Musician PR: Social Media & Fan Base Development

Transcription

1 Musician PR: Social Media & Fan Base Development Contact Name: Sim Balkey Organization Name: Sim Balkey Organization Address: POB 195 City: Medanales State: NM Zip: Address: Work Phone: Cell Phone: Social Reach and Overview Overall you have a good foundation. Your music is good and all of your media is handled with class and reflects on your personality. Congrats on all that you ve accomplished! The goals of maximizing your sales and building an audience run hand-in-hand. As I mentioned on the phone it's really a game of numbers. Increasing the crowd size at your shows is where more of our local marketing will have the greatest impact. We'll make headway for you in all three categories. The one challenge that we have is the relatively small online presence you currently have. In the beginning we'll have to work (from our end) a little more humble in fashion until we get you up to a level where we can really fly with this. The huge , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 1

2 advantage that you have is that you do have professionally recorded music, and to be dead honest you do have a good sound. If you've written most of what I've listened to of yours (everything I could find) - you're a good writer too. The song Around the Cooler mentions family becoming friends and friends becoming family is just good. You deliver that notion in a way I've never heard it said before. You ll definitely want to pull a look-alike audience with Brooks & Dunn, Justin Moore, Eric Church (more for the type of songs), Joe Nichols, etc.. as often as possible. Blake Shelton we won't trail all too often because he has an online audience mixed with people that are more interested in the cool guy from "The Voice" than perhaps his music. Comparative to music however, he fits in the group above for sure. Anywhere you can compare yourselves to any of these or have your name in type next to them it will help. All things considered, if we can get people to listen to you, you'll be one of the easiest gigs we have. Okay.. from a conversion standpoint. Not so much less in work, just in getting more results from the same effort. Specific Channels: The website is not terrific. It does communicate most of what you need it to, you could use a better layout and more media on there. Its good that you have the social links at the top and that you have your site linked from everywhere. Photos and media should ALL be tagged with keywords related to you, your music, song titles, locations you play, etc.. In each photo file there should be a field for meta data, alt text and/or meta description. This is where you ll want to insert the keywords (in descriptive fashion in regard to the picture) that you want them to be , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 2

3 found online under. I'm certain that Hostbaby will allow you to input these descriptions for your images. You need an About or Bio page that provides the "general information" about you, your background and other material. Consider this as a source page for a radio station that is getting ready to interview you. You need to give fans and media sources enough to start a conversation with as a minimum. You should end that page (once created) to include a call to action that specifically says what cities you typically play in, and communicate that you can be contacted for bookings at a specific address or phone number. The contact page should include a bit more information such as Sim Balkey performs as such venues as and is available to perform in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, etc.. To schedule a performance please call ###-###-#### or use the form below to make an inquiry. The type on your existing contact page is hard to read and doesn't push a definite call to action. Just like with the pictures and their descriptions, you'll be adding critical keywords to the site when you add the names of these cities and states. Eventually you'll want to be found in search when someone is looking for a band or act to hire for an event or show in the areas/locations you mention. Specific keyword work and how to write everything is yet another science but if you can't tell I'm a bleeder of information and you'll get it out of me eventually if we work together long enough. If you want help with your website we'll have to provide a quote on this one. We don't work in Hostbaby or else I could just quote you. We would develop the site in Wordpress (where you would gain another whole world of functionality) It is good that you keep an list (so I see on your website). You'll want to maintain this, and at least once or twice a month you'll want to communicate something to them - along the lines of what's coming up. The list is a science all its own once you get more established, and we can get into that a little later , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 3

4 Facebook: Likes This is a good start and the imagery of the page is somewhat consistent with the website so your branding is close to being in order. When signed into Facebook and Commenting and Posting as "Sim Balkey (an option in the top right corner of the screen when you re the page admin and viewing the page) you ll want to be active and visit your fan s personal pages frequently and like their more popular posts. Who to view? Scroll through your recent posts and open the list of who liked, commented and shared your recent content. This will push your posts into THEIR timeline because you ll have recent interaction (although passive) with them. Also: I would recommend installing the Facebook plugin/app BandsInTown. This is a schedule app that you can get for free, and you can use it on the website also (I think you can paste code into pages inside Hostbaby). Updating from the single account (or smartphone app for that matter) will automatically update show dates everywhere you use the app. The code used for installing the app on your Facebook page is inserted in a new custom tab, and it would replace the tab "Events". Fans of the page can follow the schedule and be notified automatically when you re playing in their area. In fact anyone that uses BandsInTown if they choose the option, will be notified when you'll be playing somewhere in their nearby vicinity in the near future. We've talked at length about Facebook and I'm sure we're on the same page for the most part. In general you'll want to manage your tabs so that the main tabs of interest are the ones that show up first. We can manage a fan-building campaign and help you with customizing other parts of your Facebook in addition to what we're currently doing. If you're interested, just ask. We will recommend setting up a Facebook custom audience from your website. More or less you'll let Facebook track anyone that visits your website while logged into Facebook. You can advertise to them later and it works a lot better than advertising to the masses. That's something we can help with , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 4

5 In the mean time, try the picture trick the next few times you play - that I mention below under Instagram. Twitter Handle: Followers. (When we began) We will increase this follower base significantly. In the first round we will increase your followers on a national level balanced with locals to get the numbers we need to get attention and show a legitimate following. Then we will shift more to a locality-specific focus progressively over time to increase local fans and fewer national fans to help build show attendance, requests, etc.. Our advice is to remain active on the account and to be responsive to people writing to you and talking about you. We'll recommend adding an automatic reply to new followers (and show you how that's done) once we gain enough steam for this to make a difference, and have your audience dialed in a little bit more. There's lots that we'll do here that I won't bother to explain yet because you'll understand what's happening when we do things. We won't post on your timeline very often, but if we do it will be for the purpose of promoting you. Youtube: 61 Subscribers. Over 7,000 video views (of your own videos). You definitely can use more video. and when you upload video to Youtube, be sure to name the file before uploading it as the title of the song and your name. That way people will have an easier time searching for and finding the music. I mean The Actual Name of the file on your computer BEFORE you uploaded the video. Comments on the video are stellar but you don't have many. Be sure that you re going back into Youtube and clicking the thumbs up on some of your positive comments, and responding to some of the comments to create a "conversation" within the comments section. (Not all keep it natural, and do some while logged into your personal accounts also) , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 5

6 Soundcloud: I see that you've only recently begun on Soundcloud and that's fine. What I particularly like on Soundcloud (and I like it TONS better than Reverbnation) is that it has an excellent share widget that automatically posts an attractive graphic when you share it. The number of plays you have on your sample is pretty astonishing (838). This track won't spread real well on playlists because its a sampler and not a track by itself. One good tactic on Soundcloud is to load your music in there, and create a few playlists of your own, that include a mix of today's popular music and yours mixed in. Next, browse other playlists and people to follow, favorite, etc.. Those that are curious will check you out, listen to your music, and perhaps follow your playlist. There are dozens of playlists out there with over 10,000 people listening to them. This takes work and time, but if you do it right, after a while there's a chance your playlist will be picked up by several people and once it does you begin showing up in suggested playlists. As you create playlists, you'll name them with keywords that people will be searching for. Something like "Hot New Country" and the description/byline saying "Featuring Joe Nichols and Justin Moore". That's searchable by those terms, and will attract your target, parallel audiences. Something a little bit sketchy but really effective is if you record popular song as a cover and put it up on Bandcamp. It will pull TONS of search results and get profile views if it works. Trouble is that some labels might ask you to take it down or just have it removed themselves. We have a client that shared a cover on Youtube bust a couple of weeks ago and it took no time at all for Sony Entertainment to put the block on it. Bandcamp , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 6

7 Bandcamp is that it is, and I know why lots of people use it. That said, keep using it as you have been. I've never understood why the search engines like these pages so much less than Reverbnation. Probably because it's not really set up as a social network and you can't share anything from it directly. Its a storefront more or less. If these goofballs ever came up with a sharing widget like Soundcloud has, except allows you to share just a snippet of the song since it's for sale (like Amazon or itunes have the ten second preview track) we all would make more money. If ANY of these sites would do that it would just make life better I swear. You could share a snippet per day for two weeks every month and probably sell more music. Oh well. Carry on... itunes Good show. It's awesome that you're in there. Keep that up. In all of Apple's proprietary crap you're still going to be hard to find by anyone that doesn't have an itunes account, unless you give them the link. Like selling something at Sam's Club.. you'll be able to sell in bulk, but only to the free lunch grubbing members. All the same its good to be there, and by many accounts that's where lots of artists gain the most success. In there you'll be shooting for positive reviews and lots of page views. Those activities will make you a lot more visible in search. Amazon I know next to nothing about selling music on Amazon - honest. I do however, know how to sell a book on Amazon and blow it out of the water. I have a sneaking suspicion that the same tactics would work for music. I just don't know what the guidelines are for selling music on there. Its worth researching though , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 7

8 Instagram This makes me shriek as its the photo site/app that my cute, 16-year old daughter has 1,200 followers on, and I'm sure a percentage of them are creeps. The fact is however, that businesses are starting to use it and its working. I'm going to recommend over and over and over again that you take pictures when you play. It's actually best if you have a helper in the crowd or have someone that can take pictures and video for you. Just like in our discussion about the local band from here that's on Facebook, they take a decent number of pictures when they play (sometimes). They ask people to like them on Facebook, and mention when they will be posting pictures from that night (if they plan to). We don't work for them by the way (yet...) but here's their profile to see what they are doing and how they do it. If someone thinks they might be in a picture, for some reason they'll come around to check it out. It just works to bring people in. Instagram is all about pictures so if you take a lot of them then this is a good place to keep them, and then link the gallery from a particular night on your Facebook and Twitter pages in a post later that night or the next day About media: Text is boring and text is common. Pictures and video are attention grabbers - so whenever you're able to collect new media it will add lots of value to your social media efforts. A Facebook or Twitter post that includes an image is 3x more likely to be read. Fact. This will include band pics, pictures with fans, and other photos of each event that capture people listening to the band, talking to each other, posing with the band, etc.. You ll share the photos on Facebook and Twitter, and tag identifiable individuals whenever possible. Your sample post will simply say: Great pic from the show last night at XYZ. Thanks for coming out. View all the pics from last night at... xyz.com/address. About video specifically: Its not always easy to do, but whenever possible it is good to get video of some of your best songs at your performances. ESPECIALLY somewhere that has clean acoustics. Places that sound like you're playing in a cave never , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 8

9 produce great video, but the more you can post, the more entries you'll have that are searchable on Youtube and more engaging content that you can share everywhere else. I have a guy that claims he can clean up audio from a "bar recording" to an extent that it doesn't sound nearly as bad. I haven't tried him out yet - because nobody will send me a video... Whoever sends me one first is going to get a freebie. Best practices for "bar recording" are: Keep a steady hand; Position the camera somewhere away from walls and hard objects if at all possible, and somewhere within line-of-sight to the speakers (not with 43 human "mufflers" in the way); Test for lighting before picking your spot to record from, and set the camera exposure as best you can to get accurate color and brightness , Sourceline Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved Page 9