Rather than sending out a holiday card this year, we decided to put together a little song about social media and how we’re using it this Christmas season.
This is “Social Media Christmas 2008″, and it’s gonna be bigger than Kanye:
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts in this series, upcoming musicians need to be able to distinguish themselves. Social media has a great way of doing this, and those bands who embrace it will be rewarded.One of the best places for bands to connect with their fans is Buzznet. This music-based social network allows users and bands to create content and directly interact with one another. It would be easy to group Buzznet in with the likes of MySpace or Facebook, but Buzznet shines because of its niche appeal to the pop/indie rock market.
Additionally, Buzznet has shifted the focus away from the individual profile, allowing users to program content into groups that they are a part of. To quote Buzznet, their content is “more authentic, content rich and frequently updated than a website, and more interactive than a blog, Buzznet’s integrated media and community platform allows its users to network like never before with leading bands, trendsetters and their peers through self-created content, videos, photos and journals.”
Top 4 Features of Buzznet
BUZZ - Buzznet has a social voting feature built into the site. Any piece of content posted by someone on the site can be voted up, or “buzzed”. The most “buzzed” items are shown in the “buzzing” section on the main page.
Concerts - The concert section of Buzznet lets you search for concerts by your favorite band or locatio. You can add a concert to your calendar and share your plans to go with the Buzznet community.
Community - The community gives you constant live updates of what is going on at the site. You will see new photos being posted, new videos being posted, and what people are saying about them.
Buzznet Player - Of course a music community wouldl have an awesome music player. You can add any song that is on Buzznet to your personal music player. You can also import your entire iTunes list to stream through your Buzznet profile.
In the midst of the never-ending debate over digital downloading, it’s always refreshing to come upon an artist that just “gets it” and uses the social aspect of resources, like iTunes, toward their advantage. Take, for instance, 18 year old country singer Taylor Swift. Yes, that’s right, WOMM lessons from an 18 year old country singer, bare with me here…
Swift partnered with iTunes to create a countdown campaign for the release of her sophomore album, Fearless. Every week for a month before the release date, one new song would be available for download on iTunes. Each of these four tracks came with a vlog introduction that provided some background info about the song. When the entire album was available, on November 11th, fans were able to use the “complete my album” option to purchase the album at a discounted price, depending on the number of songs they purchased during the countdown campaign.
According to one argument, making four of the albums thirteen singles available before the release would deter fans from going to stores and purchasing the album in its entirety. However we, here at MGH WOM, beg to disagree. Making her tracks available before the album released prevented the CD from being leaked and got her fans buzzing early. There were positive reviews on the iTunes store before the album was even released! So, what was the verdict?
Well, Fearless debuted at #1 in Billboard’s Top 200 album chart and within the first week 592,304 copies were sold in stores alone, making it the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music. An additional 129,046 copies were sold digitally, making it the biggest country digital album debut in the history of Nielsen’s Soundscan. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the campaign was a success.
Artists should also take note of some other great WOM-friendly features already integrated into iTunes. Here are our top three:
3. Genius Tool - When users select a track from their iTunes library, genius will recommend similar style songs that users can purchase on the iTunes. This tool can expose an artist’s music to a whole new potential audience.
2. iChat Collaboration - Anyone that uses “iChat” has the ability to set a song from their iTunes library as their away message. This way, the song is exposed to everyone on their friends and friends can preview the song, with the option to purchase on the spot via a link to the artists’ album page on iTunes.
1. Top Songs - A way for artists to listen to their consumers. When deciding which tracks to release as singles, Swift looks to her own iTunes “Top Songs,” which measures the popularity of a song by the amount of purchases made. It’s no wonder every single that she’s released has been a top 40 hit on the Billboard hot 100…when you give your audience what they’re telling you they want, how can you go wrong? Every (smart) artist should be using iTunes for this purpose and every (smart) company should be looking for their own “iTunes Top Songs.”
I don’t have first hand accounts or cave drawings to back up this claim, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that bands and musical artists from as far back as the stone-age have been relying on word of mouth communication to get their music to adoring fans. I do however, know that more modern bands have taken advantage of this highly effective tactic.
Social media sites, in particular, have turned into the core element of marketing bands. This applies to both major label and smaller bands still looking for their break.
Social media has allowed bigger bands to bridge the disconnect between them and their fans. This makes them more approachable, and lets fans feel a more personal connection with them. Bands still struggling for their art are using social media to reach out to thousands of potential fans daily, and those who do it creatively have been quite successful with it.
In such a competitive landscape, under a struggling industry, I feel labels are beginning to understand what they need to do to make their brands (the bands) stand out, and more effectively reach consumers. With that being said, one post would not allow me to fully explore the topic. So, I will be posting a series of blog entries discussing it, including case studies, best practices, and the future of marketing in this niche market.
With everyone from moms to CEO’s jumping on the social media bandwagon, it’s important to remember the golden rule-”mind your manners”. Bad manners are creeping into social media sites, and brands are one of the main offenders.
Customers take note of their bad practices on these sites and react. According to this recent poll, only 18% of social media users trust social networking profiles from brands, showing that these brands are not succeeding in engaging their customers.
Below are a few guidelines that will help brands re-engage their customers through social media.
Looking to be Carnegie Hall’s next big star? Google has provided millions of musicians, all over the world, with the opportunity to audition online for the first ever YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
Google, which purchased YouTube in 2006, has created this opportunity to beef up YouTube’s content in effort to make the site more appealing to potential advertisers. According to this NY Times article, Google has been less than impressed with YouTube’s revenues.
Additionally, Google is also trying to expand YouTube’s current user base to include more diverse demographics.
Contestants have two options. First, they can submit audition tapes of their renditions of selected pieces composed by Tan Dunn, which will then be judged. Of those, the finalists will be pieced together to make the first YouTube Symphony Orchestra piece.
The other option for contestants is to pick tapes from a pre fixed list of pieces from various orchestras and upload their audition pieces. Those auditions will be judged by a panel and then voted on by YouTube users. Those winners will be flown to Carnegie Hall in April.
Google hopes that YouTube’s First Symphony Orchestra will diversify their site by providing content that is geared towards people of all ages. If you are interested in participating check it out here: www.youtube.com/symphony. The deadline for entries is Jan 28.
If you’re not using Joongel yet, you need to. According to their About page, Joongel provides direct search results from the ten most viewed websites in a specific subject or subcategory.Here’s what it looks like:
Just use the search bar like you would on any other site. With Joongel, instead of getting the results for, say, just Google Images, or only Yahoo Answers, you get the results from the top 10 sites for that category. Also, running a general search allows you to search for your subject across every category and every site in that category.
What’s great about Joongel is that you can do it all in one window. It allows you to not only save time, but may also help in your brand monitoring efforts as you may come across content that you normally would not have.
With online conversation dramatically increasing with every second, it is becoming wildly important for brands to stay on top of their online reputation.There are many tools that allow brands to monitor their reputation, and while brands can’t control what people are saying, they can at least make sure they are sending the right message.
No more surveys, no more focus groups, you can find out what people think of a certain brand by visiting BrandTags. The website shows you a logo and asks you to enter the first thing that pops into your head. Here’s an example for FedEx:
Once you enter your word or phrase, you’ll be shown another brand. You can then continue to share your opinion on brands or you can click on over to see what others are saying. Here’s what the tag cloud looks like for FedEx:
And then? Well if you are one of the many brands using social media, use BrandTags to find out if you are sending the right message, and if you find that you aren’t, connect with your community to find out why.
Every now and then a brand will come out with a “brilliant” ad that seems to ruffle a few more feathers than they bargained for. Without fail, the brand will release a socially responsible apology statement and position themselves back in good graces with the majority of their consumers.
Most recently, we can look at the Motrin “Mommy” ads and last weeks Pepsi Max’s “One Lonely Calorie” advertisements. It’s plain to see how both sets of ads were sure to strike a nerve with a particular group of consumers, and in today’s super connected world, there is no way to isolate who sees and who doesn’t see your ads.
Without question, we can all applaud these companies use of social media outlets to rapidly respond. Both companies saw the overflow of negative conversations happening on Twitter and YouTube. Both companies also rapidly responded and apologized for the insensitive nature of their ads.
To me, I think that companies are intelligent enough to realize which advertisements cause a commotion, but are relying more on the age-old saying that ‘no press is bad press’.
With the power of social media, and the millions of conversations always occurring, a off-color ad is sure to cause commotion and get people talking about the brand - cue thoughtful apology. The apology creates even more conversation about the brands, conversation, which largely includes “look how well the brand responded”.
I am not encouraging brands to produce offensive material just to garner attention, but I think its important to acknowledge how negative conversations provide great opportunity for brands to position themselves as “in touch with their consumers”
Everyone knows it’s easier to quit a bad habit or finish a workout routine when you have someone else doing it with you for support. A recent article from The Gazette ties this idea of moral support into online social networks.
The Framingham Heart Study argues that healthy behaviors are contagious. If this is the case, it will provide an immense opportunity for online social networks. When it comes to support, the Internet provides instant access to millions of people who are all struggling with similar circumstances.
Interaction in outlets such as Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter provide a sense of anonymity and comfort that face-to-face interaction can’t always provide, making it easier to communicate with others in your situation.
So, for someone trying to quit smoking, there’s the constant Tweeting of an online friend reminding you every hour not to take that smoke break. For someone coping with a disease, there’s a MySpace or Facebook group to find solutions to a current struggle that you are having. Also, there are many niche networks with forums and other dialogue tools that allow for communities to be built around these causes. It will be interesting to see the effect of this type of interaction in increasing healthy behavior compared to existing channels of support.
Thanksgiving is almost upon us, which, for many, means a day to give thanks, eat, watch football, and finalize Black Friday shopping strategies.
Online buzz about Black Friday has been in full force, as you can see from this real time twitter search and the abundance of ad aggregators online. Many retailers, at least the smart ones, no longer view these online resources as a threat. They realize the benefit of playing along and providing their ads to these sites in advance, in order to get people buzzing early, and planning their day around their deals.
We, here at MGH WOM, prefer to sleep in the day after Thanksgiving and hold out until Cyber Monday to do our bargain shopping. However, we’ve compiled a few helpful online resources for those of you who are planning to brave the crowds and battle the stores this season:
>> Black Friday’s Twitter account. Follow Black Friday to get the updates on the latest Black Friday, news, specials tips, and more.
>> GoToDaily: A Black Friday online community in which members can vote to make specials “popular.” It’s kind of like the Digg of deals, with a forum and coupons.
>> A wake up call. Register your mobile number here, choose a time, and JC Penney will send you a friendly wake up call to make sure you get to the stores on time. They will also continue to text you throughout the season with “helpful shopping tips,” according to MSNBC.
Happy Shopping!
Southwest Airlines founder, Herbert D. Kelleher was spot on, when he said “you have to treat your employees like customers.”
We often talk about the importance of creating a positive corporate culture so your employees will go forth and prosper. And by “go forth and prosper” I mean “provide excellent service that will increase positive word of mouth from your customers.” And that’s all very important. However, another important goal that many often lose sight of, is maintaining positive word of mouth from your employees. Not from customers. Directly from your employees. Let me tell you a little story…
In college, I had a friend, who we’ll call “Sarah” who was a server at a local restaurant. She hated the job because of the poor management who overworked and talked down to the staff. As a disgruntled employee, she told us - the entire floor of a dorm - about her experiences as well as all the horror restaurant stories that occurred at that location. Now she would never tell her customers these stories and she still provided excellent customer service, simply because she needed the money. However, the damage was still done. Now I, along with 40 people on our floor and all of our friends will never eat at that chain again.
Like all things WOM, the internet has the potential to spread these negative (or positive) messages to millions in just moments. There are tons of sites, such as Job Vent , where employees can post their rants and raves about their employers. So trust me, you want to take the little extra steps to get your employees on your side.
If you create the right corporate culture, you can accomplish both of the aforementioned goals, obtaining positive WOM directly from your employees and as a result of their work ethic and service. If you need help, just take a few notes from Zappos.
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