So I finally got around to watching The Social Network last night. It was enjoyable, but it also got my brain working and picking up on a few things that bands (or anyone with an idea, really) could benefit from bearing in mind.

- Facebook wasn’t started with the idea they wanted to build a billion dollar corporation. They wanted to help students get laid. Your band shouldn’t be about “getting big.” Make sure you’re doing something that’s meaningful to you now.

- the first version of Facebook wasn’t the last version. And these songs you have now won’t be your last. Keep writing! Keep putting music out there!

- The Facebook guys launched their idea into reality, then continued to build it, expand its reach organically, and improve it before eventually securing investment funding. The same is true for pretty much every successful band.

- finally, most importantly, they didn’t allow themselves any excuses to NOT make Facebook, and no one said anything like “if only we had…” They just did it. Your band should do the same.

Ian Rogers (who I’ve met once, and is a really smart nice guy) recently posted his presentation on creating a digital marketing plan on the TopSpinMedia website. You can link to it here, and I definitely recommend you read every word. If for no other reason, it will inspire you with a ton of different ideas as to how you can better serve and grow your audience as a band in the year 2011.

Don’t misunderstand what he’s saying though, and simply run off to create a ton of different offerings, and throw all his suggestions into action at once.  The part about there being a process and a strategic order to things is crucial.  Always plan things with timing in mind.

And, as a very important aside… Ian Rogers can safely assume that you already make music that people love.  That’s because it’s his job to market what you already make.  As a musician, you can’t afford to make that same assumption.  It sounds simple, but it’s really not.  Make sure your music is incredible because if it isn’t, marketing it to the world is only going to make matters worse for you.

KLM Airlines did an interesting social media marketing campaign where they found people who were using Twitter and Foursquare to check in at the gates of their airline’s flights.  A little quick online research of the user’s social networking profiles gave KLM enough info so they could surprise that person with a thoughtful and timely gift while they waited.

The campaign  generated millions of impressions online and a good feeling around their brand.  Sure it could be construed as a little creepy (as the socialtimes.com writer explains here) but I think it’s very interesting.

And there are plenty of ways a musician can apply this same type of social media campaign for their own benefit as well.  In line at concerts (your own, or another band’s concert who’s fans might like your music) is the first that comes to mind, but I’m sure if you put a bit of thought into it you could come up with an interesting way to make it work for you.

The key to generating the good feeling is the surprise of the gift, but then if you keep doing it, and word spreads that people who mention you keep receiving surprise gifts from you, then you’ll get increased mentions and online chatter about you simply by those who are hoping to receive something as well.

Might be something worth giving a try!

Thanks to @withabullet for sending me the link to this story.

Amanda Palmer - Photo by Martyn Foster

Hi everyone.  So as I mentioned before, I moderated a panel at SXSW 2010, called “Too Much Information – Is Interacting Killing Rockstar Mystique?”

The goal was to have an open conversation about the strategies and various ways that artists are using social networking tools, and how it affects their fanbase, and their perceptions.  Is there such a thing as too much sharing?

The panel ended up being a ton of fun, and I think we had a great conversation, if I do say so myself.  Huge thanks go out to the panelists Jeremy Welt, Senior VP of New Media for Warner Bros Records, George Howard of Artistshousemusic.org, producer/filmmaker Dub Cornett, and musician Sam Duckworth, of Get Cape Wear Cape Fly.

I had also originally invited self-described Over-sharer, solo artist, and lead singer of The Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer to take part in the panel, and she was really enthusiastic about it, however she told me she would be in Poland on tour and unable to make it.  Unfortunate, but she was eager enough to do an email interview together before the panel, which I then referenced and used her answers and comments as the basis for the discussion at the panel.

As discussions are very fluid, and the room full of people were eager to ask questions, and add to the conversation, I knew there was no way I was going to get to all the great things Amanda had to say, so she graciously allowed me to publish our interview in it’s entirety on my blog.  Huge thanks to Amanda!  She’s got some great insight here.

So without further ado, here’s Amanda Palmer, word for word, on Interacting With Her Fans.  (My questions in bold, her answers follow.)

Amanda, I am aware of your use of twitter to correspond with your fans, organize impromptu fan meetups, announce secret performances, and host live auctions. How else have you used social networking tools and the online space to bring your fans into your world?

a huge part of what makes the social networking “work” is that i don’t use it strictly for promotion and business. i use it to connect and to peel my brain and emotional landscapes inside out in public during the touring process (and last month, during the recording process). if my followers are there in the room with me while i’m making a record, and they’re following by PMS days and pregnancy scares, they’re going to actually connect with me. this is not a style for everybody, but since i’m built to overshare, it works for me. you cannot create a formula for why your fans with emotionally relate to you (and therefore bring you income, when you do present them with product), but you can pretty much rest assured that if you’re open and honest, they will come. people crave honesty and authenticity, especially because they know that it’s not manufactuable in a board room of hip indie intenet marketing kids trying to pump up a band or an artist, even if all the kids in the board room just graduated art school and have the best of intentions. it has to come from the artist, to the fan. nobody can do it FOR the artist.

How has interacting directly with your fans in the online and realworld spaces impacted your career, and your personal life?

it’s made me feel incredible safe around my fans when i do tour, and increidbly well taken care of. i have no fears about hopping into a car with any of my twitter followers who volunteer to give me a lift to the airport, even though i have 400k twitter followers. maybe it’s a numbers game, and maybe my number will be up, but since i personally read all of my blog comments and monitor my twitter feed, i KNOW what these people are like, and they KNOW why i’m like. and we love and want to help each other. it’s a trust i revel in. i wrote a blog a little while ago about a ninja gig (ie a flash-twitter gig) i did on the beach in CA and i realized after a while of signing that i’d left my ukulele case with my phone and wallet wide open 50 feet away (people had been tossing tips in it). and that’s how much i trust my fans instinctively. i know they’re all watching out for me, for each other. funny story: some drunk fans stole that same uke case from my london dressing room after a late show one night. i twittered it’s loss and these kids actually twittered my assistant, and came to the address where i was hanging out and hand-delivered it, covered in shame. they got hugged by me and commended for their bravery. this is how it works.

and sometimes i need to turn off. and i do.

Was there a time in your career as a musician when you interacted with your fans less than you do now? If so, what made you change your habits?

no, there never was. back when we had a fledgling website and email list in 2000, we still signed after every single show and collected every fan’s email and send regular, personal, mailings.
and i was always blogging – that’s turned into an art of it’s own. i realised early on that music is never the end-goal for me. the human connection is. music is simply a tool.
so, funny enough, while everything out there is thinking that blogging and twittering is a tool to bring people to your music, i sometimes think my music is a tool to bring people to my blog and twitter.
for realz. with a z.

Do you ever feel as if your personal privacy is being invaded, or that you’ve given up some of that privacy in exchange for a closer relationship with your fans?

i think it’s a choice. and of course my personal privacy gets invaded. when i’m sitting in a restaurant and people come up asking for autographs, i could look at it as an invasion or i could look at it as a blessing.
i choose the latter. that said, i don’t have to contend with the level of fame that the madonnas and lady gagas of the world have to contend with, and i don’t think i’d want to. i enjoy sitting in cafes far too much.
i think having to hide in public sounds like a nightmare. so i’m in a very sweet spot: i’m invaded just about as much as i can handle and still enjoy.
there’s also the guilt factor of not being able to acknowledge and respond to everybody. invariably people feel left out and not heard and ignored. that’s just a painful part of this that never goes away.

Do you have any boundaries with how or what you share with your fans online? Why/Why not?

oh, hell yes. i have to be very careful to keep my sharing very amanda-specific. i do not share details of others lives and i try very hard to not ever speak for or represent other people,
or invade anybody else’s privacy and boundaries. this means i leave a lot of things out. i’m a filter. i think the amount of people listening to me puts me in a position of power, and it’s easily abused.
i try very carefully not to abuse it. neil gaiman, on the other hand, just goes around crashing people’s websites left and right with no regard (that’s supposed to be a joke. laugh.). it’s called a #neilwebfail,
and it happens every few days.

Have you ever thought about disengaging from the social networks, in the way Trent Reznor did in the middle of 2009? Why?

when i feel my brain being eaten by the incessant noise, i do unplug. i unplugged completely for a week a few months ago. it balances me out. but i plug back in.
disengaging from the social networking would be like walking out on a relationship. i’ve come to rely on my fans so much for what i create and how it’s possible, that
if i walked away i would expect that a lot of my infrastructure would fall apart. if i toured in london next month, i’d be just another band calling up a promotor and relying
on radio ads and a poster campaign to promote my show, with no personal input and contact from me. and when i got to that show, i’d feel disconnected.

the other night, i played to a bar of 300 people in christchurch, new zealand. almost NOBODY tours down there and they were really grateful i;d come. i was twittering to them all day
about this and that and the other thing and i mentioned that my record engineer from australia had insisted i try a PEANUT SLAB candy bar, since his family manufactures them.
so tons of people brought peanut slabs and i twittered back and forth, spy-style, with one really enthusiastic fan right before the show and we secretly rendez-vous’ed near a fence outside the
club and she wordlessly handed me the candy bar. it was hilarious. and it made her life. (and the peanut slab was delicious). i love being able to do shit like that.

What is your opinion on the recent CNET news article that is reporting musicians are starting to refuse to “tweet”, much to the chagrin of their labels?

it’s a choice, dude. it’s not for everybody. you can’t MAKE a musician, or a person, do anything if they’re not inclined.
and if those musicians DO tweet under threat, do you think their fans will feel a real connection with them? hell no, because they’ll sense how inauthentic the intention is. people are not stupid.

Do you feel that the days of maintaining any mystique or mystery around your personality/persona are over?

those days were over when i hit the second grade and started showing everybody my underwear.

Conversely, do you feel it’s possible to have a successful career as a musician without engaging in online/realworld interaction with fans?

yes. it’s totally possible. for every me there’s a pj harvey, nick drake and an elliott smith who doesn’t want to be the life of the party.
and the beautiful thing about THAT is that their fans, those who truly love their work and want to spread it, can now carry their music much farther the artist could themselves.
i don’t think artist or musicians should feel compelled to share anything they don’t fucking want to.
it’s not in the contract that when you decide to make art you have to share your process or your life with people.
but you CAN, and people since the dawn of time have been fascinated by artistic lives and processes – so do with that what you will.

Are there separate rules for interacting for major superstar artists, and undiscovered artists? If so, what do you think they are?

i don’t think there are ANY rules. but certainly, john mayer is going to get way more shit for saying something off-color in an interview than your average unsigned lead signer in brooklyn is, right?
superstars are under a different microscope, and because of mass hysteria they have to protect themselves far more. that;s just life.
and finanically, different things make sense for different levels.

i tell all the bands i meet you ask me WHAT TO DO to do this: collect every email. at the end of the day, reaching people by email is the most important.
myspace and twitter and facebook may come and go, but being able to directly talk to your fans over email is key.

Is there anything else you would like to say on this topic?

yes.
FUCKING FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER, SEND ME YOUR EMAIL AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY NEW RECORD BY THE SEMI-FICTIONALLY CONJOINED SISTERS EVELYN AND EVELYN, IT:S FANTASTIC.
the end.

trying to help bands avoid communication fails...

Back in February I published an article, “Building Fan-Band Relationships In 420 Characters Per Day” that put forward some tips on how bands could take better advantage of the Twitter platform, and utilize it to more effectively communicate with their fans.

Since then, I have seen a large growth in the number of bands who are using Twitter, and have seen many examples of good practices and some examples of not-so-good practices, some of which I’d like to call attention to here.

Some great example posts of good use of twitter by a band:

- “We’re #1 [national] artist for most views on Youtube today!! You guys rock keep checking the [song title] video! -N

This is a great post because it’s informative, yet promotional, but doesn’t sound egotistical, in fact it has a thankful tone, contains a directive inciting fans to perform a desired action, and the post is “signed” by the band member, so a reader knows which band member logged in to Twitter that day.

- playing at 1714 XXXX street in LA at 2pm. directions at http://XXXX.com – only room for 50 people so come get in line asafp!!!

Another great use of twitter, in that it announces a promotional message that your fans would care about, (a secret show), gives specific details, conveys urgency, and excitement.

- @username What exactly is a garbage plate?

This is a great example, because it’s a conversational response to something one of the band’s fans actually said to the band.  Interacting with the fans is crucial, because the Twitter platform is not meant for one-way communication.  It’s meant for conversations.

- http://twitpic.com/XXXX- yes, you can play with the mac, just don’t touch the keys or drool on it.

This one is great because it uses a twitpic, and everyone loves to see pictures posted from their favorite bands.  Especially when the photos and caption provide insight into what you’re doing, showcases your personality, or something that you’re passionate about, and has an interesting caption.  The immediacy of Twitter makes the photos seem even more special because there’s the feeling they are happening right “now.”

- sick with flu, in bed, brain full of emptiness. watching DVD of doctor who and drinking hot toddys. life, love & time are great mysteries.

Another post that shows personality, talks about some non-music related interests, keeps fans updated in a very intimate way, and still manages to contain a profound thought.

- What are some new bands/artists that don’t suck? I need some new music that doesn’t sound like some regurgitated crap I’ve heard before.

Okay, so this one isn’t articulated the best, since its a little negative, but the idea of polling your followers to get them to talk about other bands they listen to is a great idea.  Not only does it engage your audience, get them talking about music, but it actually also gives you useful info about your fanbase that could help you better market your music.

In general, posts that inform, inquire, engage, and interact are the best.  For a really great example of an artist who is being extremely effective on Twitter, check out @amandapalmer.  She’s the lead-singer of the band The Dresden Dolls and also a very talented solo artist.  Whether you like her music or not, you could learn a lot stylistically from her twitter account.  She does twitter-based Q&As with her fans, holds impromptu secret shows announced via twitter, does quick promos like “first five people to @reply me get on the guestlist for the show tonight”, surprise fan meet-ups, polls her audience, talks to them, has conversations with them, posts lots of twitpics, and demonstrates many other lessons in effective online fan-communication via Twitter.

So just before I wrap this up, I think it’s only fair to comment on a few bad practices, however I’m not going to call anyone out or anything like that, but here are a few “please don’ts” to keep in mind…

- please don’t publicly thank people for their support when really what’s happened is that you followed them first, and now they decided to follow you back out of courtesy.  Note, this is especially bad when you do this with famous musicians.  @depechemode is not showing their support of your band, by returning a follow.

- please don’t REPEAT OVERLY PROMOTIONAL TWEETS THAT ARE WRITTEN ALL IN CAPS.  PLEASE DON’T REPEAT OVERLY PROMOTIONAL TWEETS THAT ARE WRITTEN ALL IN CAPS.  PLEASE DON’T REPEAT…see what i mean?

- if someone follows you, don’t automatically assume they’re now your fan.  Don’t auto-DM them thanking them for their interest in your music, or make any other assumptions like that.  Consider that the online equivalent of someone saying “hi, what do you do?” and you’re response being “Oh my god, it’s so great you talked to me, because now we’re best friends, and we’re gonna hang out every day and you’re mom’s gonna bake me cookies.”  It’s a little weird.

- please don’t ignore questions or comments from your followers.  Even if it’s only 140-characters worth of attention they gave you, that’s still effort they didn’t have to bother making, so if they’ve gone out of their way to do it, you had better pay them the respect of replying.

I’m sure there are more of both good practices and bad practices… but I’ll tell you what… I’ll stop here, but I invite everyone to continue this post through the comments section.  What are some more good and bad practices that you’ve seen?

Davey Havok, lead singer of AFI gets propped up by his fans in more ways than one. Photo credit: Kristina Loncar

Whether you like their music or not, dark / goth / pop / punk-rock heroes AFI are leaders in fanbase engagement, interaction, and reward.  Back in 2003-2005 they ran an Alternate Reality Game that invited fans to solve puzzles, find clues, and interact with each other. The game was rewarding lucky participants with laminate All-Access passes, meet-and-greets, soundcheck parties and secret concerts long before ARGs like this hit mainstream with Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero.  Plus, the band has been using the social and community-mobilizing aspects of online forums to great gain for years.

In fact, not once, but twice, the band have won awards on the MTV Video Music Awards.  Once in 2003, and again in 2006.  Not so uncommon, but the difference is, both awards recipients were decided by public votes.  In both cases, the band mobilized their fanbase to help them win, but they did so by truly creating a feeling within their online street team and their official fan club that if fans helped the band win the award, it would be a victory not just for the band, but for all the fans as well.

It worked.  Fans cried when this band won their awards.  Fans felt as though they themselves won the award.  How did they do it?  AFI are not shy when it comes to rallying their fans, and asking them to unite to help further their cause.  But, they are also not shy when it comes to rewarding their fans by acknowledging them, and sincerely thanking them.  This truly helps create the feeling that the band and their fans are one team, working together.  The key is the sincere acknowledgement.  You can’t just ask your fans to do things for you without some acknowledgement for their time spent on your behalf.  It doesn’t matter if that’s in the form of tangible goods like exclusive stickers, posters, t-shirts, what-have-you, or if you’ve got a point-system that keeps track of how much work a fan has done for a band, or if it’s just giving them a sincere and heartfelt thank you.  Whatever it is, make sure it’s meaningful.  And make sure you mean it.  Those two things may sound similar, but they are different.  The first one says to make sure your rewarding your fans with something substantial, that will make them feel their efforts have been worth their time.  The second one says that if you ask your fans to do something that will benefit you, and they actually do it, then you had better thank them and you better be sincere about it.  All this social community and networking can be undone if fans feel their being taken advantage of.

Check out these two videos, and you’ll see a perfect example of what happens when all this is done right.  The first one is the AFI’s acceptance speech, from the second time they won a moonman, in 2006.  Listen to the sincerity in the singer’s voice when he’s thanking the fans.  And the second video is of a fan, watching the band accept that award on TV. It’s also important to read the video description on the second one. This is what it says: “this is me freaking out about AFI winning Best rock video! I voted 600 times for them! I am SOOOOOOO happy they won! I helped Davey get his moonman!”

Watch these videos, learn from them, and then make sure you do everything you can to inspire this level of community between your band and your fans.  If you are one with your fans, amazing things can happen.