Social Media Mastery: Tools & Discourse

This teleseminar is now over, but you can still sign up and receive access to the full recording and slides for free!

Presented by: Ariel Hyatt and Corey Denis

It’s 2012 and Social Media is mainstream media. We all know how to use sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but few of us know how to use them well enough to engage friends and fans effectively and track ROI (return on investment).

This FREE teleseminar will teach you basic principles that you need to know and understand to set yourself up for online success.

Click to continue...

So – as you know I am a newsletter evangelist!

I believe it is the NUMBER ONE thing that will help you create a career in the music industry; communicating with your fan base regularly and consistently. 

If you do not already have a schedule mapped out for sending your newsletters – get your calendar out NOW and pencil in 12 dates – 1X per month (I suggest you send your newsletter 2X per month but start with once a month and grow from there). 

Click to continue...

Ariel Hyatt Gets The Answers From Corey Denis

Corey Denis is a woman I admire deeply. 5 years ago, and I hired her as a consultant when I took my traditional PR firm to digital and she was instrumental in helping me to get my head around how to think differently and embrace social media (Yep, even I hated it at first too)

Corey is nothing short of a genius at marketing bands and artists.

She is brilliant because she thinks about both sides of the fence from the both the artists and the fans perspective. We have shared the stage together in a co-presentation at SXSW Interactive and at the Chicago New Music Seminar and I’m thrilled that she will be my first guest in the launch of my

MUSIC SUCCESS TELESEMINAR SERIES

Social Media Mastery: Tools & Discourse

Wednesday February 15, 2012 at 8:00 PM EST

You Must Register For Dial In Details
http://arielpublicity.com/teleseminar/

CALL DESCRIPTION: It’s 2012 and Social Media is now mainstream media. We all know how to use sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but few of us know how to use them well enough to engage friends and fans effectively and track ROI (return on investment).

On the Social Media Mastery: Tools & Discourse Call Ariel and Corey will discuss

- What Musicians Do Online vs. What Expert Marketers Do Online and How You Can Become an Expert Marketer Quickly

- Who is Currently Using Social Media and What Drives Them
– Common Mistakes Being Made By Musicians Online
– How To Get Back To Marketing Basics 101. You’ll be Surprised as What Really Works
– How to REALLY Use Facebook and Twitter to Effectively Promote Your Music and Brand

We Looking Forward to having you on the call!

In the Meantime here is a sampling of Corey’s Brilliance:

Ariel Hyatt: Why is it important that artists participate in social media?

Corey Denis: At the very least, using social media as part of an over all marketing strategy has a direct impact on Music Discovery Optimization and Search Engine Optimization, creating exposure which increases the chance of sales. In the digital environment, artists have a new chance to interact with, and sell to fans surrounded by unlimited shelf space and unique experiences online and off. Authentic participation in the “social media” space is a lot like going to the merch table after a show and selling your own merch, signing record albums or cds or shirts or USB drives…

AH: Name 5 sites you think all artists should have a social presence on?

CD:

• Facebook
• Tumblr
• Foursquare
• Twitter
• YouTube

AH: Do you think it’s important for artists to be on as many sites as possible all over the Internet, or should they be selective and only sign up to the ones that they are actively using?

CD: It takes time to create and maintain profiles on most services, but it can’t hurt to hold your band name, as long as you take the time to point all who stumble upon your site to the place where you can authentically be found on the internet (your website). An artist can create 50 profiles and optimize search-ability online, but it’s crucial to consider the user experience for all who come across the profile.

AH: What’s the best way for an artist to get blogged about?

CD: Build a strategy around your intended publicity efforts, both traditional and digital. Do research and read the blog. Do not spam bloggers unless they indicate somewhere in their about or contact page that they are interested in mass submissions for review. Be aware of blogger tastes and use discretion in publicizing to blogs unless otherwise indicated by that particular blog. Target your music in the right direction. Do not offer music exclusives to more than one blog.

AH: Do social network profiles sell music?

CD: Creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account does not directly sell music, but it can greatly increase exposure, opportunity and attention around a new release thrust into the new music economy of unlimited shelf space. In addition to quality, the best way to increase the likelihood of attention online is authenticity. Avoid “sales speak” and connect with other artists who are also using the same tools in equal measure.

AH: Do you think artists should focus on getting played on Internet radio, and how can they get Internet radio airplay?

CD: Only focus a radio campaign budget on internet radio if you want to be heard online. Many stations include contact information on their websites. The same rules apply here: be familiar with the stations and the DJs where applicable. Build public lists of stations (with links) who play your music, however big or small, on your website. Interact with internet radio station DJs using your social network profiles.

AH: What would your recommendations be for the busy artist that only has 30 minutes a week to dedicate to social media?

CD: Thirty minutes per week is not enough time to create, respond, or engage with fans using more than one social media tool. Five hours per week (one hour per service) is the minimum needed to build viable digital strategy around unlimited shelf space.

Event Details

• Speaker: Ariel Hyatt
• Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: Ariel Hyatt in Brooklyn
• Venue: Music Success Teleseminar Series
• Country: CA
• Admission: FREE
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: http://arielpublicity.com/files/2012/02/DSC02306.jpg
• Notes: Presented by: Ariel Hyatt and Corey Denis It’s 2012 and Social Media is mainstream media. We all know how to use sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but few of us know how to use them well enough to engage friends and fans effectively and track ROI (return on investment). This FREE teleseminar will teach you basic principles that you need to know and understand to set yourself up for online success. In this call we will talk about: -What Musicians Do Online vs. What Expert Marketers -Do Online and How You Can Become an Expert Marketer Quickly -Who is Currently Using Social Media and What Drives Them -WWW = What Went Wrong: Common Mistakes Being Made By Musicians Online -Marketing Basics 101. You’ll be Surprised as What Really Works -How to REALLY Use Facebook and Twitter to Effectively Promote Your Music and Brand -Top 5 Social Media Sites Every Musician Should Be On Register for the event here: http://arielpublicity.com/teleseminar/
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

Click to continue...

I believe that getting reviewed on blogs is critical for every musician because it helps create a bigger footprint for you online, builds awarness and allows for a two-way conversation around your music

Here is a section from the recently released third edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks. To understand blogs I highly suggest you watch these two wonderful videos from the amazing Commoncraft website that explain all you need to know to get started.

STEP 1: Movie Time!

RSS in Plain English – http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Blogs in Plain English – http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs

Now that you have an understanding it’s time to get prepared to manage your blog reading.

STEP 2: Create Your Google RSS Reader

Setting up your RSS Reader is the perfect way to get the information you want (not only from blogs but from also from other sites you frequent) to be delivered to you, instead of having to check constantly to see what blog has been most recently updated.

You can set up your own Google RSS Reader by heading over to Google.com/Reader and signing up using your existing Google account information.

STEP 3: Create Your Blog Reader Profiles

A Blog Reader Profile is wonderful because it will show the blogger and the reader community that you have visited a blog even if you do not choose to comment each and every time. This leaves a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to you, which shows others what you are interested in.

Setting this up just a few minutes:

Gravatar

http://www.gravatar.com

When you get to this site, press the ‘Get your Gravatar today’ button and set up your profile. Add your photo, short bio and links to your website, Facebook and Twitter.

STEP 4: Choose A Few Blogs To Get Started – Look, Lurk, Leap!

Before you dive in and just start commenting on blogs I suggest you spend some time reading blogs and understanding the culture of each one you like and the authors who create them. After a few posts you will begin to get a good idea of wheter or not this will be a blog you will return to over and over – add it to your RSS reader so you don’t miss new posts and voilia!

According to some statistics there are currently over 100 million active bloggers today. Blogs, as you know, can be about any topic. A few dozen people read some blogs, while some are read by millions. The vast majority of all bloggers create blogs for no financial gain whatsoever; in fact it usually costs music bloggers money to host their files and maintain their blogs. A blog is usually a private endeavor. Most bloggers create their blogs as a personal outlet where they can talk about their lives, their opinions, and the things that they like and dislike – it’s basically an online diary.

To find blogs that are right for you won’t take long – just dive in and start reading them. The ones that resonate will jump out at you.

Here is a great place to start finding music blogs:

Music Blogs

The Hype Machine

http://hypem.com/

What it is?: (From Hype Machine) To put it simply, the Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. We handpick a set of kicka** music blogs and then present what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high. This site also tracks the most blogged about artists and songs on their network.

Music Business Blogs

And here are my favorite Music Thought / Music Industry / Music Technology blogs

Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR
Every week we write about marketing and PR, interview new media makers and review killer apps for musicians.

http://www.Arielpublicity.com/blog

Music Think Tank

http://www.musicthinktank.com/

A group blog bringing together key thinkers in the realm of online music business. Disclaimer – I write for this blog

Derek Sivers

http://sivers.org/blog

Daily thoughts for entrepreneurs and musicians.

Hypebot

A journal of music, technology and the new music business.

http://www.hypebot.com/

Artists House

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/

Video interviews with top music industry professionals on a broad range of topics about music and music business.

CD Baby

http://www.diymusician.cdbaby.com/

CD Baby’s DIY Musician is a daily blog that focuses on digital music promotion advice.

Bandzoogle

http://www.bandzoogle.com/blog

The Bandzoogle blog offers weekly music promotion and artist website optimization advice.

Billboard

http://www.billboard.biz

One of the largest daily news from all aspects of the music industry.

Bobby Owsinski

http://www.music3point0.blogspot.com/

Daily digital promotion, social media, and apps and tools from one of the most versatile and impressive music production writers.

Social Media

Mashable

http://www.mashable.com

Comprehensive reporting on any and all social media developments.

Brian Solis

http://www.briansolis.com/

Brian Solis is principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm. Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture. His current book, Engage, is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web.

Seth Godin

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

In my humble opinion, Seth Godin is the Godfather of marketing. He has written 13 books and every single one has been a bestseller. His blog posts are simple and easy to digest on a daily basis and written in plain english.

If you have a favorite blog you read please share it here!

Click to continue...

Google, in my humble opinion, is the most amazing invention since anything else I can really think of. And Google is not just a big search engine, although it would still be awesome if that’s all it did.

Google has been offering a suite of incredibly powerful tools for years; way before ‘in the clouds’ become the next big thing for companies like Apple and Microsoft. And to make it even better, Google has recently created a platform for musicians that offers even further tools that will help independent musicians all over the world to thrive in the digital world.

Google is, quite simply, a portal that truly puts all of the worlds electronic information at your fingertips – there’s a good reason why the word “Google” has become synonymous with searching online.

Here are 9 Hot Tips designed to help you through all of Google’s awesomeness and use it to your benefit.

1. Google Alerts
Have you ever spent hours trying to track down articles on a certain subject, topic or even about your band / your brand? With Google Alerts, whatever words you select will be searched by Google and emails will be delivered to in your in-box.

To Setup A Google Alert

1. Visit http://www.google.com/alerts
2. Choose your search terms.
   1. You may include wildcard characters (*) to expand the search to find words containing the search terms, i.e. “fi*” will return results for “fish,” as well as “ficus”
   2. Use quotation marks (“ Cyber PR ”) to search for only the exact words in the search, in the exact order entered
3. Choose the type of alert you would like.
4. Select the frequency of alert emails.(Daily works best)
5. Enter the email to which you would like the alerts emailed

2. Google Blog Search
This is basically a filter for only searching blogs; and with 100 million blogs out there, on top of all the websites, this is a great filter for all the noise. This is also a great place to track your band on blogs. To search on Google’s Blog search, go to this link: http://blogsearch.google.com/

3. Google RSS Reader
FIRST: Watch this video: It only takes 3 minutes and 43 seconds
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
Now that you know exactly what this is from watching RSS in Plain English,
Setting up your RSS reader is the perfect way for getting the information you want (not only from blogs but from also from other sites you frequent) to come to you instead of having to check constantly to see what has been updated.

4. Gmail
If you still have an AOL or hotmail address, you’re in trouble. Gmail just may be the best e-mail program/website on the planet. Many bloggers and new media makers use Gmail and it shows your in the know, so get signed up.

Google e-mail is so wonderful because it is searchable by topic or by word, and Google provides you with a huge amount of storage space.

Using Gmail as your default mail host, you can set up an URL and add GoDaddy for 7.95, then point it to the server and voila! You have a customized e-mail addresses for free.

5. iGoogle – Your customizable home page
Whether RSS, certain news links or weather, Google home pages tools can certainly help you. Google does not have to be this one-frame box. By opening a Google account, you also gain access to iGoogle, your personal home page. Here you can add just about any sort of information you like; from the silly, such as small Flash games, to the more serious such as tracking mentions of your or your brand’s name on the Web.

6. Google Docs
Google Docs is, in essence, the entire Microsoft Office suite offered to you for free, is synced completely online so you can access it from anywhere without taking up any storage space on your computer, and can be shared with anyone who has a Google account. This is an incredibly helpful tool for you and your team to take advantage of to keep track of lyrics, merchandise, accounting, and anything else you would otherwise use Word or Excel for.

7. Google Music Artist Hub
Google recently introduced their first digital music store called Google Music, and unlike iTunes and Amazon, Google has made Google Music incredibly easy for you to get your music listed for sale by creating the Google Music Artist Hub, a platform for you to be able to list, organize and manage all of your music being sold in their store. And to make it even better, having your music for sale in the Google Music store also means that you can sell your music though Youtube as well!

All you need to do to get on Google Music is to register for an Artist Hub account, which requires a one-time, $25 fee, and they will walk you through how to get your music published!

8. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a highly integrated, yet very simple calendar application that is synced to your Google account so it can be accessed form anywhere you can access the internet. The best reason for you to be using Google Calendar is that multiple users can sync to the same calendar, which means it is a free solution for you, your band, and your team to be on the same page for any upcoming events or deadlines that you may have.

9. Google +
Google introduced Google + in 2011, and the Facebook meets Twitter design and functionality made it the latest and greatest social networking platform to enter the competitive market. What makes Google+ so important for you is that, because it is a Google owned and operated platform, it ranks very highly in Google searches, helping you with your search engine optimization.

Google + is so deep that we dedicated an entire Musician’s Guide article to the platform, covering many of the important features you’ll need to know about!

10. Android
Google has entered the mobile market with Android, which is now the most widely used and fastest growing mobile operating system available. The obvious benefit to using Android is that it syncs all of your Google apps together, including Google +, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Music and even Google Docs so that you’ll never miss a beat when you’re on the go.

Click to continue...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ariel Hyatt Releases Third Edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks With Forward Written by Derek Sivers

Global Expansion for Cyber PR® and an Official Cyber PR® Course at MTSU are Tributes to Her Own Book’s Advice on Success

Brooklyn, NY – In 2003, Ariel Hyatt, founder of Ariel Publicity in New York City, threw out the traditional publicity rule book and went “digital” with her venture Cyber PR® foreseeing the impact the advent of the internet and social media would have on public relations long before her peers.

Ariel’s Cyber PR® process marks the intersection of social media with engaged behavior, PR, and online marketing.  Her efforts to realize the public relations potential of social media while scaling her business resulted in innovation.  Ariel developed her web-based platform, Cyber PR®, to automate much of the traditional PR process and maximize client placement with new media makers.

Ariel didn’t just provide the platform; she made it her mission to educate artists on how to take advantage of the digital world. Her signature system Music Success in Nine Weeks is the cornerstone of her mission. Her message is so compelling that she has been invited to speak at festivals and conferences in twelve countries, including SXSW, MIDEM (France), CMJ, ASCAP’s I Create Music, Canadian Music Week, APRA’s Song Summit (Sydney), You Are In Control (Reykjavik), The ECMAs, and Grammy Camp. Ariel also hosts a widely popular video and newsletter series, Sound Advice, offering information about the emerging music business for musicians and music entrepreneurs.

In the Fall of 2011, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)  a globally recognized leader in the world of music business schools debuted an official Cyber PR® class based on the principals used in Ariel’s day-to-day business and in Music Success in Nine Weeks. She and her staff led students in a rigorous Cyber PR® accreditation process that included hands on experience working on active Cyber PR® Campaigns.

Just released in its third edition, with a forward by Derek Sivers, Music Success in Nine Weeks can easily be deemed the “what to do next” bible for both new and established artists. It provides the missing manual for musicians trying to make sense of social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and teaches them how to make profitable businesses.

With her candid workbook style, it feels like you are sitting down with Ariel, scribbling your own ideas all over the book’s pages. Each book comes with a lifetime membership to join her online forum: Ariel’s Cyber PR® Mastermind where readers get support from fellow readers, and from Ariel and her staff.  The hands-on guide and support provides structure to what often feels like chaos.

“I am guiding musicians to take off their artists’ hats for a nine weeks and put on their business hats,” says Ariel. Her tactics have actualized exponential success for her most proactive readers by giving them a solid business strategy.

Her tools and approach are so meaningful in today’s digital music marketing landscape that her firm is expanding globally. At MIDEM 2012, Cyber PR® will announce their first international licensing partnership in France. Later this year, Ariel plans to expand into other international markets where popular music is consumed and marketed via social networks.

 ###

The book is available in ebook and paperback  exclusively at:  MusicSuccessInNineWeeks.com

For a review copy of the Third Edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks

or to arrange an interview with Ariel Hyatt, please contact:

Jon Ostrow at (212) 239-8384 • Jon@ArielPublicity.com

Click to continue...