How do you like my caption "Instagram for instant fans"? I'm a poet and I don't know it...

Ok  - my blog post title caught your attention. Guilty as charged!

What is Instagram and why should you use it?

Instagram is a free app for taking and sharing photos with a caption from your smartphone. It has recently been in the press because Facebook just famously bought them for one billion dollars. I repeat. One BILLION dollars. So, there must be some value in the Instagram community, right?

Instagram has been around for the iPhone since it launched in October 2010, and was released for Android users in April 2012. There are over 30 million accounts, and in the first 12 hours Instagram launched for Android, over 1 million new users signed up. That shows you it is growing, and fast!

A lot of the community are music lovers, and since the community is photo based, it’s really fun and fresh, giving you a real shot at interacting with new potential fans. Also, there’s no “buy this, buy that, like this or that” feeling on Instagram like there can be on other social networks, which makes the Instagram community even stronger.

How will Instagram save your career?

To be honest I don’t think any one thing will save (or kickstart) your career. But, I do strongly believe that at some point in your career, or after the initial starting phase of launching a new musical project wears off and you stop using social media so much, you do need a kick in the pants, so to speak. And Instagram is the perfect tool to do just that, because:

• Instagram is fun and simple to use, therefore you WILL use it
• When you post your photo and its caption to Instagram, with the same click you can post the same photo and caption to twitter, facebook, foursquare and tumblr. Just select which of those you want to post to each time you snap (or upload) a photo. So you are saving time on the other social media by keeping them updated with the most popular content of all: photos!! (Note: Warner music recently posted that the artist photo section of their website was accessed waaaay more than the music part).
• Because of how Instagram is connected with other social media,  even if you don’t have one of these, for example if you are not yet on twitter or tumblr, now is the perfect time to start. Just create one and have it linked from your instagram, so it slowly fills up with your photos.
• In this way your name and influence can grow, with either a snap of a photo, or simply clicking like or commenting on other photos
• You don’t need a large amount of friends or followers to get started (or any at all)
• Friends and fans just love photos – they can say so much and you can form a quick bond via sharing an interest in what you have just photographed
• Photos can be geotagged, which means people can follow photos posted from their favourite venue, for example. Always add your location to your concerts and important public appearances, because then your photos goes in a kind of “hall of fame” with other people who performed there.
• Your Instagram feed can be used like a digital resume of a cross over between your personal and professional life. In this way potential fans get a real glimpse into your world and helps them connect with you.
• Your Instagram feed is a two-way visual communication with your fans, so you can learn something about them as well, which is very important if you want to sustain a loyal, long term fan base.
• Instagram is only available on mobile devices and not on a computer web browser, so Instagram photos really must be done “on the fly” and without too much thought, which is what keeps it real and fresh.

If you hate taking pictures, don’t let that stop you

You don’t even need to have any photography skills or even a good phone camera because they all crop to a square shape, then you add a nice looking filter which saves even the worst photo. A lot of photos that are popular are very dark because of poor concert lighting, but people just don’t care.

You don’t even need to be doing things that “hip” to use it. Honestly, photos of junk food still in their packaging and about to be eaten is popular, and makes everyone in their Instagram feed feel warm and fuzzy…

How much time will it take to get new fans?

The idea of social media is to share, to connect, and to enjoy other people’s stories. With this in mind, as an artist you are always wanting to find new fans, so getting followers becomes important. But don’t sign up and snap photos just to get followers who you hope to convert into fans – snap photos with the right spirit of sharing and self expression.

Having said all that, it will take a couple of minutes to sign up, and about 30 seconds to take a photo and upload it to your Instagram feed.

In terms of maintenance, I recommend taking about one photo every 2 days. So that’s 30 seconds every 2 days.

I also recommend spending about 5-10 minutes connecting with your Instagram community every 2 days. What I mean by this is that you should be clicking the “like”button (a heart) on the photos you love in your feed, and commenting on the photos that inspire you to leave comments on.

But here’s the thing. I only do this on the tram or if I am stuck waiting in line somewhere. I never do it any other time so Instagram has honestly never taken me any time at all.

Once you are in the habit of doing this (which takes no more than 30 seconds of actual time, since the rest you do in “dead time”), then you can start to build your potential new fanbase. And adding and connecting with lots of new followers takes about 10 minutes once a month. So in total, over time, you are not spending any time on it, except 5-10 minutes every 2nd day in your dead time. More on finding followers and fans later.

What to photograph?

Anything you are doing at that moment you want to share. As I mentioned, you only need to post about once every 2 days, and I recommend aboutone photo per week has you in it, for example:

• At rehearsal
• Backstage before or after a show
• With fans, friends, bandmates, or anyone in your crew. In the caption do say a big thank you to them!
• During a show (you can upload photos that have been taken earlier by somebody else who has sent them to you)
• Outside your favourite shop, cafe, restaurant
• With your friends
• On holidays
• Holding up 2 different outfits and asking in the caption “which one should I wear?”… (please be wearing something already though!! no nudity, ughh)

The photos without you can be anything you see and like. Typical ones are:

• What you are about to eat
• What you are wearing on your feet — take a bird’s eye view photo
• Bits of your vinyl / CD / book / whatever collection
• What is hanging on your walls
• What you want to buy when out shopping for clothes/shoes/gadgets…
• Interesting grafitti
• Your surroundings
• A note someone wrote for you, or a note you wrote for someone

I am not sure if this photo fits into the category of "with the artist in it" or not...

Tips for getting started

1. Once you have downloaded the app and are signed up, go to settings (instructions below) then go to “Edit profile” and add your first and last name, web site and bio in your profile . This is in addition to your username.
2. In settings, go to “Edit shared settings” and link whichever you have of facebook, twitter, foursquare and tumblr.
3. In settings, go to “Find friends” and add friends from your contact list, facebook, twitter etc. Click “follow all”. You can always unfollow the ones you find uninteresting later (or unfriend them, ouch!)
4. When you snap or upload a photo, add a location to your photos if you are in a trendy place that you want your photo to show up in, so you can be in their “hall of fame”. Never share your home or other private location information.
5. In your comment, add @username as you would in twitter if you want to shout out to somebody
6. In your comment, use hashtags such as #jeans, #musicmonday, #country —  just as you would on twitter. People can click on the hashtags and follow photos that way.

I will show you how to access settings below. I am using Android so my screenshots below may be slighty different if you are using an iPhone, but you get the idea. To get to your settings there are three steps. First you need to navigate to your profile:

1 – Click on the button in the bottom right as in my screenshot:

Step 1: How to get to your settings

Note the poor quality photo above, but it still gets 64 likes!

2 – This takes you to your profile. Now click in the upper right corner of your profile:

3 – Now you are on your settings page, so click ‘Edit Profile’ to add your first name, last name, website address and a short bio.

Step 3: How to get to your settings

Your first and last name will appear under your username on your profile page, and your bio just above your photos. Remember, it is your username, not your first and last name, that will be seen everywhere when you like or comment on photos.

Therefore, be sure that your username is the one you want to promote, in this case StarPause, and not Jordan Gray:

Being social

This is the easiest thing in the world. Simply browse through the photos in your feed, and click on the heart button under a photo that you like. Comment on photos by clicking on the comment bubble next to the heart. As I mentioned already, only do this in your “dead time” when you are waiting around for your bandmates, or stuck in an elevator…

Get social for about 5-10 mintues every other day, and the easiest is to do this right after you have posted a photo. This also will make your name pop up around Instagram right after your photo is served, so normally people will “get clicky” right back at you on your photo then too.

The likes along with the comments appear under the photo, as in the screenshot below:

When you comment, your username is getting spread around and the Instagram community are aware that you exist. Therefore commenting is good! It is also good because people sure love comments on their photos.

If you “like” a photo, and only a couple of others do, your name is shown, otherwise the total number of likes is shown.

If you have liked a photo, the heart will appear red, and similiarly for the comment bubble.

Getting followers and finding fans

Now that you have been posting photos, commenting and liking for a week or couple of weeks, go back and check who has followed you, and follow some new people. You can do this in several ways, for example:

I can't resist a cute dog photo!

In conclusion

Instagram can really spice up your social media updates on many platforms, all in one click. It can also help fans get to know you on a more personal level, which is great for relationship building. And finally, and most importantly, you can enjoy getting to know your fans and start following potential new fans, all during your “dead” time, and all this for 10 minutes every second day. Now that is the true power of social media.

What do you think of Instagram? Have you connected with new fans using it? How long do you spend on it? Let me know in the comments below.

Artists, now is the time to make sure you have gorgeous images on your website or blog, because Pinterest is here.

This article is in two parts. Part 1: What is Pinterest?  will give you a complete introduction to this new social media craze and why it is important.

If you are already an avid pinner and have started using it for promotion, skip to Part 2: Using Pinterest to promote your music, concerts and merchandise

If you are somewhere in between, start at the beginning and skip smaller sections.

PART 1: The Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest

What is Pinterest?

(If you know already, skip this section)

Pinterest is an online pinboard for sharing images, and is the latest social media craze, with 12 million unique monthly visitors on the site.

It’s like twitter, but with a stream of high quality images instead of text tweets, and each image can be clicked to take you to the site where it was ‘pinned’ from.

Pinterest is not only easy to navigate, it is beautiful because most of the images are drop dead gorgeous.

Why should you care about Pinterest?

Reason #1: Ninety seven percent of Pinterest users are female, with the largest group of them aged between 25 and 34 years old.

You should care because females ‘get clicky’, in other words, they are a public that loves to click and share. And I know that you want them to share about you, because you have something to say. That’s why you are an artist. Right?

Of course, the exception here is if your public is all male. In which case stop reading this article, and go check out the spin off site, manteresting.com, which encourages men to ”share manly things with the community”…

Reason #2: Since Pinterest was founded in 2010, Pinterest is sending almost as much traffic to websites as twitter does.

You are probably thinking that you only care if Pinterest is sending more traffic to websites that google. But here’s the thing: when was the last time you discovered new music, a new artists, a new recipe, a new anything via google? For the most part, when you use google, you are looking for something specific.

When you use twitter, or other social media, you are bumping into recommendations about all kinds of things that your friends talk about. And a social media site that is recommending almost as highly as twitter is very significant, especially since Pinterest is so new and still growing strong. In fact, Pinterest engages and retains users twice as efficiently as Twitter did at a similar point in its history.

You should care because Pinterest can help you to to get clicks to your website, blog, song on spotify, or tshirt on your merch store from brand new potential fans. I will talk about how to do this later in the article.

You should care because you too can easily share photos of crafts, gifts, leisure and interior design that you like.  Via your account other women might then discover your music, in a very relaxed and real way. More on that later in this article.

Reason #4: Because you love pinning, your name will pop up everywhere! And it’s so easy you will actually do it.

Pinterest is designed to share things you love, and shouldn’t be used purely for self promotion. So enjoy it, and express yourself via pinning things you love. It is really fun.

There’s no pressure to talk to potential fans since you only interact with other “pinners” about the actual image, otherwise known as a “pin”, because all anyone cares about is the latest gorgeous “pin” they just saw, liked, shared or commented on.

Studies show that if your name has appeared 3 times in a period of one week by someone, they will recognize your name. So, each time your pins are seen by anyone, your name is on the way of being recognized by them.

You should care because it is a charming, easy to use social media site, without any social skills needed. Your name will be remembered over time. It is not a chore. If it starts to feel like it, then stop using it.

How to get started on Pinterest

(If you know already, skip this section)

To become a member you need to request a Pinterest invite. There is about a 1-2 day waiting list, so if you would like an invite quickly, email me and ask for an invite.

If you are a member, you can:

• create your own pinboards
• like, comment or re-pin other pins onto your own pinboards
• upload your own “pins” (images) from your computer
• follow other members (which is following all their boards at once), or follow individual boards by members
• invite friends via facebook or email

Meanwhile, anyone can visit the Pinterest website and browse pinboards created by other people.

Four things to do while you wait for your Pinterest membership

(If you are a member already, skip only #1 and #2 below)

#1: Discover how Pinterest works (30 seconds)

If you are browsing Pinterest, no matter if you are a member or not, you might find a picture of a deliriously playful kitchen, decked out in 50s style with Dita von Teese in the centre. I know, isn’t it gorgeous?

If you click on that “pin”, which is the image itself, it will take you to the site where the original image was found.

In this case, it takes you to the personal blog that the image was featured on.

However in many cases, the pinned pictures take you to the website where you can purchase something you see in the picture.

For example, if you clicked on a picture of a cupcake, it might take you to a site that talks about that cupcake recipe, or a site that sells food colouring for cupcake icing.

This means that anyone browsing Pinterest is actually browsing the web and discovering new websites via a filter of high quality “pins”, which are images.

#2: Discover Pinterest’s categories and types of boards pinners create (2 minutes)

On the Pinterest site, click the Pinterest logo in the top centre of the screen to discover browsing by categories. Categories include ‘Food & Drink’, ‘Film, Music & Books’, ‘Home Decor’.

Click on a category to see pins and names of boards in that category. Note that under each image is says the pinners name, followed by the name of the board?

eg: “Monica onto cuteness“. This means pinner Monica has a board titled cuteness. Get ideas for the types and names of boards you want to create.

Also click on individual pinners names, to see how they have ordered their boards.

#3: Update visuals on your site or blog to be ones that you would be proud of being shared on Pinterest (1-10 minutes)

You want people to “pin” pictures from your site or blog, so make sure they are recent and striking.

Video from youtube can also be pinned, and when clicked will play right in Pinterest. Be sure to have at least one great video on youtube that people can easily find and pin.

It is important to note that people cannot pin a picture from facebook.  Therefore, even if you have spent time making sure your facebook photo albums have great photos, you will need to make sure some great photos are also on your website, blog, or your record label’s site or blog.

#4: Create visuals of your lyrics or quotes you want to be rememberd for (5-10 minutes)

A lot of images that get shared on Pinterest are actually quotes.

In other words, you can pin quotes, lyrics, thoughts, and otherwise inspirational messages for your fans in a graphical form.

To make your own graphics ready to pin for when you have your account, use a site like www.someecards.com for an edgy graphic. Using them, I just made this graphic in under 5 minutes, including registering a cost free account with them:

If you want the graphic to be a bit more straighforward, then use one of the sites mentioned in this article.

What to do once you have your own Pinterest account

Create some boards and start pinning! Do a few simple ones to get started (5 minutes)

By default, Pinterest creates boards for you.

To create new baords, go to ‘Add’ > ‘Create a Board’. Enter a name a description. Keep board names short so they don’t get cut off. Some ideas for boards are:

• Recipes I want to try: Once you have created this board, search on the ‘Food and Drink’ category. Hover over “pins” (images) that you like, and click “re-pin” to add to your board.
• Inspiration: As above but search on ‘Quotes’ and to find pins to re-pin.
• Yellow: (or pick another colour) As above but search on your colour of choice to create a mood board based on colour.

You can re order boards, but not the pins. Just like a tweet, fellow pinners will see your most recent post at the top of their feed, and the top of your board.

You can also comment and like pins.

I will go over adding your own pins later in the article.

Follow boards you like (ongoing)

Whenever you like a pin, click on the board it came from and follow it.

Update your profile info (2 minutes)

Put your mouse over your name in the top right corner of the Pinterest site > ‘Settings’. Upload a picture and fill in all the fields.

I recommend linking to twitter only once you get the hang of things, so you don’t feed your account every time you pin something you are simply testing. What you can do with with facebook is link your account, but on your facebook timeline page, hover over the pinterst feed and choose the setting so it shows the boards, but not each feed.

I recommend keeping the notification settings as default when you get started, so you get email notifications whenever someone re-pins or otherwise interacts with your boards. This is quite fun to follow in the beginning. If you want to change your notifications later on, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Email Notifications’ > ‘Change Email Settings’.

Invite your friends to Pinterest (3 minutes)

Put your mouse over your name in the top right corner of the Pinterest site > ‘Invite Friends’. Follow the instructions for inviting friends via email or facebook

Install the ‘Pin it’ button to your browser (30 seconds)

Do this by going to Pinterest.com > About > ‘Pin it’ button and follow the simple insructions.

This means that from now on while you are browsing the web, if you find a gorgeous image or video you want to add to one of your pinboards, you do so in one easy click from your browser.

Remember that you cannot pin a picture from facebook. But, if you connect your Pinterest account with facebook (you can only connect your personal facebook profile), facebook will show your latest pins in your feed, encouraging your facebook friends to check out your pinterest boards.

If you have an iPhone, install the Pinterest app (30 seconds)

You can browse, pin, comment just like you can with a web browser. But what is really cool is that you can take a photo with your iPhone and add a location so other pinners can visit. If the location is a concert venue, then anytime someone searches on that place on Pinterest they could discover you.

Note there is no app yet for Android.

Install a ‘Follow me on Pinterest’ button on your website or blog (2-5 minutes)

Follow the simple instructions here on how to add this.

PART 2: Using Pinterest to promote your music, concerts and merchandise

Make a splash! Pin images that you love, that express yourself, that are thought provoking.

eMarketing is  not about being pushy

eMarketing for artists is not a dirty word. You have something to say and something to share with potential fans, so get used to it and make it part of your routine. But, only become a ‘pinner’ because you want to share and enjoy other people’s boards as well.

80% of pins are repinned from what is found on Pinterest, so if people are searching for your artist name on Pinterest, you want them to find top notch stuff!

Therefore the next section is helping you to haveboards with songs, photos and links to your merchandise in a way that represents you. I will explain everything from using the Pinterest website, but the Pinterest app has similiar functions in many cases.

How to create a board of songs

In Pinterest, the board is a playlist, and the pins are songs.

1. Create a board and label it with your playlist. Ideas for boards can be your mood, artists that inspire you, favourite live songs, favourite guitar solos… and add one or more of your own songs in each board
2. Add a description, explaining the mood of the songs or why those artists inspire you
3. Start pinning songs. Do this by going to Spotify and using your ‘Pin it’ button in your browser. Or, create a pin by uploading the graphic from your computer, add a description and ‘Pin it’. Then, edit the pin by navigating to the pin, clicking Edit and enter the link to where you would like to direct the user. This could be a link to iTunes, your album, your facebook page or wherever you want them to best discover your music.
4. As above, create a board for each album to be sure if fans search for your catalogue they will find it. Don’t arrange those album boards high on your page. Keep the boards you update regularly on the top of your page.

You can also create a board of youtube video clips instead of links to music services. To do this simply navigate to the clip on youtube and use the ‘Pin it’ button you added to your browser. Viewers can watch the video right from the Pinterest website.

Your video pin will also show up in Pinteret’s ‘Videos’ feed. This feed is found next to the categories.

How to create a merch board on Pinterest

Adding a price to a pin is easy

You can easily add a price to a pin by simply typing the dollar symbol $  followed by the price anywhere in the pin’s description. This will insert the price in the top left corner of the pin, as in the above picture.

Inserting the price only works for the dollar sign, so if you are selling in another currency do a rough conversion. The link to the pin should go to your merch shop. Of course, you don’t have to add the price to your pin, and the link can go to your merch shop anyway.

If you add the price, your pin will also show up in Pinteret’s ‘Gifts’ feed. This feed is found next to the categories.

How to make your boards and pins stand out

Experiment with boards having a combination of songs, images and videos. Have interesting titles such as:

• If I were a song
• Did you know?
• Why I love music
• Things Gaga taught me
• These songs saved me
• If you had a bad day
• I like Unicorns: This is no joke. A software company has created a unicorn board just to lighten up their page.

In the board description write with passion why you created the board. The boards can contain your music or links to photos of your live concert where appropriate. Keeping the boards updated will come naturally to you if you are passionate about the subjects. If you don’t update your boards, people will not see your pins coming up in their home feed.

Create shared boards by adding contributors

Where it asks ‘Who can contribute? Just me’ select ‘Add Contributors’ and follow the instructions. Each contributor is automatically following that board.

My most highly followed board is ‘Inspiration’ and was most likely because I added lots of contributors as well as keep it up to date with great and inspiring images.

Get your name recognised by the right people

What is most interesting about this board, however, is the quality of people I have added to the board. I have added a magazine editor, the owner of a very successful IT company, and more.

As an artist you probably have a lot of ‘facebook friends’ who are influential in some way, such as DJs, magazine editors, other artists… but you may not regularly being in contact with them other than having them listed as a friend.

Going back to this idea I mentioned at the start of the post:

“Studies show that if your name has appeared 3 times in a period of one week by someone, they will recognize your name. So, each time your pins are seen by anyone, your name is on the way of being recognized by them.”

Now, simply by sharing pins you love, these people are seeing your name without any effort. And there’s no pressure to “sell”. However, next time your name appears in a press release, or you see them at an event, your name will be more familiar to them — and you can even talk about your shared pins!  Go on, you know they want to as well.

Experiment with  typography

Use characters before and after names like [ BOARD NAME ] or + BOARD NAME + to make them stand out. Experiment with upper and lower case.

Comment on other pins if it comes naturally

If you would like to mention someone directly in a comment, just like in twitter add the @ symbol and start typing their name. It’s not intimidating to do because you are always connecting over a shared interest in a image, video or song.

Fun, right?

Conclusion

Pinterest is a fun and quick way to share stuff you love, and insert some of your own images and songs along the way.

Did you find this article PINteresting? If you did, please share it with your friends by tweeting, sharing on facebook, or pinning it

Thanks for reading and have a PINtastic day!

Credits: All stats from this article are from cloudtactix.com

This is a Facebook Cover Image VS a Facebook profile picture. Got it? Now scroll down to read 10 tips for making yours epic.

1. Your facebook timeline cover image should be big.

You want to upload a facebook timeline cover image big enough so it doesn’t get stretched and ugly. If it’s too big, facebook will automatically ask you to drag it and crop it.

Cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload an image that’s smaller than these dimensions, it will get stretched to this larger size. The image you upload must be at least 399 pixels wide.

In contrast, the profile picture should be something that looks good small, such as your latest single cover, or a head shot. Profile picture dimensions are now 180x180px.

2. Facebook covers should not look like an advertisement.

You don’t want to annoy people. But more importantly, facebook will not allow:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s ”About” section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”
• Encouraging people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines

But if you make your cover epic, your fans will upload your cover image to their personal timeline anyway

3. Blow away your fans.

In other words, you will be creative in getting around the previous restrictions.

• Find creative ways to align your profile picture with your facebook timeline cover image. This is one of 10 that Mashable has listed in their 10 Facebook Covers that will blow you away:

• You can put text in your cover image, just not something irritating or that is in the About and other facebook fields. This yoga facebook page cover illustrates my point.
• This one makes good use of QR codes – so clever, right!
• And if you still need more inspiration, here are 75 Surprisingly Creative Facebook Timeline Covers such as the one below by Gail David.

• If you are looking for a simple online image editing programs because you don’t know how to edit pictures, check out this short post I made about it.

4. Make good use of the “About” description area.

I love that the “About” section is now so easy to spot, right under the profile picture. See what I mean in the screenshot below:

Keep it short and sweet. Types of things you can post here are:

• A very short description about you – just stating the obvious!
• A very short description of your music in general
• A very short description of your latest single or album
• A (very) short review of your latest single
• All of the above, followed by a link to buy the latest release. Use bit.ly for generating short links and tracking clicks.
• A reminder about an upcoming concert or release date
• A call to action such as the following examples:

The sensational Kate Havnevik asks fans to join her street team:

The most well marketed act of all time, Britney Spears, keeps it commercial and to the point:

Effective, right?

5. Make good use of arranging your apps, and creating custom icons for apps.

Secondly, apps now have their own icons, which means you can customize each app with its own 111 pixel by 74 pixel image. So get creative!

6. Highlight interesting posts.

7. Pin your best story each week.

A pinned post always appears in the top left of a Page’s timeline and has a this little flag in its top-right corner. It will stay there for seven days, then return to it’s normal timeline position. Pin a post as follows:

1. Click the  pencil icon in the upper-right corner of your Page’s post
2. Select Pin to Top

When selecting posts to “star” as in the above step, pick the one that is most important for you over the next week such as:

• your latest video post
• an intiative with a short timeframe: “first 50 fans to buy tickets get a free goodie bag at the entrance for my next concert at …”
• something totally entertaining, original and fresh, after all, people come to your page to be entertained, so don’t forget to feed your hungry fans and potential fans!

8. Do not steal images.

Obviously, you must have ownership or permission to use the image. But being an artist, you understand this because you hate when people steal your music. If you are just starting out and feel like you need some extra images that describe your music and your style, you can find free photos online at  http://www.everystockphoto.com, which is a site that indexes millions of freely licensed photos. Be sure to credit the photographer by adding their name and link the the photo description. Hey, you might make a new fan!

9. Understand your facebook page is now the default landing tab.

You are no longer able to set other landing tabs as default. In other words, if you had an external app as your landing tab encouraging people to ‘like’ the page, it will no longer be the case. So make sure your page is killer for fans who don’t  already ‘like’ it, because your page will be their first impression. And make good use of arranging your apps as mentioned in tip #3.

10. Ignore all of the above.

You probably got where you are because you like doing things your way. If that’s the case, so be it. Therefore ignore all the above, have facebook ban you for a bit, annoy a bunch of people… and you’ll have a buzz just from that when you do get you page back up and running. Who needs facebook anyway, it’s just a bunch of people talking about themselves anyway, right… ?

I know you are an artist, but how can you add text to your graphics?

Three quick links

Three quick links for you, if you want to make a quick banner for your blog or facebook page. These sites don’t cost a thing, and you create everything online so you can do this from anywhere: at home, at the office, on holiday. All you need is an internet connection, and a picture to use.

1. http://pixlr.com
2. http://picknic.com/
3. http://ipiccy.com/editor

 

Note:  iPiccy one is currenty in “beta” which means it is an early version which won’t be perfectly stable. However, in my opinion it is the most intuitive and easiest to use. It also has great effects that you can apply to photos, including airbrushing. If you have never airbrushed before, it doesn’t matter — it just seems to work.

If you don’t know to use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator or other fancy software for making images with text on top, these are nice simple solutions.

Was this helpful for you?

Is this the type of information you are looking for? What are you stuck on? Please let me know in the comments below or contact me here.

Get organised with your tweets, so you have more time to catch those worms!

Here’s a nice easy tip using a nice easy website called Sharefeed.

Did you know that you can ‘cheat tweet’ and schedule your tweets, and even facebook status updates, in advance? If you did not know that, then woohoooo! Now you know.

But right now let’s keep it simple and only talk about scheduling tweets in advance

When to use it?

I think this is very handy if you have specific dates already you need to promote in your calendar like a single lauch date, or concert tour dates. Or if you have a bunch of great links you want to share, but you don’t want to clog up your twitter all at once.

Isn’t that tweet cheating?

No. It’s smart.

Then what is “tweet cheating”?

Cheat tweeting is when you pretend to be somebody else, or tweet something that is not actually happening to you right now. Or you say something that is kind of a lie, or not entirely true. That is cheating. Just like in real life.

Scheduling tweets is NOT cheating.

Which tool to use?

There are soooo many twitter tools out there, that an entire blog, website, and community could work full time on just keeping up to date with them. But I want to keep this blog post simple and build your awareness that there are tools out there for you.

I recommend using Sharefeed:

1. Have your twitter account open on your computer that you want to use with Sharefeed
2. Go to Sharefeed and create an account
3. Follow the steps to add your twitter account
4. Write a tweet, say when you want it to be posted, then click “Add to Queue”
5. That’s it! Your tweet will be posted at the scheduled time.

You can even install the Bookmarklet, which means that a little “Sharefeed” button in your browser will appear, and when you come accross a site that you want to tweet about (perhaps your blog post, or a fan site, or a link to photos) you can click the “Sharefeed” button to save the link for a later tweet. I haven’t tried this yet but it seems great doesn’t it?

I hope trying out a simple tool like ShareFeed helps you get started and gets you thinking about how you can use twitter better to help keep your fans up to date.

What about other twitter tools?

There are so many and so much to say about all of these. But just to show you that you have options, here’s a short list:

SelectiveTweet, TweetLater, HootSuite, Timely.is, Sharefeed, Tweetdeck, RssGraffiti, Twitterfeed, CrowdBooster, TweetBot, Buffer, CrowdBooster…

Hey, what about other options?

What about tweeting with images? What about sending the tweet to my facebook page at the same time? What about tweeting to more than one twitter account at the same time?

I will write about how to tweet and sends that tweet to your personal facebook and facebook page at the same time, in the next couple of days.

Do you want to schedule your tweets? What are you looking for in a twitter tool?

You are going to think this is the most awesomest thing ever

The greatest thing ever

Some income I make is from creating websites for artists. But nevertheless I will share with you a fantastic free cheat for all the starving artists amongst you — and the not starving ones!

OneSheet.com

Using OneSheet.com, in under two minutes you can create a website that pulls in your content automatically from services you would be likely to use such as YouTube, BandsInTown (concerts), Tumblr (photos), Twitter and more.

This means you never have to update your site unless you want to tweak the look of it from time to time.

You can start with a free version and upgrade to a premium version if you want more control.

OneSheet.com says:

“OneSheet allows musicians to set up a web presence in minutes using content from other websites they’re already updating. They simply connect their existing social networks and services immediately have a website full of content already posted across the web: music, videos, photos, concert dates, blogs, social streams, mailing list signups, online stores and more.”

Isn’t it AMAAAAAAAAAAZING?

Check their quick start video here:

Note: Since this blog post they have made a big new fancy release which allows non musisians to join, allows your domain name to point directly to onesheet.com and more…

I like to clean as I go, because I'm not your average dawg.

Cleaning your inbox

Are you a gmail user? I am and I just found the best tip ever for cleaning my inbox.

There is a “send and archive” option for mails, meaning when you have replied, you don’t have to go the extra step of moving the message to another folder to get it out of your inbox.

This option is still under developement — google puts it in “Gmail Labs: Some crazy experimental stuff” – but it  is working fine for me so far.

How to activate “Send & Archive”

1. Login to gmail.com
2. Click funny wheel next to user picture top right hand side
3. In the dropdown list select Mail Settings
4. Navigate to Labs > Send & Archive > click Enable

Level: Intermediate.

Beginners, please read on if you would like an awareness of what this is, and why it can help you connect with your fans and sell music online

He's got plenty of skills to collect your contacts and get your newsletter out in many different ways!

I have  signed up for a free account at MailChimp and have started doing three things:

1. Collecting email address for my mailing list from my site in the right hand column
2. Collecting email addresses from my facebook page
3. Auto sending a weekly newsletter taken from my blog posts. If I don’t have any new blog posts, no auto newsletter is generated

Collecting email addresses for your mailing list

The idea of a newsletter is to stay connected with your fans and be able to send targeted messages to them, not only when you have a product to sell, but if you wish to share some important updates such as brand new footage of a concert, or to simply wish them a Happy New Year!

This communication builds trust which in turn builds ‘super fans’, who help build more fans and increase your sales and visibility.

People who sign up for your newsletter should be given extras that non subscribers don’t get, or that non-subscribers get later on. For example, you can create a newsletter with photos from behind the scenes, which you will only publish at a late date on facebook, for example. When you do publish these photos on facebook, you can add the comment “subscribers of my newsletter got these first, so please sign up here…” to attract new subscribers.

In my experience fans who are 30+ use email more than below that age group so I am not sure how effective newsletters are for under 30s.

• Click here using my affiliate link to sign up for MailChimp
• Click here for how to create a new list using MailChimp
• Click here for how to integrate MailChimp with your Facebook Page

Auto generate a newletter from your blog posts

This is great for connecting with your fans without having to make the extra step of creating a newsletter on top of your blog posts. It’s like 2 in 1: when you blog, you are also creating your newsletter content. You can (and should) of course create newsletter content on top of this.

What is nice about the auto generated newsletter from my blog posts is that I can set daily, weekly or monthly newsletters to be sent, and I can specify the time and day of the week I would like it sent.

I am currently experimenting with sending a weekly newsletter each Sunday at 18:00. I have a hunch most people don’t get many emails at this time and it’s when you have a quick scan of emails before the busy week begins. This is a free service they offer in MailChimp. 

Login to Mailchimp  or first set up an account if you haven’t already >  Campaign > Create campaign > RSS driven campaign then follow the steps

This is technically called an “RSS driven campaign” because “RSS” stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a simple way to syndicate content from one site to another. Common Craft has a fabulous video explanation of RSS.

Whew. I hope I didn’t lose you somewhere along the way. Was this interesting for you? What do you want to learn here on XanaduHowTo?

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If you want this service installed for you instead of doing it yourself, please contact me.

Why so curious, dawg?

Who should read this?

This blog entry is for anyone who is administrating selfhosted wordpress sites (www.wordpress.org not www.wordpress.com) and wants to get some tips.

This blog entry is not for the typical artist who wants a short tip on growing fanbase and selling music online. But if you are curious nevertheless, read on.

Why the nerdy article, Anita?

• I use wordpress.org to create websites for my customers (who are mostly music artists) eg: hannesorvaag.com, wintaonline.com, shackles.no
• I LOVE wordpress.org and feel like making a blog post on it
• I went to an excellent meetup last night: WPOslo and wanted to share what I learned and encourange anyone in Oslo to go if they are interested in learning more about wordpress to go along

What I learned

Managewp.com – if u can’t do multisite, install one plugin to all the sites u want to manage then update from one place. Enables backups for multisite

Use “backupbuddy” for single site backup: you can backup all of your blogs at once, and can manage migrate and clone sites to different locations. Not free. Activate auto daily backups to send u an email daily about database backups

Gravity charge : can charge members to be part of your blog. Comes from the people who do gravity forms. Content could be text, software, video, music… anyting at all

Gravity forms are a fantastic fast way to add forms to wordpress sites.

Codestyling localisation: good for multi language sites

WPTM: wordpress transaltion manager, paid but also good

Wp-db-backup : pretty good backup for free

Thanks WPOslo  for a great night and all the tips!

Ever started to make one of these and got stuck for one reason or the other? No more excuses… there are several solutions for this.

What you need:

1. Audio file of your song
2. Album cover, other image, or any video footage you have lying around

You don’t need to shoot a video clip for this… just use what you have already or take a fun photo or video on your phone right now. No excuses

Since  you can’t upload audio or images to YouTube, you have to make this video using a video editing software such as Windows Live Movie Maker (PC) or  iMovie (Appple) to first create this video on your computer then upload it. More info from youtube on how to do that here.

Another option is to create this video using an online video editing system that exports to youtube (and vimeo, facebook etc…). If you navigate to http://www.youtube.com/create there are a list of online services that allow you to do this.

I am going to use wevideo

“WeVideo is a cloud-based video editing platform. Edit movies in your browser, with media files from any device. Combine clips with music, effects, titles, transitions, animation and more! With WeVideo, you can invite friends to co-create your story. Share movies on Social Media with one click.”

Here’s what I made the first time I used wevideo which was last night. Ok, I am showing off here because I actually made something longer than a short teaser, and added sing a long titles and SNOW!! but it was all with the simple tools available in wevideo.

I am sure Windows Live Movie Maker (PC) or  iMovie (Appple) have similiar tools that you can show off with.

Once your video is done, be sure to proudly export it on youtube, share it on facebook, twitter, your blog, by email… don’t be shy!

Some points about wevideo:

• It did work and exported without a hitch (AWESOME)
• When I logged a small incident they responded right away, so I know they are serious about improving their service (AWESOME)
• It is free until you have used up a certain quota (FAIR ENOUGH)
• I couldn’t find a way to copy/paste the chorus texts so I had to redo them manually for each chorus (BUMMER but they are working on this according to their support page)
• Although I haven’t used it yet, I love that you can invite friends to collaborate online to make the video with you (AWESOME)
• It’s hosted on “the cloud” so in other words, once you upload your media files to start working on them, they are online and can not only serve as a backup, but a handy way to reuse the same media files for other videos

Are you ready to make your video now? Any questions or comments?