Musicians and Social Media

Facebook. MySpace. Twitter. Foursquare. Tumblr. WordPress.

The words “social media” have become the holy grail of marketing in recent years. In fact, when I spearheaded one city in a national campaign for a prominent automobile manufacturer, I was surprised to find that “social media” seemed to be the only phrase anyone knew how to say at meetings. So it can’t all be hype, right?

Right. Absolutely right. It’s not hype, and for those of us traveling in the arts circles, social networking carries the potential for significant outreach with absolutely no outlay of cash; a double whammy for the artiste struggling to make ends meet–or at least call each other on the phone–in a hobbled economy.

Social media launched Justin Bieber when his homemade YouTube videos were noticed by Scooter Braun. Social media launched Ingrid Michaelson when her MySpace page was noticed by the people who make the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Lily Allen, Sean Kingston, the Arctic Monkeys … and all across the world, musicians on a budget are trying to add their names to the list.

Personally, I think there is no substitute for viral marketing and word of mouth, but the smart tactician recognizes the value of everything as a potential weapon, and social media is a part of my arsenal as well. It’s dangerous out there for the uninformed though, with a lot of sites offering what claim to be free services that may seriously undermine your bottom line.

I don’t even want to look at social media monitoring, since most bands and artists are their own employees and can’t devote the man-hours to analytics and monitoring, let alone pay services to do that for them. In fact, I couldn’t help but notice how many people don’t even know that you can do things like monitor Twitter for people talking about you. Tracking the buzz is valuable, but there’s no reliable free way that I’ve found.

What I do want to talk about is the fact that signing up for all of these services won’t take the place of the simple things, and I see too many bands making elementary mistakes. I feel honor-bound to point a few out.

1. DO talk to all of your fans at every show, pass out cards, stickers, fliers, cookies, whatever.
2. DON’T start a MySpace or anything else until you have decent recordings done. There are no excuses, and bad music on your page is worse than no page at all.
3. DO start a Twitter account, but ... 
4. DON’T tweet every stupid thought that pops into your head. Quality is more important than quantity, and humor and intelligence can be cut off at the knees by over-posting.
5. DON’T always seek the free avenue. If you need a photo shoot, a recording, a manager, a website or CD duplication, it’s worth it to put up the money for a strong product. Pictures taken by your $70 digital camera won’t cut it, songs recorded by a tape recorder in your living room won’t cut it and jewel cases with an insert you printed out at home and cut with scissors WON’T CUT IT. Knuckle up, already.
6. DO look for the free avenue often. If you are talented, fans will post fliers, load widgets to sites for you, put stickers on stuff and tell everyone they know how great you are. That is the best marketing you can ever have, because it doesn’t come from you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

For bands who don’t already know, let me recommend ReverbNation. They scarcely need an introduction, but even though they have a wide variety of “premium services” whose value I would call into question, the basic services–media hosting and sharing, live syncing to other sites, email newsletter templates and opt-in services, blog hosting, “street team” assignments and buzz tracking–are outstanding.

Sure, they limit the file sizes you can upload, and they constantly recommend you to their paid services, but as a supplement to your Facebook and MySpace, a ReverbNation page should really be your first stop.

Keep your chin up, your nose down, your eyes forward, and if you can survive the facial acrobatics I just described, then you stand a decent chance of penetrating the wall of noise created by the 8 million or so other bands on social networks.

I wish you luck.