web communications and Marketing

April 18, 2013 By Peter de Gosztonyi

5 Steps To Get Your Rock Band Noticed using Social Media – revisited

Well this is a long awaited update to my last post about this subject. We had our social media team in place and just starting to get things rolling when we were blindsided by the band. They fired the lead singer which was one of the main reasons the band had promise and eventually they “disbanded” as the other members couldn’t sing worth a darn. The band musicians were very talented, but were at a stage in life where they weren’t fully committed to the band. They had all played in other bands and were well into eclectic family arrangements, and generally weren’t as flexible as perhaps a much younger musicians could be. One of the appealing factors was that these guys had a lot of experience and wanted to work hard to succeed. Unfortunately there was some recidivist behaviour and the cohesiveness of being part of band did not overcome the individual personalities.

So how did we measure success. We couldn’t, but what we were looking for was an increase in attendance at various local venues, having interaction on the twitter account including followers as well as Facebook friends. The plan was to generate a constant stream of news and info on the band, its music and appearances. The focal point would be the Band’s Facebook page as well as the individual band members twitter accounts. One of the neat things about these channels is that a fan can actually converse with a band member and interact with their favorite musician. Using facebook rather than a website is becoming popuular and definitely worth considering as your primary channel, particularly if your fan base is found there. Needless to say the younger the crowd the more technology focused you have to be. Mobile platforms have to be a tool in your arsenal. launching apps is a good way to do that. something probably worth further investigation.

What our challenge was getting each person to coordinate their efforts on the band channels and not their personal ones. Having your own facebook page is great but it also is just that, personal and that just gets in the way of promoting the band as well it means that the band is just a group of individuals that aren’t working together for the success of the band. This is what happened, we had a hard time getting each person to contribute and to consolidate the facebook pages and to try twitter.

For twitter we created a band id which was acessible by each member as well as the social media coordinator so regular bits of info could be sent out as well as being responded to.

Making it in the music industry and making money is extremely difficult so in order to succeed and to get core following a lot of effort is required ( ok so what else is new). Trying to get a group of creative musician types to conform to some sort of process is certainly beyond me however Catherine, the social media coordinator is 20 and has lots of enthusiasm and knows what works for her favorite bands. Her challenge was to get the musicians to actually think as a band not as individuals. This means that the social media presence is a band one and all band related activity is focused on those channels.

The website is also a great focal point and a place to promote the band its activities and general information. since Google searches are looking for websites, a solid current presence is required. social media buzz, YouTube and other musical websites are also critical so a coordinate effort is also needed for those channels.

The steps in my original post are still valid today, perhaps some of the key sties may have changed and new channels such as instagram are well worth investigating, the bottom line is be where your fan base is.

A solid communications plan is always critical for success. this means a coordinated effort between the band, the manager, and the social media coordinator – which can be a band member, or a dedicated fan. This doesn’t sound like much fun and it is not, however success will bring its rewards and hard work both by the musicians and the suppoort team will bring you nearer to your goal.

April 12, 2012 By Peter de Gosztonyi

SEO Is it right for your small business?

One of my small business clients – Ottawa Foot Balance – provides walk in service for orthotics ( duh . So it is a very local service dependant upon two critical factors

Exposure to a broad clientele
Health insurance eligibility

Obviously the second point is not something that can be controlled on a website as everyone’s health insurance coverage will be different. So the most important factor to improving the number of clients is exposure through various marketing channels.

Word of mouth is one – actually that is how I found out about this business as i needed orthotics. The other is on line. I built a simple but easily maintained website for OFB which helped but it was just the first step in the process. Business was still not improving as a result of the website so the next step was to start advertising.

This business is highly competitive and getting top Google listings is difficult so we decided to go with the Google adwords approach. Not having used this before, it was certainly a challenge to get it right. I must say though the Google folks were very helpful and I was able to fine tune my keywords.

We have had this up and running for several months now and we are getting 4 to 6 clickthroughs per day. So far only one or two have converted as we are careful to ask where the customer heard about Ottawa Foot Balance. We have also restricted the expenditures to $3.00 per day in order to control our expenditures and run about $60 per month.

what is also interesting is that Randy has been besieged by SEO marketers promising the world but with very little substance in being able to deliver the clients we need. The sales pitch is always something like “we will imporve your Google ranking to the top 3″ – but with Google adwords we are already on the top of the search page for our key words so it is very difficult to improve on that.

Another pitch is that ” we will improve your site visits by 200 – 300 visits”, needless to say that sounds great but will these visits be by local potential customers and how can we measure the actual conversion rate.

That being said I have decided to try a local marketing service by 1and1 which is my service provider and I have had excellent service through them. The reason I decided to try this service is that the business owner wants to increase his business and for the initial expense is willing to try this service out.

I was not able to get a really good answer to my question of how will I know that this really works but since I like tracking the website statistics ( Google Analytics) and we will record the number of calls and where the customers heard about the business to gauge the effectiveness of this service.

I will be following up on my encounters with SEO.

February 16, 2011 By Peter de Gosztonyi

Protecting your Most Important Web Asset – your domain name

Recently one of my customers was held hostage by their service provider who controlled their domain name registration. This whole experience was very messy, it cost the real owner potential business and could have been avoided by a few simple rules:

Register your domain name(s) under your own name and pay for them separately
- The registrar will recognize you as the rightful owner of that name without question
- You will be able to change hosting providers by a simple change of DNS address – you now have control
- Your hosting provider can remove your hosting privileges, but cannot prevent you from having another hosting company host your website and this redirection can take effect almost immediately
Do not let your third party hosting provider register your domain names under their name
- It may legally be your name but as far as the registrar is concerned the other company has the right to use it as they are paying for the name and they will do nothing without a legal document to allow you to take control
- If any billing or other dispute takes place you are at the mercy of that provider who can tie up your website domain name until the dispute is settled rather than settle it through other legal means. As long as the dispute is not settle you can be without your website – not a good situation to be in these days.
Use a large reputable firm for your hosting and domain name registration.
- These companies will register your domain name within your hosting package which is under your name and you pay for it so there can be no dispute as to whom the owner is
  - Of course if you have a billing dispute with them there may be issues, but these companies have means for recourse and generally will not take your website down without a lot of warning
  - There is a process generally to settle disputes so it can take the emotion out of the equation.
- You can easily switch companies and packages and they do give lots of support.
If you do decide to use a smaller organization ensure that you have control of your domain name but you can allow them to access that account to make the right changes
- All you have to do is to change your password and the hosting provider no longer has access
- If your password was changed then you reset your password using the “forgot password” feature or go directly to the Registrar to obtain access
Register your domain name for longer periods, if you forget to pay then you can easily lose the registration and someone else could grab your domain name.
- If you are the registered owner you will be notified but if someone else owns the name and they forget to tell you then you can loose the domain name and it can be very hard to get back if at all.

I cannot emphasize the importance of being registered as owner of your domain name. Yes you can get it back but look at the potential cost in time and money to do so. Can you really afford that?

So if you are in the situation where your domain name is registered by a third party then get them to change the registration to your name. If you are not sure who owns it go to www.whois.net and enter your domain name to find out who is the Registrar and other information. If the registration information is private then you may need to go to the registrars website to get more information. Some digging may be required but you will be able to find out who is the holder of that registration. You can then contact the registrar and at least get a contact email so you can resolve the ownership.

Generally you won’t have a problem, but as was the case of my client not knowing the implications of domain name ownership caused a lot of headaches and money to resolve. Their solution finally was to register a variation of their business name and develop that new brand – a difficult task to rebuild one’s business.

February 7, 2011 By Peter de Gosztonyi

5 Steps To Get Your Rock Band Noticed using Social Media

See my new post on this subject, the band broke up in mid 2011 and we didn’t get a real opportunity to get this effort off the ground.

Getting a rock band noticed via social media is a lot more of a challenge than I thought. I am working with a newly formed group Hooked on Karma ( no longer together sadly) who needed a website done quickly so I was recommended to them by other clients. Since this seemed an interesting departure from doing mortgage brokers websites see mortgageoney.ca I decided to take on the challenge.

As it turns out setting up the website was the easy part as I use a Content Management System (CMS) from 1and1 hosting which has an intuitive and template based interface so it was very easy to set up a pre-configured website and modify it to suit the Bands needs.

Getting the band noticed and spreading the word via social media is a lot harder.The first step was an assessment of the current situation:

Assess what channels were in place already and what type of following is there.
Assess the Band’s name and can it be used easily across the different channels and is it taken by someone else
Look at the website traffic patterns (if there is an existing website)
Identify who the primary coordinator of the existing channels is.
Review the content and normalize the information so that it is consistent and accurate across all channels
Assess the contact information so that it is accurate and is being monitored regularly
Is the band’s name easily registered on the different channels and who owns it if already registered

Generally if the social media presence is random and grew more by the initiative of one or more band members there is a confused and inconsistent presence on the internet. This will also lead to confused fans and they may give up on you before they find out how great your music really is. Your band is competing with not only other start up bands but with the real pros and fans will judge you by these standards so your presence has to be solid across all of these channels.

Before you start you will have to step back and do a hard look at what you want to achieve and what goals do you and the band have. This will determine the level of effort and the time lines you will need to establish. If your interests are recreational as opposed to wanting to make serious money, your approach will obviously be very different in that you may want to do everything yourself and cost effectively. Whereas you may want to spend a bit more money and get experts to help you out and let you focus on the important element of making your music rather than splitting your time on administration. Either way the following process will help you to build that ever so important fan base.

So in order to establish and grow your fan base, there are a number of key things that need to be in place:

website
unique name
Music and wher to get it (iTunes, store)
Merch – a cd is a good start
music videos
show dates and events
Photographs of the band
social media accounts ( use only those that you will maintain regularly)
- Twitter, MySpace, You Tube, Facebook
Social media coordinator – one person who manages the various accounts and updates the key information
Participation and contribution by all the band members

If you are just starting out or trying to figure it out, one of the best methods is to scan your favorite groups and see how they manage their channels and copy that after all imitation is the best flattery.

Linking all of the Social Media channels and coordinating the various inputs was a lot more involved than I imagined. So here is a list of steps that needed to be taken to get started:

Set up a website with the Band’s domain name (e.g. www.hookedonkarma.com)
If you already have a domain name secured or an existing website this is a great start
Establish your website as your anchor for the business side of managing the band
1. Contact information – who manages the band, how to book the band
2. About the band origins names and bios of the band members and more detail than you have on the other channels such as MySpace and Facebook
3. Links to all of your social media channels
4. Calendar of events – keep this very current and updated
5. RSS feeds from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace
6. Acknowledgments and partner links
7. Merch – how to order and purchase CD’s etc
8. You Tube videos of the band in concert
9. Newsletter for those die hard fans who want to be informed on a regular basis via email
Primary Social media channels you need to establish
1. Facebook – by far the most important place to be, but set up a Facebook page, not a group or individual Facebook account
2. MySpace – although it’s rumor of demise is a bit premature it definitely is not to be ignored use it to showcase your music
3. Twitter – this is a good way for followers to create interest and spread the word about the band
4. You Tube – a must have for the visual impact but quality is paramount on this channel as it will demonstrate professionalism use a pro to make these videos as the hand held cell phones don’t always do justice for a band we use media2learn for all our band videos
5. Flickr – a great place to keep your photographs and also to group them into professional ones and those more informal pics taken at band practice, lots of value here
6. PPK – Power Press Kit – although this is not a free service but helps one package the band’s press kit to showcase the band to promoters and other media people who may want to sponsor the band
7. Blogs – some groups use this to promote discussion and to present a specific opinion or view but generally a lot of work for a new band and populating Facebook may be a better use of time initially
8. Specialty band sites – there are many of these pick the ones that your favorite bands are on or similar type music as this is the community you want to reach
Linking all the media
1. This is the potential confusing part and could get very time consuming and create potential cross impacts if the information is not consistent across the various channels
2. Importing these feeds into your website is easy with all of the embed code available from each channel, using RSS feeds is also an easy way to populate your website with input from the different channels.
3. The key to this is to select the channel that the band feels most comfortable using and then cross linking these to the other channels. For example posting MySpace comments and Twitter feed into your Facebook account
Measuring Success
1. For your website use Google analytics and set up a weekly automatic email of your dashboard. this is great for seeign the number of visitors and the referrals – where they came from particularly useful in measuring which social media channel is directing trafic to the website and then you can strengthen that or focus on the other channels
2. Use Google alerts to scan the internet to see what is being said about your band
3. Look at your followers or likes and see how many are genuine to gauge the amount of real users, there are lots of fake users so they mean nothing to your success.
4. Look at the comments and respond to them if it warrants

This is just a starting point,but like any marketing campaign it takes a process, organization, goals, time and effort. There is no short cut to hard work but if you believe in your band and you know your fans do also then developing your social media presence in an organized manner will hasten your success. More importantly benefit from the many experts around you to help you achieve your success. That way you can concentrate on your music and generate more interest and fans from what you do best.

December 6, 2010 By Peter de Gosztonyi

Small Business …… do I really need a Twitter account revisited

I was just at a Third Tuesday Meetup Group on Social Media. The guest speaker was Michelle Kostya on RIM’s approach to social media. The talk was fascinating on how RIM is using social media platforms to keep in touch with their user base and to promote their products. In effect the customer service and marketing groups have merged since they both perform similar functions in an integrated social environment.

What I found of particular interest is that Blackberry sends over 800 private or direct tweets per day to respond to various queries and customer issues. They use their broadcast tweeting primarily for tips and hints, which they control to a very limited number otherwise if they broadcast every response it would overwhelm and potentially alienate their followers. They also have over 50 Facebook pages ( language and product pages) as well as 8 twitter handles. They feel that their Social Media efforts have payed off hugely in keeping their Blackberry users happy.

This made me think about how a small service type business could use twitter to respond to their customers. Instead of using it to send regular tweets, although the odd message can’t hurt, it can be used to direct message between a client and an adviser or other professionals when advice or input is required but a phone call is not essential or desired. Texting can also be used in a similar fashion but Twitter may actually be easier and more intuitive for some users.

So the answer is that in certain circumstances having a twitter account can be very useful for a small service oriented business in particular when a social media savvy clientele is involved.

SEO Is it right for your small business?

Protecting your Most Important Web Asset – your domain name

Small Business …… do I really need a Twitter account revisited

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