The first day I went through a four hour block session on social media and how it works. This was not a “Facebook 101 for people who have never used the internet before” type class. This was from a leading analytics firm flown in from San Francisco to give demonstrations on how the back end and the algorithms work and what that means for someone who’s dead serious about maximizing the cash they put into advertising and creating content using these systems is about. They went into specifics about what you should look for in someone you hire to do this, and I also found it helpful to hear common myths dispelled about what tricks the engines vs people who only think they know how to trick engines. They recommended programs you can buy that let you tap into more data on your accounts and gave examples of how companies have used that information to adapt to moving target audiences or to expand consumer reach etc… This was a very engaging and interesting session. They held 2 more follow up ones throughout the week. I was at the instagram specific one the next day, but I missed the Facebook specific one the day after.
I’ll eventually add transcriptions of my notes…if anyone wants to know anything particular, feel free to ask. If she covered it, I’ll tell you anything I can.
Does it seem like these strategies are constantly/rapidly changing? I’m going to want to get into this at some point, but likely not for another year or two. Did it seem like things will be totally different by then?
They certainly are. Most of the 4 hours was spent trying to get business owners informed enough to make a competent hiring decision on social media marketing staff member. I’m gonna make it a task to try and do a little bit of that stuff myself, but I realized that I’m going to have to regularly check in with the firm, actually read their newsletters, and pay close attention to their live feeds on youtube when big announcements are made to the changes in any of the engines. The problem is that I’m spread so thin right now, I’m gonna have to drop something else important to make the time available. I have no idea how to manage this lol.
I think this is important for me as a company because I’m not in a geographic area like Nashville, Atlanta, LA, or Dallas where there’s enough moment in the local marketplace to generate the kind of numbers I’d like to via word of mouth and face-to-face networking. It forces you to find avenues like this.
Definitely a topic I wish I better understood. I certainly have a decent understanding, but like many, I found social media and social media advertising to be a big fat 0 for growing a business.
Here’s what Jenn said. There’s always a reason why, and the reason is almost never that the a company can not benefit from it. If social media marketing and networking has scored you a big fat zero, the thing is to have the tools to figure out what you did incorrectly. Maybe your content wasn’t getting to your target. Maybe you were adding depth to your content when you should have been expanding reach. Maybe the demographics of the platform (Facebook vs instagram vs twitter) was the wrong match. Maybe the brand was confused with a bunch of your stupid memes and pictures of you posting what you had for dinner last night (co-migingling a brand with a person site can be really bad). Maybe your content wasn’t bringing any unique value to the marketplace and people simply got bored listening to you talk.
…when I say social media adverisiting, I don’t mean creating sponsored adds. The company at NAMM discouraged this unless you have a LOT of cash to burn in your advertising budget, then at a certain point it becomes effective. What I meant we were talking about things like knowing how to take advantage of user generated content for example. Or maybe doing video based in-person gear reviews (like that Anderton guitar company tries to do) …stuff that’s fun, entertaining, and informative all at the same time, then simply positing in the right place at the right time. That’s an example of what I meant by social media advertising.
I’ve been studying music marketing online for a few years, on and off. I’ve purchased an musicians marketing course and am paying for a online forum that specializes in music marketing, including using social media. The guy that teaches this stuff uses facebook as his primary method of securing leads, making sales and obtaining subscribers to his mailing list. Facebook seems to be one of, if not THE best place to place ads. Instagram is more geared to the pre-teen market. People under 25 years old tend to not purchase music. People between 35 and 65 are the best target audience (generally speaking). Of course if you’re selling boy-band music or kiddie pop, people in that age range won’t often be interested.
Twitter seems to have some good potential for exploiting your music career also. I don’t think Pinterest would be much use but I’m not that familiar with it.
If you’re trying to expand your business profile and gain clients, facebook ads would be very useful. There’s all sorts of things you have to understand about it before your ads would become effective and cost efficient though…Unless you luck out on your very first ad (it’s not unheard of).
For B2B transactions? Or direct to consumer (end user)?
This is pretty consistent with what I learned…and Pinterest is geared toward the older female market though its broadening. Before I went to this conference I didn’t realize that Linkedin was even a usable platform.
I just signed up on Twitter and Instagram yesterday. I’m pretty lost though. I need to go find a 10 year old who knows how to use it and mooch tips off them for an hour. I can’t frickin find anything on those apps!!
His focus is on direct to consumer. It’s mostly musicians who buy his courses but there’s also people using his methods for their indie record labels, band managers, music agents, etc. It’s all about marketing a product. You as a producer/ audio engineer make products and you are a “brand”, so you can definitely use this kind of thing to expand and grow your business.
Ah, I didn’t know that about Pinterest. Can Linkedin be used for bands/ artists to market their music? I’m curious to know how it’s used. I haven’t bothered with Linkedin for quite a few years. I always assumed it was just a place where you post your online resume.
Twitter seemed a bit strange to me too, when I first signed up…Actually it’s still a bit weird to me. I’ve heard of people having very good marketing success on there, though.
And yeah, the young kids would be able to show you the ropes on Instagram…I know almost zero about that one.
I should mention too, that youtube has lots of possibilities. It’s easier to pick just one…(maybe two) social media platforms and focus all your energy on that. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin because marketing and building brand awareness takes A LOT of energy, hard work and time. It takes time and work to build your selling skills. It definitely doesn’t come naturally for me.
He also has an online forum called The Insider’s Circle where people can ask him questions and discuss with other musicians/ music people, strategies for furthering our business.
