Top 10 Mistakes Musicians Make Online That Turn Off Fans & Industry (and how to fix them) Co- written by Ariel Hyatt & Jon Ostrow of Cyber PR

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1 1 Top 10 Mistakes Musicians Make Online That Turn Off Fans & Industry (and how to fix them) Co- written by Ariel Hyatt & Jon Ostrow of Cyber PR Over the last several years, social media has become the buzzword for hopeful independent musicians who are attempting to build a fan base and become established within the industry. There is no doubt that an effective use of social media can and, as seen many times before, does lead to success. In fact several of the biggest artists in the world, such as Justin Bieber, One Direction and Macklemore, all established their own rabid fan bases by leveraging social media on a consistent basis. But social media can be a double-edged sword. While it can lead to a bigger, more dedicated fan base than ever before, social media will only truly be effective if you understand the best practices, so that each and every action you take on social media is optimized to increase your engagement, visibility and influence. The following are the top 10 mistakes that we see all too many musicians make. These mistakes can be detrimental to your overall marketing plan, as they not only won t work, but they could even turn off both your fans and the industry to ever supporting you at the level needed to lead to success. 1) You Do Not Have a Facebook Fan Page Absolutely the biggest mistake that we see independent musicians make to use their personal profile on Facebook to promote their music rather than setting up a Facebook Fan Page. Although there are several reasons why a fan page is really the only option for building a fan page on Facebook, the MOST important reason is that a Facebook fan page gives you access to Facebook Insights. Facebook s free suite of analytics tools allows you to analyze the demographics of your fan base, and to ensure that your

2 2 content strategy is actually working. Without analytics, each post you publish to Facebook is a shot in the dark. 2) You Are Using a 3rd Party App for FB Facebook has made a clear distinction in the guidelines surrounding the use of 3rd party applications (such as Hootsuite) to publish and schedule content. According to the EdgeRank Algothrim (the system Facebook has put in place to determine what does, and doesn t show up in your News Feed), any Facebook post from a 3rd party application is likely to receive up to 67% LESS engagement ( likes, comments, shares). 3) You are Posting on Facebook Too Often Several studies have shown that the optimal number of posts to your Facebook fan page per day is 1 post (or 2 at most if you have established a strong level of engagement). It is understandable to feel that you should be posting as often as possible, especially because of even more recent studies that show that most fan pages have less than 1% of fans actually engaging with posts. The strategy that you NEED to be focusing on is that making sure the 1 post you publish per day is the best it can be, so that it nurtures engagement and helps to build your brand, rather than posting as often as possible in hopes that some of your posts will land. Quality is most certainly the key here, not quantity. 4) You Are Cross-Posting Your Tweets to your Facebook page (or Vice Versa to Save Yourself Time) By connecting your Twitter account to your Facebook page, you re doing three things wrong: 1. The first is that you will be likely to go WAY over the limit of Facebook posts (being that it is good to tweet at least 5-6 times per day) which can hurt your overall visibility and engagement from your Facebook fan page. 2. The second is that by posting tweets to your Facebook page, you re not directly engaging with your fans ON Facebook. Again, this is likely to hurt your engagement Copyright (c) 2013 Ariel Hyatt and Ariel Publicity, Artist Relations, and Booking, LLC. All rights reserved. Course materials are to be used as a reference only and may not be duplicated, printed, reproduced, posted, modified, distributed or sold, in whole or in part, without the express prior written consent of Ariel Hyatt.

3 levels, which will make it less likely that Facebook s EdgeRank algorithm will display your future posts in the News Feed of your fans. 3. The third is that Twitter is focused purely on text, meanwhile Facebook has openly acknowledged that posts that focus on multimedia such as photos and videos are FAR more likely to be displayed in the News Feed and engaged with. 3 5) You Only Send Your Newsletter When You Have Something To Sell or Promote A newsletter is a critical component of a digital marketing strategy. By capturing the addresses of your fans, they are giving you permission to connect with them directly, and more personally, than you likely would through social media. Don t damage this level of trust that your fans have given to you by only focusing on selling to them. You should be creating a newsletter that gives your fans something personal from you (even if it is just a letter about what you re currently doing in your life). And this newsletter should be released on a consistent frequency (once per month is good!) whether you have something to sell or not. 6) You Are Using BCC In Your to Send Your Newsletter Believe it or not, but this is actually illegal. You MUST give your newsletter subscribers the opportunity to opt-out, and this is something that any legitimate newsletter management service (such as Fanbridge, Mail Chimp or Reverbnation) will do. Even more importantly though, by just using the BCC in your to send out a newsletter, you are losing out on two important opportunities. The first is the branding that a customized template can give you, so that you can further establish the look, feel and message that you have created on your website and social networks. The second is the analytics, which will allow you to see how many people are opening & clicking through and just exactly who these people are so that you can be sure all of your newsletter efforts maximized.

4 7) You are Self-Promoting WAY Too Much on Twitter and Facebook, and Not Starting Authentic Two-Way Engaging Conversations 4 The fact that social media can be used as free promotion has somewhat soiled the minds of many independent musicians working on creating a digital strategy. So let s get something straight... Social media is a conversation tool, NOT a broadcast tool. You CAN promote yourself through Facebook and Twitter, but there is an etiquette to it what is considered shameless self-promotion, where only one in every 10 posts should be about yourself. Everything else should be about other people you support, things your passionate about and anything related to creating a stronger connection and conversation with your fans. Split your social conversations into 2 separate groupings - to be successful you must constantly go between group 1 and 2 Group 1: Content - group one is the content that you post (either scheduled or not) and the posts that you point out these can be programmed over time and well thought out in advance. With group one you want to be consistently measuring what works for you and what helps to build your brand. Group 2: Interaction - these are your ask your retweets and your responses to people on platforms Facebook conversations and post on blogs - the interactions are what should be feeding the rest of your social choices 8) Your Website Is Completely Out of Date As mentioned already, social media is a conversation tool. The ideal strategy is to build conversations with new and existing fans through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. and then to funnel them back to your website. It is here on your own website where you can further engage your fans with your blog and ultimately capture their address so you can connect (and sell) to them directly. Your website should do the following: - Be setup without flash - It should load in 3.5 seconds - It should have a blog so that new and returning fans are greeted with new content on a consistent bases - It should have a bribe where you offer your fans something exclusive and enticing in exchange for their addresses. Copyright (c) 2013 Ariel Hyatt and Ariel Publicity, Artist Relations, and Booking, LLC. All rights reserved. Course materials are to be used as a reference only and may not be duplicated, printed, reproduced, posted, modified, distributed or sold, in whole or in part, without the express prior written consent of Ariel Hyatt.

5 5 9) You Don t Know How to Have Engaging Conversations Just having a conversation isn t enough to keep your fans around (and wanting more). Make sure that you are focusing the conversations you have with your fans on things that both you, and your fans, are passionate about. Passion will fuel the fire needed to build a stronger, more loyal fan base. 10) You Don t Understand The Basics of Twitter (@, RT, #, etc.) Once you get the hang of Twitter, it is incredibly easy (and fast) to use. It is this reason that people love it and it has remained as one of the most important social networks for several years. But there is no doubt that Twitter has a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the language used. Making sure you understand the following terms to maximize your understanding and use of = at. Used to speak at someone (i.e. loved your recent article about Facebook engagement!), or used to say where you are (i.e. I for a concert tonight!) RT = re-tweet. A great way to share new content and highlight others who you are connected to is to re-tweet something that they have recently tweeted out. To do so, Twitter has created a re-tweet button. However, if you d like to add a comment in with the tweet, you can copy and paste the original tweet and add RT at the beginning (i.e. Couldn t agree more! loved your recent article about Facebook engagement ) # = hashtag. A hashtag is a searchable tool that you can incorporate within your tweets, which may you (or others) to join into a conversation about a single topic. There are two hashtags that are widely used that could be great for you to focus on: #mm (music Monday) where you can shine the spotlight on other musicians and media makers that you like. #ff (follow Friday) where you can again shine the spotlight on musicians, media makers, friends and all around great tweeters that you d like your followers to check out.

6 6 In Conclusion: The conclusion is also sort of the 11th mistake that a vast majority of artists make: You quit while you're ahead because you get hung up on the ROI and you're not focusing on the intangible gold. What we mean by intangible gold is the long-term value of a true interaction with the budding fan. The process of building an effective online platform (We at Cyber PR refer to this as your social media house takes a minimum of year. During this year you need to post regularly and consistently to instill trust from your tribe. Two interactions takes time and many of you think you don't have any to dedicate. We are here to tell you that those musicians who took the time are the ones who are reaping the benefits. Copyright (c) 2013 Ariel Hyatt and Ariel Publicity, Artist Relations, and Booking, LLC. All rights reserved. Course materials are to be used as a reference only and may not be duplicated, printed, reproduced, posted, modified, distributed or sold, in whole or in part, without the express prior written consent of Ariel Hyatt.

7 7 About: This Report was co- written by Ariel Hyatt & Jon Ostrow of Cyber PR Ariel Hyatt is the founder of Cyber PR, and a recognized thought leader in the digital PR world. An international speaker, educator, and author of three books on social media and marketing for artists. Her innovative and trademarked Cyber PR process marks the intersection of social media with engaged behavior, PR, and online marketing. Her groundbreaking PR methods coupled with her vast experience as an esteemed new media educator enable her to effectively and accessibly initiate her clients into the evergrowing world of digital PR. Jon Ostrow is the Campaigns Director at Cyber PR. He is also the Co-Founder of the popular marketing blog MicControl, and has spent the better part of the last five years engrossed in the world of social media marketing, branding, and blogging. Jon s writing has been featured on Mashable, Hypebot, Music Think Tank, CD Baby, and SongTrust. He has been a featured panelist at CMJ, SXSW, New Music Seminar, and a mentor at the NFL Music Business Bootcamp.

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9 9 Cyber PR Campaigns: We offer digital publicity campaigns that help get your name and brand online. Cyber PR has changed the course of my life and my career. I have worked with a dozen publicists over the last several years, and none of them gave me 1/10 as much value as the Cyber PR team. Ariel Hyatt has turned me into a thought leader, and her team has gotten me more media exposure in a few months than I had in the last decade put together. - Dr. Kent Gustavson, Award-Winning Author, Musician & Founder of Blooming Twig Books Visit Our Website for details: