Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
Good morning, friends. May this day be filled with firecrackers and assorted jabs to the fragile jaws of your airborne enemies.
Okay, so this wasn’t really written on this blog in 2013, but it’s something I posted to Twitter, which someday won’t exist. If I don’t pay my hosting bill, this will go away. I don’t have much say about the future of Twitter, but MySpace, AOL Music, and RDIO all came and went.
I don’t think it’s possible to “do a media site” these days without engaging with an audience. My favorite barometer of this? I can visit most any US city and have lunch with someone. Or crash on their couch. That’s from 10+ years of doing music blogs.
I don’t care about 80k followers. I care about 100 people I can get coffee with.
To move to the next stage in the social media evolution, brands need to start focusing on actively engaging their fans over a sustained period of time. An active fan is one who has a relationship with a brand and, at least once a month, reacts to posts on the brand page, indicates a liking for various content, retweets a brand’s messages or creates original content on the page.
I built Skull Toaster from the ground up based on the idea of engagement. The result? Paid subscribers and merch sales, with no banner ads, no Top 10 lists, and no SEO tactics.
If I can make $1 Tweeting metal trivia, you can increase your income by engaging your customers in human ways.
Coffee shop: engage with your customers about upcoming events and local issues instead of just Tweeting your specials.
Music lessons: send tips and links to artists you admire instead of just “new student specials!”
Musician or label: engage your fans about other stuff: baseball, ‘South Park,’ movies, video games.
Bike shop: engage your customers with amazing bike videos that you find online. Send out photos from recent rides.
It’s about more than hyping what you do (HEY, READ MY POST! WATCH OUR NEW VIDEO! 10% OFF AFTER 5PM!), and just being someone that people want to talk to.
And when people talk to one another, sometimes it leads to sales.
Or at least a coffee.
If you’re reading this, I probably @replied you and your band because you followed me (@sethw) on Twitter.
What you’re doing is the cyber-equivalent of handing me a CDR at a show and walking away.
A bit about me:
I played in all sorts of bands from 1991 to 2001.
I booked shows. I built websites for bands. I published zines.
I founded Buzzgrinder.com back in 2001.
I was the founding editor of Noisecreep.com for AOL Music.
In those 20 years I have never discovered or fallen in love with a band because someone handed me a CDR and walked away.
But during those 20 years I’ve made a lot of friends, and those friends were in bands, or ran labels or distros or booked shows. I discovered and fell in love with a lot of great bands because of that.
So if you think randomly following me on Twitter is going to help you, you’re wasting your time. And it’s a shame, because I know a lot of great people in the music industry, like publicists, engineers, A&R people, writers, editors, label owners, managers, bloggers, promoters, and tour managers.
Use this advice if you want. @reply me on Twitter, or shoot me an email.
Let’s be friends.
Then maybe I’ll listen to your music.