EIGHT STEPS TO SOCIAL NETWORKING / WEB 2.0 MASTERY

From http://www.arielpublicity.com

STEP ONE: Start At Home base (Your Homepage)

Start with your branding – create a homepage using that consistent look & feel
Think the look & feel through – who are you trying to reach?
What are your colors, your logo, and your overall vibe – This should be consistent and will carry over to all your portals!
Your username should be the same across the Internet for consistency
Also add links to all of the places you can be found online (MySpace, Twitter, Facebook etc.)
Q: Should your own website be your home base?

A: YES! And, it should ALWAYS have an exclusive bribe to get people to go there AND give you their email addresses

TIP: Resist the temptation of FLASH on your homepage – it may look good but it is a terrible user experience and Google cannot index Flash pages (in other words you won't be findable on Google)

Google's research says that people leave if the load time takes more than 3 seconds people move onto the next site so get rid of your flash intro --- it's very 1997!

TIP: When moving around the Social Networks use a consistent handle on all of these sites so you are easily recognizable all over the place - Choose a username and stick with it at every site!

STEP TWO: Let It Go

You have to understand a fundamental thing about Web 2.0 (the interactive web): You are putting info out there for other people and fans to use – this is how social networks work. So, it will go out of your control! The good news is, once you put your art onto a social network it becomes your fans… and THEY then spread the word virally!

TIP: Don't be risk averse, if you are Social Networking is not for you!

You cannot control what "they" say – that's the whole point of Web 2.0!

This is hard for artists .So, take a deep breath and let it go!

Corey: Snakes on a Plane did not happen b/c of message control – it went out into the ether and everyone contributed what they wanted and it grew enormously

Q: So – Should you be everywhere online?

A: YES!

Your fans live and breathe you and they also have other things in common

So you should have a home base for your power fans (your website) and then be everywhere – in as many possible places as you can be all over the net.

STEP THREE: Use Widgets

Widgets are brilliant because all you have to do is enter your dates at one place (Reverb Nation is a great place to start) and it syndicates over the net – to your MySpace, Facebok etc.

The cool thing about Reverb Nation's widgets are they collect the stats & info of everyone clicking on your widgets and you can log in and see statistics in real time. This is amazing info to have and you can use it to your advantage when you go on tour, or do online promotions, publicity or marketing.

STEP FOUR: Chunk It Down, Don't Try To Do It All In One Day!

It's very easy to lose focus when you are trying to be everywhere online.

Make a list of what steps you are going to take to avoid going down the rabbit hole.

Q: How important is it to show more of yourself than just your music and what you are up to as an artist?

A: VERY - It is important to be multi-dimensional around the net – don't only focus on the music and you as a band – remember you are also a human with other interests. The art of mastering Social Networking is learning how to use these tools and they each have a learning curve so start with ONE and after you get the hang of it move to the next and do the one that appeal to you first.

Q: Is Facebook replacing MySpace? I read that somewhere...

A: Rachel: No, Facebook is not replacing MySpace – its not replacing anything – it is gaining a LOT of popularity and it will soon be indexed in Google searches so USE Facebook (it also has a LOT of great widgets). A massive Facebook bonus is - he has a way of searching by neighborhood, which is amazing information to have when you are looking to target specific areas and tour.

Q: Are some sites better than others and how do I know which ones to use?

A: Corey: Just use them all – the WORST thing that will ever happen is you will be more Googleable! This is the objective in your Internet marketing – to be FOUND.

Q: What about privacy issues with being in all those places?

A: Lou: Each site has a user agreement and you should read each one and understand what you are agreeing to.

TIP: I think Twitter is the easiest one to get a handle on and it is simple to master so start there.

STEP FIVE: Make Yourself Stand Out!

Rachel: Create a great experience for your fans. Create unique videos as additional content – people LOVE videos.

Corey: Constantly put out new things and ideas, have a 360 view

TIP: Make a YouTube channel to house all of the videos

Use Splashcast to widgetize your videos

Web 2.0 is a really cool way around Google – when you use social networking tools you make yourself more findable on Google and then you don't have to invest in Google Ad words or SEO – it works organically!

STEP SIX: GET HELP – Delegate The Outreach To Others!

Q: What do you do when you have a rabid / psycho fan who drives you nuts?

A: Corey: put them to work make the head of your online street team and delegate.

Q: How does promoting specific events tie into this social networking stuff?

A: There are some great tools that can help you get your show info out onto the net

TIP: Brian Dear The EVENTFUL.com founder talked about how his "request an event" works – at this moment 600,000 people are requesting event s from their favorite artists – it creates a demand -then you can go and book yourself based on what people want and where! You can also use their performer dashboard to manage your events, see cities around the world where fans are clustering and then you can target each city and email the people that wanted the events directly.

Use this info to discuss with promoters – hey look I have 500 people that want me to go on tour & get your fans to book shows for you

STEP SEVEN: Get On The Court: Play Ball With Bloggers & Podcasters

Read blogs everyday – get a feel for the bloggers you like and post comments on their blogs!

TIP: For Controlling information: Use RSS Readers - RSS feeds are critical in this discussion and you should first start by creating an RSS reader they are free and easy to set up. My favorite is Google Reader but Yahoo has one as well.

With an RSS reader your followers don't have to subscribe to your email list they can choose what content that they have sent to them

STEP EIGHT: Use Tags Consistently

Always tag your handle (mine is CyberPR) then you mark it with other tags music NYC and always tag WHAT YOU SOUND LIKE (Genres and other names of more famous artists)

Brian: Tags help provide taxonomy and some organization to the huge amount of information out there

There you have it - It's a whirlwind! I hope you find this information helpful and please report back to me about how your own Social Networking endeavors are going, as I love to tell stories from the frontlines.

CONTACT & INFO
http://www.arielpublicity.com
http://www.bandletter.com
http://www.myspace.com/ArielPublicityNY
http://www.twitter.com/cyberpr

Creating and Running a Street Team

by Brandon Marcel Cherry

In this articles the author explain various keys as to how a musician is to choose street team members, manage them, and create an effective and efficient crew.

One great way to increase your fan awareness in with the help of a street team. A street team is a group of members (usually your top fans) that either you pay or that volunteer to help you out in various ways. The most common way that street teams are used within the music industry is for artist promotions and publicity. Everything from going online and telling friends, helping with Myspace/You Tube Exposure, talking about you in forums, chats, and comment sections to hanging posters, passing out flyers and other swag is done by your street team members.

As stated above, many street teams (especially indie) are free to enter and don’t involve any type of compensation. There usually should be some level of screening however to protect you from the potentially lazy, deceitful, and image damaging individuals that may attempt to join your team. Simply because if those you have out representing you are also behaving badly or in any sort of negative manner, at least while they are out promoting on your behalf, it makes you as an artist come off looking bad. Important relationships with venues and other key people and places to your career can be permanently damaged, leaving you with less and less contacts to turn to.

You should always choose team leaders to lead each offline task you perform. Make sure this individual is trustworthy and an effective team member themself. Once this is accomplished give them weekly or monthly tasks and agendas and ask them to delegate how the tasks are to be achieved. The main key with a street team is to reduce the actual amount of marketing and promotions time you as the artist are forced to maintain. You’ll still have to continue marketing yourself, but this way you’ll have more time and a much deeper reach than on your own. Online you can simply place the most tech savvy individual on your team to go about delegating the tasks you have chosen for either a specific week or an entire month. This can be things like having them to ask people to join your Myspace, visit your site, place banner ads on their various sites and calling radio stations in their area requesting your songs, but always give a specific amount or goal so that members have something to strive toward.

One final key is that you should set up everything up for the specific task. This meaning you should have posters, flyers and other swag or internet banners, radio station phone numbers and address, etc. printed and ready to go before you ever assign a project. Don’t abuse your street team by making them go pick up items or create them on their own (except for tasks/contest for creating fan websites, banners, etc.). They probably aren’t getting paid and are doing this solely to promote and support you, so take care of these types of things ahead of time for them. Finally, remember to reward your street team members, give them access to you other fans don’t get, give prizes to the top performing team members and give away personalized items to help show that you really appreciate them. Do these things and watch in amazement as your street team begins to bring you promotions and exposure like you’ve never even imagined before.

Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret

Success in you music career depends on you staying focused on the most important tasks that need to get done. Musicians’ multi-task daily. It is easy to get off track and spend time on tasks that won't get your career going. Decide each morning what the most important tasks are for that day. Start with these tasks and don't switch tasks until they get done.

When Brad Isaac told us he had productivity advice from Jerry Seinfeld, we couldn't turn down the chance to hear more. Read on for the whole story from Brad.

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime...

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don't feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here's how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."

"Don't break the chain," he said again for emphasis.

Over the years I've used his technique in many different areas. I've used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses.

It works because it isn't the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard "inch by inch anything's a cinch." Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don't break the chain, you'll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn't. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides "compounding interest."

Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.

I've often said I'd rather have someone who will take action—even if small—every day as opposed to someone who swings hard once or twice a week. Seinfeld understands that daily action yields greater benefits than sitting down and trying to knock out 1000 jokes in one day.

Think for a moment about what action would make the most profound impact on your life if you worked it every day. That is the action I recommend you put on your Seinfeld calendar. Start today and earn your big red X. And from here on out...

Don't break the chain!

Brad Isaac is a lead software programmer and blogger. You can read his motivational strategies every day on his goal setting blog, Achieve-IT!

Top MySpace Tips From People Who Know

from Million Music Marketing

1. Updating: The ‘Golden Rule’ of websites is they must constantly be updated, and yet many social networks go stagnant once the label has registered the name and created the first profile. My advice is to use RSS wherever possible since you can use Widgets to update news and photos on profiles. Facebook make it even easier by allowing you to link your news and Flogger to RSS feeds. Another tip - always embed a YouTube playlist instead of a single video since you can then update the playlist within ‘My Account’ and everyone’s video is updated at once.

2. Don’t make the mistake of thinking ‘Friends’ are the same as having a mailing list - they’re not since they rarely read their bulletins. Do you? FanBridge is a really easy way of starting your own mailing list.

3. Don’t think your MySpace is your official website. It isn’t. You don’t own it, MySpace do. If it goes wrong you’re screwed, and believe me, it does. And if you get banned, even inadvertently, then bye bye friends and all those careful hours spent adding and approving!

4. Sell from your website, even if it’s just a link to iTunes. Joe Purdy reckons he sells 20k-30k downloads per month simply by optimising his MySpace for sales via iTunes, eMusic, etc. If you don’t sell then MySpace is simply a brochure and that’s not what internet is all about, is it?

Brick-and-mortar stores eye new music formats

NEW YORK (Billboard) - The music industry continues to build bridges between the digital and physical world.

In the latest attempts, iTunes digital download album cards highlighting specific titles are getting high marks in the early part of the rollout.

Meanwhile, merchants await the introduction of the "ringle" -- which aims to revive the CD single in the physical world and allow brick-and-mortar merchants to participate in the ringtone phenomenon.

IT'S IN THE CARDS

On October 2 the iTunes digital album cards for KT Tunstall's "Drastic Fantastic" and Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to "Into the Wild," priced at $14.99 and $11.99, respectively, debuted at Starbucks. And a few weeks earlier, the Safeway grocery chain -- which represents a new frontier for music merchants -- began merchandising eight other titles: single-artist albums from Maroon 5, Norah Jones and Kelly Clarkson, priced at $14.99 each; plus five compilations, priced at $19.99 each: "Best of Comedy Central Stand-Up" and four greatest-hits collections themed by decade from the '60s through the '90s. Safeway is testing the cards in 1,000 of its 1,800 stores.

The glossy plastic cards measure 4.5 inches by 6.25 inches and display the album cover on the front under a black strip, which contains an iTunes logo and a description of the album. The backs of cards list the albums' songs and bonus material -- in the case of Tunstall, six music videos, a digitally accessed CD booklet and a behind-the-scenes video -- as well as a scratch-off that reveals the code to be used in redeeming the card at the iTunes store.

Retailers pay nothing for the cards, which are not activated until paid for at the register. So far, "people are pleasantly surprised by the results," Sony BMG Music Entertainment senior vice president and general manager of U.S. digital sales Adam Mirabella said. The Vedder card comprises 6 percent of overall scans for "Into the Wild," which has scanned 95,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- including 36,000 in digital downloads, 5,720 of those from the digital cards.

"This is a new product, and the customers are just learning about it," EMI Music Marketing senior VP of sales Darren Stupak said. "So the sales can only get better."

Some major labels initially were afraid the iTunes digital album card could hurt CD sales, but Starbucks Entertainment CEO Ken Lombard sees it as a way to expand the coffee merchant's overall musical offering. "It won't take away from the CDs we are carrying," he said.

iTunes VP Eddie Cue said that Apple views the cards as "a way to leverage digital in the physical space."

Conventional music merchants are open to the concept as well.
"We would carry both the CD album and the card," one retail executive at a traditional chain said. "The more ways we participate in getting music into the hands of the consumer helps keep the customer active in our stores."

Some major labels initially were afraid the iTunes digital album card could hurt CD sales, but Starbucks Entertainment CEO Ken Lombard sees it as a way to expand the coffee merchant's overall musical offering. "It won't take away from the CDs we are carrying," he said.

iTunes VP Eddie Cue said that Apple views the cards as "a way to leverage digital in the physical space."

Conventional music merchants are open to the concept as well.

"We would carry both the CD album and the card," one retail executive at a traditional chain said. "The more ways we participate in getting music into the hands of the consumer helps keep the customer active in our stores."

See IMS Post on how to get your own Indie Download Card.

Indie labels struggling to make money in digital era

By OTIS HART

The digital music era was supposed to be the great equalizer.
No longer would independent labels waste money pressing physical copies, securing crucial and costly distribution, or warehousing unsold albums. They could use the windfall to promote and market their artists, to turn tiny trickles of returns into legitimate revenue streams.

The Internet's long tail of niche audiences provided access to an unprecedented number of potential fans.
Well, the mp3 did end up leveling the playing field ... just not the way many had hoped.

As more and more people discovered the wonders of high-speed connections, music gave new meaning to the adage "the best things in life are free."

For indie acts, popularity no longer guarantees profit, much less the promised land — not when entire records are available for the taking via torrents or one-click hosters. And for the millions of teenagers who grew up After Napster, those files come largely guilt-free.

Amazon.com opened its store in September, selling complete, no-strings-attached mp3 albums for $8.99, 10 percent less than iTunes. And that's not accounting for sale prices — while you can download Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" for $11.99 from iTunes, you can get the same files for $4.45 from Amazon.

"We plan to build a successful digital business in the same way we built a sustainable business selling physical goods, which is by starting with the customer and working backward," said Amazon spokeswoman Heather Huntoon. "That's what we've done with Amazon MP3, starting with what we think customers want — convenience, selection, and low prices — and worked backwards."

Given the already low margins associated with digital music, moving album prices lower would barely dent Amazon's bottom line, but could very well turn indie labels into Non Profit Organizations.

"The pricing model is going to be driven down to probably — without artwork, with Amazon, with Best Buys coming in — somewhere between $6.99 and $7.99 when the dust settles," said Howard Greynolds, owner of the tiny Overcoat Records in Chicago. "What percentage of that we're getting remains to be seen."

Price point taken

Is $7 an album enough to keep an indie label in the black? Not according to Rian Murphy, sales manager at Drag City Records. Murphy's label decided to pull its catalog from digital subscription service eMusic because it had to sell three times the amount of songs to make the slim profit iTunes already provided. The service provides plans that can whittle the price of a song down to 27 cents — appetizing to consumers but nauseating for artists.

"Keep your eye on the bottom line, and if it doesn't make sense, don't do it," Murphy said. "Things become known eventually. You don't really have to force them down people's throats."

Murphy says it's up to independent labels to resist slashing their own prices just to fit someone else's corporate business model. Drag City albums sell for $9.99 on iTunes and $8.99 on Amazon, though Murphy says Amazon is swallowing the difference.

"There are too many people out there who don't value their own exposure, who want (their music) to get to the maximum number of people and they don't care what they have to do," Murphy said. "This is the reason, as far as I'm concerned, that the industry is in trouble."

It's the music, stupid

The industry Murphy speaks of consists of labels, distributors and managers, but primarily artists — artists who discovered it's quite easy to make your own record on ProTools, but not so easy to trade it for goods and services.

"There are a lot of very mediocre bands out there right now, and it's going to be harder and harder for those sorts of artists," Gillespie said. "There's too many bands on too many labels putting out too many records.

"If you figure in single-track downloads at 10 tracks equals one album, the economy of the music industry is only off about 8 percent of where it was in the late 20th-century peak. So it's not that dire, but it's become diffused over so many bands and so many releases."

As the de facto price for digital albums falls, labels will have to become more selective in who they sign and look for alternative resources, like licensing and touring.

"You've got to be a good live band," Gillespie said. "If you're no good live, you soon won't be able to sustain a career in this business."

Capitalism. Cannibalization. Piracy. Getting a piece of this pie has never been so hard. Unless, of course, you've got talent.
"Ultimately, it still comes down to good music," Greynolds said. "Bands can complain that their record isn't selling, and the hardest thing for any band to admit is maybe people don't like their music."

MySpace

You may have 40,000 MySpace friends who know your face (until you change your main pic), but do they have a connection with you or your music?

PT Barnum once said, "Without promotion, something terrible happens—nothing!" As a master promoter, Barnum understood the importance of making a splash and just how to do it. With the right advertisement or exhibition, he could easily attract people to his circus the first time, but what about after that? How would he get people to keep coming back for more? He knew that he would have to offer an unforgettable experience, something that was more than they had ever expected.

I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about how to promote music on MySpace. I think Bob Baker of TheBuzzFactor.com said it best: "The only thing that determines your material success with music is the number of fans you have who are willing to spend money on your CDs and merchandise and pay admission to your live performances. That's it. It doesn't matter who your manager is, who produced your CD, how many radio stations are playing your songs or what critics are writing about you. None of that matters in the long run."

The goal of your MySpace page should be to build a strong fan base not to make a lot of friends. Fans buy your music and pay to hear your perform live; friends expect a free copy and want to get into your shows free. Some artists believe that if they obtain a certain number of friends and get so many plays, a record company will sign them. That is not true! I know that you hear lots stories about how people are discovered on MySpace, but most of those claims are overblown by the media. I guarantee that those artists were not exclusively promoting their music on MySpace.

When people visit your MySpace page let them experience you and your music. How do you convert a visitor into a fan? The same way you write a good song or make a good friend—you share a piece of yourself with that person. Write blogs that tell visitors about your hopes, dreams and goals and how you're planning to accomplish those goals. When people see that you're trying and have a plan in place, they are more likely to want to help you achieve those goals.

Give them some music for free. People do not buy music based on a 60-second clip. Giving away music gives you, the artist, a chance to get that special one-on-one time you’re your visitor during their drive to work, a workout, or while they are doing house work. You don't have give these visitors the original song from your album, but you can give them a live version or an acoustic version. Just give them something they can download and listen to whenever they want. Remember, purchasing music is three-step process: hear, like…then buy. They might have to hear a piece of your music twenty times before they like it enough to buy it. So give them a chance to really like your music.

Send them to your web page. Keep in mind that one hundred friends on MySpace who truly like your music and who are willing to pass the word along to others are far more valuable than 40,000 strangers who claim to be your friend but who have never visited your MySpace page long enough to hear your music.