[James Nighthawk]

So, having been active on Facebook and twitter for a good few months as a "music page", I'd like to share my findings and ask people to chime in

Both have been useful but in different ways

FB has the lead for promoting gigs and Youtube vids. The interaction on each post being open to all makes it feel more like a community thing.

Twitter however is somewhat more personal, as well as being more throwaway I feel (a contradiction but let me explain!)...

With twitter, people I follow/follow me often say hi and have mini conversations using @tags, not unlike texting each other. This I find quite nice and human. Stephanie, Tone and flossie I have spoken to you guys on twitter sometimes more than on here!

But conversely, twitter allows silliness and the throwaway parts of being human, which I also like. Twitter is an open book. Facebook is more purposeful.

As such, I find I am more open, and "normal" (for me!) on twitter, whereas Facebook I find myself being very, well, calculated

I post only a few times a week on FB. I word carefully. I try to ensure pictures/videos/blogs - i.e. CONTENT - is the main meat of what I post. People are fickle about their facebook walls, and frivolous posts WILL lose fans.

And now, the biggy. "Promoted posts".

Once you trip 100 or so "likes" on facebook, they start offering you these promoted posts. The reason for this is that with Facebook, not everything you post is seen by every fan by default. Only roughly 20% of your following see each normal post by default. As such, if you have something important to say, Facebook charge you to spread it further.

I recently tried this. I paid £4 to engage "400-700 people". It reached 386 (hmmm....) I was showing the artwork for my album release, so I thought a few quid worth the mini-promotion. I did get a lot of "likes" on the post, so maybe that is something.

More people see posts that garner lots of likes/comments though. Another reason to be "engaging"

Twitter is an open playground. Everyone sees everything. But, thing is, they probably don't. It doesn't take too many follows on twitter for your feed to cram everyday. So things get missed. Or people spam the same thing to make up for this. Which of course, leads to unfollows. I know I do!!

Twitter is also the realm of the Like-for-like brigade.

Say A band follows me. I follow them - they send a "thanks" message, which is bascially a vehicle to send me a link to their stuff. Shameless, but clear.

Or....I don't follow them. They'll unfollow within 24 hours.

Oh. And spambots. 'Nuff said.

As such: Twitter follows are less clear as a metric for your popularity. Many of my twitter followers know little to nothing about me. Whereas, I get messages, comments and likes on facebook regularly, showing that people ARE actually interested in my music

So there we have it. My general ramblings about my findings. Anyone else wanna chime in about their social media experiences?   

For instance....Tumblr? The new MySpace? Soundcloud as a "network".

And of course:::

www.facebook.com/jamesnighthawk
twitter:  @jamesnighthawk

 

[tone]

Agree with almost everything you say James, and I would report reaching pretty much the same conclusions on my own pages.

With one exception.

I find twitter to be really good in reaching the people you can't reach on facebook purely because of its open-ness. It's even less of a direct sales platform than facebook and that's saying something.

But say I want to get someone's attention. For example, Lucy Rose has an album out and I think I'd make a good support artist for one of her gigs.

I can follow her, and by replying to one of her tweets, try to strike up a conversation with her. Like the time she said "what xmas song should I sing on the radio" and I replied "anything but Shakin Stevens", to which she replied "I like shakin stevens".

A few days later I was on the way to a gig, and I turned on the radio. It was Lucy Rose singing Merry Xmas Everyone by Shakin Stevens live on the air.

Yes, I take full credit for that.

But, for schmoozing industry peeps, twitter is king. Even if you manage to engage a single person once, your name now means something to them. If they receive a press release, or a promo of your CD or whatever in the future, you're more likely to get a fair hearing.

Interesting post James, thanks for sharing.

[James Nighthawk]

I was retweeted and @tagged by Gibson earlier in the year

Made my week!

Granted, I had posted a picture of my Gibson Sheryl Crow Signature model.

But I am sure it was because of my musical awesomeness. And nothing at all to do with their own promotion of their product

[Binladeda]

Interesting stuff guys...I'm not on either.  This forum is the only form of online network I've ever joined, but my kids use both all the time, and your posts have given me a bit of an insight into what they are.  Thanks for that

[flossie]

I use twitter and at first thought it was crap and pointless but now....I have made some links with people I never would have reached otherwise.  I think it's fantastic for promotion.  I like the speed of it too.

Big thumbs up for twitter and I think youtube is great too and very effective to promote your material if you tag properly and/oruse your video as a response to someone else and also promote it if possible!

[man of simple pleasures]

good read this like