markcarras
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
by Mark Carras
Shorty Awards
So it is time for the Shorty Awards again eh? They had to have them just a few weeks before I drop a bomb on the music industry March 1st. Right now I have absolutely nothing going on and have a bigger chance at winning something insulting.
After March I could win something really cool though. So I figure I might as well have fun with this. I doubt I will win anything. So instead I offer the top ten Shorty Awards I might have a chance at. Just for the sake of a good laugh. Enjoy and please help me win one of them.
So if you want to be a smart ass, feel free to nominate me for one of the following. I do have something I would like to win though if you take these kinds of things seriously. Not sure I take any awards seriously though. I’d rather make a joke out of it. How about you?
1. http://shortyawards.com/category/idiot
2. http://shortyawards.com/category/douchery
3. http://shortyawards.com/category/douche
4. http://shortyawards.com/category/annoying
5. http://shortyawards.com/category/ignorance
5. http://shortyawards.com/category/dork
6. http://shortyawards.com/category/asshole
7. http://shortyawards.com/category/curmudgeon
8. http://shortyawards.com/category/narcissism
9. http://shortyawards.com/category/deleteyouraccount
10. http://shortyawards.com/category/asshat
However, let me be clear that if you want to be nice you will give me a nomination for http://shortyawards.com/category/media I won’t mind. Can I beg for your nomination?
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
by Mark Carras
I have made it a habit to not update on the weekend for awhile. However, I am thinking of doing a new series on Saturdays whenever possible. I will send out a question on Twitter, post the replies, and give my useless opinion. I tried to do this with all social networks involved and it was too over whelming and it never got done. So you have to follow me on Twitter to be part of this.
This weeks question is when do you follow people back. Myself I follow back anyone who makes it clear they enjoy heavy music. This can be made clear from the bio, user name, avatar, profile background, looking at your Twitter messages, or by sending me a Twitter message telling me your favorite three bands. I’m not too picky about how you get the message out. If you at least make the effort to lie to me, I will follow you back. You would be amazed at how few even try to trick me into following them back. This works very well for me. Here are what some others have said…
metalross i follow back everyone unless they post hundreds of tweets in a row, then i unfollow them
Pubrockercom I follow everyone back. when they post too much stupid crap or too many links (just advertising w/o personality) I delete them.
deathisgain713 Like mindedness. Metal, design, etc. I don’t need to follow 500 people to tell me how to make money at twitter.
Friday, May 1st, 2009
by Mark Carras
Top Ten Things Bands screw up on Twitter!
10. #followFriday
Follow Friday is where you pick someone you are following and “pimp” their profile to everyone else following you. “#followfriday @rockmymonkey because it posts some great music news” is fine. Keep it simple. Now some do the lazy Follow Friday where they say something like “#followfriday @markcarras @isewdollies @rockmymonkey @HeavyAsHell” with no explanation of why you should follow that person. Details are very important and people will be more thankful you cared enough to pimp them exclusively on that one message. Make it about quality and not quantity.
9. RT’s can gain you fans
Now this only works for bands trying to gain attention. Unsigned or mostly unknown bands need to do the Re-tweet! What is a Re-tweet? When you see someone sending a message you like, agree with, or is talking about your band, re-send it to the people you follow. If nothing else this can be used to encourage people to talk about your band.
8. Not being on “We Follow”
This is how you can find new fans. Or even fans you have had for decades but they don’t know the band is on Twitter.
7. Not doing updates
Ok, depending on how big your band is you may want to post different stuff. Once a day is fine for most. “Playing Chicago tonight. Who’s gonna be there?” can work for pro level bands. If you are unsigned, let people know how the new cd is going, what clubs you are going to play, what merch you are working on, or even some contest where you need your fans to show their support.
6. Not filling out a bio!
Sure everyone knows who Queensryche is, but most bands can have Gold albums and still not be known to most people. Keep it simple though. “We are the band Blah and we play old school thrash!” is all you need. The band name and what style you play is all you really need. Don’t try and be cute or funny. Just tell people who you are and what you play. If you are some wussy indie pop band I need to know that so I don’t follow your yawn inducing crap of a band.
5. Not uploading an image
It makes your profile look fake and spammy. A band photo or logo is fine. It takes just a few seconds and makes everything look way better.
4. Paying someone to run the account
This makes your band look like they don’t care about their fans. Call me if you need to know how to make this so easy even a drummer can do it. (just joking, we love drummers too)
3. Not responding to fans
Ok, your main focus is creating great music. So don’t try to respond to every message. Try to be strategical about it. But please try and respond to a about ten percent. 1% if you currently pack 10 thousand seat arenas.
2. Not Following Back!
Twitter is about being able to interact with your fans. @reply every once in awhile. Even Shaq does it, so what’s your excuse? You think you’re bigger than him? If your lazy you can at least use @socialtoo to auto-follow people back.
1. Not being on Twitter
Seriously! I am shocked that many bands are not using this great tool. This leaves it open to someone creating fake accounts and screwing with your fanbase. Very bad!
Yes, I know that last link doesn’t work. That’s the point. Nevermore needs to get their collective butts in gear! All my other links however do go to real places. Each point is made with a link to an account that SHOULD be doing something on Twitter they were not doing at the time I posted this article. Most of them fit several of my points though.
I like to think of myself as the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Tech Consultant” so please feel free to contact me if anyone needs advice or consulting. I work dirt cheap and even free for most things. So contact me on Twitter if you have a quick question. Call 360-789-0703 for paid phone tech support if you need that little extra.
http://twitter.com/MarkCarras
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
by Mark Carras
So how can you gain a ton of Twitter followers without blind following?
Find lists of metalheads
I have talked before about how you shouldn’t just blind follow people on Twitter. The reasons are many and you will have to go back to that article to check that out. So how do you get a ton of followers without blind following? Well, if you are a metal band, fan, record company, online radio station, journalist, or whatever else, you want to find other people that care about metal. The first thing you do is find a list of metal fans. There are several ways to find these lists of the metal community on Twitter.
Other metalheads are “following” more metalheads
The first way is to find some people passionate about metal on Twitter. If you have at least 5 followers or are following at least 5 people you should have at least one. I’m talking about the nut jobs that live, eat, breathe, and crap metal 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. There is a good chance that the people they are following are at least metalheads on some level. So just pull up their “following” list from their profile. Then start opening up tabs of each one of the profiles of the people they are following. Look at the bio they have, their user name, who they are following, and what types of messages they are sending. Most of them are going to be metalheads and you should follow them.
We Follow does have it uses
The second is to go to the metal chart on “We Follow”. Now just like with the trick above, you shouldn’t just follow every profile on the We Follow metal chart. I saw one profile of a company that made stair cases. Wanna guess what those stair cases were made of? Metal! There is also a gem and jewelry blogger. They put themselves on the metal chart with zero thought to the style of music under the same keyword. There are also some people who hate metal and put themselves into the metal category to be funny. They do it in mockery and will not help your metal band in any way. In fact they could cause problems for you. So only follow the ones who look like real metal fans.
We need more metal bloggers to rank metal Twitter users!
The third way to gain a ton of metal loving Twitter users is to find a blogger that ranks metal related profiles. To be honest I have not run into any other than myself, but if anyone knows of any let me know. Very soon I hope to post a new chart of metal and hard rock Twitter users. It could be the ones who follow the most, are followed the most, have the best ratio, bands, fans, record companies, online radio stations, journalists, or who knows what else. I suck at programing, so this will be “static” lists and will not update automatically like some of them. However, unlike the charts at places like We Follow, I won’t have a company that makes metal stair cases on the list.
Using these methods I have gained almost a thousand people. Now after a week of adding all these people though, you might want to use SocialToo to mass unfollow anyone who isn’t following you back. It costs a tiny one time fee, but it is well worth it. You don’t want your following/follower ratio to make you look like some lame spammer. People hate that. That could cause quality people to unfollow you. Good luck and by all means follow me!
http://twitter.com/MarkCarras
Monday, April 6th, 2009
by Mark Carras
One of the biggest things I see bands mess up on is trying to get people to check out their stuff. I just saw a guy on Twitter ask people to download his band’s cd for free. I doubt he will get any reaction. Why not? What do they sound like? I understand you only have 140 characters, but you need to maximize the amount of information you give when you do that. Instead say something like “free download of my oldschool thrash band at http://unknownband.com rt?” That is only 69 characters so it gives enough room for people like me to re-tweet your message. It also tells way more information that just saying that you are metal.
Metal has not been a decent description for well over a decade. Not saying you should deny your metal love. In fact metalheads are the type that will react more if you raise the flag high with pride. What I am saying is that you should pick something that is more specific. Is it metalcore, thrash, traditional metal, power metal, death metal, black metal, progressive metal, crust, grind, glam, or folk metal? The general public are so jaded that even to take a free download of a band they need to make sure you at least fit the style of metal (or music) that they like the best.
Metalheads are some of the most radical zealots that ever walked the earth. That passion also makes them dismiss the “poser” without even listening to you. Without that specific information most of them will just assume you are a style they think sucks. Think about what it takes to get you to go download a cd. There are a billion bands out there begging for peoples ears. To stand out from the crowd you have to do just a tiny bit more than what 99% of them are doing. This doesn’t take much to be honest.
Make sure and follow me too, because i will re-tweet if you phrase it in a way that gives people the information that will enticed them into clicking.
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
by Mark Carras
My worst Twitter Habit
My worst Twitter habit can also be used as proof at what makes Twitter so cool. It forces you to get to the fricken point! So then you have people like me who love to talk. I am always pushing that 140 character limit to the wall. Why is that so bad? The Re-Tweet. If someone sends a Twitter message that I really like I may want to re-tweet that message. Now if that message is exactly 140 characters, you can’t re-tweet it without doing some serious editing. Now that sounds easy enough, but trying to figure out what to cut out of someone else’s Twitter message can sometimes be pure hell! More times than not when I hit the re-tweet button on my Twhirl application and see that it is over the limit, I just erase and forget about it. They loose the Re-tweet.
So What do you do to make sure your contacts can re-tweet your best stuff? Keep in mind how a re-tweet is done. On Twhirl they have a nice easy RT button. It then spews out the word “Retweeting”, the users name, followed by their original message. The whole thing can take up 20-30 characters. So it would be best to try and keep the message to around 100 characters. Maybe 120 in extreme situations. If your message is any longer it will be impossible to re-tweet.
Now for anyone wondering what the heck a re-tweet is, it is when you resend someone else’s message. This can be done by hand or with one of the many Twitter applications that are available. The best way to do this by hand is to just type “RT” at the beginning of the original message. It is very important though to make sure you include the full user name of the account that sent the original message. This should include the @ symbol before their account name so it becomes a clickable link to their profile. People will get very upset if you don’t give them credit for being the first to post something.
So I know it is hard to keep those messages to 100 characters. As you can see from the title of this blog post it is my worst habit related to Twitter. But getting your messages re-sent by others can more than triple your power on Twitter in seconds. I also must highly recommend that you do resend other peoples messages. If you resend their stuff, you have a greater chance that they will resend your stuff. Feel free to practice by giving me some re-twits. Really I won’t mind.
http://twitter.com/MarkCarras
Monday, March 16th, 2009
by Mark Carras
So I have been using Twitter for awhile and was going nuts trying to find a tool to clean things up. A big trick of spammers is to follow a ton of people to get them to follow back. Then a week or so latter unfollow the person. So then the honest people end up with a horrid ratio between followers and the accounts they are following. It is a trick to make the spammers look honest and to make the honest people look like spammers. So what do honest people do to defend themselves?
Well I hunted down a tool called SocialToo. It has many options. Some of them I strongly recommend you avoid. However the other half are very powerful and I can’t recommend them enough. When I tried this service out it worked so well that I thought it had messed up. It cleaned out more than 100 people that were not following me back. So when I looked at my numbers I thought it has made my following higher than my followers. Not sure why I only saw the last two digits of the numbers, but I made a total douche of myself and kind of freaked out over the guy who created the thing. When I saw my mistake I made my humble and embarrassing public apology. It worked so well it threw me off!
So let me be as clear as I can with this part. Stay clear of any and all auto-follow features. It will make you look spammy. However, there are two unfollow tools you can pick within the SocialToo service. One of them will cost you a one time $5 fee. After using it I would pay $5 per use. This feature will get you all cleaned up so you can start psedo-fresh. I say psedo because you will still be following everyone that is following you. Just the people that are not following you back will be removed.
Now to keep your account clean, take the guy up on his free stuff too. If someone unfollows you at any time, this will automatically unfollow them right back. These two features will keep your ratio looking very professional. If you are active on Twitter and really trying to get the most out of it this is a must have! If you have way more followers than you are following it makes people think you are important.
When you follow SocialToo creator Jesse Stay, let him know I’m thrilled to find out he is way more cool tempered than I am. Unlike me, he acts like a professional. DOH!
Important links:
Friday, March 13th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Why is Follow Friday important on Twitter?
So why is #followfriday on Twitter so important? How can you get the most out of it? Many use it to find people to blind follow. If I say #followfriday @darknemesis618 but don’t give you any reason, why should you care? Many will follow Keith, but will he get quality followers? Now if I said “#followfriday @DarkNemesis618 because he is a great programmer and fan of hard rock, metal, and punk.” That would mean something! That is the proper way to do a #followfriday in my opinion.
Now why go through the trouble of doing #followfriday this way? Sure the spammers just want to blindly follow anyone who will follow them back. They know that in marketing you almost always get a one percent reaction. So for them it’s just a numbers game. Your band should only want people that might be interested in your music. So if you can get the people in your network to post a #followfriday featuring your account, you get your target audience. I have said it many times before that getting the word out on your band is all about target audience. Twitter is a social thing and in most cases if you scratch peoples proverbial back, they will scratch your back in return. So pimping out other peoples account and recommending them can get them to do the same for you. Helping others in this way gets you not only more followers but more quality followers.
#followfriday is a great thing that can really help you if done right. Feel free to give me a #followFriday and if I can tell you love heavy music I will do my best to give you a #followFriday in return. That’s how it’s done. Next week I will follow up this by ranking my top 100 Twitter users. Yup, 100 #followFridays at once. Beat that!
http://twitter.com/MarkCarras
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
by Mark Carras
The lamest Twitter trick ever?
I have noticed something about the Twitter elite. You know who I’m talking about, the people that have thousands of followers without blind following ten thousand people in a desperate attempt to be relevant? If I have only a few hundred followers why should I care that they are “only 50 followers from 3,000.” Why should I help them if I am thousands away from 3,000? Honestly no one should care. Will they help you get to that same goal? Probably not. The sad thing is though that it works! They get these lap dogs that jump as soon as they say jump. So all their little lap dogs re-tweet the message and the person gets to their next follower goal in seconds. It’s lame, but it works.
So how will this help you? Well, keep percentages in mind. If someone is 200 away from hitting 100,000 people will pay attention because it would be a small percentage of the total goal. Plus, they are sending the request out to way more people than you will be. So for example let’s say in a few weeks I get 20 followers away from hitting 400 followers. If I sent the message out to 380 people I will probably get those 20 extra followers because of their contacts. If you are at 90 followers I would send out a request to make it to 100. It will work!
Now keep in mind that this will not work as well if the goal is not a number you round up to. Keep it to goals that end in a few zeros. If I sent a Twitter message that said “I need 9 followers to reach 340 followers I might not get the impact I would if I waited until I was to at least 375 and only asking for 25. Sure I’m asking for more that way, but the goal is a rounded number. The human brain loves easy rounded numbers.
Now why should you care about how many followers you have? Well without making this article twice as long, let’s just say that when you send out a Twitter message to promote your band (or anything else) you will always get a 1% result. So for every 100 followers you will get one person responding. This is why people are trying for thousands of followers. This rule has been the same since the word marketing was invented. Email lists, clicks on a website from your visitors, paper flyers you hand out at other shows, or even midgets you hire to go door to door. Your return will always be about one percent.
I know this can sound depressing, but remember when you first tried to learn how to ride a bike, drive a car, jump into the working world, or even learn to play your first instrument? Important things take time and you will get out of Twitter what you put into it. Good luck and make sure and follow me, because I’m about to rank the top 100 Twitter users in Rock and Metal to follow up my top 50.
http://twitter.com/MarkCarras