Events On Social Networks Are Useless

Facebook Events

Are You Training People To Reject Your Invite?
I follow a ton of people from all over the world on most social networks. So I get invites to things all over the world. The problem is that I loose money on my music industry related activities already. So there is no way I am taking a private jet to your local club show. I know, what’s the harm when all I have to do is take a few seconds to click ignore on the event that was mass blasted to everyone on that persons list? Well, it’s kind of like when the “Are you sure you want to delete that” pop ups that our computers give us before hitting delete. Does anyone even pay any attention to them at all? I am so used to hitting that ok button that even if a part of my brain is questioning the deletion, my hand has already deleted the item before I can even save it. The same thing happens with your events. When I see that question of “Will you attend this event”, I hit no before I even stop to check the location. I click that no button before I even look to see what that event is.

Why Did You Promote The Event On Facebook?
Because everyone just blasts everything to everyone, everyone is jaded to the event invites. So no one really pays any attention to them at all. Sure your best friend will click yes. Your girlfriend will click yes. Your bandmates will mostly click yes (sorry but your drummer is dumber than a rock and doesn’t get it), but will this improve attendance? Not one bit. You will be lucky to get one person to attend that would not have attended otherwise. Wasn’t that the point? To get more people to show up than who would have otherwise? Then stop blasting it to everyone because you are training people to reject your events without even thinking about it. It is a knee jerk reaction because of the constant blasts we all get from every band from all over the world.

Have You Ever Even Mentioned The State Or City?
Most band’s don’t even mention the state or city. So I have rejected events and found out later it was a local show at a club I had never heard of before. At least list the state and city or your event post failed right out of the gate.

It’s Not All Bad News
So is this nothing but bad news? No. You can stop it. We all need to do our part to stop people from blasting everyone for an event that only 10% of their followers are even capable of attending. Most of the social networks have a way of selecting only the people from your area. Can we start a campaign to not just click no, but to say why in the comments. When an online friend invites you to an event in another state or country, link to this article. Or you can just type “Stop inviting people from out of state, it hurts us non-spamming bands jerkface!” Ok, make up your own line if you want. I just think it would be funny if EVERYONE started using that one. If they don’t list the city and state post that you have no idea what part of the world the event is at and that is why you will not attend. It will take more of an effort than most will be able to muster, but if enough of us do this we can change the pattern and maybe a few habits. Or maybe this is just a way for your band to rise above the rest?

Why Do You Share On Facebook?

Facebook

For most of the time I have been on Facebook, I have been bothered by some of the posting behavior of my fellow users. Recently it has started bothering me less and less. Why, because I have started to accept that everyone looks to Facebook for different reasons. These reasons are starting to intrigue me.

The Reasons I post
When I ost something it is to share some form of information that I think others may have a want or need for. This could be a music video, article, or perception of thinking. However, I try my best to not share things that others have seen a million times before. No matter how much I love a song, why post a video most have seen already? Wouldn’t it be better to post something new? I have always heard that social networking is all about content. The better the content the more people will not only follow you, but also pay attention. If I post some Nickelback video, to me it is a bigger mistake that people have seen it before than the mistake of posting something so many so passionately hate. I find no issue with posting a video people despise. I do however have a major problem with people posting a video that people have seen a million times before.

Sorry I was offended by your offensive behavior
There was once a person I followed on Facebook that would post the same mainstream videos everyday. There was about ten of them. I have wondered if it was some posting bot on a loop because there was never much variation to it. I majorly offended the person when I asked if that was the case. I was honestly just trying to find out why one would post the same thing over and over again everyday. It made no sense to me.

Who Pays For My Therapy?
Here I was thinking that it was silly to post something most have seen and this person goes and posts the same thing over and over again everyday. How many people on her list of friends had not seen that video by the tenth time she posted it? I am willing to bet that most of them had seen it before she posted it once. It was pretty mainstream. It would be like teaching a child that humans never eat hot dogs ever and to eat one would be wrong. Then that child goes to a hot dog eating contest where someone eats packages after packages of lips and bung holes. That child might need some therapy. This wasn’t just someone breaking the rules that I held sacred. That I could deal with. This was pissing on the bible in front of the Pope and and setting the book on fire!

I’m better now, really
Now I see people posting mundane things all the time and it still makes me twitch a little. I still see people trying to pull off Rickrolling like it’s a new thing! But now I see that even though Facebook and Twitter are for posting content of some sort that most have not seen, for others that is not the case. For that person that posted that Nickleback video everyday, Facebook might be the place where you are letting others know what you are listening to. So you can post a video because you think others should see it, or just because you want others to know what you are currently listening to. So before you go off on someone for breaking some sacred rule of conduct in social networking, know that for some it’s not about the actual networking. Hell, sometimes they just want to unplug their brains and play Farmville…(*shudder*).

Would You Pay For Social Networking?

Money

So this question was posed on Facebook recently by the ever so awesome folks at Social Blade. What I liked about the question was that it was so vague. It made a horrid question for Facebook, because it made such an awesome question to answer in blog form.

Full credit for the inspiration of this post goes to Erin of Social Blade though.

So let’s dive into this question first by asking the questions that it ignores. Most importantly is what part of Social Networking are we talking about? Social Networking is a pretty massive thing. It’s like saying that computers are evil. Sure there is a ton of evil connected to computers, but there is a ton of good too. There are tons of elements within social networking that I feel should never be paid for, but there are other services within that that should totally be paid for. It’s all a question of what you consider to be part of social networking.

The Sites Themselves
So sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Mixx, Reddit, etc should never be paid for. If they can’t figure out how to make a profit from the tons of eyeballs they need to just shut their proverbial doors. They can charge for advertising of all different types. They can charge for not showing any ads, they can charge for features on a profile that do not directly affect the voting algorithm, they can charge for access to some of the analytics (if they are careful), they can charge for access to their API, sites like Twitter and Facebook can charge for extra features on business related pages, they can charge for conferences, they can charge for merch, and I could go on forever. The truth is that there are endless ways they can make money without charging for the basic services. For the most part they need to stay free or their integrity will be questioned.

API run services
I have always thought that websites should be charged for access to another websites API. Then services that run off of the API can be more dependable as well as more powerful. This would also make it more understandable for the API dependent services to charge their users. If an API does something that saves me some time and makes my business more efficient, I have zero problem with some $5 a month charge. $5 a month times a few thousand users adds up pretty fast. Make that a few million users and that service can make insane amounts of money.

Pro Run Social Media Accounts
As a person who gets paid to run some of the social networking accounts of my clients, I must insist that I get paid for the work I do. Would I pay for someone to run my accounts? At this point I think it might make people question my integrity. However, if you had an a-list band, ran a shoe store, had a HVAC company, or had a major motion picture opening soon, you would be stupid to not hire someone to handle that for you. You have more important things to do. Plus, someone like me will be able to do it better than you since you have so little experience in this. Since I sit around all day and do nothing but this, I am going to be able to do it better and more efficiently. Most of us can cut meat up, but hire a butcher and they will show you how a pro does it.

In closing
So there are elements of social networking that you should NEVER pay for, but there are things you SHOULD pay for as well. You have to use a little common sense to pick which is which. If you have questions, ask an expert. That is what they are there for. No, really… ASK ME!

Don’t Forget The Social In Social Networking

Social

This could also be titled, “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” I follow a ton of people on social networks. So many that there is always someone asking me to go vote for their photo in a photo contest, their baby in a baby contest, and of course their band in a battle of the bands contest. Why should I care about the thing you care about?

Understand what you are asking me to do. Most of the time I have to register to some site I don’t care about, give them my personal info (so they can sell it to some spammer), and then vote for this thing I couldn’t give two shits about.

Now it may seem like I’m saying this just to be an asshole, but I do have a point. Keep in mind that people will feel like they have to go vote for that “cute” baby picture if you have voted on their stuff. Have you been active on their site? Have you shared a link of theirs? If so they will probably be active on the stuff you want them to be active on. That is what social media is all about. So go post a comment on their blog. Spread a link to someone else’s site on your Twitter and Facebook. Scream it loud and proud. Make sure to make a big enough deal about them that they want to return the favor.

Oh, and if you want me to feel the need to help promote your stuff just be active on HeavyAsHell.com. That is what I’m passionate about. If someone was to start submitting links there and spreading the HAH link around to get votes, I would have no choice but to do everything in my power to help them with what they needed help promoting. I say this only to make a point. In social media, cheerleading begets cheerleading. If you work your ass off to promote others, they will work their ass off to promote you.

In closing, if I didn’t vote for that thing you wanted me to vote on there might have been a reason. If I go out of my way to help someone and they do not return the favor, I don’t do shit for them until they do. Most won’t admit it, but they are the same way. So don’t forget the social part of social networking. I don’t give a shit about your thing, but I’ll pretend to if you pretend to care about my stuff. Deal?

You ever get so tired that you loose any shred of common sense? Well, if I had any common sense I would head for bed right now. Instead I need to get a rant out of my head. Facebook has two “features” that their users seem to confuse. One of them is the great “like” button. This is for when someone you follow says, posts, or submits something you like. You have nothing intelligent to say about it, but you agree, enjoy, or somehow are reacting in a positive manner to said item. It keeps people from the ultra-retarded comments like “good post” or “cool”. Nothing intelligent to say? Just click the like button and shut the hell up. Good stuff.

Another feature is the ability to create a fan page for anything. On the surface this seems like a good idea. I can create a fan page for the Teamsters Union and find other Teamsters brothers and sisters from around the country (yes, I am a proud card carrying member). I can maybe create a fan page for the cartoon The Tick and find other fans of this cult comic. When used like this it is a great thing. Maybe if they limited people to only being able to create one or two fan pages this thing would not have gotten so out of control. Now we have fan pages that would have been better submitted as simple comments. There are fan pages of “George Bush is a Douche”. Now of course I agree that George Bush is a douche. If I see someone say that I will click the like button in a second. I will not however clutter my Facebook profile with ten million fan page memberships of everything I dislike. Do we really need a fan page for farting? Do I need to connect with other people who like to fart? What good does it do for me to connect with others who would join a fan page for “Sex”? I am married and my wife is the only one who needs to know what a fan I am of sex. I don’t see the benefit of networking with other people who join a fan page of “Hating Will Ferrel”. Now you all know that I have a passionate hatred for Will Ferrel that would give any psychologist a lifetime of research, but I would not get anything out of connecting with others who see him as the talentless hack he is.

Maybe I don’t get it. I use Facebook to network, communicate, and maybe find old friends I have lost contact with. I don’t need busy work. I want to share cool articles I find, educate myself a little, find good music , and plan a meet up or two. I don’t have time to kill. I don’t need clutter, noise, or shiny things to distract me. This misuse of the fan page has made me loose interest in joining any fan page on Facebook at all. It has ruined it for me! I’m afraid that if I join one that does have a purpose it will open a Pandora’s Box I could never close. If I accept a fan page that I think might have something to offer me, I am afraid I will be turned into a zombie that joins every fan page that I think is “cute” or “witty”.

The thing I really wonder is, doesn’t it destroy all impact if you just go click happy and join and “like” everything. Are we really communicating or have we turned into placating robots that are not really even paying attention to each other. If that is the case then the social networking experiment has already failed.

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.

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

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

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

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