Music. Marketing. Social Media.

There’s this notion that if you build something people will come. That notion is crap.

There’s also this notion that if you invest time, resources and energy into social media to build a presence, that people will automatically love you just because you’re there. That notion is also crap.

If anything, social media has shortened the life cycle of stardom to almost nothing.  How many bands do you know that were unknown one day, only to be the “next big thing” the next? Out of those, how many are still popular?

Before you get out there and start telling people about who you are any why they should care, focus on your product. Focus on creating something people will care about, THEN get out there and start talking.

I’m not saying wait until you’re perfect, but don’t expect social media to cover up the fact that you may not be all that good. Put out stuff you believe in and constantly push yourself to be better. Prepare for honest feedback and embrace it. It’s a tough lesson to learn, and a tough spot to be in, but congrats – it’s reality.

Aim to not suck and start from there.

The word “listening” gets thrown around a lot in my world.  From the musicians, there are listening parties, spiritual

image provided by e-magic

experiences from listening to a great piece of music, listening to dubplates, listening for the meaning behind the music – the list goes on.

From the marketing side, I hear about listening to the marketplace, listening to your consumers, or listening for your brand across the web.

Listening is great, and it’s absolutely necessary. The challenge though, is to separate listening from merely hearing.

Listening is hearing with purpose.

In the examples above, “hearing” can be substituted for every instance of “listening”.  The challenge, is to not get stuck in that comfort zone of “yeah, I’m listening”.

The trick is, to never be able to say “Yeah, I hear you” as a throwaway.

Do you?

Are you listening to that dubplate, or merely hearing what you think should be there?

Are you listening to the new album at that listening party, or just waiting for the tracks to finish so you can weigh in with your support and comments?

Are you really listening to what the marketplace is saying, or are you sorting out the comments by “stuff we want to hear” and “stuff we know comes through, but we’ll qualify as unimportant and ignore”?

When you hear a piece of music, are you listening to it, or letting it pass you by?

Listening is a great skill, and a skill that takes a lot of work and patience. Just like learning to pay an instrument, listening takes practice. Listening is not passive.

For you musicians wondering how to listen as marketers, here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Subscribe to blogs of bands/artists similar to you via Google Reader
• Set up Google Alerts for your name and the name of your band
• Set up Google Alerts for acts similar to you
• Search on Twitter (search.twitter.com) for your name, as well as the names of your songs or albums
• Subscribe to the RSS feed of that Twitter search, and pull it into Google Reader
• Search for your name, the names of acts similar to you, or other terms on socialmention.com
• Subscribe to that RSS feed and pull it into Google Reader

What you end up with is a Google Reader (or any RSS reader of your choice) full of information about what’s being said. That’s step 1.

The value comes from going back through that information and absorbing it. Read the blog posts. Comment if appropriate. Go see who’s talking about you on Twitter, reply or send them a Direct Message (DM) if it makes sense.

Look for feedback, look for trends, look for opportunities to connect.

Turn the data that gets fed to you into information by listening.

There’s a lot of talk about what social media is, especially lately.

“It’s a new way to communicate”

“It’s a new distribution platform for ideas and voices”

“It’s the hot new thing to do!”

“It’s the thing that is ruining everything else, including publishing!”

Some of the statements above may be true, but what isn’t ever covered is what social media is not.

Social media is not a new platform from which to shout your message to anyone listening.

Social media is not the new email.

Social media is not the be-all, end-all.

Social media is not the sole force behind the declining recording and publishing businesses.

Social media is not a tool you can pick up and discard at will.

Social media is not easy.

Social media is not free.

I’ve written before about how to not use social tools. Twitter, Facebook and the mentality behind MySpace, for example.

These posts revolve around a single principle – you can’t successfully use social media to market yourself if you think like an ad executive in the 70’s.

Social media requires a shift in thinking.  Stop thinking of your fans as big dollar signs, waiting to buy your concert tickets, latest schwag or newest CD. Start thinking of them as people, with preferences and lives – of which you are a part by their choice.

Spamming your “friends” or fans with glittery comments on the latest and greatest social networking site won’t work, just like sending them auto DM’s or spammy @ messages on Twitter won’t work.  You don’t like getting spam email, so why would you ever think of sending spam “conversation starters” across the social web?

Social media isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not free. It requires time, effort and a lot of thought. But first, it requires an understanding that your fans are your fans because they want to be, and not simply open wallets.

They want to be treated like a human being, and you must understand that before you can be successful.

Do you disagree? Perhaps you want to share an example of someone you like using social media well? Leave it in the comments!

I’ll admit this upfront – this post is selfish.  I cannot count the number of times I’ve logged into Facebook and had an event invitation in my inbox for an event I couldn’t possibly attend.

You know what I mean. You log into Facebook and WHAMMO!, you have an invitation to an event that you’ll never attend because it’s 15 states away and a 2,000 mile drive. Or, even more outrageous, it’s across an ocean and a 5+ hour plane ride away.

What’s the culprit?

Lack.

Of.

Thought.

Why do I care? As a fan, I want to believe that you care about me. Read the first sentence again – “this post is selfish.”

As a band, a DJ or a solo musician, you play gigs. As a fan, I really like that! I love to come see you play and I’m usually really happy when you come play in my area.

But as a socially networked busy human being, I’m not a fan of logging into my Facebook account to see event invitation after event invitation for gigs far far away that I’ll never be able to attend.

Here’s a step-by-step guide you can use to help lessen my frustration, make me feel like you care about me, and still make sure I show up to your gigs:

1. When inviting guests/fans to an event, use the drop-down box in the upper left-hand corner of the event invitation to select networks, friends lists or groups of people to invite
2. Invite people from the surrounding areas to your gigs

It’s really that simple.

As an alternative, you can also create Friend Lists.  This would be useful if you have a group of people who you know are die-hard fans and always travel to your gigs. Instead of going through and selecting them one by one, you can put them on a Friends List and select that one list to invite to all of your gigs.

How to create a Friend List:

1. Click on your “Friend” tab
2. Click “Create New List” from the upper left-hand corner
3. Name your list and put your friends on it

What’s the result?

For the fan – they’re invited to gigs that are relevant to their life. They feel like you take care when inviting them via Facebook to your gigs, which (for me, at least) makes me feel like you care.

For the musician – you have a smaller invite list, but a more accurate count of people who are coming. This should give you a more accurate count of people who are actually going to the event, instead of lots of “Not Attending” and “Maybe Attending”  responses cluttering the event invitation.

Social media isn’t about shouting your message to everyone within your reach and hoping that a few pick up on it. It’s about talking to people that are relevant and giving them a voice.  Event spamming me by inviting me to events I’ll clearly never attend is the equivalent of shouting, and it doesn’t equal a happy fan in the end.

“As a fan, I want to believe that you care about me.”  Show me you care and think when you invite people to your gigs, please!

Social media is a lot of work. Anyone in the industry will tell you the same thing, and there are a number of posts by people far more eloquent than I about this very subject. Check here, here and here for starters. Notice the constant mentions of “time”, “time consuming” and “measuring”.

For me, there is the full-time job, the 50ish blogs I subscribe to, Twitter, my personal blog, this blog and various new media and music events around the New York City area.

For being so “easy”, keeping up with social media is really hard work.

My Activity

I’m active on Twitter daily, and I set aside a few nights a week to read (and usually draft, though more on that later) blog posts as well as catch up on everything I’ve missed throughout the week.

I also end up checking Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn more frequently than once a week; though it is a priority to check them all once a week at the same time to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

The one thing I haven’t mentioned is my blogging activities.  I’m the type to think on the go quite frequently, which is why I enjoy living in a city like New York so much.  It’s not uncommon for me to use the WordPress application on my iPhone to jot a few quick notes while on the go, saving these thoughts for later when I have more time to flesh them out into a full post.

I’ve found it important to map out which networks and social sites I want to maintain a presence on, as well as how I plan on being active on those networks.

The same questions can be used to plan your own activities in social media.

Planning My Activity

Here’s how I started:

Presence

• Where (what networks and sites) do I currently participate?
• Where do my contemporaries or audiences participate?
• Do these sites make sense for me?

Planning

• How active do I want to be in social media?
• What sites tie into my objectives (for me, this is personal, for you it’s probably business)?
• How can I manage this activity without losing my mind?

Many social media professionals have shared their own strategies and tips and a few are linked here for your enjoyment.

How do you handle your social media activity?