Whether trying to network or increase their fan base, musicians must learn how to effectively employ platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The big wigs in the business hire experts in the field to execute their social posturing. While most up and coming success stories can’t afford social media marketers, they can still access the data that even the best promoters rely on.

Vitrue, one of the original and few Facebook “Preferred Developer Consultants” is one of the most innovative social media marketing strategists. Their 2010 Facebook study pinpointed and analyzed the biggest spikes in usage and traffic volume. Analysis and implementation of this data tells marketers when to post to claim the highest traffic and feedback.

Kissmetrics, a business analytics company, led a similar Facebook study in 2011, but also added Twitter to the mix. Rather than focusing on the most effective post times, Kissmetrics measured when posts and tweets are most shared or retweeted. A key point in their study found that nearly 80% of the US population is in the Eastern (48%) and Central (33%) Timezones. This is why Kissmetrics defined shares or tweets by an Eastern Timezone (ET) schedule.

Use expert timing to increase the visibility, feedback and shares of posts and tweets.

Facebook:

• Get the most views by posting before 3:00p.m. ET, with 3:00p.m. on Wednesdays having the highest traffic.
• If you’re looking for feedback, post in the morning hours in the first quarter hour (between :00 and :15).
• To get your comment shared post in the morning as most shares happen at noon ET. Saturday at noon ET produces the most content shares.

Twitter:

• Engage the highest volume of Click Throughs by tweeting 1 – 4 times per hour.
• Click Throughs spike at noon and 6:00p.m. ET.
• Midweek and Weekend tweets have the Highest Click Through Rate(CTR) overall.
• Get the highest CTR by tweeting on Weds and Saturday just before noon and 6:00p.m. ET.
• If you want to get retweets, tweet in the afternoon. Most retweets happen at 5:00p.m. ET.

Experts in the industry combine the best in analytics to secure superior results for their clients. If a musician wants to see growth in their social media network they need to understand timing to get the highest visibility and engagement from their posts and tweets. The accessibility to such data (via internet) and social media sites for even the greenest musician makes self promotion on a global scale possible. All it takes is a little internet savvy and know how.

Sources:

http://www.danieldecker.net/when-is-the-best-time-to-post-on-facebook-heres-the-answer/

http://faceitpages.com/blog/best-time-to-post-to-facebook/1061/

http://www.fortune3.com/blog/2012/01/best-time-post-facebook-twitter-statistics/

 By Marzee Dyer

Something you should know is that facebook only allows members to like a maximum of 500 pages and although most people won’t reach this number at present in the future as Facebook grows they’re going to. So take your chance now and follow the steps below.

First things first – First impressions count

If you already have a fan page chances are when a non-fan visits your page they will be directed to the ‘info’ tab (attractive :/) the problem with this is it doesn’t grab people. If an advert came on television and you had to read what the advert said to be sold a product you certainly wouldn’t read it and you may even be a little offended that they asked you too.

Solution!

Facebook has something called FBML which stands for Face Book Markup Language and this is basically Facebook’s own brand of HTML, it’s really easy to set up and use and you don’t have to be the best web designer in the world to use it. The advantages of having this feature at our fingertips is something that should not be overlooked! It allow you to create what is called a LANDING PAGE so you can customise what people see before they become a fan.

Check out my Facebook fan page HERE to see what I mean
(If your already a fan click the FYI! tab to see the example)

Looks better than the info tab doesn’t it now I’m going to leave it up to your own creativity to create something appealing the not only grabs but creates fans. However, seen as how I’m nice here are a few things to consider:

• Activate FBML on your page – you won’t be able to start customisation until you activate FBML to do this go to Facebook and type in the search bar ‘FBML’ you will be directed to the FBML page and then simply click ‘add FBML to your page’ which is located under the FBML image follow the instructions and once you’ve done that go to the admin area of your page find FBML click ‘edit’ and enter your HTML/FBML into the white box simples…

• CTA (Call To Action) – A CTA is something that asks people something, on my fan page I don’t let people forget why they’re there (which is to become a fan) I give then a gentle push in the right direction by saying ‘CLICK LIKE!’

• Don’t make you landing page look tacky if your no good at design then consider just using a really great image of the band to let people know what your about.

• Fill your workspace if you are using an image alone make sure it fills as much of the space as Facebook allows (720px wide)

• Give your FBML tab a name – just a bit of polish on all that hard work!

Get fans from your website to become a fan!

To get people who view your website to become a fan is easy just use Facebook’s ‘social plug-in’ and add a ‘like box’ to your website and make sure you use a CTA and put it where people can see it, that means no hiding it at the bottom of your website and only on the home page because that WILL result in poor results.

Tweet Tweet

Post to twitter regularly making sure you include the link back to you fan page is always a great way to get some more fans in, especially when they see how great the frot page looks !

Finally – Gig’s = social networking gold

Drop it somewhere into your set that you’d like everyone to “join you on” facebook never let a golden opportunity where you have the opportunity to advertise yourself slip away!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! My next post will be about keeping fans interested and getting them talking. Oh and one last thing don’t forget to ‘like’ my band FYI feel free to use the link on this page!