying music video. What set the video apart from other elaborate musical montages is its embrace of popular memes and celebrities on YouTube. The video pays homage to the Coke and Mentos guys doing experiments in the background while creating massive fountains of Mentos powered coke showers. Pianist and singerTay Zonday imitating the video style of his single “Chocolate Rain” while weaving in and out of Weezer’s own song. Star Wars Kid’s crazy lightsaber antics and Ms. South Carolina appearance are all referenced as YouTube pop-cult icons. Weezer instantly appealed to an audience of millions that regarded these memes as pop culture corner stones and as inspiration to create new content. The video went on to win a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.

Rock band Ok, gained significant popularity in 2005 after a choreographed video of their first single “A Million Ways” was first uploaded to YouTube. A year later in August 2006, the video had become the most downloaded music video at the time reaching 9 million downloads giving the band recognition for their odd choreographed videos. The band continued to gain significant notoriety for filming another choreographed video of them dancing on treadmills to an upbeat song they release, “Here We Go Again” which soon became a YouTube sensation. Within six days, over 1 million people had watched the video and eventually reached 50 million views of the original upload by April 2010.

Both of these bands appealed to a culture that thrived on the latest meme, the latest happening. Ok, Go and Weezer knew which spots to hit and created music videos around icons, concepts and ideas that were already well recognized by millions of YouTube users. By uploading their content directly to YouTube, they had an opportunity to tap in to those millions of people to promote their music.

Free Is Good, Free Is Social

If you have a product that can be released via digital means, promote it by giving it away to build interest. It’s not simply enough to give away the product and let others judge it; build hype and then release it for free or through a freemium like model to support a free version of your product in contrast to its paid equivalent.

These bands also experimented with a new and untested distribution model: digital. Your business and brand may have already experienced digital outlets but its important to stress that a lot of connections are being made online. The print industry is starting to embrace the digital world to supplement its losses from print media, your business can learn an important lesson if it’s still avoiding going online.

An aspect of this is the freemium model that offers basic services or product for free and charging more for more advanced versions of that product. Finding balance between free and paid is crucial to maintaing a freemium model for your business. Nine Inch Nails continues to experiment with this in some form but they’ve always maintained a balance. They’ve released an album in some form for free that will attract casual listeners and those interested in the band while selling a product that audiophiles will appreciate and pay for. Lacking balance with a freemium product will only distance potential consumers. If they don’t have a gateway product that doesn’t cost them anything and won’t take up too much of their time, they have no real way of gauging your services or products. The point of a freemium model is attracting potential consumers with a free version and selling them something they’re truly interested in.

Music And Social Media? How Can I Use That With My Business?

All of these bands innovated by connecting directly with their fans/consumers, they cut out the middle men, got off the stage and said “hey, let’s make it interesting to sell our music to you and have fun doing it.” The first and most important thing to take away from this is to connect DIRECTLY with your consumers, fans and friends. These bands embraced the very ideals of social media by creating Twitter accounts to announce ticket pre-sales, Facebook pages to gauge interest in releases, YouTube channels to release original content and personalized websites to let the community interact directly with the band. If you’re not taking mental notes on this, I don’t know what to tell you. All of these outlets were critical for keeping fans interested in the band and attracting new followers, simply setting up these channels, maintaining them and populating them with worthwhile content can have the same effect on your brand.

You also need to measure the effectiveness of these channels on a regular basis. Guessing what works instead of having hard numbers in front of you will be the downfall of your online presence. Bands have had these tools at their disposal for years. What once started as radio plays has morphed in to number tracking services such as RockDex and Band Metrics. Your version? Retweets, YouTube channel views, Facebook Likes, Klout Score and Google Analytics. Not checking these numbers and ignoring them when they’re not bringing in enough unique visitors is fatal.

These bands also stuck to their genres but carved out new niches for themselves. Maintaing your brand’s identity is critical but it’s just as important to test new waters and explore them diligently. Don’t go overboard and totally depart from what made your company or brand what it is but adding something interesting in to the mix will help maintain interest.

When looking to expand your business, looking for new perspectives is important. Music has always been an inspiration for artists and writers, there isn’t any reason musicians shouldn’t be a role model for your business or brand. What we’d like to know is what you can do with this strategy for YOUR business. Let us know in the comments.