How to take advantage of Twitter’s new photo and video features
If a picture’s worth a thousand words
And a hashtag is worth a thousand pictures,
How much is a hashtag worth to you?
Two weeks ago, Twitter launched new photo and video features that enable users to better express themselves and share interesting content. The best part is that users can search hashtags (like “music”, “Thin Lizzy” or “Elton John”) and find a slew of interesting photos. It’s revolutionizing search, and as the video below says, “a good search can take you anywhere”.
For music promoters, forget the limitations of a 140-character tweet. With a single photo, you can pretty much tell fans everything they need to know about you and your music.
Take a quick second to watch this clip to see what we mean:
Now imagine the possibilities. Are you a rock band in Detroit? Imagine if Detroit music fans searched for #detroitmusic and your photos popped up? Something that took you a couple of seconds to do (upload and tag a photo) could end up getting you a handful of new fans in a matter of minutes.
Although images have been shared on Twitter ever since its creation (some studies estimate more than 2 million tweets per day contain photos), it really isn’t being used heavily to market photos and videos today. You can see for yourself – go to Twitter now and search for the city you live in and music. Do many photos come up? Probably not. This means you have the potential to fill that void.
We recommend using a variety of different hashtags. Think about what your desired fans would search and try to craft a message that promotes your music but is still relevant and something they’d appreciate.
How to Share Photos Using Twitter:
You will be able to upload images to Twitter right from the “What’s happening?” update box. In the bottom left corner, you’ll see an icon of a camera next to an icon of a bullseye; the camera will allow you to include an image and the bullseye will allow you to include your location.
From Twitter’s help desk: How Upload Images on Twitter and How to Post Videos on Twitter
Don’t see the camera icon on your Twitter account? Don’t worry, Twitter just hasn’t finished adding this functionality to all Twitter accounts. Your icon will show up soon, and in the meantime, you can use some of the popular third party image-sharing services out there, like twitpic or yfrog. To learn more about these different services and find stats on which ones are the most popular, check out this article.
What are you waiting for? Grab your best photos and make a mark on a relevant hashtag today!
Our Three Favorite Social Media Tools
1. AddThis – Helps you Hit Them All
AddThis has over a billion users and is available in more than 50 languages. We use AddThis sharing to power the uPlaya marketing widgets, and you can use this tool to share other sites and pages.
The easiest way to use AddThis to share things quickly? Install it as a browser plugin. After AddThis is installed, the plugin will appear on your browser (the button will probably look like the graphic to the right). Whenever you discover a website or page you would like to share, just click on the button and select which way you would like to share.
AddThis supports nearly 300 different social networking tools, including several email formats and the major networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and StumbleUpon. Use AddThis to share music news, mentions of your music online, and anything else your fans would appreciate.
- Get the AddThis plugin for Chrome
- Get the AddThis plugin for Firefox
- Get the AddThis plugin for Internet Explorer
* Sidenote: you should also consider placing the AddThis plugin on your website. This will allow fans who visit your site to share it, even if they don’t have the AddThis plugin downloaded themselves. You can find the code for AddThis here.
2. Hootsuite – Schedule Great-Looking Facebook Posts
Hootsuite is a fantastic tool for managing and scheduling social media posts. We think it is the best tool for scheduling Facebook posts because it is one of the few free tools that doesn’t limit the amount of posts you can send, and Facebook posts from Hootsuite look more like original Facebook posts because Hootsuite allows you to include photos and videos.
When posting to Facebook and Twitter, timing can be everything. You want to post at a time where your fans will be near their computer and have time to read or listen to what you’re putting out there. With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts weeks in advance, which is great for busy musicians who can’t always be near their computers at just the right time.
3. TweetDeck – Track and Optimize Your Twitter Activity
TweetDeck not only schedules your posts, it provides a dashboard of everything your friends are saying, mentions of you, direct messages, trending topics and recommendations. Tweetdeck can also be personalized to display info for multiple Twitter accounts. You can break your followers up into lists for better tracking and each list can have its own column in your dashboard. Now that Twitter acquired Tweetdeck, it’s likely we can expect more updates and useful Twitter features. You can download Tweetdeck to your desktop and to your iPhone, iPad or Android phone.
Tweetdeck can also help you manage posts for Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and Foursquare. If you want to use one tool and keep all of your posts in the same place, Tweetdeck can do that, however the posts for Facebook and Linkedin don’t look as appealing when they come from Tweetdeck, so we recommend using this tool only if your strongest media is Twitter.
What are your top three social media tools?
Do Musicians Lead Healthier, Happier Lives?
We've seen a lot in the news lately about how playing an instrument and studying music leads to a healthier, happier life. We just couldn’t be more excited about these findings and wanted to share a few of our favorites. For more information on each of these, please refer to the source link.
Playing and studying music …
Leads to better hearing, particularly with age.
Hearing loss can lead to social isolation and depression. Researchers in one study found that musicians – who began playing an instrument at age 9 or earlier and consistently played an instrument throughout their lives – had better hearing than non-musicians in all aspects but visual working memory, where both groups showed nearly identical ability. What this shows: the experience of extracting meaningful sounds from a complex soundscape, and of remembering sound sequences, enhances the development of auditory skills. Source: Futurity.com
Helps with aging.
According to researchers at Emory University, older musicians perform better on cognitive tests than individuals who did not play an instrument. “Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging,” said one researcher. The high level musicians who studied the longest performed the best on the cognitive tests. Source: Futurity.com
Helps you manage stress.
“Music may be one of the best de-stressors, either by playing or even listening to music,” said Dr. Mike Miller, a research cardiologist who studies the effects of happiness. In Miller’s research, when participants in the studies listened to music, “the inner lining of the blood vessel relaxed, opened up and produced chemicals that are protective to the heart.” Listening to music that they liked promoted happiness and relieved stress. Source: CNN
Makes you smarter.
A recent study featured in Fox News showed that music training affects the brainstem, which is “the ancient part of the brain responsible for controlling automatic, critical body functions such as breathing and heartbeat.” Read More: Fox News. Other studies have shown that musicians have structurally and functionally different brains compared with non-musicians, in particular the areas of the brain used in processing and playing music. These parts of the brain also control motor skills, hearing, storing audio information and memory and become larger and more active when a person learns how to play an instrument. All of this can improve day-to-day actions such as being alert, planning and emotional perception. Source: The Telegraph
Good for your heart.
According to a BBC report, learning a musical instrument could be good for your heart. Italian and British researchers compared the effect of a range of pieces, from Beethoven to techno, on musicians and non-musicians. Tempo, rather than style, was found to be the greatest stress-buster in both groups. The effects were stronger for the musicians as they had been trained to synchronize breathing with musical phrases. Source: BBC
Finally, check out this interesting compilation of information we found on MyLot.com for a few more factoids, such as …
- Playing the guitar can help with arthritis
- Playing the keyboards is a proven stress prescription (three times more effective than reading or watching TV)
- Harmonicas can help improve lung function because it is played by exhaling as well as inhaling and therefore works similar to the Spirometers used in pulmonary rehab.
- Playing the harp is good for your heart because the calming vibrations can powerfully regulate an abnormal heart beat.
- Playing the drums can boost your immunity by increasing the natural killer T-cells and reduce depression. Good natural body rhythms promote better health, and drumming helps to keep those rhythms synchronized.
Stop Losing Facebook Fans By Targeting Your Updates
You work hard to earn each and every fan on your Facebook Fan Page. Everyone loses a few fans every now and then, and sometimes our fans will opt to “Hide” our updates, making it difficult to reach them as our posts will no longer appear in their news feed.
Some of the most common reasons fans leave or hide a Facebook Page:
- Posting irrelevant content
- Posting too often
- Posting overly-promotional material
Cut down on all three by targeting your updates. Facebook allows you to target your Page updates by language and location.
By Location
Targeting by location is great if you are promoting a tour. Say you want to use Facebook to send out messages about an ongoing tour of the Southeast U.S. You want your Atlanta fans to know you appreciate the awesome show the night before, you want your Birmingham fans to know you’re excited about the upcoming show that night and you want your Nashville fans to get ready for the show in four days.
If you post each message back-to-back, you’re alienating a majority of your fans by posting too much and by posting overly-promotional material that is not meaningful or relevant to them. Target by location and you’ll hit just the right people with just the right message.
By Language
If a fan can’t understand a message because it is written in another language, it is clearly not relevant to them.
With fans discovering more and more music online, location isn’t much of a barrier and lots of artists have fans from multiple countries and backgrounds. If you have a dedicated following of Spanish-speaking fans, show them some love by posting an update in their native language. You won’t alienate your English speaking fans because you’ll reach only those fans who have listed Spanish as one of their languages.
How to Target an Individual Post
Target an individual post by clicking the lock button in the bottom right corner of the update box (just to the left of the "Share" button). Next to the lock you will see your current setting, which could be "Everyone" or "Custom".
Once you select the Customize button, a new box will appear to allow you to target this post by language and location. The language and location must be recognized by Facebook in order to be used.
Using Your Personal Page to Promote Your Music? You Can Also Target Posts On Your Facebook Profile
You can use Facebook’s privacy settings to determine which of your Facebook friends will and won’t see your Facebook updates. You can do this across the board for all of your posts (in the Privacy Settings), and you can also do this for each individual post.
By clicking the little lock button in the bottom right corner of the update box, you can block an individual from seeing a post, you can block an entire list of people, or you can dedicate a post to a specific list.
Once you click the lock button, a new box will appear that will allow you to fully customize your post.
The Best Social Media Monitoring Tools (from oneforty)
Are you wasting your time on Twitter? How do you track how well your brand is doing on social networks?
Check out this list of Social Media Monitoring tools we found at oneforty.com.
Categories included are tools for monitoring social campaigns, tools to monitor upcoming events, tools that monitor wiht alerts, tools to monitor social networks and blogs, tools to monitor Facebook and Twitter, tools to monitor web page changes, tools that monitor with social search and more.
Luckily, there are a lot of free tools out there. For the more serious analytics, there is a category for under $500 per month and also over $500 per month. It's a thorough list, but we can think of a couple just off the top of our head that they missed.
Which social media monitoring tools do you find most effective?
5 Scientifically Proven Tips for More Twitter Followers
Although your Twitter strategy should be about engaging with new and existing fans rather than getting as many Twitter followers as possible, you do want to earn a sizeable pool of engaged fans to share your thoughts and Tweets with. Dan Zarrella of HubSpot just published an infographic with 5 scientifically proven ways to get more Twitter followers.
What do the five points established mean for musicians promoting music?
1. "Show us who you are." The more information you share about your music with your fans, the more connected they will feel to you. Fans like to feel special, and if you give them exclusive access to how and why you create the music you do, they will feel like they’re a part of it too.
2. "Stop talking about yourself." Twitter is an important way to keep fans updated about your music, but don’t make it a boring self-promotion rant. The key is engagement – talk to your fans, not at them, and most importantly, listen. Think of Twitter like a party, just on the Web. You wouldn’t sit there and shout out promotional things about yourself, but it’s likely you would eventually end up talking about yourself in a normal conversation. Keep it natural and friendly.
3. "Don’t just converse." Contribute useful, interesting, relevant, funny, helpful information that will get shared. Give your fans something they want to share, whether it’s something about your local scene, something about music in general, or maybe even something really cool about your own music.
4. "Identify yourself authoritatively." Tell your fans why they should follow you, and live up to your promises. What will you offer your followers?
5. "Don’t be a ‘Debbie Downer’." Yes, it’s true – sometimes justified complaints get a lot of retweets if a lot of fans share your frustration. These can be good because they unify you with others against a common plight. But it’s important to not use Twitter as an outlet to vent. Not only do too many negative tweets depress people, they’re less likely to be shared because people don’t want to associate themselves with too many miserable things.
Stats and graphs can be found in the infographic below. Go here to see Zarrella's comments on the findings...
How to Crowd-Fund Your Music Project: Pt 2 – 10 Gift Ideas for Fans
When raising money for a music project, it is vital to important to show your appreciation. These dedicated fans believe in you enough to dish over their expendable income, so they deserve some love.
For our second installment for crowd-funding your music project, we came up with 10 great gift ideas for your fans. Just make sure the donation amount matches the prize (i.e. a free single isn’t worth as much as a private concert).
Ten Gift Ideas for Your Fans
1. Free download
2. Free stuff: albums, t-shirts, koozies, and/or stickers
3. Signed album, t-shirt or other band stuff
4. Access to exclusive music – this could be a hidden track, an alternate version of a fan favorite, an acoustic version or a remix
5. Access to exclusive video – this could be video of the band jamming out, practicing, answering interview questions, backstage or on tour
6. Better yet, actually invite them back stage or even on tour with you
7. Invite them on stage at your next concert to for a song or two to live out their rockstar fantasy
8. Perform at their next party
9. Recognition at the end of the project – if you’re funding an album, include their name on the back or if you’re funding a tour, find somewhere to displaytheir name.
10. Write a song about them or for them
Not sure how to get started with a crowd-funding project? Click here to learn more.
How to Crowd-Fund Your Music Project: Pt. 1 – How It Works
Stats show crowd-funding site Kickstarter added $13+ million to the music economy in the past two years. Music was one of the most funded categories, second only to film.
uPlaya recently partnered with Microgiving, a crowd-funding tool that’s now directly on your uPlaya Press Kit. Microgiving goes a step further than most other crowd-funding tools by encouraging project owners to donate a portion of their gains to a charity of their choice. This means you not only get the perfect opportunity to give back, your fans will feel good about the fact that they are donating to your band and an important cause the band supports.
We understand a crowd-funding project can be intimidating, so we’d like to help with a series of how-to posts on the uPlaya Blog.
In our first installment, we provide a “musician’s version” of an infographic Zippycart created on how to use Kickstarter to crowd-fund a project.
How It Works, According to Zippycart
(full story here)
Step 1: Come up with an idea.
Develop a very specific idea of what you would like to raise money for. Is it a new album? To fund a music tour through the Southeast? Even in the initial stages, it’s important to be as detailed as
Step 2: Create a project page.
There are a lot of useful and effective crowd-funding tools out there, but we recommend uPlaya artists create an account with Microgiving. This way you can use your uPlaya Press Kit, which already showcases positive information about your music, to help you raise money.
Step 3: Set goals.
Determine the amount you would like to raise and also give yourself a deadline to reach those goals. We recommend a lot of research and planning to ensure your goals are realistic. You also need to hold yourself accountable to your donors and be able to tell them precisely how you intend to spend the money.
Step 4: Set Rewards.
It’s important to show appreciation to the donors and fans who believe in you. Come up with a rewards system that will not only excite your fans, but also be something you can live up to. Sample prizes include backstage passes and autographed t-shirts. Make sure the prize matches the donation amount.
Step 5 & 6: Showcase your project.
Put yourself out there and promote your cause. Your uPlaya Press Kit makes this easy – you can display a link to your Microgiving project so fans can find it after seeing your promotional material. Email your uPlaya through e-blasts to fans, friends and family and to potential investors and music professionals who you think should see your work. Do what you can to encourage other donors on Microgiving to check out your project (studies show that more than 10% of donors will give to multiple projects).
Step 7: Keep investors updated.
Throughout the building of the project, you must send updates on your progress. This lets the donors feel like they are involved and also gives you an opportunity to engage with them and keep them excited.
Good luck! If you have any questions along the way, don’t hesitate to ask.
How To Live And Profit Like A Rock Star (FastCompany, Jared Leto and FX GM)
We found an awesome series of clips to re-energize you for the weekend and get you excited about making music. If Leto doesn’t get you jacked up about being a musician, it may be time to rethink your dreams.
Full story, “Jared Leto and FX GM on How to Live and Profit Like a Rock Star” at FastCompany.com.
It’s about community.
“The community really that drives a lot of what I do as an artist, as a content delivery machine." Watch the rest.
Try and fail.
“We are here to live dreams no matter fucking what. Sometimes you have to bet on yourself, you have to always follow dreams, you have to be willing to fail. That’s what I say often in the studio. Let’s try it and fail. I have learned more from writing a bad song than a good song and oftentimes making the wrong choice leads me to the best choice I never would have gotten to if I hadn’t screwed up so badly. Being brave, having courage, following dreams saying fuck you to everybody and fighting for what you believe in.” Watch the rest.
How to Enter a uPlaya Contest
Thank you for your interest in one of our contests! Keep in mind that you can see all of the contests we’re currently hosting by visiting our Contests page.
As an example, we’ll take a look at our most recent free contest, the Home Recording Studio Contest.
The process of submitting music varies slightly depending on if you are new to uPlaya or if you already have an account.
If You Already Have a uPlaya Account
1. Visit the contest page and click the gold button that says “Enter Contest”.
2. You will be directed to a page that lists out all of the songs you have uploaded to uPlaya. Check the boxes that correspond to the songs you would like to submit to the contest.
3. Click the “Update” button.
4. On the next page, you will be given one final chance to confirm the songs you would like to enter. Check the box agreeing to the official rules and terms, then click “Submit”
5. That’s it!
If You Don't Have a uPlaya Account Yet
1. Visit uPlaya.com and click the gold Upload Song button and follow the process of creating a new account.
2. Once you have created your account, you can upload 2 songs for free. Each upload comes with Hit Song Science analysis and digital promotional tools. Important Note: You can only submit music to the contest that has been uploaded to the uPlaya site, so be sure to upload the songs you would like to enter in the contest.
3. Once you have activated your account and uploaded your songs, it’s time to submit them to the contest! Visit the contest page and follow the instructions above. (IF YOU HAVE AN ACCOUNT WITH UPLAYA).
Thanks again for your interest and please let us know if there is anything at all we can do to help!