Taking on the Macbook Air?

This was no small scale project, with Tiësto performing a 90-minute set. The gig, made possible by HP and Intel, was watched live by over 28,000 viewers.

It’s certainly an interesting concept, particularly when accounting for the fast-paced world of Twitter. It’s easy to jump from tweet to tweet, news article to news article while tweeting, but HP and Intel ensured maximum attention by collaborating with the biggest name in the business.

It’s remains to be seen how much revenue this might generate for HP and Intel, but one thing is for sure: the monetary value of a powerful musical figure like Tiësto.

Both HP and Intel obviously realise the lucrative potential of an endorsement by Tiësto, and boy did they get it, when, after performing his version of Adele’s Set Fire To The Rain, Tiësto thanked “HP and Intel for making this possible; they are the best”.

It might be tempting to revert to a cliché at this point, perhaps something along the lines of not being being able to buy that kind of advertising: but clearly it’s possible. This is a spectacular coup for both HP and Intel. Making the first ever live Twitter gig possible is a tag any major media company dreams about, but introducing Tiësto’s name to the mix is the most compelling notion of all.

The gig, which was part of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), can be viewed here.

Tweeting via his Official Twitter Page before the gig, DJ Tiësto said, “I am pretty honored and excited to be the first artist ever to perform live on @twitter !! Watch @hp & @intel”.

“The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the owner and producer of the International CES. CEA is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $186 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services.”

HP and Intel were promoting their take on The Ultrabook.

Samuel Agini is the Editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music.

Fan of the Day

Social media is not just about creating a profile. The returning readers are the most important individuals in your pocket of fans, the ones who are most likely to tell their friends or re-Tweet your messages. If you have raving fans who are following your every social media footprint among the statistics that you’re consistently making an effort to increase, individually recognizing them is a compliment by both peers with shared interests, and of course by the band itself.

Aziatix discovered the popularity of this social media strategy and consistently feature a fan as the “Aziaddict of the Day” on their Facebook page. You can add a twist to this further, but asking your fans to re-Tweet or repost a specified message, and the individual with the most influence would be featured as the “Fan of the Week.”

Aziatix Contest

CD Giveaways

Giving away a CD is a common strategy that musicians with leftover EPs or LPs can afford to utilize. This is a simple strategy that is just as easily implementable whether you’re asking for re-Tweets, reposts, or clever reposts in return.

Eric Alper pursued a rather successful contest asking for re-Tweets by Sunday midnight for a chance to win a 2-CD giveaway. But remember, you will likely have at least a handful of international fans. You should be willing to shell out the extra money for international shipping.

CD Giveaway by @ThatEricAlper

Finders Keepers

The future of social media lies in the integration of the virtual social network with that of those IRL (in real life). For example, start ups like Meetup.com and Skillshare.com enable individuals to organize meet ups wherein people from niche virtual communities can meet face to face, sans webcam. But in a more short term and exciting music related endeavor, Donald Glover (yes he stars in Community, but he’s a talented rapper) and crew hid #IAMDONALD stickers in the city of his next gig. The task was to find the sticker, take a photograph of it, and Tweet the photo to @DonaldGlover (using yfrog.com). In return, the first person to photograph the sticker would win passes to his show.

Donald Glover Contest

By publicizing this mini contest on Twitter, Glover was able to keep his fans at the edge of their seats as he Tweeted hints in real time, while responding to the Tweets of struggling contestants.

Donald Glover contest: Twitter screenshot

You help me, I give you freebies

Can’t afford a street team? Why not ask your fans to lend you a hand. Of course, if they’re your fans and willing to brave the streets in the name of your band, they wouldn’t want anything but band freebies, which I am sure you have plenty of lying around your apartment. Add to that, you’re getting your fans into the physical promotion process, which thereby will encourage them to spread the word among their peers.

She Wants Revenge realized this opportunity and consequently established a way to promote themselves through the help of others. What are the benefits? Your fans will know the best places around their own town to post flyers and stickers, that you likely will not be aware of.

She Wants Revenge Facebook marketing strategy

Ask me anything, and you shall get an answer

Curiosity is a characteristic that drives productivity. More importantly, in social media, you’re seen as an expert, whether you talk about creating music or you’re discussing your own life. Q&A sessions are an effective way to have your fans interact with you, but more importantly, it’s a strategy to give back to your fans. Questions that you may encounter could range from generic questions about your influences and interests to technical questions about your gear or instruments.

!llmind of Smokey Robotic uses Formspring instead of Twitter for his Q&A platform to answer his fan’s pressing questions.

Illimind using Formspring

Let us know in the comments below if you’ve used a social media strategy that you have found to be successful.

Francis Bea is a New Yorker turned Chicago co-founder of Musefy.com (in development) and writes Musefy’s blog Musebox.

Think of this from a devoted fan’s perspective. They’ve purchased your album, peruse your Twitter and Facebook pages on a daily basis and gathers his or her friends to watch you on tour. What musicians should realize is that most fans form a personal and emotional connection to the music that they listen to so their relationship to your music typically goes further than a mere listen here and there. To be rewarded for their help with your success is the tipping point in solidifying a relationship with your fans. Add to that, you’re almost guaranteed for some extra non-commercial press on that individual’s personal Twitter and Facebook account, likely announcing their excitement to an additional several hundred or a thousand friends.

Image credit: picfor.me

Speeding up your search

Understandably, you don’t have that much time. You’re touring from gig to gig and 80% of the time you’re riding unglamorously in a cramped van with your equipment clamoring in the trunk, despite having been meticulously arranged to fit into the back. But on your downtime, I can guarantee that you’re surfing the interweb. You’re checking out blog mentions and looking up critic reviews of your album. Once in a while, you’re turning your attention to your fans to monitor your social. But it only takes a few minutes to write on your biggest fan’s wall post or on your twitter account, “hey ___ thanks for being our biggest fan. We’re shipping you a signed t-shirt with love :)”

So what can you use to help you find your biggest fans?

• Openbook searches (only) Facebook profiles for keywords that you’ve queried within Facebook statuses. If you have a band name with all too common words, this is where life becomes difficult. But really, the biggest supporter of your band will typically be found on your Facebook page so using a site like Openbook isn’t all that necessary.
• Social Mention scours the web for social mentions throughout the web to compile a comprehensive list of mentions about your query (which in this case would be your band name), taken from Google, Twitter, StumbledUpon, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Add to that, this search engine offers you an analysis of the query based on its “social strength,” “sentiment” (the ratio of people have said potentially positive, neutral or negative things about you), “passion” and “reach,” and even lists the top users and sources associated with your search query.

Of course, the aforementioned could also be used to check out blog mentions and critic reviews, but it’s your band and image. You can decide for yourself how you’ll utilize these resources.

Francis Bea is a New Yorker turned Chicago co-founder of Musefy.com (in development) and writes Musefy’s blog Musebox.

The number of users on Facebook, greatly outnumber Twitter users at a ratio of approximately 5:2. Facebook boasts over 500 million users, a significant lead over Twitter’s 200 million users, so it’s not surprising that more Facebook users are more willing to share news, updates or videos than Twitter users.

The Data

But let’s get down to the data. Gigya (via The Tech Journal) published their findings today on social sharing, among the top social networks, and found that Facebook is the most frequently used social network to share content:

• Facebook: 44%
• Twitter: 29%
• Yahoo: 18%
• MySpace: 9%

To break this data down further, Gigya dove into entertainment related link sharing (which applies to the musicians out there) and found that Facebook’s lead grows larger:

Entertainment Sites:

• Facebook: 52%
• Google: 17%
• Yahoo: 12%
• Twitter: 11%
• MySpace: 7%
• AOL: 1%

To provide you with a better understanding about how effective Facebook really is in comparison to Twitter, I’ve taken the liberty to take a few screen shots from the latest posts from your favorite music blogs:

• Gorilla Vs. Bear

Gorilla Vs. Bear

• Stereogum

Stereogum

• Pitchfork

Pitchfork

• Pretty Much Amazing

Pretty Much Amazing

As you can tell, the pattern is evident and consistent. Although these screen shots only account for one day, I’ve found that in the majority of posts from the major music blogs, the number of Facebook shares outnumbered the Tweets. So it did not come as a surprise when I had realized that the incoming traffic to Musebox from Facebook rivaled the traffic coming in from direct traffic and Google search queries.

The gist of how to apply this knowledge to your band’s social presence

Facebook

You want your fans to be talking and sharing any content related to your band and music on Facebook, whether it be by sharing interviews, album or concert reviews, or tour photos and updates on your Facebook page (and personal profile), as this will increase the likelihood (in comparison to Twitter) of content sharing among your fans, fan’s friends and fan’s friend’s friends.

Twitter

Posting news on this platform does not hurt, but I would suggest that you focus your Twitter strategy by formulating an identifiable personality or brand for your band.

For example, take a look at the Twitter accounts for Lil Crazed and Skrillex and note that their Tweets ooze personality.

Twitter allows you to directly interact with your fans with personal messages. Utilize that feature to network with industry professionals and to foster intimate connections with your fan, by letting your fans know how you’re doing at this second and of course, by responding to your fans @ messages. They will adore you for it.

Francis Bea is a New Yorker turned Chicago co-founder of Musefy.com (in development) and writes Musefy’s blog Musebox.

As a musician, this is both exhilarating and frustrating. At the same time that today’s technology allows for new, independent bands to publish their music effortlessly online, if every other band is doing the same thing, there is more competition and you are just more noise. But some bands are better at building a fan base than others, and it’s not necessarily because they have better music. They simply know how to use social media to market to the people who want to hear their music. If you’re looking to build a better fan base, try these tools to get you started on the right path.

Image credit: dirty.ru

MySpace

Every band has a MySpace page, and you probably already have one too. Although it’s a great way to create a simple band website with an easy streaming player, MySpace’s popularity is waning. This is probably your first step into a larger marketing world, but it’s only a first step. Don’t stop at MySpace. Take the next step to build you own band website.

Facebook And ReverbNation’s MyBand

Just like every band has a MySpace, every band has a Facebook page as well. But you don’t have to settle for Facebook’s standard profile layout and tools. Get ReverbNation’s MyBand app and optimize your band experience on Facebook. With MyBand, you can upload, host, and stream your music, create mailing lists, showcase videos, and more. A definite plus for letting the public know more about you and your music.

Bandcamp

Who needs CDs anymore? When you create a Bandcamp page, you can create virtual albums, not just individual songs. And Bandcamp gives you great tools for managing album/song artwork, downloads, selling music online, and more. You can host your page with Bandcamp, or host your own page for maximum control. This is a fantastic marketing and distribution tool for any musician.

Twitter And Twiturm

You may think Twitter is silly, but there are millions of people who use it everyday and could be looking for bands like yours. Get out there. Interact with other bands on Twitter. Follow popular music blogs and journalists. And then sign up for Twiturm. Twiturm lets you easily host and share your music on Twitter, so you can broadcast it across the twitterverse. The best part? Anyone who likes your music can share it with their followers with the simple click of a button.

These tools are nice, but they won’t gain you a following by themselves. You have to be out there using these technologies, interacting with fans online, and bringing people to your band website. If you’re doing those things, you’ll be building a relationship with your fan base, and they’ll be more likely to tell their friends about your cool new song.

About the author: Diane Johnson graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in political science. When she’s not traveling she enjoys writing articles about online courses, reading books, and shopping.

The question is, how do you get people to find what you’re selling? With millions of bands and musicians worldwide, getting people to find you may seem like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Well, it doesn’t have to be.

On the downside, the odds of your website ranking well for any music related keyword phrase with even remotely decent search volume is pretty much nil. But don’t despair! As a musician looking to make money online, there’s a much better way.

Image credit: adebond on Flickr

First, before you try to sell anything, you need an online presence. This website or profile will be your digital hub, and everything we cover from this point on will point back to this site. If you already have a website, fantastic. If not, you may not actually need one (Editor’s note: better still get your own website at some point).

Step #1 – Create Your Online Hub

No band worth their salt would be without a website, MySpace page and/or a Facebook fan page. If you don’t have at least one of these, create one… now! Next, simply go to BandBox.com and sign up for an account. You get 30-days for free, and then it is either $10 or $15/mo after that.

BandBox.com allows you to upload your music, set a price, and then embed a widget into Facebook, MySpace, your website or blog, or any of a number of other platforms to sell your music digitally. You keep 100% of the profit, deposited to your bank account or PayPal every 30 days. It is the easiest and least expensive way to sell your music digitally online.

Now that you have a digital hub for fans to congregate and a way for them to purchase your music, it’s time to expand your reach. In order for people to buy your music, they first need to know it exists. Creating a local following isn’t challenging, but creating a large enough national or international following to make some serious cash takes a bit more work.

Step #2 – Make Your Music Available to Everyone, Everywhere

Do everything in your power to make your music available on iTunes, Amazon.com, Grooveshark, Pandora, Rdio, Napster, eMusic, Rhapsody, Zune and Last.fm (these links point to submission pages, if available.) You’ll need to get a UPC code for you music to sell it online through some of these venues, and the Indie Artist Alliance is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to do that ($15 per album.)

The easiest way to get your music up on these sites is by using a digital media distribution service such as FineTunes, TuneCore or SongCast.

Some of these sites will sell your music and give you a cut, some won’t, but if your music is available on these 8 sites then you are in front of the vast majority of music listeners throughout the world.

If the platform supports sales and gives you a percentage, make sure all of your music is available there. If the platform doesn’t support sales, or doesn’t give you a cut, only make a limited selection available on that site.

Try not to give all of your best stuff away for free :)

The submission process for some of the sites can be a headache, but it will be worth the effort in the long run. Make sure to optimize the album and track details to reflect the music niche you are most relevant to (Punk, Rock, Ska, Jazz, whatever), as this will make it far easier for people to find your music.

It’s also important to link back to your online hub from each of the sites, if possible.

Step #3 – Create Lots And Lots Of Online Profiles

MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… all of these are excellent resources for musicians. YouTube has helped a number of little known bands achieve notoriety, so remember to have someone record your band whenever you play, preferably in HD, and get those videos up there.

Twitter is another great way to communicate with your fans about upcoming events, and to reach out to new potential fans. It can easily connect to your Facebook fan page, so you don’t need to update multiple platforms.

You might also consider the following musician centric resources:

Reverb Nation

• Unsigned.com
• Bandcamp.com
• Audiolife.com
• Reverbnation.com
• Artistdirect.com
• Soundcloud.com
• Bandmix.com
• Radiosubmit.com
• Cdbaby.com

Each has pros and cons, but if you aren’t familiar with any of these they are worth a look.

It’s important that each time you create one of these profiles that you point it back to your main hub (website, Facebook, etc). This will help to improve the rank-ability of your main page.

Step #4 – Spread The Word

Now that you have a solid hub, have distributed your music and have created your profiles, it’s time to spread the word. Schedule gigs, play venues, enter battle of the bands. Offer to play for free at State and local fairs, events, or any other opportunity to let people hear your music. Charge if you can for events, but don’t be afraid to play for free to help get your sound out here.

Put up cool YouTube videos, Tweet funny things. Do everything in your power to make your band unique in the eyes and ears of your listeners.

And of course ask your fans to help spread the word at every chance you get. Let them know about your Facebook page, Twitter account, and the places where they can listen to and purchase your music.

And that is that. The more music related places online that your band has a presence, the easier it will be to be found. The more places you have your music for sale, the more money you will make.

Sam McRoberts is the CEO of VUDU Marketing, a Utah SEO company. He has been involved with online marketing since 1999 and has worked with hundreds of clients, from small local businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Sam loves all things music, and has sang Acappella at numerous events both public and private.

For me, Twitter’s brilliance lies in its ability to provide real time news updates and continual information.

Twitter is fast becoming one of the primary sources for breaking news. Journalists, bloggers and music industry experts have all embraced Twitter which means you can aggregate a whole spectrum of constantly updated knowledge and news into one feed. And because you can’t use more than 140 characters it’s always direct and to the point. If you follow the right people it can give you valuable advice about the state of the music industry, what labels are up to and what bloggers are writing about.

Image credit: Viicsellos on Tumblr

It’s also useful to keep an eye on what bands in your area are doing. Get on Twitter and follow every band in your region, particularly if they have a similar musical style to you. Where are they playing? Who are they talking to? Who’s writing about them? You will find so much information just by being a bit nosy. Find out who their most interactive fans are and target them. If they like a local band similar to you, chances are they’d come to your gigs as well.

If you follow anyone and everyone then Twitter becomes a mess of rants, opinions and pointless updates. Follow the right people however, and Twitter becomes one of your most valuable sources of information.

Fan Engagement

The advantage of Twitter is that it provides a personal link to your fans. It’s been proven that trivial updates piss people off (it’s the number one reason for being ‘unfriended’ on Facebook by the way) so don’t start updating fans with unnecessary tweets. Keep fans interested with little teasers about what you have coming up. Ask for opinions and encourage retweets. Fans love to engage and respond to bands so give them the opportunity.

Incentives such as ‘tweet for a track’ have proven very effective for many bands. You ask your fans to retweet your posts and in return they get a free download. It gets your message out to your fans’ friends and increases your audience.

Too Much Effort?

One of my reservations about Twitter was how it seemed to present itself as a mess of social updates without any relevance. However, dashboards such as TweetDeck or HootSuite can organize your followers, the people you follow and group them as you want them. It will update you when you are tagged in a tweet or if someone retweets, or replies to, something you’ve said. It simplifies the Twitter jargon with simple buttons and notifies you when someone you’re following tweets.

You can also use Ping.fm to synchronise your twitter updates to Facebook, Myspace and most other social networking sites. This way you don’t have to worry about managing so many different social media platforms. If it still feels like a lot, divide each platform up between the members of your band. Even if you only make one tweet a day that’s enough to keep your name popping up on people’s browsers.

Feedback

Twitter allows you to search tweets that contain your name or information. Hashtags can also be created and easily followed. A ‘hashtag’ highlights a particular topic and allows it to be followed and searched. You can use this to gauge your fans’ opinions on your gigs and releases. It’s really important to know what your fans are saying about you, especially if it’s negative so you can work on things. Twitter is a huge talking shop and you need to be listening.

The article, written by the Dotted Music writer Ben Brown, was originally published in the December issue of Indie Connect Magazine.

After viewing the “Teutonic Terror” video, a Turkish fan entered “ACCEPT pwns” into his update box on Twitter, only to find out that someone named @pwns was now following him on Twitter. Both the Twitter story and the video spread like wildfire across the internet as the unlikely worlds of metal music and technology blogs including Gizmodo, Mashable, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and Blabbermouth picked the story up and spread it faster than a heavy metal guitar riff. Gizmodo and Mashable detailed very simple explanations telling their readers how to exploit the security hole, while Twitter went into panic mode and to fix the “Accept Bug” by resetting everyone’s followers back to zero. Even Ashton Kutcher had as many friends as most of us… for a couple of hours.

Accept

Ashton Kutcher posted at around 1 p.m. EST, “twitter is being hacked by some turkish hacker. haha I have 0 followers.” Stacy Keibler saw the bright side of things, tweeting, “People are freaking out about Twitter followers going to zero. I look at it like this: Right now, I have just as many followers as @aplusk!” Kim Kardashian was one of the many stars who had trouble dealing with the Twitter bug aftermath, writing, “Someone hacked my twitter account and direct messaged me! They have added over 200 new people! Ughhhhh.”

The hacker certainly got an earful from celebs like Justin Bieber who sent a fair warning, “u have now pissed off over 2 million teenage girls. They are more dangerous than Navy Seals.” Elsewhere, Jim Carrey pondered, “Imagine if this hacker put his/her talent 2 some worthy use. They could 1 day have more than a false sense of superiority.”

More celebrity woes from:

@chriscolfer There has been a twitter glitch, also known as a twitch
- Chris Colfer, Actor (“Glee”)

@michellebranch Is this all part of the finale of Lost?
- Michelle Branch, Musician

@sarabareilles Oh my gosh! Twitter’s been Hacked!!!!! CALL IRONMAN.
- Sara Bareilles, Musician

@joejonas Wait.. So this means I have to “talk” to my friends… :^/
- Joe Jonas, Musician

@iamdiddy I feel so lonley!!!!! Lol :) come back soon. I can’t live without yall!!! :( can somebody send me some followers pls lol :). Let’s go!!!,
- Sean “Diddy” Combs, Rapper, Actor (“Get Him To The Greek”)

@jordansblog I semi feel like I’m back in Middle school with no friends…
- Jordan Pruitt, Singer

@markhoppus People freak out more when twitter crashes than the stock market. Next up: Senate Hearings on the Great Crash of 2010.
- Mark Hoppus, Musician (blink182)

If you are curious, Blood Of The Nations, Accept’s twelfth full-length studio album, is scheduled for a September release in Europe & North America.

The rules are dead simple. You have two options to enter the giveaway:

• “Like” the Dotted Music page on Facebook.
• Share the message about the sweepstakes on Twitter (and don’t forget to follow me).

Or do both ;)

The winner will be announced later in June (the end date has been pushed back).

1,2,3

Confetti 7" Cover

A little background on 1,2,3, signed to almost as much young Ooh La La Records, a boutique artist development company and record label from Brooklyn, founded by producer Theo Aronson.

The outfit consists of Nic Snyder (vocals, guitar & keys) and his long-time pal Josh Sickels (drums). 1,2,3 hail from Pittsburgh and are late of the well-known power punk outfit, The Takeover UK.

“I’m really excited about this new band,” Nic proclaims, “It’s what I’ve always wanted a band to be.”

1,2,3 is the platform for some very smart songwriting, for example, “Confetti,” a tune about death that quite happily sounds like the orgasmic collision of latter day Beatles (definitely a Lennon tune), Gram Parsons and Big Star, and “Can’t Bribe God,” a kind of slow, Gospel shuffle that finds Snyder displaying simply the most viciously visceral vox work this side of Prince Rogers Nelson with a middle eight that feels curiously like ELO… in a good way.

Both songs were recorded last Fall at Aronson’s Brooklyn recording studio. Inquiring minds can expect to hear them very soon, followed by a full album in early 2010. Check out the band’s MySpace page for a sneak peak. “Confetti” is available in the Ooh La La Records online store.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone app #1 in App Store’s Music category

Obviously, this is the most important news of the current week for me. Ultimate Guitar Tabs, an iPhone app for searching and viewing guitar and bass tablature from Ultimate-Guitar.com, made it to the first spot in the Music category of the App Store in the US and four other countries, displacing the infamous I Am T-Pain app (UPDATE: after the price increase, UGT is again at 2 – I think this is temporary :)). UGT was also on the 8th place in the general top of the US App Store, which is neat.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone App

Gorillaz release an addictive online game

Gorillaz announced a simple, but quite well-done online Flash game, Escape to Plastic Beach. “‘Escape to Plastic Beach’ is the first game of its type merging numerous levels of Flash and Unity formats along with a new single MP3 to create an audio, visual, graphical and gaming experience to expand fans’ experience of an album. Increasing the experience beyond traditional album release – the game features original artwork, voiceovers from the band and numerous other tracks from the new Gorillaz album.” This is a part of the act’s broad marketing campaign, which was greatly covered over here.

Noisia spread the Infection, an online music game

And another online game, this time a rhythm based one – from Dutch producing trio Noisia (one of the best drum&bass acts in the world). Noisia have released a Flash music game to coincide with the release of their new single “Machine Gun“. Check it out, pretty interesting experience.

The Chemical Brothers prepare films for their iTunes LP album

The Chemical Brothers are set to release their seventh studio album, called Further, on June 8, 2010 on Freestyle Dust/Astralwerks. This album is said to be the band’s first to be released with corresponding films made specifically to match each of the 8 audio tracks. The films will be included on an iTunes LP and special edition DVD. If the Chemical camp will keep creating and adding worthy content to the iTunes LP, similarly to Gorillaz, then this is definitely an album I am looking to myself.

And last, few cool links from Twitter:

• How to make a great music app (via Forrester Blogs)
• Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs (via Sandbox.fm)
• Lou Reed’s New iPhone App For Aging Eyeballs (via Hypebot)
• 8 people you’ll find hanging out in a music store (via Guyism)