More Artists Should Be Doing This

...or at least more things like this.

ZZ Ward is a relatively new and upcoming artist, already making a big name for herself in the few short years she's been on the scene. Now, she / her management are making an even smarter name for herself with her newest app.

The app, called "365 Days of ZZ Ward," launches when a fan opts to visit her website. The fan is prompted to connect with their Facebook account, and the app searches their Facebook timeline to find the first time they liked or discovered ZZ on Facebook. These findings are posted to a timeline featuring ZZ on her website. Fans are encouraged to finish a checklist of items that are considered contributions to their ZZ timeline. These various checkpoints are all items that help spread the word about ZZ (e.g. liking her on FB, following on Twitter, sharing videos, etc.).

Fans can also earn points by making contributions, which can be redeemed for rewards.

This app is not only a great way for fans to easily spread the word about ZZ, but it's also a fun way for fans to connect with ZZ and feel like they have a real relationship through supporting her. More artists might find themselves in happier situations with their fans if they were willing to work with a developer over something like this.

My Social Media No-No's

I'm about due for a little rant session. Please don't mind me as I stick my nose in the air for a few moments and rant about some things I see happening (that shouldn't be) on various social media platforms.

1. Unrelated Commenting on Statuses / Photos / Links / Etc.
When one makes a particular post about something (usually on Facebook), I see many people making comments unrelated to the post like "OMG, i havent seen you in 4eva, how u been?" or "Do you remember where I left my keys?". Not only are these comments a distraction from the topic at hand, but the person making these comments is now forcing everyone else who has already commented to read what they are saying, via notifications. Please, be respectful of other users and save these types of comments for a wall post or private message.

Which leads me to my next point...
2. Don't Kill a Thread
This one is near and dear to my heart, since there are several people who I am very close to in the real world who LOVE to do this to me in the virtual world. I'm not funny very often, but when people actually catch on to what I'm saying and continue a fun thread, please don't be that guy. Don't be the person who kills the thread by saying "I don't get it" or "[insert unrelated comment in reference to rule #1 here]" or "actually, the rate at which a hamburger would hit the wall would be defined by the force it was thrown x the velocity of the burger x gravity." Whatever.

3. aLtErNaTiNg UpPeR / LoWeRcAsE lEtTeRs
We are not in 5th grade anymore, and this isn't MSN Messenger. Stop it.

ALSO, TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS JUST MAKES IT SEEM LIKE ONE IS YELLING AT EVERYONE ALL THE TIME, AND THEY ARE KILLING THE ACTUAL INTENT OF EMPHASIS FOR EVERYONE ELSE. IF YOU CAN'T SEE VERY WELL, CHANGE THE DEFAULT TEXT SIZE IN YOUR BROWSER.

4. Grammar Policing
I am a proud Grammar Nazi, but there's a time and a place. Don't ruin someone's fun and/or interesting post just to inform them they spelled something wrong, or used the wrong form of "there/their/they're." DON'T post a grammatical correction when that's the only thing you have to say. At the very most, privately message them if it bothers you so badly, but don't make both you and the writer look bad.

5. Leave Hashtags Where They Belong
This is one that I've heard from a couple social media gurus, but it's not necessarily one I care about a whole lot. Regardless, the concept of hashtags are essentially a Twitter invention used to create a metadata tag, and is part of what makes Twitter unique. On the other hand, because cross-posting has become so simple 1) since all platforms have become connected and 2) with the use of applications like Hootsuite, it's hard not to end up with hashtags here and there across mediums. Just bear in mind that the use of hashtags is intended for sites like Twitter and Instagram, and the use of them elsewhere may annoy some other users (including text messages. Just. GAHHHHH).

6. Don't Respond Poorly to Negative Feedback
Unfortunately, it happens. There's always someone who doesn't like anything, and if you're going to be posting about a heated topic, brace yourself for some angry slapback. Take the high road by ignoring the comment or responding intelligently; a simple "F U" doesn't support your case, and can make you look like a prick. On a related note, post positively and intelligently on others' posts that differ from your own opinion, and ignore the opinionated (often political) posts that are written out of sheer anger.

And finally, most importantly...
7. If You Don't Want Something to Exist on the Internet, Don't Post it in the First Place!
The ease of sharing photos on nearly every social media platform has made it really easy for people (mostly high school and college students) to post some really stupid stuff. Once something is on the Internet, it's there for good - no matter how quickly it is taken down (just ask Justin Bieber about this - he is a professional at "oops! Shouldna posted that!" posting). For the love of everything that is holy, DON'T post incriminating pictures of yourself passed out in your friends' front yard last Saturday night, or rudely vent about a specific person / business in a way you may come to regret later (words can come back to haunt you!).

So in a nutshell, those are a few of the biggest things I see that annoy me on social media platforms. What about you - what are some things you see, but wish you didn't have to?

Niche

Just one more reason to find a niche and stick to it:

Facebook Competitors May Be Slowing Growth of World's Largest Social Network

FB just doesn't have the addict appeal that it used to - at least not for me, anyway. It's come to the point where it's everywhere, and it makes it kind of annoying to be around. To top it off, half the posts cluttering up news feeds are fake, nonsense, or just plain junk.

FB is still good for creeping on "friends" from high school, but it seems to have lost its touch in every other aspect of social media.

Answers to My Struggles

I've been struggling a lot lately (with all of my blogs) to come up with relevant and interesting content to blog about. Fortunately, while cruising through my Twitter feed this morning, I bumped into a wonderful answer to my problems.

How to Use Keyword Tools to Brainstorm Blog Topics

I know what I'll be doing this afternoon!

Using LinkedIn to get a Job

I'm pooped.

Here's a cool article from somebody else:

http://newgradlife.blogspot.com/2009/12/use-linkedin-to-get-job.html?goback=%2Egde_2250783_member_232451239

Courtesy: Angela Astley, New Grad Life

#Music Coming to Twitter

"There's no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day. We can't wait to share what we've been working on at Twitter."

Truth, mostly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9994422/Twitter-Music-coming-soon-officially.html

It's nice to see an official music app coming to Twitter, which will hopefully streamline the many different ways artists are already sharing their music on the site. If it's user-friendly and eye-catching, followers of artists who aren't yet die-hard fans may be more likely to listen to their music and enjoy it.

Next up, Pinterest?

UPDATE: Twitter Music invite-only, for now. Go figure.
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/1557356/updated-twitter-music-app-invite-only-for-now

Maximizing Social Media Presence at Events

This article is all about ways to maximize your social media presence before, during, and after an event. It's mainly targeted toward social media during conferences, but some of the ideas can be used to events like concerts, too.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/maximize-the-social-media-presence-at-your-next-event/

Some of these things I tried when promoting my last show, like blowing up a particular hashtag. It's hard in a town like this, when few people in your target market are active on Twitter.

I also like the idea of having a social media "command center," even at a small event. I could have stood to have one of my workers at my last show checking in on foursquare and blasting on Twitter and Facebook while I was busy getting everything together.

And wouldn't it be cool to take the idea of tweeting questions at a conference, and turn it into tweeting improv suggestions to performers? Eh??

Google Reader No More

I'm really sad about this. Google will no longer be supporting its RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader after July 1st of this year. I'm not really sure why, but it's a bummer that I'll have to find some other way to get all of my regular-visited news sites / blogs into one place.

Thinking about it more, RSS seems to have been not much more than a fad. For a while, every blog and website you went to had an RSS button, making it easy to add each site to one's reader. Now, you have to search to find a link to the feeder URL (or whatever it's called), and some places don't even have one at all.

Time to evolve with the rest of the internet, I suppose!

Formulas for Success: The Lonely Island

See what I said about not always being serious? :)

Disclaimer: The videos in this post may be explicit.

The Lonely Island is a comedy troupe comprised of Andy Samberg (SNL) and his two buddies, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. The group is best known for its raunchy and/or ridiculous topics, lyrics, and music videos, and has been featured several times on SNL, thanks to Samberg's connection.

On the Success Meter, The Lonely Island sits somewhere near a 7. The group is definitely nationally recognized, but not in a "I'm going to sit my kids down and watch this" kind of way. The group reaches out to primarily high school and college crowds, but is incredibly popular with those age groups.

Here's a few things that I think add to the success equation for Lonely Island:

1. Catchy / Cover-able Music
The tune you hear in an LI song might be something you'd hear on a Top Forty radio station, but the lyrics usually aren't. But it's the catchiness of those tunes that makes the stuff so popular for the demographic LI reaches out to.

The lyrics and concepts of the songs are generally so outrageous, that it's hard not to be amused by the ideas.

Good hooks and tunes make their music catchy enough to be cover-able (again, by the right demographic):


2. Collaboration
LI collaborates with everyone. Everyone who is an artist that's been on the Top Forty, anyway. LI has collaborated with a wide range of artists, from T-Pain to Michael Bolton, and most notably and often, Justin Timberlake. To top it off, the group is usually able to convince the artists to do ridiculous things they may not otherwise try.

Like convincing Adam Levine to run down a busy street wearing a cape and an anti-aliens tin foil hat, carrying a big "YOLO" sign:


Or convincing Michael Bolton to pretend to be a "major cinephile" and dress like Captain Jack Sparrow:


3. Viral Videos
I think the videos are what make LI's songs what they really are, and apparently others agree. The above YOLO vid was published Jan. 26. It is currently 1:09 pm (CST), and the vid has received over 3.5 million views... I would say that's viral.

Samberg's connections with SNL boost views greatly, and their videos saturate social media networks, which are chock full of high school and college students.

4. Sampling
We've already covered that LI's tunes are catchy, and here's why:

The majority of LI's most popular songs have been sampled from other popular songs. They've even sampled from some of their own songs, which were sampled from somewhere else. LI doesn't deny this, and has given credit to artists they sample from on their YouTube postings. This boosts popularity for some of the less popular artists, too.

You can see a complete list of LI's sampled stuff here.

So, there you have it: My opinions of why The Lonely Island has received the success it has over the past few years.

Let me know if you think I'm right, or if you've got an opinion of your own!

Spotify Still Growing

I've lost interest with Spotify. I have a hard time justifying paying money for a service that I can find elsewhere. Granted, Spotify takes the functions of iTunes, Pandora, YouTube, and the new MySpace and puts them all into one place, and can be used on a mobile device. I will say I sometimes miss having Spotify playlists on long car rides, but half the time I didn't have good enough signal to use it anyway.

But just because I've lost interest doesn't mean everyone else has. Spotify doesn't seem to have any issues with expanding:

Spotify Continues Expansion with New Orange Deal

Lucky Europeans getting all the cool free stuff first.

Anyway, I've replaced my $9.99 monthly Spotify payments with a $9.99 monthly payment to HootSuite Pro, which I feel is a better investment now that I'm running two (maybe soon to be three) blogs and social media sites for myself and several organizations (and my cat). If you've never tried HootSuite, I really advise you to go check it out (there are free versions too)!

Pets on Social Media

There are some people who have a problem with pets on Facebook and Twitter. Some say it's illegal (maybe so, but I don't see FB cracking down), others say the pet owners have lost their minds (also possible). Maybe it's annoying, unnecessary, or just plain stupid. So explain to me...

Why in the world are people so willing to "friend" and "follow" animals on social media?

Knowing an animal must be voiced by a real person (a stranger, no less), people are still more likely to friend said animal than they would said stranger in their natural human form. But it's hard to say why. "Talking" animals aren't a novelty in this decade, and most of these animals aren't saying anything a human wouldn't. So where's the draw?

I shouldn't make this sound like I'm anti-pets on social media. That would make me a hypocrite. I'm just curious about what makes us, as humans, so attracted to these kinds of fronts that are simply hiding other humans.

What do you think? Are you opposed to pets on Facebook and Twitter, or do you think it's fun? Where do you stand?

P.S. You can find my own front on Facebook and Twitter :)

Successful Blogging

This is an incredibly long, but useful, article. Something I could definitely take a few things from.

I think numbers 2, 3, 12, 13, 15, and 22 are the most useful tips (for me) in this article.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-essentials-for-blogging-success-what-you-need-to-know/

The home of this article - www.socialmediaexaminer.com - is a great site in general. It has a lot of great tips and know-how on the growing social media world.