Getting Involved With Causes

A low cost way for Gen-Y Rock Stars to get exposure is through nonprofits. Nonprofits and causes look to leverage musicians, actors and celebrities to promote their cause and often times as the artist you can help promote yourself as the official songs in their videos, supply photos for their campaign or create new material with a message.

More and more nonprofits are looking into Social Media as a means of getting their message across to Gen-Y and younger volunteers and this means your music can be heard in YouTube clips, on Podcasts, with free downloads, on picture sharing sites and more. The exposure can be viral and help you get into the ears and on the playlists of people that truly care about a cause.

A recent campaign with Trojan condoms and MTV, Evolve One, Evolve All, put together work with the Aggrolites, All Time Low, Animo, Charlotte Sometimes, Cobra Starship, Everytime I Die, From First to Last, Gil Mantera, Madina Lake, Protest the Hero, Reel Big Fish, Shwayze, TAT, The Academy Is, The Bronx & The Randles and more to promote their latest campaign. The effects of the campaign were spread wide with the addition of this video playing widget:

Safe Sex | STI | Contraception | STD

This Evolve One, Evolve All campaign has even allowed fans and followers to contribute their own videos and allow for commenting from these advocates. This is a great audience to be seen in front of.

Steps to finding a nonprofit:

• As a band, see what causes would fit with your style of music and your beliefs. Come up with a general list, homlessness, rebuilding communities, the green movement, etc.
• Look for local organizations by looking at sites like Volunteer Match to find contact information, locations and ideas about what the organization.
• Set up Google Alerts for "Your City" + "Your Cause" to get up to the minute information on press releases and news regarding these companies and organization.
• Look to contact a marketing director or go after the executive director himself. Most nonprofits are looking for exposure and the price is right for them.
• Be sure to have a "What's in it for me" (WIIFM) and tell the nonprofit why you are a good partner.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving Rock Stars!

-Greg Rollett

Musicians Looking to Ning for Homebase

I see a new trend amongst artists looking to build a community around their music and have their fans play a major role in their development, and that of their content. The trend includes one of my 100 social media sites for musicians and goes well beyond your standard profile page.

Ning is a powerful platform with which anyone can create a social network about any topic. In your social network you can build it with any components that you think are necessary and that can include:

• Pages - static pages to tell fans bout your band, how to contact you or anything else you feel like sharing
• Videos - these can be uploaded directly into Ning or sent over with a YouTube embed code. If you upload directly, you can count plays and also embed those videos anywhere else on the net
• Photos - again these can be uploaded into the site directly or using the Flickr API (sounds harder than it is) you can import all your photos, tags and descriptions from the photo sharing heavyweight.
• Groups - manage your street teams with individual groups for different cities, regions, etc or have your fans create groups to share stories, pictures and discussions
• Profile pages - just like any other social network you can have your own pages. On these pages you can friend other people, trick out your page and interact with others.
• Blogs - Not that you aren't blogging already, but this is another platform for you to get the word out.
• Forum - get your fans talking about your shows, their fav tunes, other artists and off topic interests to keep them on the page. Be sure to interact with them for maximum efficiency.

On top of the standard features above, you are free to add any 3rd party coding into your pages. This gives you the power to add your Reverbnation Widgets, iLike or iMeem players, videos from Vimeo, Viddler or Kyte or anything else you can manage to fit on the page.

Some examples of musicians using the platform for their homebase include:
Asher Roth - a hip-hopper from PA makig a big name for himself with his latest mixtape The Greenhouse Effect. He is using the Ning platform to post news updates, videos, get messages across to his hardcore fans and keep them interested in his movement through getting to know each other. Check out a sneak peek below or visit the site here.


Buckcherry - the rockers who brought you 'Crazy Bitch' are using Ning to get their fans to interact with them in a big way. Their Ning site has 113 user generated videos from their shows to backstage antics and everything else that goes on in their world. Those videos go along with the over 1,500 pics of the band that fans have posted. Take a look below.

(click image to enlarge)

So what's it cost?
Well, nothing to try out. Essentially it's a free platform. The catch is that a free account slaps a .ning.com to your domain and floods the site with Google Ads that you do not collect on. The fees to upgrade include:

• Custom domain = $4.95 / mo
• Remove the ads = $19.95 / mo
• Remove additional Ning promotional links = $7.95 / mo

My suggestion would be to try out the platform with a custom domain and see how you and your fans interact on the site. You do not need a million fans with profiles for the site to be successful. It may just be a place to organize all of your online content or your street teams into groups. It may be a place to interact with diehard fans and have awesome conversations. Or it can become the platform for you to build an amazing relationship with your fans. The possibilities are endless, but in the end Ning is just a tool, its up to you to promote it, produce great content and hold engaging conversations.

Any people out there have Ning sites for your band? Let us know about your experience.

-Greg Rollett

Britney Spears and her Twitter Team

Britney Spears is on Twitter, yes the Real Britney Spears. The comeback is on and it will be social medialized. A few weeks back Britney and her new team re-launched BritneySpears.com in a blog/magazine style and honestly, I give the girl her props. She has taken some heat from some Social Media superstars including TechCrunch and Gary Vaynerchuck, yet with all the circumstances, time constraints and events that have occurred in her life in the last 1-2 years, I think her team is doing a great job exploring Social Media.

Her Twitter Account
The domain is twitter.com/therealbritney and the Tweets range from announcements of new videos to pictures of Brit and the kids to Team Britney replying to social media and twitter heavyweights on how to best use the service.


My thoughts
After a rocky start, I think they get it. There is transparency when non-Britney posts a Twitter and when Brit herself decides to use her smart phone of choice, she leaves a line letting us know it is really her. I also like how she is using Twitter as a feature on her website. It is in the header and displays the latest update as shown below.

look at the little cloud in the corner (click image to enlarge)

Businesses using Twitter generally sue Twitter in the same manor. They send out links, press releases and news related to their company and occasionally jump into conversation with replies, questions and other posts. What most of these companies do not do is offer the transparency of who is Twittering.

Southwest Airlines has a corporate twitter account and they are doing it great. They are a part of the conversation with more replies than pushy company information, yet I don't know who from Southwest is talking to me. When The Real Britany sends out a message it is signed by the writer. I think this is an incredible step towards transparency from brands who wish to tweet from one account instead of having multiple accounts for Briteny's Manager, Britney's stylist, etc.

In a post on Chris Brogan's Blog on Monday featuring Brea Grant from Heroes, Brea's Social Media Leader, Laura Roeder steps in and mentions this when the topic of a Twit Team comes up:

it’s unreasonable to expect that Britney Spears (or other celebs) do everything herself. Brea doesn’t do the technical back end stuff, like manage WordPress and all the YouTube stuff. But Brea writes the content and everything. Laura says that it takes people to run the website and the social program, but as the support, not the “talent.”

I think that's a great point. Let the talent handle the content and let the team get that content online, looking good and get it into the hands of as many people as possible. When looking into getting into Twitter, it is important that you as an artist learn about the medium and really jump in, be personable and learn from doing. When your time gets too busy to manage you should look into your team, but still be a key player in the content creation. Remember that your fans are buying you and your music, your lyrics and your personality. If you are letting your team write your thoughts for you, you lose authenticity and the power you have over your audience.

What are your thoughts?

Here is a great post for musicians on and thinking about using Twitter by @CyberPR

-Greg Rollett
(Me on Twitter)

Getting Local Bloggers to Pimp Your Tour

photo by comicbase

Every once in a while you come across one of those no-brainer ideas that can help you exponentially. This is one of them. To all the bands going on tour, looking for free promotions to a built in audience. Bloggers are the journalism that you should be looking for and more specifically, you should be looking for local bloggers, that write about their community and what is going on there.

How do I find these Bloggers?
Google Blog Search- In the screenshot below you can see that I searched for "Orlando Blog" and got 500,000+ results. Not all of these are going to be relevant but there are some diamonds in the rough. The related blogs give you a few options to look at right away including Downtown Orlando Blog, Ultimate Orlando Blog and Living Orlando.

(click image to enlarge)

Placeblogger - This is the MacDaddy of local based blog tools. Once you have your target city or state, just drill down till you find the info you need. Drilling down to Orlando, FL gave me 10 blogs to look into. The other great thing is that knowing an area well, I can also see 1 blog in Sanford, FL, 1 in Altamonte Springs, 2 in Lake Mary and 1 in Lakeland. You can see in the screenshot below the data is represents when you get to your final place destination. Placeblogger is also a community driven site, meaning that if you know of a great location based blog, you can submit it into their directory.

(click image to enlarge)

Which Blogs Do I Reach Out To?
Not all bogs are created equal and your time is extremely important, espicially if you are contacting sites while on the road. You want to be sure that you are getting in touch with the most relevant writers with the largest audience.

By going to these pages you can assess things like Google PageRank and Compete Traffic for the site to see their reach. Even those PR and Compete Data are not 100% accurate, it gives you a clue as to how many readers and how big their influence is. For instance, Living Orlando has a PageRank of 3 and Compete Traffic at 5,400+. As a small touring band I would attempt to reach the author and give him a reason to write about your show, your band and a story to get people interested.

(click image to enlarge)

*Music Marketing Tip* If you browse with FireFox, there is a plugin called Search Staus that gives you all this data and a whole lot more everytime you visit a page. Download it now!

Musicians using bloggers to their advantage with ultimately spark their total music marketing package. This tactic is time consuming, but getting 3-4 press mentions online, to go along with any street teams, mailing lists and on site promotion will only increase you bottom line and allow you to continue rocking out for fans all around the world.

-Greg Rollett

Will Play For Clothes

In today's music business you are seeing artists make money by doing anything but selling music. The fact is, your music can be a catalyst for your business. Rappers selling drinks, pop stars selling perfume and DJ's rocking shows in mall stores for a few bucks.

You see, it's not just you, the artist who is looking for promotion and a way to stand out from the crowd. Stores, businesses and brands are doing everything that they can to get their message and products across to Gen-Y.

I'll DJ for Some Kicks
The Washington Post had a great article on stores ranging from department stores to traditional mall filler stores having DJ's create an ambiance and style to associate with their brand. The results can be great for the musician. Lord and Taylor can pay in upwards of $1,000 for a gig in their store. Other brands offer trades for clothes, shoes and accessories.

Gen-Y Rock Stars can use this music marketing tactic to reach a defined audience and demographic that they may not see at one of their night gigs. Tie in some promotions of your own and you might have a new game plan to gaining attention.

Not a DJ?
So a lot of you might be saying that there is no way for my band to rock out in a department store. That may be true but there are other live performance opportunities like this that you can begin to take advantage of to put a little cash in your pocket and attention to your faces.

Restaurants and Bars
Look for downtimes in a local restaurant or bar. This may not be the money maker that helps you quit your day job but it will usually get you a free meal and some beers and the admiration of the crew that stops by after work.

Businesses
No, you are not going to rock out during their morning sales meeting, but if you have some selling ability of your own, you may be able to get them to use your music in their next commercial, informational video for clients or YouTube clips. There is normally a marketing budget for these kinds of things. Ask for a credit at the beginning and end of the song with your band name, song title and website address.

Sporting Events
A few of the bands we work for were hired by the local Orlando Predators, an Arena Football League Team and were compensated well for an hour's worth of music. They got to play during the tailgate in front of the main sponsor's booth. It was great awareness and got them into contact with some good partners. Another group that had success here played for the Tampa Bay Lightning at Halftime. They were paid a guarantee and we negotiated that everyone in a winning section won a free sampler from the group. Remember that sporing events are usually family friendly.

Remember to look for events that can use your noize to help them shine above everything else that are hearing. Also be sure to come professional, as most of these businesses are not used to working with Rock Stars, young egos, tattoos and other stereotypes. They are running a business and you are helping them to increase their profit.

-Greg

User Generated Contests

Contests are a great way to get people excited about your band, product, show or promotion. With the advent of Social Media it is extremely easy to get your fans to help spread the word and build that contest for you. All you need to do is pony up some prizes, make up some rules and leverage the tools of Social Media to make it happen.

Some examples of user generated contests would be:

• Make a short video of yourself playing karaoke to one of our songs, upload it to YouTube and tag it with our band name and the name of the contest so we can find it.
• Make your profile picture the flyer for the next show, drop us a comment and we will give away 2 free tickets to that show to a lucky winner.
• Post the craziest song titles you want us to write about on your blog. We'll pick one winner and create a track on our next album with the winner's suggestion.

There are countless other ways to get your fans involved in user generated contests. Be creative and make the barrier to entry as easy and fun as possible.

My good friends at Endavo Media have created a great new white paper that outlines some tips to creating these contests, how to promote them and how they can grow your fanbase exponentially. Head on over and grab a copy, its free and filled with great info!

Now I'd like to turn it over to the Rock Stars. Have any of you had a successful user generated contest for your band, music or product? What was the prize? How did you pick the winner?

Let us know, so that we can help other bands see the benefits of a contest!

-Greg Rollett
To learn more about Social Media for Musicians, get our free eBook now!

Take The Conversation Beyond the Show

photo by fiveinchpixie

Your rocked a show. Had the crowd moving and had them so excited that they came to talk to you after the show at your merch booth. Great thing right?

What happens after the show?
What if you don't come back for 6 months, a year, 2 years? What if they were too trashed to remember your band name? No matter the case, you still want this fan to interact with you, check for new tracks, promote your music to their friends and become a lifer. How do you accomplish this?

The List
The first step is to get their email address as fast as possible. This ensures that you can get in touch with your fans when you have something important to say. I know its hard in a bar or venue to bring out your laptop, but its also worthless to get a sheet of paper full of emails you can't read.

Two services that help with emails on the road are FanBridge and Reverbnation. FanBridge allows you to upload an Excel file right into your account. If you can get online, Reverbnation has a great tool as well to collect fans and street team members.

For bands with a larger following, and the need to put out quality newsletters or have multiple groups to send out messages to, a great service is Aweber. It's also the service that I am using for my newsletter, so yes I am a little biased. They haven't let me down yet. With customized forms, autoresponses and open rates, they offer a rock star email service.

Once you get the emails, be sure to send something out. The day after the show, a simple thank you and introduction will do. Be sure to link to your site/blog/Myspace page and give info on upcoming shows/promotions in that area. After that, a once a month newsletter is plenty to remind your fans that you are still grinding it out, recording in the studio or living the lavish life.

Fun Promotions
Beyond the all important mailing list, there are endless ways to get your fans excited about you and your music and get them to continue the buzz of the night. Below are a few examples that we have used with our artists and some that I have heard through the ropes of merch booths and van tours.

Picture Time
Take a picture with YOUR camera of any fan who buys a merch item. Tell them to go to your site sometime tomorrow and you will have a link to a Flickr slideshow with all the fans who supported you the night before. This works well because everyone wants to see pictures of themselves and they love to share that with their friends. By tagging your photos in Flickr with strong keywords, people searching the site for venues, people and more can stumble across your photos as well. Plus it gets you familiar with the people for your next visit into town.

DropCards

DropCards are little Credit Card Looking pieces of plastic that work much like a gift card, excpet it for your music. Instead of or in addition to buying a physicla CD, fans can buy your drop card, go home, enter the website and password found on the back and can download up to 1Gig of material that you have put online in your DropCard folder. This can include music, videos, pictures, lyric files and more! It's up to you!

These cards will run you about $350 for 1,000. Cheaper than CD's and they take up less room in the van. The key to the DropCard campaign is to host your material on your own site and not with DropCards.com, this will ensure that your new fan gets to your site and has every opportunity to join your mailing list, subscribe to your blog, buy merch, or read up on our dates.

Live Tweets

photo by laihiu

Setting up a large screen to Twitter Search with your band name and having your merch guy hitting refresh is a very trendy way to have your fans interact with you during your show. Having them add you on Twitter in real time is a great way to stay in touch after the show.

The trick is remembering to follow up with anyone that @'s you, follow them and stay in touch. The live interaction will get the crowd going as everyone wants to be on stage. This is their opportunity. As Twitter continues to grow, this will become a great tactic for bands of any size.

If you have a geeky friend, there is a trick you can do with Hashtags and refresh that make it even easier, but it requires some setup and coding.

The next time you are talking to a new fan at a show, remember that the conversation does not stop that night. Find a way to keep it going. It will be worth it and you will be well on your way to becoming a Gen-Y Rock Star!

-Greg Rollett