Book Review- 'Twitter Revolution'

Twitter Revolution is a quick and easy read on a subject that many social media marketers hold near and dear written by Deborah Micek, a respected social media marketer and author of 'Secrets of Online Persuasion'. (Warren Whitlock is also named as an author but the voice heard throughout the book belongs overwhelmingly to @coachdeb.) I picked this one up in the hope that it would motivate me to finally jump on the Twitter bandwagon for myself after years of building and supervising accounts for my clients and also to confirm that I was on the right track with what I'd already been doing.

To be honest much of what this book covers can be chalked up to common sense but I did pick up a few useful pointers. I could have done without the hype in the opening chapters designed to convert Twitter skeptics (after all, if I fell into this category I probably would not have purchased the book, right?) but once I actually got to the 'meat' of the book it quickly became a worthwhile read. Of particular significance from a marketing standpoint was Part 3: Influence & Persuasion to position & brand yourself on Twitter & other social networks. In fact if you're already up and running on Twitter successfully I'd say Part 3 stands alone as a useful read.

I would definitely recommend this book for artists and managers who classify themselves as avid readers and those who enjoy keeping up with trends in marketing, but if you already understand the rules of fan relationship management then, as I said, a little common sense will go a long way on Twitter as it does elsewhere in social media.

Oh and in case you're wondering I HAVE jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Follow me here.

Moby on the Impact of Technology on Music

Submitting Music to Pandora

This should be an excellent experiment.

I personally go back and forth on whether or not the music discovery service Pandora actually accomplishes its' goal of introducing users to great new music. In case you're not familiar, Pandora has music analysts working with the Music Genome Project listen to tracks (they have over a half million in their directly) to qualify musical details such as tempo, instrumentation and vocal style. Users identify songs or artists that they love in order to create 'radio stations' that combine the music you already know with lesser known music of similar style, with the assumption that you will like some or all of the new music.

But does it work? Yes and no.

It really depends on exactly what music is to you. My theory is that if your musical tastes are closely tied to a particular genre or genres-- for example, if you're a metal head-- Pandora could work for you. If music is more about a mood or an experience, this may be for you. If you still purchase full albums and listen to them from beginning to end, it may be for you.

Pandora may not be for you (or your fans) if your musical tastes are more closely tied to an individual story or situation; the 'soundtrack to your life' model, as I like to call it. If you associate the music and lyrics of your favorite songs with a certain time and place in your life. If you know every word of the song and you're positive that the artist is singing about you and your ex-boyfriend, you fall into this category. If you just purchased 5 new songs on Itunes but could care less about the associated artist or full album. Since Pandora doesn't analyze lyrics, you're out of luck.

Music listening is a complex, aesthetic interaction with a piece of art and it's hard for me to believe that even an advanced and thoughtful system will accurately predict the music that I will love. In fairness, however, I have been listening to 'Fall Out Boy Radio' on Pandora for the past hour and given just about every song in queue a thumbs up. I guess I can see both sides of it.

I am working with an independent artist and will be submitting her album to Pandora shortly. I would encourage all independent artists to do the same, but check to make sure they don't have your music in their catalog already. They require you to send a CD and your CD must be for sale on Amazon, as this is where they pull the artwork. You can read full instructions on submitting your music here. Not all music is accepted, but if it is you should see it live in 6-10 weeks. Wish me luck!

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.