Oops! From RIPizzo on Flickr

With all the mainstream media’s attention on social media, there are a lot of eager people jumping into the game without knowing what they are doing.  While that is one way to learn, and don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of learning through experimentation, it is also useful to learn from other people’s mistakes.  Here are some common mistakes that I see every day:

1. Assuming Content Will Build an Audience

Building an audience has three basic steps: (1) The initial hook, (2) Drawing in with engaging content, and (3) Bringing them back with the promise of more.

This takes lots of time and lots of work.  No one just publishes a book and instantly becomes famous (except maybe JK Rowling), and content on the web is not different.  People aren’t going to look at your work just because online content is easier to access.

True, good content is by far the most important thing to have when trying to build an audience, but it by no means will build you an audience.

Just three days after filling the house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where averaged priced seats run at $100 a pop, world renowned violinist Joshua Bell performed 6 classical pieces for 43 minutes at the L’Enfant Plaza metro stop in Washington, DC as part of an experiment organized by The Washington Post.  Out of the 1,097 people that walked by, only one person stopped to listen to his music.

What does this tell you?  You won’t find success with talent alone.

2. Sacrificing Usability for Design

Artists generally want a unique looking web presence.  We don’t like templates, we don’t like anything mainstream and we don’t like being forced to look like something.  That is why I love artists, because we reject the status quo and innovate instead.  But what we have to be careful of is pushing the envelope too far.  If you are going to go with something unconventional, make sure you still have the 6 Elements of a Killer Website.

3. Not Using Analytics

What do you want out of being in social media?  Blog subscribers?  Traffic?  More sales?  Don’t just blindly trust that your practices are actually helping you reach your goals.  Whatever you decide your metrics to be, make sure you are tracking them.  Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking progress (and it has easy integration with WordPress).

4. Inconsistent Branding on Multiple Platforms

Artists want to be as prolific as possible, which means being present on all the various social media platforms.  These various profiles should not be managed as separate entities, but rather as a comprehensive representation of you as an artist.  While different platforms have different purposes, a viewer should have a similar experience and be able to access similar content on all of your social media profiles.

Social media has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for independent artists looking to promote their events and performances.  An individual artist can significantly increase their audience turnout without using any money by reaching out to the over 250 million active users on Facebook.   These tips will help you start thinking creatively about using Facebook as all the possibilities are still being discovered.

1. Use your fan page

Your fan page is like your base of operations.  This is your home on facebook where fans can learn more about you and your upcoming events.  With Facebook fan pages, you are able to “Target Your Update” to a specific area when sending messages.

For example, say you are going on a 5 city tour in New England.  You could send one message to all the states in New England, a different message to each city you are visiting with more specific information, and a general wall post with comprehensive details for your fans to see.  Make sure to follow the 5 Rules for Artists Using Social Media.

Tip: To increase your # of fans, try having a sign-in/sign-up sheet at each of your events so that you can email attendees thanking them for coming and inviting them to become your fan on Facebook.

2. Create friends lists

Facebook allows you to organize your friends into different categories, giving each of them various “tags” that help you more effectively communicate with the people that matter the most.  These are great for maximizing the support of your personal connections.  Organize your friends into different tiers so that you can send them more direct messages.

Facebook makes it insanely easy to quickly invite your 500 friends to an event.  So easy that we are constantly spammed with invites to events we don’t really care about (sorry, I’m just not that interested in your “Meatloaf and Jenga Party”).

Mass inviting guests can be dangerous because your connections that don’t really care will likely ignore you, and your friends that would gladly support you could be insulted that you sent them the “mass invite” instead of something more personal.  To avoid this, create different categories for your friends (ex. frequent supporters, occasional supporters, professional colleagues, etc.) so that your invites and updates can be marketed directly to them.

3. Hold contests before the event

Umphrey’s Mcgees Lights (TomK. on Flickr)

You want to harness the power of your fans to promote your event.  Word of mouth is viral and will help increase your exposure.  Try offering a weekly prize claimable at your event for fans that do a status update or tweet about your event.  Now your fans become your promotional partners, increasing the likelihood that they will attend and giving you viral publicity for very little cost.

Example: The Umphrey’s McGee held a scavenger hunt at the Rothbury Festival in early July via Twitter, where successful treasure hunters were rewarded with DVDs, keychains, and a hand written note from the band.

4. Collaborate with other artists

Collaborating is a great way not only to meet other artists that share your interests, but also to reach an entirely new audience that might not have known about you.  Try hosting a joint event that both artists promote.  Guest post on each other’s blogs leading up to the event, cross-link to each other’s facebook pages and websites, and feature the other person’s art on your page.

5. Do a daily raffle for free tickets

The week before your event, you want to kick promotion into high gear.  This is the time that people are finalizing their plans and you want to be on their calendars.  Create buzz by having a daily raffle for free tickets (or if it is an unticketed event, give away some other prizes).  This isn’t necessarily to get those ticket winners to come, as discounted tickets decrease attendance, but rather to give a daily reminder about your event and to create an incentive for your fans to tell their friends.

Or try this: Michelle Mangione will be raffling away a free guitar signed by Grace Slick.  To be entered you must sell 10 copies of her recently released CD.  Brilliant.

Being able to tell a good story is a notably powerful marketing tactic. A compelling narrative is something that people will tell their friends, tweet about, write about, and most importantly: remember.

Lives are a continuous narrative with a series of beginnings, middles, and ends. You can harness this inherent appreciation of story in your own personal social media strategy. When thinking about personal branding and self-promotion, there are a few things you should always keep in mind.

People may trust facts, but they remember stories. The object of a good story is to elicit some sort of emotional response from your viewer. Emotion is closely linked to memory and higher levels of attention. What were you doing on the morning of September 11th, 2001? I bet you remember where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. People remember stories because they are channels that spread the emotions contained within them.

Your most unique quality is your own personal story. No one lived your life but you. Spend some time thinking about how you got to where you are today. Make a list of a few key events that shape your art. Knowing this story, your story, will help focus your audience’s attention on what is special and different about you. You have competition, so why not promote your most distinguishing quality?

Carrie Underwood (the.diet.starts.monday on Flickr)

Reality shows do this all the time. American Idol’s Carrie Underwood was the country girl from Checotah, OK (population 3500). She used her rags to riches story to appeal emotionally to audiences.  Branding not only helps you focus your attention, it helps your audience relate to you and your work. I don’t advocate choosing a niche or archetype that you can “fit” yourself into. Instead, identify the unique elements of your own narrative and incorporate those into your brand.

The perspective of your story is just as important as the story itself. You can weave a compelling narrative without mimicing the insanely inspirational stories that you see on Oprah or the heart-wrenching clips from Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  In fact, people are fairly cynical about manufactured drama.

By contrast, Dave Barry became one of the most celebrated nationally syndicated humor columnists by collecting and commenting on the absurd extremities of his own life.  He built such a supportive community that he was essentially able to crowdsource his column from the absurdities that other people sent him.  Almost every single item in his annual Holiday Gift Guide was submitted by a reader.

So let’s talk Twitter.  Twitter is a free micro-blogging tool that allows you to create messages of 140-characters or less.  It is a great tool for community building, self-promotion (yes those are two different things), and actively engaging fans in your brand.

1. Broadcast promotional material.

Twitter was not created as a Press Release System.  Some users employ twitter as a tool for one-way broadcasting.  Please don’t do this.  Social media is about creating a relationship with your community.  I want to connect to you, not promo tweets written by your marketing team.

Interact with people on Twitter that are interested in you, your product, or your field.  Use @ replies and Retweets to build relationships.  People often wonder “why is no one tweeting me?” or “why isn’t anyone writing on my wall?”  The answer is almost always because you haven’t invited them to.  Ask a question.  You’ll be amazed.  No one is going to interact with you without being invited to, unless your audience is 13-year-old-girls… and you are the Jonas Brothers.

2. Use a username with “gurl”, “hot”, “boi” or any variation thereof.

This isn’t your AIM screen name from high school, so resist the temptation of a “prettypony6794” or “monkeysRcrazy4242”.  Be consistent with your brand and choose something that people will easily identify as you.  You can change your display name in Settings without creating a new account. (acceptable options: your name, band, gallery, company, etc.)

Internet rural (Credit: Caliaetu on Flickr)

3. Only tweet at night.

Most artists work weird hours.  But keep in mind that a high percentage of Twitter users are on a 9-5 work schedule and that is when you are going to get the most visibility.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything at night, but save a large percentage of your tweets for the day, when you will be most likely to elicit a response.

4. Tweetflooding.

Also known as spamming.  Your 30 tweets about The Real Housewives of New Jersey are unappreciated and unnecessary.  Overtweeting is a good way to get unfollowed.  Also, people are less likely to want to interact if you are overwhelming them.  Think before you post.  Exceptions: If you are live-blogging an event like a conference or breaking news story, it is acceptable to tweetflood as long as you use #hashtags.  Find out what hashtag other people are using and add it to your tweets to help connect with other people talking about the same thing.

5. Miss out on conversation.

I see this all the time and it kills me.  If someone is talking about you or something that you are knowledgable and passionate about, you should be right there in the conversation.

• Use Twellow to connect to other people in your industry.
• Set up alerts on Tweetbeep and Google Alerts so that you know whenever someone mentions you, your brand, or something you are interested in.
• Check out Tweetmeme for what links people are most talking about.