A couple days ago I was asked why I became part of the team behind the “Tweet #metal Chart“. Well to be honest my entire purpose was selfish. I wanted a way to find my target audience. I have found that the best way to find a ton of people that are in a very small niche group is to provide a free service for that group of people. Give them something that they will really want and they will come in droves. It always works and almost always works well. So I continue to provide tools for the hard rock and metal community. Why? Because it is the best way to find the highest quality people within that category. Now of course they are using me as well. That’s the whole point. If I always do my best to make sure they get the most out of what I do, I get what I want. The Tweet #metal chart can of course be used by anyone who wants to find these high quality people just as well as it can be used by me, but it would not have been as useful of a tool if I kept it all to myself. Helping others helps me more than being totally selfish.
Now there are some that are always trying for the quick and easy. The local bands that are happy to play the same clubs, screw the same local groupies, get paid the same crap door money, drink the same crap beer, and somehow expect a record company to somehow find out about them and hand them the world. There are the promoters that will book bands, put up a couple flyers in a few windows, draw the same crowd, and pretty much go no where. Everywhere in every part of life you will find the status quo. You will find that the majority of people will either just be really lazy or they will go for the quick scam. All it takes is one out of every few million to gain from this line of thinking to keep people buying into it. Look at the lottery. My wife and I call it “The idiot tax” because you are being an idiot if you think you are going to win. We still play, but we at least joke about it being the “Idiot Tax”. So even we are guilty of this small minded way of thinking at times. Almost everyone is, but what can we learn from that and when should we go the extra mile to get out of this rut? How do we get out of this rut?
Well, I have found that just about anything you can do will put you above the majority. Take a look at how far everyone else is willing to go. Then go twice as far to win. If the standard local bands are putting up a few flyers and updating their MySpace page, then you should do that and then some. Buy radio and newspaper ads in the local area. A few thousand dollars investments will put you way above the pack. If your band members are all spending their hard earned vacation time from work to do a mini tour, advertise! You are on a national tour, so advertise as such. 3 grand at FixionMedia.com will kick things in high gear for an entire month. Two weeks before the tour starts and for the two weeks during you will be impressing local clubs around the country. Labels will start to wonder why they keep hearing your name. If you can afford a few thousand to toss at IndieClick.com as well you are getting close to pro level marketing for a tour.
In fact I will make a deal with any band out there. First UNSIGNED band to follow the following directions exactly wins a full year of advertising on all three of the sites I am connected to. These sites are MarkCarras.com, RockMyMonkey.com, and HeavyAsHell.com. I will give said band a banner at the bottom of all three sites (pretty much every page and at least the highest traffic pages) for the term of one year. They can change the graphic of the link connected to the graffic once per month.
Here is what you need to do to win:
1. Buy $3,000 of advertising from Fixion Media, $5,000 of advertising from IndieClick, and $2,000 from Blast Beat with all campaigns starting on the same day.
2. Have this all connected to a two week tour with two weeks of advertising before the tour starts.
3.Contact me before the ad campaign starts so I can track it.
4. Do this before June 1st of 2010 because after that this deal has to die.
Deal? Why am I doing this? Honestly it serves me if a band “makes it” because they followed things from this blog doesn’t it? What would happen to my traffic if some band makes it big and they go around telling people they made it because of advice from this blog? My traffic goes through the roof and my word is then respected. Now I could just go around ripping bands off, getting them to sign shady 360 deals, and probably make a quick buck and get out of town before anyone knew what hit them. This is how the music industry is done most of the time. But that is short term thinking and I would rather do what I love for a very long time. To do that I have to keep it honest. I have to actually help bands. That is the long tail vs the short tail. Call my bluff. I dare ya!
What your band can learn from the swine flu hysteria!
This weekend CNN posted one great article about the over blown hysteria over swine flu (along with probably 50 very irresponsible articles fueling the insanity). We have all seen people go nuts over this for very little reason. The World Health Organization said that as of the writing this article there have only been 20 deaths world wide! There are probably more people that die from a smack upside the head every day. This is proof that people have zero interest in facts. We have become so addicted to being controlled by fear that we will latch on to anything hyped at all. It’s as pathetic as a worst case heroin addict.
So how can bands use the knowledge on this to benefit their band? Well, like most lessons, it is something anyone paying attention would have learned many times before. It’s always about hype. When advertising something it is never really about just letting people know about the event. You can have millions of people know about your show and still have an empty nightclub. Why? Because if it doesn’t seem like an out of control hype of hysteria people just don’t care. People always want to be part of something big. On Twitter people are going nuts posting articles supporting the paranoia over the swine flu. Why? Because they want to be part of the big party of everyone over reacting to the swine flu hysteria. When you have a show you want to create as much hype about the event as you can. You want to make it look like it is the event of the year and the club will be packed.
I stopped reading press releases many years ago, because the press agents pile on the B.S. a mile high. It’s like the bands that keep talking about their livers going on strike because they are such wild party maniacs. The truth is that most of them barely drink at all. Not too mention that that line has been over used to pathetic level. The press agents for metal go on and on about how the cd they are promoting is the most brutal thing to be recorded since the dawn of time. They find several ways to repeat the same thing Ad Nauseam. They are trying to hype the band to the point of hysteria because they know what that is worth. So even the pros do it, so why don’t you?
Now of course the press agents do several press releases a day and get so bored with the project that it comes off with zero integrity. You have way more time and can put more passion into your campaign. This is also why you should not play a city more than once every three months. Part of making the event hyped as much as possible is to make it special. How is it special if you are playing the same clubs, in the same city, every weekend? In fact, I have seen bands do very well if they don’t play within an hours drive per season. Starve your local scene! The other thing you do is to save up as much money as you can so that you can advertise on radio, print, flyers, internet, and whatever else is available. Bands that spend their own money to promote a show end up with opening slots with the majors.
Like anything else, you will get out of it what you put into it. Expect things to just fall into your lap will get you no where. Work your royal ass off every second you can and you will see a difference. If you don’t see a difference you should have worked harder. Or maybe your band just sucks? That’s ok. I hear we will all die of swine flu within the week anyways if the media hype is to be believed.
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.
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.
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!
Why does music suck now?
I think one of the most interesting questions to ask people is “What do you think is killing the music industry?” You can guess a persons answer by what category they fit into. Your standard person will almost always say that it is because music sucks now and there is only one or two good songs and a bunch of filler. But the question is why does music suck now?
Musicians have Stockholm syndrome
Why is there only one “good song” per cd anymore? The music industry falling apart is something they have been working on for a very long time. Musicians have a bad case of Stockholm syndrome and have been told that they think it’s the downloading. When I interview bands and ask this question they are unable to think beyond “you gotta stop the downloading”. Try to tell them that the cats already out of the bag and they get very flustered. Of course the music industry says the same thing since they are the ones brainwashing the artists. Internet geeks will tell you that it’s simply that video games are taking those sales. I say all of you are right, but at the same time wrong.
Greed and business vs artist development
The music industry is a business and so it is fueled by greed. You can’t blame them for this because they do this for a living and that new baby is going to need diapers. However, it is that greed that lead them to bad business decisions. Why? Because what we are talking about is art and art and business never go well together. The record companies very quickly created a formula. This was a good thing at first. This formula was to find out how to get the most sales out of the talent pool. When something was proven, they add it to the formula. This formula kept getting better and better until it was perfected. Around the 90’s this formula peaked. This formula is something I could write and entire book about so I won’t go into the details. It’s a combination of many things, but part of it is looking into the future just enough to sign an artist before that artists style becomes “the next big thing”. Soundgarden for example. They were not ready to be hit machines on that first major label cd, but the record company didn’t care. It’s called artist development. Soundgarden was given that ever important time to grow as artists.
Less artistic integrity let video games take over
Artists no longer are allowed that time to develop their craft. Even before the 360 deals started being forced on new artists, they were expected to have a hit on the first cd. This rush of the hit machine is one of the things that has cheapened the music. This has caused people to care less about music in general. This has caused music to be less of a priority for people. In about 25 years this has caused a situation where the video game industry is the bigger priority to the age group that has always been the most obsessed about music. So video games are a big part of it, but how the video games took the crown is very important to the big picture.
Artists never made a penny from cd sales
Part of what made people embrace downloading so much in the first place was the horrid percentages artists made from their work. A band can have a career of a couple decades before their first release even makes them a penny. This happens more often than not. A great majority of artists never see a penny from any of their cds. So many fans hear this and start downloading because they know their favorite band isn’t going to get any of the money anyways. Sure we can debate why this line of thinking is wrong, but the fact is that it is the perception. Their greed has lead to them losing control of the perception their customers have of them and the product they are trying to sell. That’s bad marketing and no opinion of the facts matters after that.
Your paranoia was your downfall
You also have to look at the music industries reaction to the downloading they blame for their downfall. When Napster was the hottest thing on the internet, they tried to make deals with the record companies. These deals would have been way more profitable than the ones they are currently making with iTunes, Amazon, and Wal-Mart. All they could do was freak out and shut them down. Thus training the fans to adopt it. Not because they wanted to steal, but because they obviously wanted to have their music digitally. What if your local bar only served Budwiser quality and the majority made it clear they wanted Sierra Nevada? People would find a way to get that better beer and the local bar would be screwed. People will always find a way to get what they want. Get it to them and you can take their money. Ignore their desires and your business will be dead! Now about a decade later the music industry starts making deals to sell music online. Problem is that it is full of DRM that doesn’t allow people to play the music they buy on any device they want. People are quick to notice that the illegal version is a better product. It can be played on any device. So the great majority keeps downloading illegally. This cheapens the overall image of music even more. They now have an entire generation that they have trained to dismiss music as a totally disposable thing that should just be downloaded. Even as recent as this month they have tried to shut down The Pirate Bay. Have they ever stopped to ask how this will help them? Will it stop downloading? No, it only fuels innovation to find better ways to not get caught. Instead of wasting so many resources they should be trying to find a way to use this free marketing platform to their benefit. If you work for a label, now is the time to smack yourself in the forehead and say ‘DOH’ Homer Simpson style.
It’s not your fault
Now not all the reasons for the downfall of the music industry are the fault of the music industry. Have you noticed that each generations rock stars are a little less famous. When The Beatles came out there was only rock. Pretty much every ‘young person’ listened to that one style. No metal, no punk, no industrial, just rock. Then Led Zeppelin came around and we had a couple more options. There was “hard rock” people could grab on to! The next decade gave us the beginning of metal and punk. Now we had true sub-genres. Now we have so many sub-genres of sub-genres that a band can be the undisputed kings of an entire style of music and still not be able to fill a 500 seater club. So many record sales are not even big enough to be registered by the RIAA. It’s out of vans, mail order, and tiny record companies that are too small to be members of the great overlord known as the RIAA. So when they keep releasing lower and lower numbers, the numbers that are not accurate!
Anyone can have international distro in seconds
As part of music being so spread out with sub-genres of sub-genres is the growth of technology. I can belch into a microphone on this same laptop I am typing this article out on, upload the mp3 recording of that to a service like CD BABY, buy some adds through Ad Words, and give that “CD” international distribution and marketing. I can do all this within an hour! My sales figures will not be recorded by the RIAA. So the numbers they announce are starting to look totally worthless, right? Bands with half a braincell no longer need a label at all. This is also part of what is killing the industry. Now the artists can focus on art and not have business breathing down their neck. Think this is only previously established artists like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead? Think again! There are new artists like Jonathon Colton that give everything away without a thought but yet still make tons of cash. This kills music industry folks both figuratively and literally.
Now I could go on and on about this, but this article is already longer than 99% of my readers attention spans will tolerate. I haven’t even touched on the whole “loudness war” issue! Someday I can write a book on this and give more detail. But let me close with this. Please do your part in spreading the word. Downloading is only a tiny part of what is killing the music industry and misses the point of what the suits should be focusing on in the first place. If we do enough to get the word out maybe we can save the music industry? Or maybe we should just let them die and laugh at their ignorance?
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.
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.
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!
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!
