April Tara » Social media

Your band is your brand

April — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:51:15 +0000

We all know what brands are, right? Coca-Cola. Disney. McDonald’s. Those are all brands. Even people can become a brand. Need an example? Oprah.

With the way the music industry is changing, you have to think beyond promoting your band and look at the bigger picture: building your brand.

Ever heard the saying “Even bad publicity is better than NO publicity”? So not true. Not anymore. Not with the way images and video and audio clips are now living on forever in website archives and cached pages. Look at all of those sex tapes (ok, you don’t have to literally look at them…just think about them) that have come back to haunt celebrities who probably weren’t quite so famous back when they made them. Granted, they might make a few bucks off of it and stretch out their 15 minutes of fame a bit but the chances of them ever being taken seriously are almost nil.

When you’re in a business – and, yes, this is a business – that relies so heavily on image, you have to start thinking about what you’re putting out there to the public (aside from just your music) even in the early stages of your career. The interviews you’re doing today for those free local weekly papers or Internet radio shows, those will be the foundation upon which you start building your brand. So do you want to build it on solid concrete bricks or cheap flimsy wood?

Here are a few quick tips for you to keep in mind when opportunities for some publicity come along…

Quality over quantity – Don’t assume that getting your band mentioned on as many blogs or podcasts or radio shows as possible is the best way to get the word out. Let’s look at some simple math. Say you have a goal of earning 300 more listeners – people who are hearing your band for the first time – within the next month. Do you want to spend your time going on 30 different Internet radio shows with about 10 listeners each or 2 shows with 150 listeners? If we’re talking about one-hour shows….well, you can figure that one out. And, no, you don’t want to use all of those bad interviews as “practice” for when the good ones come along. There won’t be any good ones if you develop a reputation for giving bad interviews.

Do your research – Don’t just jump at every chance to do some PR. It’s okay to say no to that friend of a friend whose roommate has a friend on MySpace that does a live Internet radio show. Of course, you can definitely say yes BUT make sure you get some more information first. What kind of experience do they have? How long have they been doing this? What’s their audience like? Are they knowledgeable? Prepared? Trust me, you don’t want to find yourself spending two hours struggling to fill dead air on a live radio show, begging friends to call in with questions, with an inexperienced and unprepared host.

Be prepared – When you do decide to accept a PR opportunity, get as many details as possible and get them as far in advance as possible, especially if it’s going to be something that’s recorded live. Find out what kind of questions the host will ask. Have your answers ready - not scripted, just a general idea – and decide who will handle the responses, whether you have one band member acting as spokesperson or all of the members taking turns (except maybe the bass player because they’re always the quiet ones.)

Have fun – Once you’ve found the right opportunity, you’re prepared, you’ve promoted it and the time finally arrives, relax and enjoy it! Let your band’s natural charisma and chemistry come through. Act like you like each other! People want to hear that you guys (or girls!) enjoy creating music and that you all get along because that means there’s a better chance of longevity. There’s also bound to be some humor involved, so follow the host’s lead to see if they prefer to keep it light or if they’re all about debauchery. Just don’t go too far. Remember…you are PROFESSIONAL musicians. Act like it.

Oh, and by that I don’t mean throw a television out of a window. You’re building a brand here…you don’t want to be known as those guys.

Be open to opportunities

April — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:03:21 +0000

As I write this, I’m sitting here listening to my boyfriend play his guitar which would normally be a pretty unremarkable event. (Not that he’s an unremarkable guitar player, it’s just that he plays guitar all the time so it’s nothing out of the ordinary for him to be doing it now.)

What’s remarkable about it is that he’s doing as part of a project that’s a perfect example of the way social media and the potential for businesses – whether it’s a band, a bookstore, a yoga class – to reach a global audience because of the interactivity involved.

Here’s a brief description of the project:

Download music tracks
Record your own ideas
Upload for worldwide release

The tagline of The Public Record site says it’s “the first large-scale, truly interactive recording process”. and at the wheel of it is Tommy Lee – yes, the guy with the sex tape but more importantly the drummer for Mötley Crüe. Tommy is giving musicians across the world an opportunity to record the next CD, “Public Mayhem”, by Methods of Mayhem.

As some of you know, I combined my love of both music and social media to form Cherry Bomb Promo and help bands use the Internet to their advantage when it comes to promoting their music. So The Public Record just totally excites me. There are so many bands out there that still have no clue how social media can work for them. In fact, a lot of them don’t even know what social media is. They don’t have Twitter accounts or Facebook fan pages and that’s why they come to me.

So how does this apply to us non-musicians?

Thanks to social media, we all have access to some amazing opportunities – everything from Black Friday deals last week to job opportunities with major corporations or, as in this case, recording with a major rock star. Some you have to look for, some just kind of fall into your lap.

When you do run across these opportunities, be open to them! We all have our obstacles – a fear of failure, a fear of success, anxiety over not being good enough. Face those fears and do it anyway.

Think back to some opportunities you’ve had in your own business. Did you pass any of them by out of fear? Did you grab onto them? What happened as a result? Did it improve your business or did you learn from something that didn’t work out?

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with opportunities. To get the conversation, I’ll share two important results I’ve had.

After one opportunity, one of those that seemed like fate, I learned not to settle for less than I deserve based on promises for something better in the future. I lost a lot of money and my kids and I suffered for it because I was foolish enough to put someone else’s needs before my own when the situation didn’t justify doing so.

After another opportunity, I learned that I was better than I thought at doing something I was afraid I was clueless about and I’m quickly realizing that I’m not only better than I thought, I’m actually pretty damn good at it!

My guest post on WAHM 2.0

April — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:20:02 +0000

I wrote a guest post for Sparkplugging’s WAHM 2.0 about Social Media Overkill.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you’re using social media effectively without it monopolizing your time online. And while you’re visiting Sparkplugging, be sure to read some of the great posts there.

Here are some of my recent favorites:

From ‘Freelance Parent’ – What’s an acceptable freelance turnaround time?

From ‘Marketing Eggspert’ – If you can’t do good marketing, get out of the kitchen

From ‘WAHM 2.0′ – How Kelly McCausey sorts her PLR