Getting Your Hands Dirty With Social Media – The Challenge Week 4

On By Lily CIn Challenge 2012, Social Media
Are these hands raised in victory or surrender? Photographer: Saint Huck (under Creative Commons via Flickr)

Last week participants in The Canadian Songwriters Social Media Challenge, hosted by The Songwriters Association of Canada, and sponsored by Bandzoogle, Reverbnation & CyberPR, took a giant leap in their online branding by looking at their websites – the home base of their online presence.  Based on the book, “Music Success in 9 Weeks,” by Ariel Hyatt, songwriters across Canada have been carving out time from their creative pursuits, to tackle the business aspect of their craft.  As a result, domain names were purchased, new websites were launched and existing websites were tweaked.  To visit our websites or view our blog entries CLICK HERE.

With websites established as a foundation, participants are now ready to tackle Week 4 – setting up social media.  For those who are not social media savvy, the book proves to be a great primer.  And for those who are already engaged online, the challenge is to develop an overarching strategy while choosing to use the right tools in an integrated way that a) won’t take up your entire life and b) will support the goals set out in Week 1.  Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Flickr, Reverbnation, Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Instagram…well, the list goes on!  Good luck to all our participants as we get our hands dirty in the trenches of all things social media.

If you’ve been tracking with the challenge, you will notice that the number of comments from Week 1 to Week 3 have already decreased significantly.  Some have been distracted by life, while others have continued to mull over their pitches as instructed in Week 2.  But we’re not counting anyone out until Week 9!  How many of 61 registrants will make it to the finish line?

Okay participants, please post the following:

1.  Link to this week’s blog entry.
2.  A list of any social media assets you started this week! (i.e. anything that didn’t exist before this week)

34 thoughts on “Getting Your Hands Dirty With Social Media – The Challenge Week 4”

  9. “Social Media And The Theory Of Everything”

    Social Media and the Theory of Everything (Wk 4)

    My week with social media: Before I started this challenge, I already had a fairly extensive online presence set up. This week I did tweaks, adding a few apps and touching up existing profiles. I also tried out a few new apps to integrate my profiles.

    Here is my to-done list:
    Started off by adding CDbaby store widget to Facebook page. But, I took that down and replaced it with a bandpage from rootmusic.com -which is now my fancy new landing page for non-fans on my Facebook page.
    Added soundcloud player to website
    Added funky “follow me” button to website
    Added twitter “follow me” to reverberation

    Did some long overdue weeding on my twitter account using manageflitter.com.

    Checked out a couple of analytic sites: Klout.com (my score jumped from 35 to 52 in 7 days! Pretty fun.) and twentyfeet.com (not as useful, probably won’t continue to use it).

    Created a bunch of Q&As to add to my site using faqme.com (to-do: still need to embed it on my site.)

    Signed up for hootsuite (didn’t end up using this one) and bufferapp.com. This one is cool, but still wrapping my head around my feelings of sending out tweets when I’m not online. It’s also a little restrictive about scheduling tweets… seems like a lot of work if I want to skip any of their pre-set tweeting times. We’ll see how it goes over the next little while whether or not I continue to use it.

    Registered with http://www.musicalley.com/ Set up a profile, uploaded 3 songs. Cool thing is: one of my songs appeared on a podcast: Radio Orphans Podcast from Minnesota within 24 hours.

    Submitted blog feed to http://wearehunted.com/ though I’m not sure they’ll actually pick it up, since I’m not in their database already.

    I think that about covers it.

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    1. D’oh! Forgot to list my Social Media additions.

      Klout.com– went from 25 to 47 in a week. Huh.
      Installed RootMusic onto Facebook Fan Page and also Reverbnation and FanBridge
      Created Music Alley account and uploaded a few songs
      Tried manageflitter.com but felt confused and didn’t go back. Maybe later.
      Installed Tweetdeck but actually prefer regular Twitter. Feel weird about ghost tweeting.
      Added “Music” to my Fan Page to distinguish b/t it and my personal page
      Did a lot of trying to cross-pollinate things (ie. follow me here, link there, etc)

      I’m in the process of compiling a list of sites, like topspin, lastfm, sonic bids, bandcamp to investigate at a later date… Definitely everything will require a re-look down the road… some day.

      Also, some of your to-done lists have now become my to-dos. Thanks– I think! ;p

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  10. 1. Link to this week’s blog entry: http://goo.gl/kCcXu

    2. A list of any social media assets you started this week! (i.e. anything that didn’t exist before this week):

    -klout.com
    -soundcloud
    -rootsmusic bandpage http://goo.gl/po8FW
    -last.fm
    -google+
    -flickr
    -instagram
    -Music Alley (submitted)

    -set up ReverbNation for upcoming album upload (March 2012)

    + synched these sites to each other and synched mobile phone to all existing social media and installed apps relevant to above list!

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  16. OK… better late than never! Here is my Week 4 Blog… complete with all the good stuff about Social Media, and my progress on my goals so far!

    URL: http://adriannesoundslike.tumblr.com/post/17238229970/sac-challenge-week-4-cultivating-social-media

    Social Media Signups: Twitter: @AdriAnneR_Music
    Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/adriannesoundslike
    MusicAlley
    Youtube.com/adriannesoundslike
    Klout.com

    Already had Facebook, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, & Bandcamp.

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  19. Mrs Gloria Wilson

    How about having this printed in Songwriters Magazine for the older songwriters who are not very good on computers. Would appreciate an answer. Thanks.

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  20. To say I’ve been distracted is an understatement.
    (Not making excuses…) But, between resuming a rotating shift, looking after my family and continuing production on my album to get it ready for the Spring release… talk about distracted.

    I’m trying to get back on the social media horse. I plan to be (caught up) and running again this week. I just have to somehow find the 25th hour in the day to accomplish all the stuff set before me.

    Wow!

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  24. Here’s my entry….but after looking at all your entries, 7 websites is looking like a pretty slim number! Many of you are on so many other sites and using so many different applications…. I can’t follow!! And I thought 7 was a lot 🙂 haha

    1. Week 4’s entry: The iPhone 3 and Trans-Canada Highway Mooose! http://bit.ly/wiejxL
    2. New things I’ve joined:
    – Twitter
    – Downloaded the instagram application, but have yet to register…. 🙂

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