Social Media

Is Social Media ‘Destroying’ Local Live Music?

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The Intro (The barman’s perspective)

Smashed Guitar imageThose of you who know me well will know that during my uni days at Lancaster Uni, I was heavily involved with the live music scene, both as a performer and as a promoter. A few weeks ago, I revisited Lancaster for the first time in years, after organising and hosting a reunion with some of the guys from LULUMS (Lancaster University Live & Unsigned Music Society).

While I was there, I got chatting to one of the bar staff in one of the local live music venues (who I’ve known for years – he used to work there when I was at uni and still works there now), who told me that the local live music scene has slumped considerably in the last couple of years. His reasoning? People have become lazy and social media – including Twitter and Facebook – is primarily to blame, as in his opinion, people would rather stay at home and mess around on social media than make the effort to come out and see some bands. I think his exact words at one point were: “social media is destroying live music.”

Before I continue, I’d like to say that I think it’s a bit of an extreme and outlandish statement (just a bit… hehe), but given my involvement with live/unsigned music as well as my background in online marketing and social media marketing (and the fact that I blog about both music and social media on here), I was curious to see what other people thought.

So I asked various musicians, merchandisers, marketers and journalists a question: “Is social media destroying live music?” Here are their answers…

Disclaimer – I originally asked for “tweet-sized comments,” but when I got John’s comment back (the first person I asked), I could see that asking people to limit writing on a subject that they were passionate about was a foolish thing to do! Therefore I’ve published their thoughts/comments in full, rather than cutting anything out or asking them to make their answers shorter.

The musicians’ perspectives

John Simm – Drummer, Various
Coroner For The Police: Web | Twitter | Facebook
Cleft: Web | Twitter | Facebook

Coroner For The Police logoI think it’s a bit more complicated than laying all the blame on social media. I think that live music is still alive and well in many places, but how it’s consumed has changed.

There are a lot of bands out there, and also a lot of venues and I think that live music has suffered a little due to a lack of quality control in certain places. The promoters and venues that consistently put on good bands, have a good PA system, don’t charge an unreasonable amount on the door, and treat bands well generally have thriving nights. Take A Carefully Planned Festival in Manchester – they’ve almost sold out of their first round of tickets two months before the event, and by putting on good bands in good venues and planning it carefully (as the name would suggest) they’re on for a very successful weekend.

Those that don’t do any promotion, will take any band that wants to make noise and don’t seem that bothered in actually making a good night tends to scare off people going to see live music, and I think you end up with a general opinion that local band nights are ‘rubbish’, which doesn’t encourage others to go. The nights that take advantage of bands with high ticket prices and the “you must sell 50 tickets” mantra also damage the live reputation in my opinion. If the band aren’t popular enough to sell 50 £8 tickets to people that aren’t their direct friends (which is what usually happens) they should be doing cheaper gigs that are based around established nights.

Cleft logoIt’s such a fine balance between charging enough to pay for venues, promoters, sound engineers and also giving bands a few quid for fuel etc. and charging too much so that people won’t come.

This leads to a point where all but the hardcore live music goers are less likely to take a chance on a live night (due to cost/time) unless they already know the calibre of the band, and they’re guaranteed a decent night. I think this is why bigger gigs (like arenas and mid to large venues) thrive, because for your £10-£20 ticket you are almost guaranteed a decent performance, some entertainment, and a night that doesn’t suck. Smaller gigs suffer because they can’t provide this with such certainty.

This is where social networking and technology is useful – getting live videos, recordings and information out to fans and potential fans is crucial so that they can almost ‘vet’ you before they come.

I think a lot of bands don’t use social media enough, or they don’t use it well. You have to think of it as a band entity, an extension of the collective personality. I don’t want to follow a band that just tweets “We have a show here” and “Buy our single on iTunes”, I want them to have a bit of personality. Give me a good reason to follow you and I will do so.

Mark Creese – Guitarist, Shooting The Moon
Web | Twitter | Facebook | SoundCloud

Shooting The Moon photoFor me, social media has given the band a platform to get our music heard without the backing of management or a record label. It has also enabled us to share demos and live recordings instantly, allowing our fans to get more from us than would’ve been the case before the world of Twitter/Facebook/SoundCloud.

However whilst the above has allowed us to build a ‘fan base’ online, I would liken it to how many of your Facebook ‘friends’ are true friends – the people you would have a drink with tonight. There will always be a difference between the number of people who like a band and the number who are able to attend gigs, but I believe social media skews this further. It’s easy to listen to a band on your phone, but it takes commitment to pay £5 and take your chances on new music on a wet Thursday night.

We are truly grateful for the number of people who have seen our band play and continue to come to our gigs, but I believe that social media deters those that ten years ago would’ve taken a chance to hear some new music live, as they can now listen to and enjoy it for free, in the comfort of their own homes.

For the individual, this is perfect, but for bands like us, we want to see people enjoying our music, getting drunk, running on stage and hell, just having a good night out with friends. In addition, the music venues need people through the door to make a profit and the recent closures of long-standing music venues such as Barfly Cardiff massively reduces the opportunities bands have to play live and strangles the local music scene.

In summary, the rise of social media makes it vital that a band utilises all avenues to share music and promote gigs, as this is how the majority of their target audience interact. Yet the very system that allows a band to become well-known locally is the same system that deters people from attending gigs and supporting live music.

The answer? Take a chance. If you like a band you’ve heard via social media, go and see them live.  It’s highly likely that those also playing on the bill will be of a similar genre and you’ll discover bands you may never have heard by staying at home.

The merchandiser’s perspective

Neil Cocker – Managing Director, Dizzyjam
Web | Twitter | Crowdcube

Dizzyjam logoEver since the start of the music industry as we know it, people have been concerned that the next new development will signal the death of live music. When radio first appeared people were concerned that nobody would go to see live music. Then vinyl meant everyone would stay at home rather than go out.

Of course, live music has peaks and troughs, but our desire to listen to music while surrounded by like-minded people is as old as humanity itself and isn’t going anywhere soon. And while the big record labels cry foul about downloading killing sales revenues, bands are just being ever more inventive about the way they money from their music. The music industry as we know it has been around less than 0.25% of the history of music. And while the industry may change, music will always be around.

The marketer’s perspective

Russell O’Sullivan – Digital Marketing Manager, Roland UK
Web | Blog | Twitter

Roland UK logoPersonally, I don’t believe that social media, the music platforms, etc. are killing local live music, in fact just the opposite. Small venues, bands, musos, etc. should embrace the ability to connect with the wider audience in the environment that their fans are always in. If your target audience or potential fans are on FB then you have to advertise on FB, same goes for YouTube, Twitter, Spotify, etc. An added advantage, it doesn’t cost anything to invest time and effort on social platforms, whereas flyers, ads and so on are a literal cost.

The ability for a niche band or venue to create a wider fan base – not just in their local area but across the very linear Internet – is something that they need to get involved with and understand that it’s not going away.

More bands and artists have hit the headlines and have been successful over the last five years or so from singing into a camera in their bedroom, than pop up on the dire reality TV shows… so I think that says a lot in how the digital and social channel can elevate them into new audiences and hopefully success…

The journalist’s perspective

Simon M. Read – Print Editor, The MMP (Miniature Music Press)
Web | Twitter | Facebook

The MMP logoSocial media can act as both an enabler and a barrier to whatever it engages with. The uses of Facebook and Twitter in respect to live local music seem multi-faceted: musicians, venues and promoters utilise it to promote their shows and themselves; an audience will often learn of local gigs through social media; and a buzz can most certainly be generated about a local band within these ‘virtual’ realms either in response to actual shows or to a band’s online promotion. So there are definite positives, especially if the underlying assumption in asking whether social media is destroying local live music is that audience members use it too often in order to attend shows. To me, that suggests it’s a viable tool to be utilised in promotion, alongside the age-old staples of word-of-mouth, postering and flyering.

That said, I do think an over-reliance on social media by local musicians, promoters and so on could be dangerous for the local scene. There is an inherent transience to the online realm; tweets come and go, as do Facebook statuses with many of them going unwatched or unnoticed. To rely on it purely without any further direct engagement with potential audiences assumes that, because people use social media, they will instantaneously turn up at your gig at the creation of a Facebook event. Though I can’t speak beyond anecdotes here, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Reprise (The commenters’ perspectives)

What do you think? Do you agree with the staff member of the live music venue in Lancaster who originally made the statement? Or do you agree with some of the comments above? Do you have a different perspective entirely? If so, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

[Smashed guitar image credit: Eva Rinaldi; all logos courtesy of each person’s/band’s/company’s Twitter profile, except for Roland UK’s, which was grabbed from here (with permission)]

Battle of the Birdies: HootSuite vs. Tweetbot

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HootSuite vs. TweetbotOnce upon a time, I wouldn’t have let anyone say a bad word about HootSuite. As someone who needed to manage multiple Twitter accounts and didn’t want to keep signing in and out of Twitter.com, it was perfect. I’d tried TweetDeck but found that I preferred HootSuite (incidentally, it seems to be a bit of a Marmite thing: I know some people who are the opposite and who love TweetDeck and hate HootSuite – each to their own, I suppose)!

The best thing about HootSuite? It’s free! Sure, there’s a PRO version available, but the free version is plenty handy. I recommended it to quite a few people I know, who also seemed to find it very useful.

(I also adore HootSuite’s branding. I LOVE that owl, and the fact that they have so many different versions of it, which they even use for Twitter. In doing a bit of research for this article, I discovered that there are even Plush Owly’s, which are OMGsoawesome, but I digress…)

However, recently their iOS updates (for the iPhone and iPad) have had a few issues: updates intended to fix various bugs would themselves have a few bugs in them. I have also come across an error message (I think it’s called the “NSURE” error or something?) that won’t allow you to send a tweet. It used to give you the option to retry, which would allow you to at least copy and paste the content of the tweet to repost elsewhere, but recently it won’t even let you do that, meaning that you risk losing the tweet’s content altogether and have to retype it again elsewhere!

Frustrated, my buddy @Nonentity of yourleft.net recommended Tweetbot. Given my frugal ways, my immediate scepticism kicked it: it’s a paid app. When I hear that something’s paid (when it has free alternatives), I react pretty much the same way Napoleon does in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (watch from the 1:05 mark).

“PAY?!”

However, I decided to give it a try for the iPhone (£1.99 or $2.99 as I type this) and do you know what? Worth. Every. Penny.

Here are my favourite things about Tweetbot:

(Note: I imagine most people reading this might be HootSuite users who are considering Tweetbot, so I’ll assume that you know how HootSuite works and therefore mostly focus on Tweetbot’s features.)

Layout changes for other people’s tweets vs. your tweets

Tweetbot iPhone screenshot 1(Click to see a larger version)

As you can see from the screenshot, when viewing your main Home Feed, your tweets are presented differently, with your image on the right instead of the left. I thought this was a nice touch, making it easier to differentiate between people’s tweets, especially when you’re trying to catch up and you have been a bit busy with the tweets and/or @mentions yourself.

HootSuite users will know that HS does something similar, by changing the tweet background colours (yellow for your tweets; green for @mentions), but I personally feel that Tweetbot’s solution looks neater while still making it obvious to the user whose tweets are whose.

Thumbnail previews for pictures and videos

Tweetbot iPhone screenshot 2

I also like the fact that pictures and videos show thumbnails alongside the tweets, so that you can glance at their content without having to see the tweets’ details. In HootSuite, one would have to click onto the tweet to see a preview and then the link again to see it fully, adding an additional click (or tap) for the user.

Note: So far I have noticed that HootSuite doesn’t necessarily preview pic.twitter.com images (Twitter.com’s uploaded images – probably a conspiracy)! However, unfortunately Tweetbot isn’t exactly perfect, as it doesn’t preview ow.ly images (HootSuite’s uploaded images – probably also a conspiracy)!

Receive notifications of new @mentions or DMs

Tweetbot iPhone screenshot 3

Although HootSuite is meant to do this (showing a number corresponding to the number of unread tweets next to each row on the main Streams page), it never seems to work for me.

Tweetbot highlights the bottom buttons blue if there are new tweets, which also applies if you’ve received new @mentions and DMs. Very handy, particularly if you’ve disabled email notifications and do not receive any other type of alert or notification when someone tweets you directly.

Customise the bottom buttons

I also like the fact that some of the buttons at the bottom can be customised. The last 2 (out of 5) can be changed if tapped and held, and then another feature can be shown instead.

For example, instead of my profile…

Tweetbot iPhone screenshot 4

…I could change it to my Favourites instead…

Tweetbot iPhone screenshot 5

Admittedly, you can do this in HootSuite as well, but you either have to navigate back to the Streams page or flick left or right, which I find to be a bit more clunky, if that makes sense.

Downsides?

Tweetbot’s downsides are few and far between. The only potential issue I’ve come across so far – which is probably a case of me being silly than anything wrong with the app – is that when I tried to upload an image, it didn’t then show the shortened URL for the image (like it does in HootSuite), so I was concerned that it might send the tweet without the image link. A bit confusing, but I’m sure it’s fine – I’ll have to give it a go sometimes and see what happens.

So I guess this post was more of a review of Tweetbot than a full-on comparison between the two, but as a long-time user and advocate HootSuite, I was pleasantly surprised with Tweetbot. So much so, that I recently purchased it for the iPad.

Now if you don’t mind, I have an iPad version of Tweetbot to play with…

[Image credits: HootSuite and Tweetbot logos courtesy of their respective Twitter profiles: @hootsuite and @tweetbot]

#SMsceptic: Companies, Stop Giving Away iPads!

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Facebook Meh imageA month or so ago, I was at Hollywood Bowl in Cardiff Bay with the BNI Quinnell guys (back when I was still a member of the group) for a social event outside of our weekly morning meetings.

In addition to the screens above the lanes that were playing all sorts of music videos, there were a few screens with the occasional marketing message: food offers, game offers, etc. At one point, they flashed up information regarding their Facebook Page, with the following statement:

“Like us on Facebook and you could win an iPad!”

Bowling balls imageAck! I remember moaning to one of the other BNI Quinnell guys – also a marketer – about how it’s always, always, always a bloody iPad! Poor guy just wanted to bowl but there I was, ranting away…!

My issue isn’t with the strategy being implemented, but with the prize being offered. It’s not because I have anything against Apple (hell, I own an iPad and I love it)! I just find it frustrating that so many companies lean on giving away an iPad because – in my opinion – it’s a completely wasted opportunity!

Why not give away something relevant to your business instead? Hollywood Bowl could’ve given away a custom bowling ball or custom team bowling shirts. In addition to being a bit more original than giving away a product that every other company is currently giving away, a relevant product would complement your own products/services. For example, if someone won a bowling ball or bowling shirts, they might decide to then use them at Hollywood Bowl, encouraging return visits and increasing custom. The winner(s) could even share the photos of them using the ball/shirts on HB’s Facebook Page.

Granted, it’s not easy with some industries. I can’t remember who it was now, but I remember a car insurer that was also giving away an iPad. Having worked at an insurance company, I know first-hand that it’s not easy giving away free insurance as a prize, due to the trickiness surrounding the pricing (after all, what if the person who wins is expensive to insure?) and it’s also probably against FSA guidelines anyway. But even so… what about a car? If that’s too expensive (although the PR involved could be worth it!), then what about something that could go towards car maintenance (e.g. a Halfords or Kwik-Fit voucher), or a personalised number plate, or even go kart racing vouchers?!

There’s so much opportunity! Be original. Be relevant. Be fun. And stop giving away bloody iPads…!

[Image credits – Facebook Meh button: Sam Michel; bowling balls: Markus Zavalla]

#SMsceptic: A Quick, Simple Guide to Twitter @Mentions

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At sign imageAs a heavy Twitter user, I often come across people improperly using @mentions. If you’re a long-term reader, you might’ve seen me briefly cover this before (see 1-3 in the list).

Often, those guilty are brand new users. That’s ok. I made some horrendous mistakes when I first started using Twitter. I’m sure most of us did. Twitter takes some getting used to.

Sometimes, however, they are people who have “social media” in their job title. I’ve seen social media professionals – including a variety of consultants, trainers, executives and in-house staff – who can’t @mention properly. In my opinion, this is not cool. While it could be argued that someone doesn’t necessarily need to know how to use a platform inside-out to be able to consult strategy on it, a) it’s not exactly a hard concept to grasp properly, and b) they might be giving people incorrect advice, particularly if they’re a trainer.

Besides, if someone gave you all the details on how to build your house, but forgot to include any doors when they built their own, what would you think? It hardly inspires confidence.

Tempted to scream, tweet various swear words, or tweet something like “if I had a pound everytime someone did this…” each time I witness such errors, I thought instead that I’d vent my frustrations in a more practical and helpful way…

So here it is: a really quick and simple guide on how to use @mentions on Twitter.

@mentions at the start of a tweet:

@joebloggs has a new website. Check it out: [link]

The above is intended as an announcement. However, not all of your followers will see it.

An @mention at the start of a tweet will only be seen by you, the person you’re tweeting and anyone who follows both of you. The only other exception is if someone happens to check your profile manually, but in my experience, people may only do this when they first come across a profile (e.g. they’re wondering whether or not to follow you) or if they just want to check something (e.g. to look up your profile bio or URL).

So if you want to make an announcement, make sure the @mention isn’t at the start of the tweet! Either re-word it so that the @mention appears later on, or put a full-stop before the @ sign, e.g. “.@joebloggs has a…”

@mentions mid-tweet:

Hey @joebloggs, what’s your email address? Thanks!

An @mention mid-tweet will be seen by everyone in your timeline. This is fine as an announcement, but if it’s only intended as a brief, bland, personal message that really isn’t intended for anyone else, then you risk irritating your followers and clogging up their feed. Especially if you’re @mentioning a lot of people with the same message.

So if you’re posting a personal tweet, intended only for the individual, then be considerate to your followers: consider keeping the @mention at the start of the tweet.

How they should be:

Sticking with the above two examples, you should do something like this instead:

.@joebloggs has a new website. Check it out: [link] or
My good friend @joebloggs has a new website. Check it out: [link]

@joebloggs Hey, what’s your email address? Thanks!

That way, your intended announcement is actually an annoucement, and your personal tweet is more personal. Easy, no?

I also recommend Jessica Hische’s more amusing guide on how to use Twitter, which also covers @mentions (I swear I haven’t simply ripped it off!) as well as things like #hashtags and retweets.

It may seem like I’m making a big fuss, but if you’re a business that’s trying to make a big effort on Twitter, you don’t want your announcements to go unseen and/or risk bothering your followers with tweets that don’t concern them!

And… breathe.

[@ sign image credit: Steve Snodgrass]

#SMsceptic: True Twitter Authority Is All About Follow Ratio

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100,000 CupcakesLet’s begin with a (slightly rude/NSFW) quote:

“Having the most followers on Twitter is akin to having the most imaginary friends, the biggest Gamerscore, or the world’s longest e-penis. In other words, what does it mean in the real world? Precisely f*** all.”

A friend of mine wrote that on his Facebook profile a while back. He was annoyed because a friend of his was paying a lot of money to see a social media professional for social media training. This professional’s big, bold unique selling point was that he had a lot of followers, the most in his chosen field and area of expertise, apparently. So he must know what he’s talking about and be good at what he does if he’s that popular, right? And fair enough, he did have a lot of followers. I saw his profile and he had about 100,000 followers on Twitter. Nice!

The only problem? He was also following about 100,000 in return. His Follow Ratio was pretty much 1:1.

Why do I have a problem with this? A few reasons:

Quantity can be gamed: Auto-follow tools such as TweetAdder make it easy for someone to obtain a large number of followers. Set it to automatically follow people based on various criteria (e.g. their location, keywords in their profile’s Bio, etc.). Eventually, as you’ve gone to the effort of following these people, some will follow you back – and you can even automatically unfollow those who do not reciprocate after a certain amount of time. Rinse, repeat, and after a while, voilà: you’re “popular” (read: you look more popular).

Why do I say “look more popular” when they could be genuine followers? Well…

You could be preaching to following the choir: What if the 100k that you’re following – to get 100k people to follow you back – are doing exactly what you’re doing? Then it’s purely a numbers game – you’re not reading their tweets, they’re not reading yours.

…And why do I say that? Well…

It’s impersonal: I think it’s pretty safe to say that if someone is following 100k people, they’re not actually reading the tweets in their Twitter feed. I follow 200+ people I genuinely care about as I type this, and I struggle to keep up! In fact, at an event I went to a while ago, one of the speakers – who gave a talk on Twitter – said that you should just follow lots of people from your business profile, and use a separate/personal profile or a Twitter List to follow the people you actually want to keep up-to-date with. Umm… no thanks, that’s not for me.

Scrambled NumbersQuantity isn’t everything: Social media isn’t necessarily about having lots of (or the most) followers. As I’ve said before (point #12), I’d much rather have 10 followers who care about what I have to say than have 10,000 followers who don’t and who only follow me so that I follow them back and beef up their stats. As always, quality trumps quantity.

And at the end of the day…

It’s snake oil – it’s tricking potential customers/clients: I know all this, and I’m assuming most other online marketing professionals reading this know all this, but does your average Joe Bloggs – who wants to learn how to use Twitter for business use – know to watch out for it? Probably not. My friend’s friend didn’t.

So why is Follow Ratio (FR) important? Well compare the above gent’s ratio of 1:1 (followed by 100k, following 100k) to someone who truly is an authority. If someone is followed by 100,000 people but is only following 100 in return – their FR being 1:1,000 – then it seems a lot more legitimate that this individual is genuinely being followed because people care about them. The person doesn’t have to follow people back and they will still follow him/her.

Fortunately, contrary to what I’ve said above, I think people are gradually getting wise to this. SEO has had a similar problem: it seems logical to think that the people ranking at the top of Google for a keyword like “SEO agency” are the best at what they do, but what if they’ve gotten via dodgy/spammy means, or it’s a keyword that looks good but doesn’t even get much search volume? Meanwhile, Twitter does have Klout as a metric, but then it isn’t exactly accurate (and I believe Klout doesn’t currently take followers into account)…

To me, what’s important are things like reviews, testimonials and word-of-mouth. Fair enough if this social media trainer with a 1:1 FR is actually really good at giving social media training, but in my opinion, they shouldn’t use “I have lots of followers” as a USP when such a thing can be easily manipulated (and – judging by his profile – probably has).

Funnily enough, as I was going to publish this post, someone on my Twitter feed complained about how people he knows are falling for follower numbers. Using Storify Wakelet, I’ve included the tweets and @mentions between me and two others: @NeilCocker and @tombeardshaw. (More people and tweets were involved in the discussion, but as some of the tweets went a bit off-topic and became quite negative – pin-pointing a particular individual guilty of the practice – I’ve only included a few of them.)

[Image credits: 100,000 cupcakes by Adam Tinworth (because everyone loves cupcakes!); “Scrambled” by Nick Humphries]