Lily Allen on Twitter

Can I just say how much I LOVE the fact that Lily Allen is an active Twitter user? May God strike me down if I'm wrong on this, but anyone familiar with Lily and her music will attest to this fact that the updates are genuine....the tweets are a little too 'cheeky' to be coming from some hotshot PR person or label rep (and trust me-- the folks working in digital at Capitol Records are far too good at what they do to let something like this happen with one of their artists).

Lily has posted 145 updates since she began on January 30th and already has over 46,000 followers. The fact that she did not begin until a week before her U.S. album release does make me a little nervous. You can't knock the girl and her team for tapping into the Twitter community to promote the new album, but I sure would love to see her remain active over the next several months.

In general I've always recommended that artists not dive into Twitter unless they are in it for the long haul, and I stand by that. Twitter is a means of creating and managing relationships with fans over a long period of time and is not necessarily the best place to begin a media blitz to promote a new album or project. It sure can't hurt if you're an A-Lister like Lily, but I firmly believe that fans resent artists who get started on something like Twitter and quickly lose interest. Twitter is also not useful and effective for every single artist out there. For example, I do not see it as particularly relevant for developing artists in most cases. Disagree? Prove me wrong!

Gigya's My Stuff Application for Facebook

A lot of people who manage music pages on Facebook are probably already familiar with this but I thought I'd throw it out there nonetheless.

Gigya's 'My Stuff' application when added to a Facebook page will allow you to post any string of code that you wish that will appear in a box on your profile. This is perfect for.......you guessed it.........WIDGETS. Keep in mind before adding this however that many of your favorite widgets probably already have facebook applications designed for them.

This example shows how a children's artist used My Stuff to add their Gydget to their page.



The application doesn't slow down the page's load time as it would on myspace because a user has to click on the widget once before the flash begins to function.

My main tip is to make sure that you are adding the application and the code to your fan page and NOT to your personal profile-- a bug in Facebook's system often makes it difficult to tell if you are working on an application within one or the other.

Rascal Flatts Countdown

I came across this cool countown widget on Rascal Flatt's myspace and really loved it. Every band deserves this kind of technology. The question is, is it affordable? Most standard widgets allow you to create and customize them a bit, but I'm guessing that the band's label (Lyric Street)had it specially made. The price in a custom widget like this makes it not an option for most independent artists, and as of this writing I do not know where to get a countown widget like this for free. Hit me back with your ideas!

A Little Self-Respect with Myspace Comments

Just a little. That's all I ask.

Here is what I'm talking about. I found this on Lil Wayne's myspace.



Unknown artists leaving spam comments on the websites of big name artists is one of the many reasons for the social network's decline (the phrase 'A Virtual Detroit' comes to mind). Artists presumably do this to direct traffic to their own pages with the assumption that at least some of the people who visit will enjoy the music and become fans. I'm here to tell you that this logic is beyond flawed.

First of all, even on the off-chance that there IS some potential crossover between fans of the top selling urban artist of 2008 and this terrible unknown artist, why on earth would Lil Wayne's dedicated fans reward the unknown artist for spamming Wayne's page by giving their music a listen?

Second, even if you get a click-thru, what are the chances that the visitor will stick around long enough to give your music a thorough and objective listen? This becomes even less likely if the page itself is poorly designed-- unattractive and unnavigable, which it is in this particular case.

Now take a look at this comment from Beyonce's page:




A quick scan of her 100,000+ comments will show you that somebody is taking the time to approve only positive, meaningful comments from true fans. To me this gives the page a level of legitimacy that no amount of spamming will create. Think about it. If I'm an A&R exec checking out the page of a potential signing, I want to see that there is a real 'story' going on.....that a real and energized fanbase exists, and that your entire friends list isn't made up of meaningless spam. If you have 20,000 friends and I can't find a single comment about your music, I will be unimpressed.

Here is what I recommend:

1) Adjust your settings to require approval for all comments. Only allow friends to comment, and require CAPTCHA for all comments. This will cut back on spam. Only approve comments that are personal and complimentary. Feel free to reject 'thanks for the add' comments as these are of little value.

2) Block any user that attempts to spam your comments board with their own marketing message or advertisement. If they've done it once, they'll do it again.

3) Change your settings to prevent friends from posting html comments. Any non-text code that appears on your comments board (pictures, videos, links, etc) will slow down the load time of your page.

4) Reject friend requests from bands or anybody with exclusively commercial interests. These are the worst offenders in this arena and are unlikely to turn into true supporters of your work. Unless you are truly receiving too many friend requests to manage, turn off the 'automatically accept friend requests' option.

5) Post comments on the pages of friends sparingly, with limited or no html. Do not ever post comments on the pages of other artists.

Facebook Fan Page Netiquette

Here is a little wisdom for anybody who is managing a Facebook Fan Page.

Managing a page allows you to send updates to fans at any time. These updates appear on the user's homepage in the same location as friend requests and application invites. I am currently a fan of about 2 dozen artists on Facebook. Some of these artists I have yet to receive an update from and some I receive updates from all the time that are of little or no value to me. For example, this morning I received an update from British piano jazzer Jamie Cullum asking me to participate in a contest in which I would win free tickets to a concert in London. While a trip to London to see Jamie perform would be nothing short of a dream come true, I can't help but feel a little irritated that I had to take time out from my morning routine to read a marketing message that was of no value to me. Unlike a myspace bulletin, fans are obligated to read the updates in order for the '1 new update' message to disappear from the homepage.

Here is what I strongly suggest. Use Facebook updates sparingly for very important messages that are applicable to all fans.

*New Album Release
*New Video Premiere
*Large-scale contest with wide fan appeal
*Tour announcement with all dates confirmed

Fans will appreciate this and resist the temptation to 'De-Fan' you from their profile if you respect their space.

Here is a useful alternative. For lesser communication with fans that does not fall into the 'update' category, install the 'Notes' application and simply post a new note. It will post to your fan page for awhile but more importantly a large number of your fans will see it in their own status feed. This way they are able to determine the value of the message for themselves and click on it only if it is applicable to them. Think of a note as a myspace bulletin with a much higher probability that your fans will actually see it.

Always communicate with your fans online in a way that is unintrusive and provides value rather than interruption.