Companies are flocking to Social Media like tweens to a High School Musical convention. It’s viewed as the magic pill that transforms you from fool to cool faster than a PSA announcing you’re Zach Efron’s new BFF. The problem is that once companies realize that creating a profitable and reputable Social Media presence actually requires effort and communication, they give up.

If you want to separate your business from every one of your competitors in the social media sphere, you absolutely must be consistent!

Customers appreciate and respect reliability.  If you have commitment issues with your Twitter account (you go multiple days or weeks without even a text), you suffer from blog neglect (inconsistent and less-than useful posts), or you Facebook abandonment, you’re doing it wrong.

If you’re not willing to put in the effort to provide useful, interesting content on a consistent basis, you may want to reconsider using Social Media at all.

This week at Blog World, Social Media tycoons, Patrick O’Keefe; writer, web developer, entrepreneur, community administrator and author of ManagingCommunities.com, Amber Naslund; Director of Community at Radian6 and blogger at Altitude Branding, Wayne Sutton; Partner at OurHashtag and blogger at SocialWayne.com and Robert Scoble; Managing Director at Building43.com at Rackspace and blogger at Scobleizer will be presenting on this and many other social media mistakes made by so many new media n00bs attempting to use this new forum to help their business. You would do well to pay attention to their mad internet skillz.

Last week, I presented at SMCUV with some great friends and incredibly smart marketers, Seth Jenks and Nate Kartchner. We presented strategies and tools to help build a reliable social media strategy and manage your online reputation.

Here’s a look at Nate’s presentation on tools to use to build solid a social media presence, as well as Seth’s list of tools to create an awesome listening tool to help you manage both positive and negative feedback being posted about you on the web.

I had the privilege of speaking on having a cohesive online and offline marketing strategy.  I’m a firm believer that if you want to get the most out of an online social media campaign, you must be practicing the same mentality in the analog world.  Empower your clients and employees to talk about you however they see fit. Give them reasons to talk about you positively. Make them your advocates.

Andy Sernovitz gives some great ideas on the principle of empowerment on his blog. If more companies followed his lead on this, they would have so much more success and loyalty it might just blow their minds.

It’s also important to know who your target audience is.  If you are selling hearing aids, Twitter may not be the best forum for you, as the majority of your market has only heard of the micro-blogging platform at random moments from their favorite Fair and Balanced news station.

You need to make sure you’re paying attention to the right people with the right influence, as Janet Meiners-Thaeler explains on her site. Find your niche of advocates who are willing to talk for you, endorse you and especially trust you. If you’re willing to do this, even if the group is small, your efforts will be rewarded.

Slides from my presentation are forthcoming…

Special thanks to Costa Vida Fred for sharing his time and expertise with us in the Q&A session. What a champ!

Jump on the bandwagon.

I’ve been having some discussions with a good friend of mine over the past few weeks regarding social media.  He just got back from a conference in Arizona.  The conference was full of CEO’s and corporate executives who were (in his words), “drooling over social media,” and he was not at all happy about it.

It seems that as social media has become a more mainstream method of advertising, corporate leaders have begun to  interpret the phenomenon as a magic moneymaking pill. They assume that if they have a Twitter account, or a Facebook fan page that the dollah-billz will just start pouring in.

If history has proven one thing, it’s that there are no magic bullets or secret formulas.  Adapting this incorrect opinion of social media is foolishness.

Social media cannot make a crappy product, a poorly run business, or a weak marketing plan successful.  It’s possible that your product is amazing, your company is groundbreaking and your marketing is visionary, and that social media still isn’t meant for you.

The catch 22 right now is that social media marketing is something that the early adapters don’t want to miss out on, but it’s so new that there are currently very few ways to measure ROI.

So, before committing to jumping on the social media bandwagon, make sure you have goals in mind and a defined value that you would like to glean from your efforts.  Without some sort of metric to track or goal to measure, your efforts in social media will be hollow and fruitless. And, just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you should be doing it.

Twitter has received a lot of criticism for their inability to retain the majority of their users on a long-term basis.  A few months ago, Marketing Pilgrim featured a research study done by The Nelson Company proving that roughly 60% of users who sign up for Twitter fail to return to the service after about a month.  Those who actually use Twitter on a regular basis blew a gasket.  They couldn’t believe it.  However, after working with hundreds of people and businesses in the past few months, evangelizing the worth of Twitter with a fury and passion, I can honestly say I’ve seen the same trend.  People just get discouraged with Twitter. They sign up full of excitement from the hype, but quickly lose momentum and interest when they don’t understand the lingo, or how to get people to follow them.  They hit what I like to call “The Twitter Road Block.”

Overcoming the road block really only requires persistence.  There are also a few tools that will definitely make the transition through the Twitter Road Block much easier:

Twitter Search

Twitter has a service called Twitter Search which allows you to search for Tweets with specific words in them.  The coolest thing about Twitter Search is that you can subscribe to specific search queries using RSS.  Or rather, you can track multiple specific keywords at the same time via your Feed Reader.  Think about it this way. Lets say you’re the president of McDonalds and you want to work on client retention and customer service.  You could search for negative words associated with your product or company name, like “Hate McDonalds” or “:( McDonalds”.  You could then subscribe to the feed, and you will be notified every time someone sends out a negative Tweet about your company.  You can then fix it.

Little do you know, whether you like it or not, people are talking about you, your company and your products on Twitter right now.  Time to start watching who, and talking back.

Don’t stop there though! Search for things you’re interested in and start talking to people who are interested in the same thing!  Twitter is a forum for discussion.  Most people leave because they have nobody to talk to.  The best way to build a great reputation for yourself on Social Media is to be social! Be the person who talks to everyone.  That is how you will gain the most value from Twitter, and how you will brake through that frustrating initial Twitter Road Block!

Ingrid Michaelson - Genius Marketer

My last post was about how musicians can use social media to market themselves on the internet. Today I found an incredible example demonstrating the very same creativity I referred to in my post.

Ingrid Michaelson is giving away a song from her upcoming album to anyone who signs up for her email list! And, she doesn’t stop there.  For every additional person you refer (up to 3) she will allow you to download another free song from her album.  That’s 4 free songs!

Is it worth it?

Well, not only is she getting the contact information of people who are fans of her music, but she’s getting solid referrals from the fans themselves of other potential fans… and all for the price of a song or two.  To Ingrid, sharing her music with people who love it, and finding better ways to communicate with her fans is obviously a priority.

Joshua James

Let’s face it. It’s rare for a serious musician to care about much else besides their music.  Often times that’s all they care about.  The problem with this is that music alone doesn’t really put money in the bank, or food on the table.  If you plan to make a living out of being a musician, here are some easy steps to follow to build yourself a fan-base and potentially make a living off of your trade.

• People aren’t going to pay to listen to you unless they know what you sound like. Get your music out there! Use the the internet to show off your mad skills.  There are hundreds of niche music blogs and music discovery sites out there.  Start up a conversation with a blogger interested in your genre of music and get him to feature some of your tunes.  Upload some of your songs to a discovery site and let the world enjoy the fruits of your hard work, talent and creativity.
• Get on Twitter! Seriously… do it. And once you’re on, USE IT! Myspace only goes so far, and seriously limits your communication to a small demographic of friends and fans.  Twitter, on the other hand, has helped bridge the gap between artist and fan in an unbelievable way.  It gives you the chance to let your guard down and show people who you really are.  And trust me, they appreciate that… otherwise John Mayer wouldn’t be one of the top Twitter users. (And if you need a little extra motivation, read this article. It’s worth it, I promise.)
• Don’t be afraid to give your music away.  Easy now! Before you get your undies in a bind about gifting away all of your hard work, let me explain myself.  When I say, “Give your music away.” I don’t mean all of it.  Give your fans (and potential fans) a taste of your goodness.  Let them download a song or two so they can share it with their friends.  Let them get excited about it.  They’re more likely to come back for more.
• Being successful as a musician, an artist or finding success in any other industry requires one to obtain fans.  Your fans are people who are passionate about your product.  In the musician’s case, they are the people who buy all of your CD’s and ask for autographs when they see you in the restaurant.  They collect bits of your uneaten food that are up for auction on eBay, and fight for the old guitar pick you throw into the audience during your show. Kevin Kelley says if you can get yourself 1,000 true fans, you can make a living from your art.
• Practice talking to people.  I know being the mysterious, creative, introvert artist gets you all the hipster girls, but all too often the shy artists get overlooked because they come off as arrogant or just plain unmarketable.  Don’t be afraid to approach fans.  When they approach you, be gracious and smile.  If they talk to you on Twitter… talk back.  If they send you an e-mail, reply.  The little things go a long way, especially when building a fan base. The personality you gain from talking to everyone who loves your music will just make you appeal even more to the people with the big pocketbooks and important venues.

Welp, there you have it. Five awesome tips to successfully marketing your music. With a little hard work, friendly conversation and some sharing, you can get your project off the ground and into a venue, or maybe even a tour!  Be yourself. Share what you love.  Keep creating. Best of luck!

Feel free to share any other marketing ideas for musicians or other artists in the comments!