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Smart Way to Market on Social Media

So we get this question an awful lot how do you market yourself, especially in social media without spanning? We talked about this a little bit earlier, I wanted to give you much more targeted way and clear recipe it's probably the best way to put in to be able to deal with this. So this is from arial hyatt, author of cyber pr for musicians, which was a giveaway, and I'm looking forward to hearing the winners of the contest that get it. We recommend this book it's, an excellent book not just for the winners, but for everybody who could get it. It has lots of tricks and tactics for building social media and social media presence here's an answer to your question, which is how do you talk on this social media thing without spamming without just talking about marketing all the time? I mean, certainly this is a really difficult thing think of it this way spend a lot of time on direct engagement that is talking directly with your fans and anybody who engages with you work on that next is an...

d this is one of the best ones you can do is shining a light on other people, you're an artist, you know, other artists. Talk about them hey, this guy these guys just had their new album it's really exciting you don't lose anything by doing that, I think some musicians walk around thinking if I promote somebody else, then I'm going to get less attention no, you're the conduit through which they're finding out about this stuff you're showing that you're a very plugged in artist and by artist I mean artist because they're usually always interested in what people are doing in a creative sense, right? Sharing this is just sharing all kinds of interesting stuff articles that they might be interested in if in the more you can get in the heads of your fans, the more effective you'll be from the standpoint, posting images or videos as our great and actually you can move, you could pump up this percentage very easily nowadays because people tend to very much enjoyed videos and by the way, play with the numbers all you want. But the key thing here is now I'm at the top of the food pyramid. This is a social media food pyramid promoting yourself is desert right? You don't eat dessert first you don't need dessert is the most amount of food you have it at the end is just something to celebrate everything else, and the cool thing is by the time you've done all of this stuff, promoting yourself will seem very natural hey now my new albums out after you've shined a light on others and you're engaging with people in your sharing stuff it won't even seem out of place it will be a very normal thing just like when you deal with people that you deal with day today you can have all this kind of conversation and say, hey, I just released a new album like wow that's great awesome they won't go why're you just spamming me with marketing it'll be natural for especially for musicians they're starting out twitter and how to use it effectively a lot of people go he's how should I use it right? So they just talk about the food I'm eating and tweeting about pictures of what I mean this actually gives a nice recipe or nice gives you a framework again of ways in which you can use twitter, facebook or whatever in five different ways right? I think a lot of musicians that especially starting now we took they think it's just a thing to only promote yourself to constant state by my album by my album by my album by my album that is like the first that it will turn off everybody uh but this gives you this framework that's like oh yeah ok so I should be engaging with people maybe three out of the out of four of my ten posts and then sharing and shining the light on others okay that's that's me too after a while what happens is you start internalizing this framework and it's just become very natural that you only promoting yourself every once in a while once every ten tweets or once every ten shares or something like that so we find it very effective actually, um for musicians we're getting good feedback on that and that's arial hyatt that's what she does that's what she does that's that's why she's just great all right, yes, I'll try yeah it's it's like intriguing to me how you guys you guys are saying that you're you're giving something to the prospective buyer are you a fan you know and and how that uh how that's primary and then uh then they're going to get back to you and in that in that sense like uh um um how ah ah how how how how does it uh translate like actual sales or actual interests an engagement? I think I think what I'm trying to say it's like a site like into like a sense of like how your own you're not befriending them, you're be fanning them but you're sort of like, uh I guess I guess like you're just sort of like uh you know, you sort like a friendship you know, you have to you have to give it take and this is like these things that you're giving them your you're not just going to buy it, you're right giving them something absolutely well it's a relationship now it is fan relationship is deeper than just you're a fan of me and that's it that's a ce faras it goes that's the way it used to be because there was no way to do any engagement thing that's at the top of this list was impossible several letters that people would send letters and sometimes get letters back, but for the most part they were consumers fans were just consumers there's so much more than that now I mean, we've seen it. We even talked about it a bit yesterday and some of the people online were tweeting about hey fan videos, your fans will make videos out of your music we've had that happen to and out of nowhere and it was nobody that we knew and they just decided to do it on their own it's amazing what kinds of things can happen. So what we're trying to say is thinking about what we talked about before we're marketing is something something we broke into three steps your audience, your message and then trying to get them to take an action, right? Well, that message needs to be the right kind of message that they can listen to and it can't be just spam it means to be this kind of conversation this engagement unless you can get your message in front of them in a way that they're going to listen to it, you're not going to get any action out of it. In some ways, I think this also speaks to one of the comments that we got yesterday about selling stuff doesn't necessarily mean selling out yes. Now, if you if you do, if you make this one was this is like the number one mistake musicians make with social media when the first starting out is like, if you just promote yourself over and over and over again and actually does give you the impression that you're just interested on ly selling stuff, right? So you want to avoid that on at all costs and this again, this is why this is such a great recipe to follow, and it could probably give you ideas. Okay, it's a nice way of looking at twitter and facebook and social media to expand your use of it beyond just hawking your products, that type of thing very often we find tio your fans are like you, they like the same things that you like, so if you share things that you enjoy just things that you find interesting they'll tend to find it interesting to and even if you have a fan base that slightly off of that if you start doing it you'll just start growing your audience into the types of people that really like you as a person as well you is an artist so it's about this is actually a way to be a little more genuine and it's sort of giving you more ideas on the types of things you could share mostly it's a reminder that this should be rare but part of the mix speaking of which so let's take this we talked about the audience we talked about the message now let's talk about the action that's what we're trying to get people to d'oh locking down marketing so it's very straightforward here's a straightforward it khun b there's a concept called the marketing funnel we're very find of because it makes a lot of sense we get a lot of questions about well why am I doing social media in the first place why am I involved with this and once I'm out there what am I trying to do with this stuff and you know what today we said you defined your audience and we said that you you could here's the messages you could use and ways to make very clear messages that doesn't really help you figure out how to use social media to try and really target them and why I think of it like a net you're casting this out you're trying to have his many places for people to find you as you can all over the internet and then from there what you need to do within that right you need to pull it in well there's four levels to the marketing funnel and it goes like this at the top level of the funnel are the listeners and the casual visitors toe all of your web presences some of them will check it out and decided no not for me they'll bounce off that's fine but of course with a funnel what's the goal of a funnel you're taking something that's really sloppy and you're tryingto focus it so from there we get to fans than customers than super fans must hopefully this will start to make a little more sense we have a slightly definition slightly different definition of fans than most people d'oh fans or people who are following you fans of the people who hear about it when you release a new album you can actually have somebody who's a customer who buys your current album and then doesn't hear about it when you're next album comes out because they're not subscribed to you what should this tell you? Well there's actually two things you're trying to do and remember we still are focused on the fact I'm focused on the fact that there is one message of the time if you want to be truly effective but considering this with that one message at a time thing you want them to buy your album but then you want them to subscribe follow you on twitter subscribe to your newsletter like your facebook page so that they hear about it all of these ways so that afterwards they hear about the next thing that you d'oh this is why any of the social media that has a subscription model works extremely well this is why for example youtube works great because you have a subscribe they actually if they go to youtube regularly they see your new video when it comes out and now you have a stream that they're paying attention to super fans air awesome because they will turn around they like you so much they'll promote you they'll say not only by hear music that they'll say you've got to check these guys out you've got to check out this artist listen to this music they're great the way that you deal with super fans is you give them the tools to be able to do that that you make your stuff easy to share ironically again on youtube it's the easiest thing to do because there's that little share button right there a lot harder to do if you have your music just up somewhere for download so the form that you put all of your music and media actually makes a big difference to the people that couldn't promote you who are fans after all, they're not professional marketing people their job isn't to try and figure out a way to get your music to their friends you need to make it easy for them again we're trying to lock this down and make it practical does this make a little bit of sense? Yeah ok good you hope it makes sense to you uh listen, ursus well, all of the internet feel free to ask questions if you have any questions about this because we realized this could be a bit confusing but considering that let's go to the next step, which is to answer the question well, how do you get people sucked into the funnel? So we've got the funnel funnel being all those web presences you've got out there, how can you actually pull them in? Well, there is a concept in marketing on the internet called a conversion have you run across this before? Out of curiosity? No okay it's always interesting there's a mix of people usually who have and haven't run into this it's worth looking into if you're going to get very serious about using social media and the internet in order to try and get people to take an action or do business with you because the conversion is that action that's their name for it and they contract that using internet statistics and actually, no, for example, which messages are more effective than others? They'll do what's called a b testing. They'll put out one message with the action and another with the action, and we'll find out which gets mohr clicks, and from there they just keep focusing on it. The ones who are true internet marketers and we've talked to a few and refresh with a few are absolutely glued to their metrics and statistics that's all they go off of, they don't go by their feeling they do in order to try and invent a message, but then they don't say I like this one more than this one, they say this one got twenty clicks, this one got five let's go with this, right? Considering that let's, just lay it out for you the types of conversions that you're most likely going to be using everything all of your internet presences, all of the very convenience communications you have and talk about the conversions that you might want people to take obvious ones, right? Buy your albums by your merchant tenure shows. Join your mailing list, download your music, watch the video, it's, sucha, these air all very small things, they're very easy to dio right now how you get them to do it is thea other part of this? How can they buy your album? Remember, we talked about it before if you do aida a idea and then you get to the a and they can't do it or it's confusing, they won't this is how to do it, you're linked to buy an itunes you're linked to an early start. This is a different way for you to think about what you're doing on the internet in terms of putting links and buttons and actions and your communications then surrounded and try and pull people into taking that action got it? Hopefully we've been building a story throughout this thing that you can follow and used to put together your own stuff. Fortunately for things like watch your video just a better player, it's got a big play button on its inviting click up a lot of these things air very self explanatory if you use them the right way there's one other aspect to this that we talk about in the indie band survived the guy that we can't go into huge depth here, but I want to just give a little shout out to there's another part of this table right here it's invisible? We can't see it, but I can't and it says basically what is it that your fan is looking for? Because you have to pull them from where they are toe what you want them to dio so for a ten year shows when they arrive on your website and it's a fan that is interested in shows, what are they looking for? Emotion we confer what on emotion and emotion perhaps, but I'm a fan and I'm saying, yeah, I want to see this band live what am I looking for? Real concrete stuff when the next show is when the next show is what else? Where it is? Where is remember draw them a math they want to know where it's located and how to get there. What time is it at? How much is it? We're talking about real basic stuff and yet we've seen a lot of musicians and a lot of people bury that lead and make it difficult to find to take them from where they are, okay? And actually if they're one step before then and they're not looking to do your show, but then they're within your area and they may be intrigued enough to go to your show you have to make a compelling reason for them to do it. This is where having a video of you playing live can really convince them. All right, I want to see these guys when's the next show I have a show calendar really easy to find where is it add and how do I get there? You take them all the way through the link to purchase tickets right there from your show calendar and in your marketing messages then complete and they're actually doing what you want them to dio this is true for all of them from buy your albums they want to hear your music like okay what do they sound like? You get some song samples you get an idea what they sound like where do I buy it? You have that link send them there and of course fortunately from there itunes is a very mature for example is using just one of them items is a very mature e commerce site that means that they don't make it hard to make the purchase it's just a simple is a click it's a nice big button they know what to do you guys think you can make this for all the rest of these boxes now I wish we had time to do it but it's it's also part of the indie band survival guide we have a chart that says what they want what you want them to dio and then how to do that it's all there all right so moving on each web social mobile presence you have should have conversions that should be obvious now why do you have them in the first place if you're not actually trying to get them to do something it may be that you just want to communicate and again I just want to be clear if what you're trying to do is just promote yourself and you're not looking to sell anything, we're all for that your artist be an artist, go for it, but considering the topic of this, why why we're here? We like to talk about basically how to make money with music, you need to just do that one last thing and get them to take the conversion. So how do you get people to make it more likely how you get how you make it more likely that they'll act on your message? Basically now, here's another thing, it's a topic out of the secrets of word of mouth marketing it's just a really good book. We found a lot of useful things. The number one way is not what most people think it is it's not about being tricky with your message. Is it's actually about simplifying the decision making process? Ok, so another thing that we've talked about many times here is getting inside the head of whoever it is you're trying to influence. If you want somebody to license your music, you have to understand their problems. I'm looking for music for this chase scene how do I listen to a whole bunch of different songs and see if this is good for my chase scene and then if I find the right song who the heck do I talk to and how do I license it is it going to take weeks and weeks and weeks to go through lawyers or is it gonna be really simple the deal with these guys there they experienced that's what's in their head so you do the same thing for the fan and we're going to talk about one of the key ways to do this so what are the ways to make the decision to buy easier and the funny thing is we do this ourselves whatever we buy anything we go through the same process and we think of ok here's a song I've never heard well what I want I want objective proof that it other people think it's any good is I don't want to waste my time going through all this right e I mean the number one thing you see on any movie his quotes from reviewers to say yeah this movie is really good right? You make the purchase process easy and we talked about this before in the second day when we talked about how a lot of fans will on lee go with places that they already have the credit card because they don't want to put in their credit card and their info again in some new site they've never heard ofthe all right guarantees actually work because it means that they could back out if there's a problem limiting choices makes the decision easier because there's less they have to think about at that point this is an irony people think more choices that's how I can get people do it more choices it's actually limiting it and we do this as much as possible even in the slide dex that we do here we try and limited to just one point this happens to be a busier slide usually we have just usually a lot of ours just have one idea so that you can see the one thing and get the message that we're trying to give you and communicate clear benefits to having it now with music this is more straightforward. It's true it's mohr of the case if you've got some other type of products where you might have to communicate the benefits that again it's the benefits that people buy it's not the thing itself, right? Ok, so any questions about that before I move on because we're going to go into a ring of zero dollar marketing strategies? Um yeah in terms ah, but you guys are saying about you know, I mean thinking like the potential fan o r or the potential converted comfort was conversion conversion. Yeah. Uh, so, uh if you're, uh if it's like limiting the choices like, you know, like I like I like being in a supermarket where you have so many yes like uh that's, actually where they did their testing to prove this, but all right, yeah, they went to supermarkets and they tried something they made a jan. This is part of this book right here that we've talked about many times the secrets of word of mouth, marketing and paradox of choice. They both talk about each other, and actually these books, they're kind of related, and they did a jam table where you can sample jams and they wanted to see ok, what made it more likely that people would buy the damn well? They have ten are just like three or four, and people said that they liked having ten, but they were less likely to buy. And if you put themselves yourself in their heads, it should be clear as to why that this case? Well, if I buy this one, that I don't get these other ones, which one should I get this's too confusing don't have to worry about jam. I need to get the cereal and the other stuff that I need today. They're just gonna walk off and never going to buy anything that's what happens?