November 2, 2015 Growing your following on social media is an important part of your social media strategy, whether you are a seasoned veteran or just starting out. If you’re finding that your number of followers is just not going up, take a look at this checklist and decide if there are any holes in your strategy.
September 11, 2014 Happy almost end of summer ya’ll! WE are in total denial that it is almost over BUT we are clear that it’s time to get back down to work. In this 3-Part series Chris Hacker breaks down how to begin to build an effective log-term plan. Enjoy this post. Love, Ariel @CyberPR
Chris Hacker here, I lead the Marketing Plan team at Cyber PR® and really enjoy working with our artists who are in diverse genres and in all stages in their careers.
Over the years I’ve seen the same problems occur again and again. An artist will call us up looking for help promoting a new album that they’re planning on releasing in a few weeks or less! And often their only plan is just to hire a publicist. It completely baffles me that an artist will work so hard on an album, spending hours and hours writing songs and practicing these songs and then spending large sums of money recording, mixing and mastering, only to rush the release without being ready and having a complete plan in place. 
Especially in today’s saturated climate where even small music blogs are getting inundated with hundreds of emails a day from artists looking for coverage, just making an album and then wanting to “get some press”, is not enough of a plan. An artist needs to be working many different angles and taking many different approaches to get seen and heard.
July 9, 2014 Since releasing my first digital album back in 2002, technology has played a crucial role in the distribution of the music I create. At that time, CDs were still the way folks listened to music but sales were definitely well in decline. Napster had scared the crap out of the music industry and was shut down for good. Mp3s were all the rage and there were these things called iPods that were changing the way people consumed their favorite songs and albums.
Thanks to archive.org and Creative Commons, I was able to distribute my music free of charge to my listeners without fear of the music being used for commercial purposes. I’d release a concept album that could be downloaded and enjoyed around the world. At the time, this was a novel idea for an independent artist.
Facebook, social media, spotify December 19, 2013 I’ve become very fond of Craigslist.
Searching for players, gigs, and gear, somewhere between my first cup of coffee and a cleaner pair of underwear, I feel like I’m going to need a pair of bunny slippers and a robe this winter in order to fully realize my out of work potential.
I stay in the musician section for the most part, but even those ads are littered with nerds, real-estate agents and date rape enthusiasts. It’s a great place to be if you’re a “serious”, “drug free”, 22 year old female vocalist with your own equipment. And it’s as close as I’m ever going to get to Reality TV.
The searching, however, has paid off.
Advice from the Experts tagged Facebook, ReverbNation April 9, 2013 Today I want to talk about what I call “Facebook bands”. This isn’t a term, of course, for every artist on Facebook (some are fully professional and use the site extremely well), but rather a term to describe those who misuse Facebook in predictable and typical ways, dooming themselves to stay on Facebook permanently without any outside exposure. Self-imposed social media prison.
Facebook, Social Media tagged Facebook, Marketing, spamming April 1, 2013 This article was co-written by Jon Ostrow and Ariel Hyatt
Last week, we discussed some major obstacles that are stopping your effective growth on your Facebook fan page.
Facebook is making it almost impossible for the non-advertiser to create effective engagement, but there is no doubt that there is also human error involved as well. Take a look at last week’s article for a full breakdown.
The reaction from that article made us realize something…
October 24, 2012 Do you used Linkedin? If so, Linkedin Groups is a great feature to network and get to know professionals in industries beyond your current circle. It’s also a great way to promote your own professional skills, whether those are in music, marketing, movie making, or anything else.
As a member of nearly two dozen Linkedin Groups, I almost always see the same top post in every group: a callout for members to post their social media sites in a discussion group and to encourage those individuals to follow one another. The reality is that it doesn’t work.
How often do you see people posting, maybe even posted something yourself and then followed through by looking at each of the few hundred comments to check out each person’s page? Even the people who start these groups don’t see a substantial increase in their numbers (they usually have far less followers than comments on that thread).
So how do you get real followers?
October 16, 2012 Last week I explored the answers the all-to-commonly asked question of ‘why do I need a Facebook fan page if I already have a Facebook personal profile?’. And while I hope that got through to some of you who hadn’t yet made the move to a fan page, there is still another question that needs to be addressed, which is: “Once I have a fan page and have invited all of my friends to join me there, how to I continue to convert fans, and ultimately the engagement, from my personal profile (that has hundreds, if not thousands of friends engaging with me) to a fan page with little-to-no existing engagement?” This is an incredibly valid question, but in all honestly isn’t an easy one to answer (especially with FB changing their own rules on a monthly basis for how posts are seen by your friends and fans), so let’s take a look at a few simple ways that can become an important part of a long-term strategy to convert fans and engagement from your personal profile to your fan page:
Facebook tagged Facebook, Fan Engagement October 8, 2012 Quite often, we at Cyber PR® have musicians who approach us with the same questions: “I don’t have a Facebook fan page, but I DO have a personal profile and everyone tells me I need to get a fan page. Why do I need a fan page if I already have hundreds of friends on my personal page?” This is a very common scenario for independent musicians and unfortunately a personal profile just won’t cut it as an asset in your overall arsenal of marketing tools. While I’m sure we could come up with dozens of reasons to avoid using a personal profile as a marketing tool rather than a fan page, there are 3 critical comments to a fan page that I’d like to shine a light on:
Expanding Your Fan Base, Facebook tagged Facebook, Fans June 25, 2012 There is a fabulous feature that will help you highlight the things that happen throughout your life an career that you would like to post onto your Facebook Page.
This is a phenomenal tool for going back in time and recording important things in the history of your personal life, your band life, or anything you would like to have highlighted.
For artists that have histories with other bands this is doubly amazing because you can go back and create milestones for practically anything, and really build your story.
Content marketing tagged Content, Facebook April 2, 2012 The Facebook timeline requirement for pages has been looming for a while and now that it is a requirement, many artists have been wondering how to take advantage of the new features. While I won’t go into the detailed steps about it (there are plenty of other blogs that do that), I did want to offer some unconventional advice. Creating a niche marketing approach through a unique experience for your fans is the best way to grow your audience organically.
Here are some of my tips:
Facebook, Social Media tagged Facebook, social media March 12, 2012 I live in my inbox. Don’t you?
It’s like this. I sit down at my computer, or I pick up my smartphone. First thing I do? I check my email. There I go. I just went into my inbox. I’m at home and I’m greeting people or sending them away.
I like to keep my inbox clean and tidy, just like my real home. Okay, there’s a bit of dust and some dirty socks kicking around. But generally, I keep the place in order because I live there.
March 3, 2012
Where
The Music Industry
Thinks Out Loud
February 29, 2012 It’s a big day today, folks, and the office is all a buzz about the exciting new Facebook developments. What Facebook developments, you ask? What!? You haven’t heard??? Timeline has arrived in full force and is now available for brands! Timeline has been received with resistance by some users (but what Facebook update isn’t?), so this may not be music to everyone’s ears. But as far as bands and brands are concerned, this is a powerful move. I tend ramble on a lot at the beginning of these posts, but I’m pretty excited about Timeline, so I’m jumping right in here.