This is a story about a little festival that could.

They could produce a stellar lineup. They could sell out within a week. They could promise to be one of the best festivals of the year, if not the past few combined.

This little festival that could did put together a stellar lineup, did sell out within a week, and does promise to be one of the best festivals of the year – if not the past few combined.

This not-so-little festival can also be rude, as seen above.

If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been a lot of chatter about Coachella over the past few weeks. First, there was the excitement over the lineup (summary: “HOLY COW IT’S AMAZING!”), then there was the chatter about tickets going on sale (summary: “YAY! I HAVE MY TICKET AND I’M SO EXCITED!). Then tickets sold out, Coachella posted their “kthxbye” Tweet was posted and we saw the following:

I get being sassy. I understand that a music festival (or an artist, or a producer, or a disc jockey) may have a bit more leeway than your standard corporate account on Twitter. I even get that humor (in this case, trying to use lolcat humor) can be witty and funny.  However, in this instance, the tweet was just plain rude.

Tickets were going for $1,000+ at the point that the tweet was posted, and the festival and the 75,000 tickets offered sold out within 6 days.  6 days!  Many people were waiting on paychecks to come in, or waiting to get vacation time approved at work.  I know quite a few people myself that had booked accommodation and airfare, but were waiting on buying tickets until they got paid again (just like they did in years before).

Knowing that people are spending a lot of money to go to this festival, and knowing that tickets sold out much more quickly than in years previous, the least that @Coachella could do was show a bit of sympathy, or even thank the people who purchased tickets, when they ran out.

A few examples of tweets that would have worked better than their rude tweet:

“Overwhelming response to ticket sales! We’re sold out already!”

“Thanks to all that bought tickets for this years festival – we just sold out in record time!”

No, it wouldn’t have solved all of the complaints. But, what tweets like the one above would have done was remove the sassy and rude aspect of their current tweet, as well as show appreciation for people that bought the tickets.

Sometimes using humor goes a bit too far, and the fact that people are still talking about that tweet 2 days later shows that this time, it did indeed cross that line.

Coachella – in the future, put yourself in the shoes of the people you’re talking to and ask yourself how they would feel before you tweet. Humor doesn’t always translate well online, especially on Twitter.

I’ve been a big fan of Behringer products for years.  They produce quite the extensive line of DJ, sound and other music-related products, and I’ve always had great experiences.  That being said, they were pretty much out of sight, out of mind for years. I stopped DJin’g and just didn’t have a need to keep up with what they were doing.  I’ve been paying attention to them again lately though, mainly due to their Twitter stream.

I took a look around their social presence and really like what I saw.  So much so that I decided to write an entire blog post about it – not bad, eh?

I’ll start with the website:

The clean style really showcases both the products they want to feature (rotating in the center), as well as a larger portion of their product line and their social outposts, all without being crowded or poorly-designed.

Great, but their Twitter stream is really what caught my eye.  Let’s take a look!

I LOVE the fact that they’re on top of responses.  A lot of people/companies who are just jumping into social media seem to forget the “social” aspect and just use their accounts to push our news about their company.  Behringer does post updates about their products, but they also feature weird musical instruments, ask questions and have conversations with people that respond to them. It’s a really great combination of interesting information and interaction, and I regularly go check the account just to see what I’ve missed from them. Really.

I hopped over to Facebook next and really, the only negative thing I have to say here is that I wish they had a better avatar. It is consistent with their other profiles (like Twitter above), but just a bit too long for the space.  Still – if I’m just pointing out the avatar and not the actual content, I consider that a huge win.  Make no mistake, the content is really good! Take a look for yourself.

Behringer does cross-post content from Twitter to Facebook (or vice versa, more likely), and I like that they do this.  They don’t try and shove people back and forth between the platforms, yet they make sure that if you’re on Twitter, you’ll see the much the same information as you’d see on Facebook.  They also reply to comments on Facebook which is unique! You’d be surprised how many companies post something then just leave it.  Questions go unanswered, kudos go unthanked and opportunities to, you know, be social, go unrecognized.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’re also on YouTube and Flickr – both give you a good “behind the scenes” view of what’s up at Behringer, including shows they’re at and videos they’re making (even just for fun).  The videos are fun to watch and the photos are a combination of company photos and fan submissions – I really enjoyed looking through both sites and seeing some of the faces and personalities.

So – some takeaways:

• Interaction is good. Don’t be afraid to use @ replies, DM’s or comments to respond to questions, thank people for their support or offer help.  Sometimes all people want is to be heard.
• Consistency is good. Use the tools you’ve selected to their full potential! Cross-post content and encourage people to connect with you where they feel most comfortable doing so – not where you want them to do so.  You don’t have to copy everything (and in fact, you probably shouldn’t), but posting key pieces of content on multiple sites isn’t always a bad thing!
• Design matters. It may seem completely obvious, but web design matters! I was encouraged to poke around Behringer’s site simply because it was easy to use.  Don’t be afraid to change things up or invest some serious time and resources to make your website more effective.  Websites are still important!

What other companies do you like in the social space? Share your favorites in the comments!

In light of my post explaining how to start listening across the social web, I thought I’d run a test to see which bands already were listening.  Plus, I really needed some new music.

It all started with this tweet:

I repeated the tweet a bit later on with the hashtag of the day (#musicmonday) to see if people were following the hashtag, rather than searching for the generic terms of “band” or “new music”.

I then posted variations of the tweets above that got the most response once a day for the next 6 days.

You know what was surprising? Aside from a band @ replying me because someone else @ replied them telling them to do so, not one single band, producer, singer/songwriter, guitarist, drummer, or any other kind of musician responded to my query.

I was pointed in the direction of numerous bands my friends liked, which was great… but that wasn’t the point.

The point was to see if any musicians were using even a basic Twitter search (like, oh, #musicmonday, or “looking for new music”, or “looking for new bands”).

There, now you have 4 searches you can subscribe to (get the RSS feeds in your Google Reader). You’re welcome!

Is anyone else as flabbergasted as I am that this failed on such a spectacular level?

Photo credit: Bob Fornal

I love Twitter. But I didn’t always love it. In fact, for the first few months I was on, I actually thought it was completely pointless.

Story time, kiddos…

I got on Twitter in September of 2008 (late, according to most of my counterparts working in social media). I actually jumped on before a trip to NYC, and my first tweets were full of “I’m at the Guggenheim!” and other such nonsense. I didn’t really “get” it, but I figured that I should at least give it a try. To me, it was a way to shout out to the Internet at large about what I was doing… but that felt kind of pointless – I mean, who really cared??

I was shortly followed by a bunch of people in Charlotte, NC. I didn’t know any of them, but quickly found out that, in addition to being full of snark and sass, they were a really cool bunch of smart people. I happen to like smarts, sass and snark, so I started posting a bit more and responding to their posts.

Truth be told, I still didn’t “get” Twitter. It was all like a big disjointed IM conversation to me, and all of it was pointless.

So I went out to a meetup (tweetup), and actually met these people.  My impressions were correct! The local people were just as cool offline as they were online (if not more so). Now I had faces and personalities to go with internet personas and avatars. Progress!

Then I got laid off.

After calling a co-worker (to declare that we were going for margaritas) and my Mom (to tell her I was laid off), I tweeted about being laid off. I wasn’t home yet, but when I got home to change before heading out for said margaritas, guess what happened? I GOT Twitter. I understood.

In the 10 minutes between Tweeting out that I was laid off and arriving at home I had about 30 replies from people I didn’t know sending their condolences, asking for my resume, or telling me to keep my chin up. A lot of these people I didn’t even follow, but they saw my note because someone I did ReTweeted it, and they offered their help.  Seriously, COMPLETE STRANGERS.

From there, it was a bit of a snowball effect. I kept connecting with more people, shortly moved to NYC, and continued to use Twitter. I started giving back. ReTweeting things that I thought others would find valuable, sharing their stories if they needed help, and connecting with people. Not because it was benefiting me, but because I cared and I wanted to provide the help and support that had once been provided to me.

What’s important here isn’t the fact that I was laid off. The important fact is that I had the opportunity to see first hand what a community, even a loosely-knit one, can do. What sort of personal impact it can have, even for a complete stranger and someone new to the scene.

It’s not about my story. Its about viewing things in a new light, about turning something around and seeing it from all angles, and about having patience. I tweeted for a few months without really “getting it”, and then one day, I did.

You never know what sort of opportunities can lead to learning, and all too often we give up before we really “get it”.

So. What about you? When did you see something in a different light? When did things “click” for you?

I know, the life of a hustler is hard.

Let me help. Here are 6 great social tools to help your hustle along and create some buzz about your music.

Note: if your noise doesn’t qualify as wonderfully crafted, start here.

1. Twitter – No, it’s not just about what you had for lunch.  The pros? Setup costs are low (it’s free) and setup time is minimal (5 minutes, tops).  The cons? A bit of reading before you jump on would probably be a good thing, and tweeting takes time. Getting in the habit of sharing little details here and there also takes a bit to get used to. Just be sure not to be “that guy” on there, please.
2. Facebook – Yes, really! You can set up a page with pretty minimal time and effort and it’s completely OK to fill your Wall with your stuff, even multiple times per week! Go look at Alicia Keys’ page if you want an example of a successful Fan Page. Warning: Facebook likes to change things and delete things without warning, so don’t depend on this tool alone to get the word out.
3. Contxts – It’s a pretty simple concept. You meet someone, you tell them to text a number with a certain message, and in response they get a text back with your contact details. It’s free for everyone involved and pretty easy to configure to your liking.  Twentysomething in the Music Biz covers a few promotional ideas here (it’s well worth the short read). I use it as my “Oops, I ran out of business cards!” backup.
4. SoundCloud – Again with the free. Setup takes about 5 minutes and you can upload all sorts of things to the system. Start with a track or two, perhaps end up with an album or a mix. It’s up to you but it’s a great (and social) way for people to wander by and discover your music.  It’s also easy to embed into places like blogs (see my post here if you want an example) and profiles.
5. Blogger – For those lacking the funds to start a self-hosted website, Blogger provides a nice alternative.  You can write about what you’re up to, put a bit up about yourself, and link to your music all from one central area.  Bonus? You can set up your other sites to direct back to your blogger.com blog, providing a central “hub” for your efforts and a flexible place where you can update your fans and foes alike about what’s going on in the world of your musical creations.
6. YouTube – Set up a channel, record yourself practicing or performing, and share.  I have my own channel to share things like trips I take or concerts I go to, and I’m always surprised to see how many people view my videos.  You can link to your YouTube videos from any number of your social sites, and it’s a great place to share your music as a lot of people use YouTube as a discovery engine, a la “plug in a random search term and see what comes up”. You can also embed your videos in your blogger.com site, share them on Facebook or Tweet about them.

What tools did I miss? The comments are yours for the sharing!

I was invited by Mack Collier to co-host #blogchat (on Twitter) last Monday night (the 8th) and was blown away by the quality of participants and discussions taking place during the chat.

Before I get into my thoughts, let’s take a step back. For those that don’t know what #blogchat is, it’s a weekly chat happening on Twitter (check out tweetchat.com for more information on how).  Essentially, you pull up a Twitter search for #blogchat at the appropriate time, and start Tweeting with the people already participating. The key is to use the hashtag (#blogchat) in every tweet so that the conversations can be seen by all. If you’re wondering how to find the “appropriate time” a simple Twitter search will tell you if you search for the hashtag.

The topic of the week was how musicians could use blogging and social media to help them achieve their goals – whether they be ticket sales, music sales, or just connecting with their fans.

The full chat transcript can be found here, and Mack’s review post can be found here. Happy clicking!

About an hour and a half into the chat, Curt Smith (co-founder of Tears for Fears) jumped into the fray and spent the next 30ish minutes answering questions.  Part of the value (as a fan) of following artists on Twitter is the perception of personal connection you feel with the artist, their work, and their lives. Take the following exchange as an example:

Some of the other valuable music-related nuggets Tweeted during the chat:

• Blogging and using other SM tools is a great way to build a passionate community
• Communications should be authentic – no PR/marketing people tweeting “as” the artist
• Don’t be afraid to have a personality
• Many artists don’t see themselves as brands – that mind shift is necessary
• Twitter can be a great “first step” tool to drive fans to other places (like a Facebook Fan Page or a website)
• Offering up special incentives/announcements via SM is a great way to make your community in SM feel special (Ed note: as well as start to get an idea of the effectiveness of these tools!)
• Artists and companies need to start viewing fans as long-term assets, not just short-term pockets stuffed with cash. The key? Building a relationship with them.
• If you’re going to use SM, always consider what the fans want to read/might find interesting. The focus isn’t you as a person, per se – it’s about your brand and your work. Don’t be afraid to let personality shine through, but avoid excessive inane chatter.
• Location-based software could be a no-no if you get big enough to worry about “crazy people”. Safety first!
• Most agree a blog should be the “home base” in your digital efforts
• Don’t forget the fan to fan connections – they’re key!
• Before you can ever start to think about selling anything – you need to build a community who wants to buy.

What advice would you add? Leave it in the comments!

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!

There’s a lot of talk these days about MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.  What isn’t often discussed (or to be honest, thought about, if you’re an artist) is the data ownership aspect of each of these networks. A lot of artists have moved away from email marketing and towards social marketing – and as a result, not as much focus is placed on building and maintaining a healthy email list.

Preferences Change Over Time

As an artist, your music will evolve over time. Your fan base will hopefully grow with you, but in order to help that growth, you need a consistent way to connect with your fans.  Five years ago, they were on MySpace.  Today, they’re most likely on Facebook, and some are on Twitter.

What hasn’t changed is their love of your music. What has changed is the tools they use to communicate with each other online.

You’re probably on all of the networks they participate in already. You have a MySpace Music page, a Facebook Fan page, and a Twitter handle.

Great and fabulous.

What happens if MySpace, Facebook and Twitter all shut down – tomorrow?

Do you have any way to reach out to your fans left, or did your options just disappear?

For most of you out there, your options just went out the window.

It’s great to connect with your fans where they already exist online, but this shouldn’t be your only way of connecting with them.  As an artist, you need to own your audience, or at least, know their email address!

Here are some easy ways to start your email list:

Put a “sign up for our email” prompt on every page you have – Many tools are free (like MailChimp, for example) and provide the ability to create a form. Look, ma, it’s automated and organized!

Have an email sign-up sheet at the door of every gig – Go old school and collect email/mailing addresses and other information by hand. They’re coming to your show, obviously they’re interested!

Create a website and (you guessed it), put a “Sign up for our email” prompt on every page – Web hosting services can be fairly cheap, and there are many free systems out there (like WordPress, which I use), to help you create and maintain a site, even if you don’t know anything about designing a website.

If you get into a conversation with someone and take it private (DM’s, Facebook Messages, etc), send them your email and invite them to continue the conversation via email.

Include your email/website address on everything – videos, flyers, your website, business cards, etc.

Most importantly – make it WORTH your fans time to sign up for your emails. I’ll cover how to effectively email them in a further post, but start thinking about the emails you like reading, keeping in mind the marketing emails you always look out for.

Do you have any more ideas about how to build your email list? Any success stories to share? The comments are yours – so leave ‘em!

I know I seem like a bit of a Twitter junkie am a huge Twitter junkie, but at the risk of repeating myself, this post started with a tweet:

True to my “What the hell, why not?” personality, I sent an email with a few quick questions. They’re included below.

1. I see you’re still using MySpace as a homepage, or as an “online hub”. Why? Is MySpace your “now and forever” home?
2. WHAT’S UP WITH ALL THE CAPS ON TWITTER? Really, I’m wondering.
3. If we want to find you online, where should we go? We know you’re on Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, but where else do you exist?
4. Out of those places, why are you there? Which one do you enjoy using most?
5. How has social media marketing impacted your business? Have you gotten shows out of connections made online? Find that fans that follow you on Twitter buy more stuff? What is the impact of it all?

They sent me a video response, as promised, just a few short hours later (!!). It’s pretty short at 2:05, so take a look.  If you don’t have 2:05 to spare, you can cheat and look at their answers and my commentary below. Also, if you don’t have 2:05 to spare, bookmark this and revisit it when you do (or just lighten up and take a break).

Q: I see you’re still using MySpace as a homepage, or as an “online hub”. Why? Is MySpace your “now and forever” home?

A: We use MySpace becuase it’s the place where we first came up, but we are working on launching our own site and we’re active in other places. MySpace is nice for putting our pictures and videos up, as well as saying “what up” to our fans.  It’s not the end all, be all for us.

Q: WHAT’S UP WITH ALL THE CAPS ON TWITTER? Really, I’m wondering.

A: We’re a loud group of individuals and we rock really hard (interrupting “blap!” and “blow!”). They’re also colorful personalities and “like to tell people what we think – loudly”.

Commentary from the blog peanut gallery (aka: me): I will say that you guys are loud on the video as well as on Twitter, so while it’s a pet peeve of mine TO BE SCREAMED AT, it’s genuine to their brand. I support being genuine.

Q: If we want to find you online, where should we go? We know you’re on Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, but where else do you exist?

A: Tumblr and Facebook.

Q: Out of those places, why are you there? Which one do you enjoy using most?

A: We enjoy using all of our social networking. We always have tabs up and are always takling to a lot of people. No one helps us more than the other.

Commentary from video-based peanut gallery: Johnny likes hi5.

Follow-up from the blog peanut gallery: Wiseass.

Q: How has social media marketing impacted your business? Have you gotten shows out of connections made online? Find that fans that follow you on Twitter buy more stuff? What is the impact of it all?

A:  Social networking helps us get gigs sometimes, and it’s nice to talk to people off all over the US, especially in our hometown, without having to meet them. We can help make our shows better by connecting with more people.

Summary

The question most businesspeople people as is “does it all work?” This is second to the “Why would anyone care what I’m having for lunch?” Twitter question.

I don’t remember how I started following @SHINOBININJA on Twitter, but I’ve now checked out their Tumblr, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube pages, emailed them with a few questions and have written a blog post about them.

Is social media working to get more eyeballs (and potential fans) for them? I’d say so.

Has social media caused me to pay more attention to them? Absolutely.

Would I now go see one of their shows? You betcha.

Would I have found out about them if it wasn’t for Twitter? Perhaps.

Thanks to SHINOBININJA for the offer, the quick response (within a few HOURS people!) and your time. Not to mention the laughs. I’ll be seeing you soon…