Content <b>Promotion</b>: How to Amplify Content & Build Your Brand <b>...</b> |
- Content <b>Promotion</b>: How to Amplify Content & Build Your Brand <b>...</b>
- Smashwords: Free Series Starter <b>Promotion</b> at iBooks Features <b>...</b>
- Creative Review - Shape: a new film to <b>promote</b> design
- Bill Fleming Forva » <b>Blog</b> Archive » <b>How To Promote</b> Your Social <b>...</b>
- Some Thoughts on Self <b>Promotion</b> and Why Arrogant People Think <b>...</b>
- <b>How To Promote</b> Your Music - The Ultimate Guide - Music Think Tank
Content <b>Promotion</b>: How to Amplify Content & Build Your Brand <b>...</b> Posted: 26 Mar 2014 06:18 AM PDT Google has been using some pretty effective scare tactics to warn marketers off link building lately. Scalable link building – even tactics that used to be seen as white-hat, like guest blogging – are steadily coming to be seen as black-hat. Instead of focusing on links, Google says, just build your brand by creating great content! The problem is, everyone and their best friend has already jumped on the content marketing bandwagon. This noisy space is getting even noisier! Over 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing – for obvious reasons:
So when everyone is doing it, how do you stand out? Creative content is important, but concept and creation is only part of the process – once you've built it, content promotion helps you get in front of the right audience at the right time. And most marketers have no idea how to promote their own content, so it has only a fraction of the reach it could have, then dies a quiet death that nobody mourns. As the competition for attention increases, marketers need to adopt new strategies to stay ahead of the curve. However, despite the fact that the majority of both B2B and B2C marketers are participating in content marketing, only 32% of B2C marketers consider themselves effective at it. Having a strong brand is a massive sales driver, so it's more important than ever that brands learn to tap into the power of content promotion for brand building. This was the issue I addressed in my session at Pubcon New Orleans 2014: How can you use content promotion to better build your brand? In this post, I'll dispel some of the myths around content promotion and outline a framework for successfully promoting your content to build a stronger brand. First, we need to establish something. SEO is Terrible for Brand BuildingContent promotion matters because SEO is a terrible tactic for brand building. SEO allows you to target people who know what they're looking for but aren't sure where to get it. This is important for exposure, but does nothing to build your brand. I learned this the hard way. For the last six years, I've grown my organic search traffic by over 8% per month. My blog today does nearly 600k visitors/month. I thought we were kicking butt! Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I realized things were not as great as I had thought. Problem A: Low Visitor EngagementThe WordStream blog had very low user engagement. People would find our site and stay for about 94 seconds, on average. Around 80% of those visitors would never come back. Problem B: No Branded SearchesAnother problem was that only 3% of our organic traffic came from branded searches. This meant that 97% of the time, my visitors weren't familiar with my brand. Our SEO was strong, our traffic numbers were skyrocketing, but we were the rocking internet marketing company that nobody had ever heard of. It was a total disaster. Here's how we fixed it. Build Your Brand with Content PromotionAt WordStream, we do about one big content promotion project every quarter. In my Pubcon presentation, I shared the strategy and results of one such content promotion project from just over a year ago – this effort generated over 10,000 press pick-ups and over 10 million unique visitors. This didn't happen by accident. I'm going to show you how we did it and how you can replicate the process. Start with the End in MindMost content promotion efforts are doomed before they even start, because great content promotion starts long before you even start creating content. If you create the content first and then think about ways to promote it, you're going at it backwards. At WordStream, we employ a reverse funnel approach to promoting content. Where Do You Want Media Coverage?We start with our goals first:
Basically, rather than trying to get news organizations to cover things we want to talk about, we produce content we think they want to cover, and is therefore more easily promotable in the first place. For example, I found that many reporters love to cover large-scale, breaking stories, especially those including visual data elements. Even better if we're covering big brands (like Google or Facebook). Our Big Idea!We looked at the calendar and saw that the Facebook IPO was a month away. So our big idea was to put together a head-to-head analysis comparing ads on Facebook vs. the Google display network. We would release this just days before the big IPO and ride on the coattails of all the Facebook IPO coverage. The So What? FactorThe key to content promotion is having a strong hook. Since there are many different types of publications out there, it's important that you have different hooks that appeal to their various interests. For example, a financial publication such as the Wall Street Journal would be interested to know if Facebook's ad product will generate revenues for businesses. A general technology publication such as Wired magazine, however, might be interested in who actually clicks on Facebook ads. I call this having a "So What" factor in your stories – as in, "So what, why should someone care about this?" Having checked the box on the above requirements, we then created the content and published our story just three days before the IPO. Promoting Your Content (It's more work than you think)No, our story didn't go viral on its own. Let's talk about the various content promotion and content distribution strategies that we used. Leverage Twitter for PitchingReporters hang out on Twitter because they're looking for breaking news. I sent messages to specific people who were covering the story, like this guy from the Guardian, who promptly wrote up the story and sent me a link back in just a few minutes. Pitch Influencers, TooEarly on, I pitched industry peers like Danny Sullivan and Rand Fishkin, who helped me by tweeting the article and submitting it to inbound.org. Beyond people in our industry, there are many other super-connectors on social media with huge followings who can help. For example, I once pitched Tim O'Reilly. He's the publisher of O'Reilly Media and has over 3 million followers on Google+. He posted a link to the story on his timeline that generated over a hundred re-shares and tens of thousands of visitors to our content. Create Visual AssetsTo help with content promotion, we created some easily sharable visual assets. In this case, we did a full infographic; however, we've also had great success with smaller, professional-looking figures and charts. Leverage PinterestSince our content included visual data assets, we found that Pinterest was remarkably effective for content promotion. We got over 1000 pins and all I had to do was to include the pin button. Plan on Doing Follow-Up StoriesI think of my content projects as campaigns, rather than individual stories. I always come up with a minimum of three follow-up stories ahead of time. In this campaign, for example, we had reasons to buy Facebook stock, reasons to sell Facebook stock at the IPO, why General Motors dumped Facebook, etc. These follow up stories all refer back to the original story and keep it alive for another news cycle. Momentum is key for really strong promotion, and helps add to the amplification effect. Use Sponsored Tweets/Posts on Twitter & FacebookYou may have already noticed that the organic reach for your Facebook posts is trending toward zero. In addition to organic content promotion efforts, be sure to allocate some budget toward promoting your content with paid posts on Twitter and Facebook. Sure, it's not free but neither is content creation. Use RemarketingAnother critical content promotion channel is remarketing. Remember that the point of your content marketing and promotion efforts is to build your brand. Cookie everyone who reads your content and make sure they never forget about your brand, by chasing them across the Google Display Network with your image ads. On the Google Display Network, you'll be able to reach 84% of your visitors 10-18 days out of the month, across 5-10 different sites! That's a huge way to build your brand. Seriously, use remarketing. It's so amazing that of the million dollars I'm spending on search marketing each year, more than half of it is being used to remarket to people who read my content. Repurpose & SyndicateIt takes a lot of time and effort to create original research, so we repurpose our content. Talk to blog managers. Tell them that you did this interesting story and ask if they'd be open to you summarizing the findings for their audience. We also syndicate our blog content on sites like Yahoo Small Business Advisor. Don't Forget Radio & TelevisionSearch marketers tend to focus on web publications, probably because they're looking for a link. But you may not realize that TV and radio stations, just like web publications, have journalists and editors looking for stories to cover, too. We've been covered on radio from NPR and BBC and on television stations like Fox Business – these venues have huge audiences, often millions of listeners and viewers! This can be an incredible opportunity to build your brand and further drive press pick-ups. Target International PressAbout 50% of the over 10,000 press mentions we got were from international publications. Targeting the international media is easy – you target media outlets that translate articles from one language to another, like AP, AFP, Thompson Reuters, Dow Jones and IDG. Also, some large companies like TechCrunch and Wired internationalize their content. Once you've done that, local news reporters will pick up the story organically. The Domino Effect of Content PromotionThere's a domino effect in content promotion. To make a story break though the noise, you need a certain amount of activation energy, and once you have it, your efforts accelerate greatly. Make sure all of the above efforts are good to go at once. Finally, leverage every in-house asset at your disposal, including your email newsletter, blog and social channels. Go all-in on content promotion. Build Your Influencer NetworkThis is important: nurture your influential friends in the media. Don't just pitch them your stories. Who wants to be your friend and help you out if they only hear from you when you want something? For example, I'm sure we all saw Dan Barker's tweet that got 35k retweets. What you probably didn't know is that I drove the lion's share of media coverage on that story. I was the first person to retweet the thing, then sent along the tweets to my friends in the media, who thanked me for the tip and wrote it up for their publications. By periodically sending along interesting stories that have nothing to do with your company, they will think of you as a helpful, influential person, and they'll start coming to you when they're looking for a quote or a story. A Note on Quality vs. QuantityJust a quick note on article quality vs. quantity here: quality articles win by a landslide. This is illustrated clearly in the fact that 4% of the articles on our site generate nearly half of the traffic. Furthermore, 4% of our content generates 85% of all of the shares we get on social media. And 5% of our content generates 95% of the high-value links. This is why we don't bother with crap content. Instead, we spend 80% of our time on content promotion and only 20% of our time on the creation of fewer, more awesome stories. Set Yourself Up for Easier Content Promotion: Be The ExpertAfter you do these kinds of content promotion efforts for a while, you end up building great relationships with influential people in the media and they inevitably end up asking you to be a contributor to their publications. After all, you have some pretty awesome insight to share! Become a ColumnistI'm a columnist at nearly a dozen different publications. It's important to understand how this works, because this can happen for anyone. I started out a nobody, pitching writers at industry publications in hopes of getting picked up. I was careful to only pitch them great stuff, so they would come to appreciate my contributions and ask me to contribute as a columnist. At that point, I've come full circle. I no longer have to pitch anyone since I'm a columnist there. See how that works? A Note on Effort & Skill: Is This Really Attainable?At this point you might be thinking to yourself, "Wow, this seems like a lot of work. Can I really do this?" YES! You absolutely can. Let's see, do you use Facebook? Do you or one of your clients advertise on Google? Could you have put together a study that compares ad performance on Facebook vs. Google? Yes, you could have. Anyone reading this could have done this. It's just a matter of coming up with the idea and executing on it. What's the Benefit of all this Content Promotion Work?!So what is the actual impact of content promotion and is it really worth your while? I'll tell you what it's done for our brand. Impact on Repeat User RateRemember that 80% bounce rate? It's down to between 40-70% now. Impact on User EngagementAverage time on site has tripled, from 1:33 to 4:35! And that's across the site – on our blog, average time on site is over 8 minutes. Impact on Direct TrafficDirect traffic is sort of a proxy for brand recall, since people have to directly type in a URL. That's nearly tripled. Content Promotion Lights our Darkest HourMost companies spend a lot of time creating content, thinking that if you build great content, they will come. This almost never works. There's just so much noisy crap out there that your great content will never get the attention it deserves! Instead, build your brand by creating and promoting valuable content, baking content promotion right into the process from your first brainstorm. See the full deck from my session at Pubcon New Orleans 2014 below: Do you have questions about the content promotion tactics and strategy I've shared? Fire away in the comments! |
Smashwords: Free Series Starter <b>Promotion</b> at iBooks Features <b>...</b> Posted: 05 Apr 2014 12:16 AM PDT Apple iBooks this week introduced an international merchandising promotion in the US, Australia and New Zealand spotlighting free series starters. Smashwords-distributed books make over 80 appearances in the promotion. All featured Smashwords authors are taking advantage of Smashwords' new Series Manager merchandising tool, which we launched back in September. As I mentioned in September, Series Manager enables authors to attach their titles to series, which makes it easy for readers to easily identify books within a series, or across related series. Just as importantly, series metadata gives Smashwords retailers greater flexibility to promote books within a series. Apple's FIRST IN A SERIES promotion is one such manifestation of the new merchandising opportunities now available to Smashwords authors thanks to Series Manager. In the US iBooks store, featured Smashwords titles are organized under categories of Mysteries and Thrillers, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Teen Fiction. Please join me in congratulating the following Smashwords authors for their inclusion in this special merchandising feature: Mysteries & Thrillers Romance Sci-Fi & Fantasy Paranormal Romance Teen Fiction Free Series Starters - Fiction Shayne Parkinson - Sentence of Marriage Congratulations to all featured authors, and thanks to the great team at Apple for their tremendous support of Smashwords authors! If you're one of the lucky authors above, be sure to celebrate with your fans. Right mouse click the titles above to copy the direct hyperlink to the book. Just a quick reminder also to refer to the store as either iBooks ('Download on iBooks') or the iBooks Store ('Available on the iBooks Store'), and not iTunes. |
Creative Review - Shape: a new film to <b>promote</b> design Posted: 02 Apr 2014 02:18 AM PDT Director and animator Johnny Kelly and designer Scott Burnett have created a short film to show why design is important. The film features simple and charming graphics, and no language, so it can be understood universally. Shape, shown below, was commissioned by Pivot Dublin and Dublin City Council, and was originally part of the city's bid to become world design capital 2014. While Cape Town picked up that accolade this year, the team decided to go ahead with the project anyway, in order to promote wider understanding and acceptance of design. The film is at the centre of a website, makeshapechange.com, which provides a broad overview of what it means to be a designer. "I was approached by Ali Grehan from Dublin City Council who had seen a Chipotle animation (Back To The Start) that I had worked on a few years ago," explains Kelly. "She liked the way animation was able to break down complex information (in that instance, farming practices) into digestible form and thought there might be a way to tell the story of design." Kelly brought Burnett into the project and the duo thrashed out a structure for the film. "We thought quite a bit about who the film was for, and what they might get from it," continues Kelly. "For instance my wife is from a rural part of Ireland, and although she is now a very talented (if I may say so) interior and product designer, I think I speak for her when I say she didn't really have an awareness of what design was when she was growing up – what it meant, that it could be a career. In a way the goal was to reach out to people like that, it would be lovely if a ten-year old watched this, and afterwards thought a bit more about the chair they were sitting in, or the pen they were using, or how hard their phone is to use." Grehan was insistent that the film not feature any language or narration, so that it could be accessible to anyone. "When designers talk about design we quite often put it on a pedestal, telling of importance rather than showing and letting people make up their own minds," says Burnett. "While from the first meeting we were agreed that we had to avoid any kind of preaching at all costs, having the added constraint of not being able to use language helped us rule out trying to be persuasive. We couldn't tell so we had to show, which funnily enough is what I always say to clients, but barely ever do myself." The duo looked at other recent design films, including Helvetica, Urbanized and Press Pause Play. They also found influence in films from the past, including Why Man Creates by Saul Bass, and "pretty much every educational/informational film made for IBM in the 60s and 70s", says Burnett. In the end it was Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten that proved most useful. "Powers of Ten did offer the eventual breakthrough but conceptually rather than visually," says Burnett. "Eventually the only thing that made sense was to zoom out and not make design the subject, but have it instead as the invisible catalyst in the story. Once we realised that then a lot of the early ideas found their way into the story which we just made nice and simple – a day in the life where the changes that are happening around us all the time are made visible." Burnett admits to some anxiety at releasing the project, particularly in relation to his peers in design. "Trying to make sense of your industry to people who don't get it, you suddenly feel all your peers tutting and shaking their heads," he says. "And all of it is very counter-intuitive to how we usually communicate professionally. Even on the website we've framed design by context rather than subject, so the whole thing is turned on it's head as we usually start with what we do – I design websites, I design spoons, I design light fixtures for cars. "So i'm still nervous about launching it into the world, but having shown it to a group of 10-16 year olds a few weeks ago, a lot less so. The general response was that they never thought about how much work goes into the things around them, and that they never thought about design like that before. One girl even said it had made her thankful for the nice things she has in her life. I couldn't have scripted their responses better. "The thing we realised along the journey was that we were making a tool as much as a film. A way to start and frame a conversation that can then be carried on. This led to the idea for the website and an education programme. We're hoping that this keeps developing and also that other people find ways to use the film. To open up a conversation about what they do and why it's worth thinking about." |
Bill Fleming Forva » <b>Blog</b> Archive » <b>How To Promote</b> Your Social <b>...</b> Posted: 24 Mar 2014 09:40 PM PDT Social media is ubiquitous in today's culture. On the other hand, a lot of businesses have yet to use them and are missing out on relationships they can form that lead to more revenue. Here are some smart ways to use social media to increase the bottom line of any business that wants to excel. Keep in mind what a conversation really is. Too many social media plans ignore the fact that in this field, customer feedback can be the start of an extended conversation. Respond in a new way by having a conversation with your customers. Show interest in their needs, and design your next campaign or product according to what you have learned about your customers. To help you attract more visitors, you should promote your site through niche social media sites. What's great about niche social media sites is that they can send you a lot of targeted traffic. Even if the niche site is small, it can still send you quality visitors who are more likely to purchase something from your site because they already have an interest in your product. What can really help with attracting more visitors and followers is to buy your followers and likes. Instagram has been one of the most popular social platforms for purchasing your followers. You can buy followers on instagram and make your profile look very popular to gain an even bigger following. The key to being successful using social media marketing is to have excellent content. This content has to be inspiring, educational, and interesting so that your followers will want to share it. When they share your content, you and your business are being exposed to new potential followers who may also share your content and build your social media presence. Your headline is crucial to a good post. Most social networks encourage you to keep your posts short, and if you were to post a long article, chances are no one would take the time to read it. Try posting a link to your article with a good headline that both grabs your readers' attention and explain what the article is about. Don't sit back and let competitors take all your prospective customers. Using this advice will help you develop the most effective social media plan. Social media doesn't just have to be for personal use, it can also work well in connecting you to potential customers. |
Some Thoughts on Self <b>Promotion</b> and Why Arrogant People Think <b>...</b> Posted: 03 Apr 2014 12:00 AM PDT As a somewhat cynical twenty-something, I looked down on people who promoted their work. To me, they were walking infomercials, always selling something. On a deeper level, I may have thought of these people as lacking humility or not trusting in God to provide. Times have changed, though, and now I'm that guy. About once a week I'm criticized for promoting my books (haven't done that in about two years though) or our movie, or the Storyline conference. About every fifth blog is an invitation to take part in something I'm doing. But I don't feel arrogant about it at all. Here are a few reasons I promote my work:1. My work isn't about me. It's about others. As I've gotten older I've lost interest in making myself look good and become more interested in creating great experiences for people or changing culture. To me, this is more interesting. It's still my name on the cover of the book or in the titles of the film, but I spend less money on clothes and haircuts because I'm distracted. Ever notice how people who don't promote themselves have an image of being cool and aloof that they spent months creating and practicing? 2. I believe in my work. I've seen the suff I've done change lives, provide mentors for kids, make people feel less lonely, save marriages and all that stuff. It took years, but I actually started to understand that in the way a doctor could help somebody with a medical problem, I could help them through an emotional problem. I promote my work because my work helps people. 3. I work with teams. I remember years ago being late turning in a book and about that same time my publisher let a bunch of people go. I was partly responsible for that. I cost people their jobs and it was a terrible feeling. I've decided to be a writer and to write with a publisher and that means I work with people. To not get out there and tell people about my work is arrogant and selfish. People are depending on me. Conversely, here's the reality about all that cynicism about self promotion. Here are some reasons people don't promote their work:1. Those who do not promote their work usually live off the backs of other people. I hear from a lot of ministers we should only promote Jesus. But if you're a minister, business people who promote their real-estate agencies, insurance agencies or their skills as a plumber are feeding your children. If you think you should only promote Jesus, you should stop taking money from anybody who advertises or works for companies that do. Lets be consistent, here. God Himself created farming and created our bodies in such a way we have to eat. That means we have to work and the fact anybody can sit around reading books all day sharing their ideas (don't forget, that's exactly what I do) is a complete and total luxury. Not only this, but if we work for a large corporation, we'd better hope they advertise and promote the products we are making, otherwise we'd be out of a job. Not having to promote, in other words, is a luxury and should be seen as such. 2. People who don't promote their work may not be humble at all, in fact, they may be too proud to be seen as a salesman. I used to think I was humble, but then I realized I didn't want to be one of those info-mercial guys and so my motivation was anything but humility. I was the opposite, I was proud. Too proud and too cool to sell anything. I was also poor and offering nothing to the world except my latest variation of a stupid mustache. 3. People who don't promote their work may not yet believe in their work. If you're a new singer/songwriter, you may just be figuring out whether you're any good. You may have doubts and so are sheepish. But people who know they are good have no problem standing in front of a crowd telling them they can buy their CD in the back. After all, if it's a good CD, who cares. They're actually offering a service. 4. People who don't promote their work aren't lost in their work. For me to get up in the morning and build the next piece of Storyline or work on the next chapter of a book is a thrill. I lose myself in the work. Working on a creative project is the best and most healthy way to escape, especially if you're working with a team. Far from being self centered, doing creative work for a living is a wonderful way to break free from constant narcissism. 5. People who don't promote their work don't have employees and associates. If you're a small businessperson, you likely have employees who count on you to get your name out there or the name of your products. Working with teams is a blast and we come to love those we work with. They've given their lives and their skills to you as a creative person or businessperson and you owe it to them to take confidence in your work and get it out into the marketplace. 6. Self promotion is not unholy. Occasionally I'll encounter some well-meaning religious person who thinks self promotion works against the fame of God. I whole-heartedly disagree. In his day, Billy Graham spent millions promoting himself and his crusades, all so people could come HEAR HIM TALK ABOUT GOD. Those who know Mr. Graham would never see him as arrogant. He was over himself. But that didn't mean God didn't give him a personality and a mouth and later a microphone. Flowers bloom and mountains tower not to take attention from God, but to display His glory. So if you're a dancer, dance, a singer, sing and if you write books, write them well. Lose yourself in the work and play with God in the creative process. And please, cut the false humility and religious crap about how you only promote Jesus. It's annoying. Get in touch with your own depravity and realize you're a scumbag like the rest of us and stop talking about how humble you are all the time. Learn to dance or something. Of course, there are those who really are in it for themselves. I know, I know, they can be annoying. But don't roll your eyes at every artist who tells you about their new album or book or business. People have to feed themselves and their families and other people's families. And for heaven's sake, if you believe in your work, share it with the world. What project do you want to share with my readership? Leave links in the comment sections. Let's see what you've been up to. It's time to believe in yourself. God made that mind of yours, show us how you've taken responsibility for that amazing fact and let us see what you've done with it. |
<b>How To Promote</b> Your Music - The Ultimate Guide - Music Think Tank Posted: 25 Nov 2013 04:00 AM PST
Now before you roll your eyes and think I'm going to tell you to "create a Facebook account and promote through social media" or to "get your music in as many places as possible," listen up. This guide is going to be full of actionable content and advice that won't be found in every post on the subject that simply rehashes information the writer has heard and not tried out themselves. By the end of this post I want you to walk away with at least a few things you may not have thought about before, and can start implementing in your music career. So with that in mind, read on, take notes, and share this guide if you find it useful. And be sure to check out my free music marketing ebook afterward to get extra advice and tips for getting your music out there. Top ways to promote your music from @musicthinktank and @imusicadvice!! - Tweet This 1. Climb the Ladder with Your Collaboration EffortsOK, so the first thing you can do to promote your music better isn't actually something many musicians associate with actually being a form of promotion. Collaborating with other musicians can actually be a great way to get out there. Making songs with a well known act can actually mean you can get in front of their fans. It may also mean that you gain a higher perceived value for working with that act, and it can be a good note on your CV when looking for other music related work and opportunities. The thing is though, it's very unlikely you'll get collaborations with big names in your genre (unless you already know them). You see, their time is precious, and they're not just going to collaborate with every up and coming act out there. The solution? Using the 'ladder' method. What you want to do is categorize any talented musicians in your genre into different levels based on how big they are. Usually, while the biggest acts won't be willing to work with you at this stage, some of the lower level acts will be - with enough incentive. So what you do is approach those acts which are slightly bigger then you, and do collaborations with a few of them. Not only does this get you in front of their audiences, but it also gets you associated with being at their level. Once this is done, start looking to the next step of musicians who are that bit more popular then the last group you approached (and are now in yourself). Do the same; collaborate with them, get in front of their audience, and become thought of as being on their level. Rinse and repeat, each time working with bigger acts and getting a bigger reputation yourself. The good thing is, once people start seeing you're working with lots of people in your genre, they will want to start working with you too. You'll be the hip new people on the block that everyone wants to be associated with. 2. Climb the Ladder with Media Outlets You Try to Get On
If you've ever tried to get covered by a big website, TV channel or radio station, chances are you didn't hear back from them, or got rejected. Again, these places aren't looking to work with just anyone; you need to prove you're noteworthy and worthwhile for them using one of their exposure slots. As you may have guessed, the above ladder method works here too. Start out by getting on smaller platforms and websites, and build your way up. Get all of these previous places you've appeared on your music CV. Include their logos on your website. Make it clear people are talking about you. Gradually build things up, networking with new people along the way. You will find more and bigger opportunities become available to you, as the music industry is full of people who don't care until you say you've worked with 'x' amount of their competitors. So keep climbing that ladder. 3. Master Your Gigging GameSo I could say to you, "Gig because it's good exposure and you can make money from it." I want to give you more, though. The thing is, anyone can gig. That said, what are you doing to set your gigs apart from 95% of other musicians in your genre?! Practicing your lyrics is one thing, but mastering your show is something else altogether. Remember, as a musician you are an entertainer! It's your job to entertain. Yes, that might just be in the form of your voice in rare cases, but in the majority of cases your whole stage presence also factors into things. When people leave your show, are they going to remember you as that person with good lyrics and a good voice? Or will they remember you as that person who stood out and outshone all the other performing acts that night? I hope you aim to achieve the second one. So what can you do to achieve that? Well first of all, find out what works in terms of stage presence. Load up YouTube and search for the best live acts in your genre. See how they command the stage, see how they move, and see how they interact with the audience. Does it work? Is it something you can do and build on? Most of the time it will be, so be sure to build yourself as a overall great performer, rather then just someone who has good vocal ability. 4. How to Promote Your Music Online: Schedule Your Social UpdatesAll right, let's move on to how to promote your music online. While you all know you should be taking part in social networking, there's one thing you can do to make things a lot easier in that area: Scheduling your social updates! While this isn't possible when you're replying to people who interact with you (which you should be doing), you can schedule updates for your fans with new content and conversation starters. For example, let's say you have a gig tonight. You may be very busy just before it, and you know you won't have any time to communicate with your fans on social sites around that time. In this case, what you could do is schedule two updates for Facebook and Twitter. The first could go something like this: "Not long ago arrived at * venue name * and can't wait to perform. Any of you here? If so come and say hi and wish me luck!" You can also schedule another update for later, such as: "The show tonight went well, I can't wait to share the pictures with you. Give me time to go home and sleep & I'll get them up tomorrow ;)" These kind of updates are of course based on things you know are going to happen, yet they will mean you can encourage communication with your fans at a time which is easier for you. So how do you schedule your social updates? Well my favorite method is via the free tool Hootsuite. Have a look, if you ask me it's a must use tool for all musicians. 5. Take Advantage of Email Marketing
The advantage with email marketing over Facebook and Twitter is your message gets to more people then it would on alternative platforms. As you probably know, Facebook makes it so only a small percentage of your fans see any message you post. With Twitter, if your followers aren't online around the time you send your Tweets out, chances are they won't see them. With email though, once it's sent, it sits there until your email subscribers see the message. It doesn't go anywhere, and it's not as time sensitive. There are a lot of other reasons why emails are also effective, but I won't list them all here. Instead you can check out this guide on list building for musicians, and see for yourself why you need it. I also let you know how to get started with this form of promotion, so give it a try. 6. Don't Just Update on Twitter, Seek ConversationsMy last music marketing tip for the day: Be proactive with your approach to Twitter marketing. I see people get this wrong all the time. They think that all they need to do to promote their music on Twitter is to add a load of random people, then keep Tweeting about things related to themselves. In reality, this is a huge waste of your time. Real Twitter promotion is all about building connections. You want to seek out conversations relevant to you and get involved. For example, let's say you make music and are similar to Coldplay. What you'll want to do is search for conversations based around Coldplay, and see the results. Be sure to click 'all' under the section 'Results for coldplay.' This will bring up all people recently talking about them. Next, literally start talking to these people. Let them know you're into Coldplay too, and for those that respond and seem interested, mention that you make similar music which they may want to check out. So people will end up doing that. I don't advise you mention your music the first time around, because people usually put up barriers against you once they feel you're trying to promote to them on initial contact. But after swapping a Tweet or three, they'll be much more likely to give you a try if they think you're a cool person. You will also want to give them a follow after their first reply, too, as this will increase the chances they'll follow you back and see your music related updates. And That's THE BEGINNING of How to Promote Your MusicAnd that's it, six big (and often not talked about) tips for promoting your music. That said, this isn't everything you need to know in terms of getting your music out there. There are a lot more music marketing tips you can and should learn, and I aim to give you those here today. If you haven't already, you'll want to check out my free ebook on the subject (download it here). Inside I start to look at the finer details of music promotion, such as how much you should be doing it, when, and why. I also look at some additional things you need to think about to start getting your music marketing mentality right. Furthermore, you can check this guide for 6 additional music marketing tips. I hope you found this guide useful and have some things you can start implementing ASAP. If so, please give it a share, and let your fellow musicians check it out too. I'm sure we'll speak again soon. :) Shaun Letang, |
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