Sunday, April 17, 2011

How to use facebook as a tool for promotion


Ok so we all know about Facebook by now and we should all know how useful it is when used as a promotional tool.

Fan pages are one of the best ways to connect with your fans and can mean the difference between keeping a fan or losing one to disinterest. The first step is to get people to your page though and to hopefully get them to click that elusive 'Like' button. So how do we go about doing that?

Well the first step is of course, to invite everyone you have on your friends list. Seems obvious but its definately worth stating. Click that invite friends link and invite them all. If you have any close mates that are willing to help you out, it's worth asking them to invite all of their friends as well, or at least post the link to your page on their walls. It's suprising how many people will go to your page through that, even if they don't click 'Like' they might come and check you out, which is still added promotion.

Another useful tool is youtube. If you have a track that you've shown to people that they seem to like, upload it to youtube. If you have a camera then feel free to make a budget clip to it. Send it to your friends and put tags on it that reccommend it from other related music. Leave the link to your facebook page in the video description, people can happen to stumble across it, enjoy the music and then decide to check out your page.

If you refer back to my last post you'll notice I talked about handing out free cds. This is also a great way to engage people into visiting your facebook page. Put the link to your page on the back cover. This is particularly effective because you know that the people that find your page through this method have already listened to your music and decided they like it enough to investigate.

If you decide you have money left over you can also pay for facebook advertising but be careful. People that have never heard of you before aren't going to click a facebook ad just because it has your name on it. If you have a show coming up or something that you think could engage people like a competition, then it is worth running an ad such as "win a free [artist name] shirt by liking the page'.


So after you've gotten enough people there's also some things to remember.

UPDATE REGULARLY.


If you update regularly your fans will feel like they have a direct contact to the artist behind the music. This can make the difference and will also stop people from liking your page and then forgetting you even exist. When people post on your page, leave comments. Post photos from your latest gig or even just you hanging around with fellow artists or group mates. Things like this make people feel as if they are actually getting an insight into the artist's real life rather than the marketing image that has been thrown at them.

DON'T OVERFLOW YOUR STATUS UPDATES

If you want your fans to know about an upcoming gig, feel free to post a status on your fan page to let them know. Obviously not everyone is going to see it so feel free to do it each day. Just make sure you don't do it so much that it annoys people. If you start posting up every 20 minutes people are going to get annoyed and delete your page so that their news feeds become neater. It's a fine line but it's better to post less and not lose your fans.

LINK LONG TIME FANS TO YOUR PERSONAL ACCOUNT

This isn't so much a rule but I find it helps. If you have noticed a particular person commenting a lot on your fan page or in general helping the cause, send them a message and add them as a friend on your personal account. This will help them feel important for being such a good fan and will encourage them to keep it up. It's important to treat your good fans well and help engage them for the long term.


This was but a short advice column about all things facebook but hopefully it helps get you started, if anyone else has any good ideas please post them up in the comments!

8 comments:

  1. very interesting, I run my own company, and social media has became a huge asset.

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  2. good idea tough usually i avoid social networks like facebook

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  3. I dont like facebook at all. Best way to communicate is in person, not through a computer. Also, you 'say' you are friends with people, but most of them you dont even know.

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  4. I admit that Facebook is an awesome way to advertise but I really dislike fb for personal use.

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  5. Facebook is weird. I have grown to dislike it a lot. The only thing preventing me from deleting it is that I live on the other side of the country now from my friends and family, and most of them do not use any other form of communication other than Facebook. It's kind of concerning actually. People don't realize they are relying on a private company as their main line of communication, whose business interests are in mining as much of your information as possible. Their TOS are a little sketchy, where do they get off owning everything that is uploaded and posted on that site, even if it was yours originally? I bet at last 90% of Facebook users are ignorant to these facts!

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  6. Linking your fans to your personal facebook page sounds like a really great idea to keep them motivated. They can brag to all of their friends "so uh...you know . well he/she TOTALLY added me last night. yep."

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