Rockers, Social Media and What We Could Learn From Them

We came across an article on CNN written by Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich entitled “How rockers (and you) should promote online”. In the article, it entails how rock bands promote their albums and upcoming concerts through social media and how, in truth, it has started annoying some people. Although this is the hemisphere of the noisy music crowd, we think it applies to SEO and social media as a whole. In fact, we can even say that the article can be called “Good Etiquettes to Follow in Using Social Media.” Rock bands, the article has written, are known for their insomniac nights, for reasons only they can explain. But what can be explained is that because of this, they have so much time to be online and be on their favorite social network. And because of this, they have all the time to do promotions as it’s really easy on social media. And we know the mindset of these rockers. They’re like little kids when they get so passionate about something. But as we said, this over-promoting has started to get on the nerves of those people getting their invites, their RT’s and their multiple posting of the same thing. And in social media, these are also one of the things we should avoid if we don’t want to be “hidden” on other people’s FB newsfeed or “unfollowed” on Twitter.

The article compiled a list of people’s gripes about this frenzied social media activity of the rockers. Let’s take a peek at some of them.

“I live in New York. Please do not send me a Facebook invite for your show in Chicago, Cincinnati or Chattanooga, and please do not send me an invite for any raves in Goa.”

This is the reason why going local is starting to go on full speed ahead on the internet. Searches are becoming more inclined to the neighborhood of the searcher. And this is also why social discovery has gained a great deal of ground and why Facebook is integrating a localized one in its feature.

“Ideally, artists should be posting at least once a day and naturally a few times throughout the day if they’re into it. But just like with anyone, we do not need to have our entire feed flooded with constant posts that aren’t really relevant to why we are fans of the artist.”

This is a classic case of over-promotion or overexposure. We have mentioned this in our previous blog that saturating your page with too many posts has a way of turning people off. Even in advertising, we’re taught to sometimes pull back a little. It would also be good to post a lot but not always about your business, or in the case of the rocker, his upcoming concert. Do a little variation on your post or tweets, like what you’re currently doing or something as trivial as that.

“We’re happy to support artists we follow and love, but the tweets can’t just be constant sales pitches. And the best artists or teams figure out ways to sell or promote their music in creative ways that aren’t quite so blatant. Instead of ‘Buy Here,’ I love it when artists have conversations with their fans and ask for support in exchange for creative packages. I contribute $5 a month to Zoe Boekbinder and unexpectedly received a custom T-shirt and handwritten card on the back of a Pippi Longstocking paperback cover this week.”

There are two things we can learn from this suggestion. One is about creativity. We’ve always talked about the importance of creativity or thinking outside the box. In a world where there are billions of voices dying to be heard both in real life and online, we should be inventive on how we can stand out.

Second, social media has become popular because of its more human interaction. We don’t want to do a Turing Test just to know it’s a person we’re networking with. Make your posts more personal. The world has just become closer and people are eager to meet other people and get to know them.

“Another mistake: Don’t be ridiculous, inane or ungrammatical. Get someone who writes, edits or copy edits for a living to look over what you’ve written before you send it out. You don’t want to end up on Folder Rock.”

Maybe rockers, or any other artists, think they have the creative license to be grammatically incorrect or don’t need to bother with spellings. But apparently, as this gripe shows, it still matters to people. Good grammar, attention to typographical details and correct spelling is important in any content. It shows consideration to your readers.

“For a period of time at Hypebot, a musician was commenting on numerous posts, always attacking the writer in extreme terms and then ending the comment with a request to download his free album followed by a link. This made him look like a self-serving a-hole. The smarter thing to do would have been to make sincere comments in response to posts — without going overboard — and then make sure that his signature linked out to his website or social media account.”

One of the favorite pastimes of people is internet debate. But internet debate is only interesting if it’s authentic and not some form self-promotion. But we don’t suppose any of you actually engage in this thing. We only included it because it’s funny.

So learn from the rockers of good manners and right conduct in utilizing social media. Or actually, learn from their mistakes.