I had the joy of attending the Rock Shop #8 Future M event this past week at the Middle East. Thank you Clay, Steve, Charles, Marty and the other guests for giving me the opportunity to hear you speak.
The subject matter was social media experimentation. The panelists offered numerous examples of how musicians or music-related entities can successfully use social media as a means of spreading their message. Examples ranged from having a story successfully take off on reddit (a site more typically used for news stories rather than music bios), to organically building a twitter following through retweets of ‘masturbation’ and ‘shooting star’ related posts (yup, I’m not making that up). The tried and true examples were great stories of how musicians can successfully use social media. However, I felt the discussion was missing an overlying summary of tips and tricks that musicians can use to further their exposure.
One big thing to note in music is that success stories rarely happen in the same manner. Sure, people will continue to copy what others have done, but the big breakthrough occurrences pave their own path. For example, just because OK Go can make videos go viral doesn’t mean that is the way for every band to do it.
Allow me to summarize one major point that was brought up by a few of the panelists but wasn’t explicitly defined for the audience: Great content is king.
No matter how many avenues for exposure you create- and no matter how many social media channels you use – without great content, your efforts will likely go unnoticed. Sure, there are still benefits of being able to easily tell your audience when you are playing shows or when you’ve released new material, but the big moves that are going to land you those spikes in activity are achieved through providing the audience with online content that is a product in itself.
I’m talking awesome content… unique content…”I’m going to tell all my f’n friends in the world about this” content.
There were some solid examples given from the panel of how great content can work for engaging an audience. The member of Ribs wrote a brilliant story that he published and submitted to Reddit, achieving prime placement on the Reddit homepage and generating instant sales of 600 ep’s. The member of Do Not Foresake Me Oh My Darling (aka: DNFMOMD… jk) discussed utilizing a concept album as a way to generate buzz among the audience. Aaron Perrino (The Sheila Divine/Dear Leader) mentioned a weekly live-stream he has in the works. And, the Middle East has the best indie shows in Boston. These were all provided as great content examples to discuss with their audience.
Here’s a quick and easy idea on how to on how to generate buzz and excitement with your fans: Run a contest or promotion utilizing video content.
***WARNING: SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT***
We (Piebald) organized an interactive trivia contest to promote our new DVD through Facebook, in which we rolled out 15 questions and answers through the month of July. Participants responded with written answers and in some case, video responses, which included DIY shot music videos to their favorite Piebald tunes. Here is an example:
Don’t get caught up in trying to over-produce video content. People have become accustomed to amateur, user-generated video, and fans love seeing band members in stripped-down everyday situations. Be natural. Make a simple time line that you can stick to and let the fans be aware of it.
During this trivia contest time period, we achieved 580 new likes and received a total of 315 submissions. On July 22nd alone, there were 62 fan posts… far superior to our everyday average. Not only did we successfully engage our fans for a solid month, but we showed them a more personal side of ourselves and educated them on Piebald facts that they wouldn’t have otherwise known.
People often overlook creating an actual marketing plan when it comes to using social media. Just because these new media forms have broken the norms of traditional advertising doesn’t mean the fundamentals should be abandoned completely. Let’s look at an approach for making traditional ads in very simple terms: the creatives come up with a concept, the producers bring it to life, and the media planners put it out through appropriate media forms. This process can and should be used for rolling out content through social media as well. Instead of just saying to yourself, “I need to tweet” and “I need to update my Facebook wall”, challenge yourself to come up with the big idea that will cause your fans to do all the heavy lifting of spreading the message to their friends.
Take a step back and get creative. A well thought out plan for content will allow you to use your social media more efficiently and will attract the attention of your fans tenfold.
Do you have any examples of unique social media campaigns that are worth pointing out?
Tags: Future M, Mitx, music, Piebald, Rock Shop #8
