Are you opening a window into your world for fans? | Image Credit: Ross Mayfield

That contempt notwithstanding, the intended meaning of the phrase does actually hold deeper value for artist marketing. Especially so for music, where the creator’s connection to the listener is at the core of holding their attention and developing deeper fan relationships.

Allowing fans in to see more of who you are and how you create is as much a “must do” now as touring was before we all became digitally connected; without some context to your creations, you’re just another song in the music collection. Add an experience or a memory, however, and you move one step closer to being an adored artist in their life.

One of the best practitioners of this that I’ve seen recently is Kishi Bashi, a veteran of the indie music circuit who is promoting his new solo work in a most fresh and spritely manner.

Opening Up Your Art

Formely a tour player with Canadian Athens, Georgia’s indie oddballs of Montreal and the iconic Sondre Lerche, amongst others, Kishi Bashi released his own album proper, ’151a’, this time last year. Since then he has undoubtedly benefited from copious blogger coverage and brand interest, yet the lingering impression is far more than just a clever marketing campaign.

The first thing that comes to mind for me, both as a fan and marketer, is a gregarious human being who truly loves and embraces his art. By extension, he communicates that passion to his listeners, who can’t help but become wrapped up in his world. Fans for life invariably follow.

Here we’ll look at some of the specific approaches that Kishi Bashi uses to open up and bring fans further into his fold. But first the vital statistics…

Artist: Kaoru Ishibashi (aka Kishi Bashi)

Facebook Fans: 22,952

Twitter Followers: 4,947

 YouTube Channel: 2, 057 subs /257,700 views

Google +: Negligible presence

Be Yourself

Age old dating advice… that no-one ever follows, of course. But Mr. Ishibashi pours himself into his social media channels almost every day. One swift scan of his Twitter feed or Facebook page reveals a commitment to offering daily insights into his world, from the mundane aspects of touring to marveling at a piece of music.

Each update builds a picture of his personality for listeners, adding context to the music for a stronger connection.

Window To Your World

Social networks are increasingly reliant on visuals, hence the increasing popularity of Pinterest and its ilk. Kishi Bashi’s platforms are awash with tour photos, shots from the previous night’s show, fan art, and anything that he comes across that offers a visual hook to stir a reaction. Even from a purely data-driven perspective this makes sense, as Facebook’s Edgerank is based on audience feedback such as likes and comments, which studies have shown  fans are more likely to provide for posts with visual content.

On a more human level, visuals help fans to understand more about your life, offering a window into your world. Daily shots from the tour – even the most mundane elements – can connect in a way that text simply cannot. Sharing creative inspiration visually is also a strong emotional link to fans, especially if they’re further inspired to share it with their own network.

Conversations

The time when artists could hide from the demand of fans is largely behind us. All but the most overblown or enigmatic of artistic egos need to embrace the age of access and developing stronger ties to fans through one-on-one conversations.

It helps that Kishi Bashi is a gregarious chap by nature, but the dedication to communicating with listeners on daily basis is what cements these relationships. Whether deep conversations about song lyrics or a simple thank you to a fan who attended a show, visibility and gratitude are two traits that have served him well. And with a Twitter following that grew by over 400% during 2 month period of most recent US tour, the results of connecting on an individual basis will extend beyond that single interaction and provide a stronger foundation for his next creative move.

Collaborations

Getting fans involved in your creative process is a wonderful way to make it about more than yourself. It’s a win-win scenario, as the artists receives the assistance they need and the fan(s) become even more invested in the art that results.

Kishi Bashi frequently calls on his community to submit show photos, create derivative works inspired by his art, and those random requests like the one to the left here, involving multi-language  lyric translation. It’s all part of being okay with asking, which has been a popular discussion of late.

Takeaway

The point here isn’t to copy the Kishi, but to bring your fans into the fold by bringing yourself out into the open. Utilize the plethora of open access channels available to you and start putting your interests, info and insights out there for fans to consume.

Not everything will catch, but the more you share, the more you’ll understand your listeners, what they love about you and want to see more of. Experiment, review, and refine your posts until it’s second nature to share stuff that will get your social sphere buzzing.

What about your own case… what do you put out there that inspires interest in your art?

NB. Edited 5/1 for my ghastly lack of background knowledge regarding of Montreal. Thanks to the readers who set me straight! Sticking to my guns on the odd factor, of course…

What’s a ‘Like’ worth?

Less than a share, if you agree with the latest marketer analysis, but plenty of artists are seeking the thumbs up across social media, with the king of social networks being the most vibrant hub of activity.

Facebook’s place in the realm of music marketing has topped my mind this past week for various reasons. It also seems to be a popular topic for you, with my 25 tips for a friendlier Facebook fan page being the most regularly visited piece here, so I thought I’d focus once more today on the platform everyone that loves to hate.

First Up, A Fail

In my opinion at least, this Facebook music advert that I came across recently fails in a few places. Take a look and consider the case for and against:

Pros:

• Relates to an existing listener passion point with the Dave Matthews link,
• Integrates an easier call to action with the ‘Like Page’ button (although this is all Facebook, not the artist).

Cons:

• No mention of genre, style, location, or some other bridge from Dave Matthews to this unfamiliar name,
• Poor copy writing, with mixed calls to action (conflicting with like button) and awkward flow,
• Immediate command (to an unfamiliar listener, remember) to buy the album… hold my hand before you grab my bottom, won’t you?!

So it’s easy enough to critique an unappealing ad, but what makes for a more effective Facebook advert?

First things first, consider your options…

The Difference Between Facebook Ads & Sponsored Stories

Although Facebook explains its advertising options to a limited extent, both the ad components and the layout of the site itself change on a (frustratingly) regular basis.

Adverts are more explicit statements about your page, often with copy that you write yourself with a specific goal in mind (such as the reader clicking a link or liking your page). They stand out from the usual flow of a user’s Facebook news feed and are labeled as “Sponsored” in the lower post details, both of which can make some people wary of their presence.

The onslaught of ever-evolving ad units since the site’s flotation on the stock market last year has created some resistance to clicking on (and therefore encouraging) obvious adverts, but you can still make some headway with them. For me, they provide the most direct, short and sharp shot into a potential listener’s social feed.

There are also various sub-types of adverts, from the simple “Suggested Page” option that is a basic accelerator for page likes, to promoting specific posts to reach existing fans (and their friends), in addition to the more customized ads discussed above.

Sponsored Stories are more integrated into the fabric of Facebook , showing off activity on existing content from your page rather than the direct copy that you can customize for an advert.

The bonus here is that they “fit” more naturally into the news feed and actions that people are already undertaking, such as commenting on a friend’s activity or liking articles they read, which lessens the resistance that comes from out-and-out adverts. This focus on engagement can be useful for those of you wishing to drive interaction even further on your page, although the content itself is selected by Facebook and you have less customization than you may require.

The other important aspect of sponsored stories is the connection that they make to friends of those you reach, for example “Joe Schmoe likes Band X”. Simply placing a familiar face or name next to an unfamiliar page can bridge the trust gap that paid advertising creates, hence the rising popularity of social media ad campaigns. If you’re trying to reach new listeners, connecting through your existing fans  and on to targeted friends of theirs can be a key advantage of a social ad.

Important Note: Facebook is changing rapidly at the current time and, at any point, distinctions between different types of ad unit may become blurred. Always check the ad preview to understand exactly how your paid promotion is going to appear!

The video below is tailored to deeper business marketing types but still has some valuable snippets for more advanced music advertising, if you’d care to delve even deeper.

Click here if you can’t see the video above.

Key Questions to Ask Before You Advertise Your Music on Facebook

Answer the following questions to understand what you direction you want your Facebook advertising to take:

• What is my main goal from this advert? Examples may be increased page like, engagement, website traffic, music player spins etc.
• Do I want to reach existing fans or new listeners?
• Is the ad a standalone test, or part of a wider campaign?
• What is my daily (or weekly) budget?
• What is the “call to action” of my ad? (i.e. the step you want people to take and
• What metric will prove that the action has been taken and can I measure it? (e.g. a Like, which Facebook will report to you, or a spin of a track, which you will need to monitor more closely yourself)

It can be tempting to just dive in with Facebook’s newer ad offerings, as they have plenty of “press play” options popping up alluringly in your page admin section. This simplicity is helpful but you will still benefit from taking some time to consider what you want from your ad spend, where it fits with your other promotional efforts, and how you will measure success.

Dig Deeper

This is really only the tip of the iceberg with advertising on Facebook. We can take in-depth looks at ad copy writing, split testing, ad optimization, cross-platform campaigns and results analysis, to name just a few of the areas that may be of use to enthusiastic music advertisers.

What I’d love to know is what level of Facebook ads you’ve undertaken as an artist and whether (and which of) these deeper topics are of interest to you?

Do you want to read detailed how to pieces or just “press play” on those easier ad options that Facebook is now inserting into your fan page?

Let me know in the comments below or e-mail me at [email protected] with your specific questions. I’m here to help!

What keep on coming, though, are the examples of independent artists getting creative with their music marketing.

From 10,000 hours of practice to getting social across many media, there are plenty of theories on how you should be behaving as a musician seeking to break out. But what are your peers doing, down in the trenches of small clubs and minimal budgets? How are inspired artists communicating what they do and what fuels their passion?

Most importantly, what can you take away from the examples of others and use in your own marketing efforts?

Leading by Example

To continue the spirit of the MMM series, every week I’ll be posting a few brief examples of smart, affordable marketing from musicians at your level. Not artists with major label backing. Not those who have hit it rich with a lucrative licensing arrangement. Just those taking an alternative or interesting tack towards spreading their music and winning new fans. Each example will have a more general marketing takeaway, that you can then apply to your own situation.  

Examples of Creative Music Marketing

Khaled Dajani writes a name on New York City…

Every creator has dreams of making a name for their art in Manhattan, but few twist that into using the city as their canvas. Khaled did just that, tweeting his way around various locations until it spelled L U C I from midtown to the Lower East Side. The significance? ‘Luci’ is the title of the Hoboken singer-songwriter’s next album, with a devilish subject matter, which he promoted with the help of temporary tattoos, promotional literature, and rising photographer Monica Cohendocumenting the entire effort for online posterity. That this was all undertaken the weekend before Halloween afforded the journey even more relevance, tying in with the imagery and sentiment of the occasion.

Takeaways:  Tie in the subjects of your songs to the presentation of your promotion. Utilize memorable merchandise and help talented friends to help you, giving back whatever you can.

Aldo Aréchar ventures into the visual art void…

The music video is older than many of you reading this, but the explosion of streaming video sites and cheap tools of production has made it more accessible to a new generation of artists. As with all content forms on the web this has resulted in a vast swathe of unremarkable video vying for our eyeballs. Utilized creatively, however, the independent music video can be an excellent way to stand out from the crowd… and what more logical way to create strong video visuals than by collaborating with a digital artist?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mexico City-based composer Aldo Aréchar chose to do just that with this effort for his track ‘That Will Be the Day’, which comes alive through the motion graphics of Matthew De Vito. Setting the soundscapes perfectly to exquisite, vaguely nostalgic digital imagery, this collaboration garnered the attention of the widely-read site The Creator’s Project, catapulting both artists to the eyes and ears of many in one fell swoop. As we covered not so long ago, attention is a scarce resource in this time of content fatigue, and the door is now ajar for these two to start relationships with some new fans on the back of this.

Takeaways: Think beyond your own field of work and create with others. Find artists of all different forms to complement your music and give back to their creations, expanding to each other’s audiences as you do so.

Uniform Motion experience the serendipity of search…

Okay, so this one is a little whacky, but the band in question very much deserves it! By a stroke of good fortune, Anglo-French group Uniform Motion picked up some of the enormous search traffic coming the way of a band you’re more likely to recognize, Of Monsters & Men.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As a result of the happy coincidence that their song features very similar lyrics to the chorus of ‘Little Talks’, it racked up 80,000 spins on YouTube. It not being their own channel or even upload, this didn’t actually score them any income, but the exposure is there nonetheless (as well as an incentive to get your own, high quality versions of songs up on the world’s second largest search portal, perhaps).

Beyond that, though, Uniform Motion have plenty of creativity in their own right, from creating a game that accompanies their song to writing compelling observations on the music industry, some of which are picked up by mainstream outlets. Oh, and some gloriously soothing music that fully deserves your ear time.

Takeaways: Control your YouTube presence as best you can, so that any errant searches represent your music in the best possible light. Keep all your titles, descriptions, and tags in order and relevant for searches. The same can apply to your blogging, which is a great way to both keep fans up to date with your movements and write about more general subjects that inspire you… all of which feeds nicely back into the likelihood of being found by those search engines.

Over To You…

I’ll have more of these for you, of course, but I’d love to hear your own examples of artists who are marketing music effectively on a shoestring budget.

Fire away here in the comments, if you please, or feel free to e-mail me the details, if you’d like to be considered for the next article. 

Some significant data were released last week by the (suddenly very visible) music reporting service, MusicMetric.

Significant, in this case, equates to over 400 million instances of illegally downloaded music around the world during the first six months of 2012.

Disaster.

Crisis.

Death of music. 

And yet…

Of Piracy & Profiteering

What most struck me about this report is that the headline artists, those most downloaded in any given country, aren’t of the old guard. From Drake in the US, Ed Sheeran in the UK, and the largely unknown Billy Van in a number of other countries, all are musicians who have risen to prominence in the last few years.

This is important, because the long-trumpeted argument against illegal downloading has been that it kills artist development. These new artists can’t be successful if you don’t pay for their recorded music.

But Drake is now a household name in North America, selling out arena-headlining tours this year and grossing close to $1 million for many shows. And across the pond, Sheeran recently closed out the Olympics, visible to billions, and will play to close to 25,000 people over five sold out nights in London next month. And all this, impressively, from a ginger ninja.

If piracy is the death of music, someone forgot to e-mail all these folks heading out to support these artists in the real world… or perhaps they were simply fixated on their torrent windows and missed the message?

Fair & Balanced

All flippancy aside, I understand that these are breakout artists and that there are many musicians still struggling for attention, or even a few bucks/quid when they play the latest toilet on their live schedule. But the argument from all the major players in the recorded music industry, that artists will never be able to develop and rise to fame in a culture that doesn’t pay for their recordings, is being torn up, chewed, and spat right back in their gnarled, bitter faces with examples such as these.

Over the last decade, the one chink of sunshine through the otherwise gray and gloomy skies of the music industry has been the relative health of the live sector. Festivals have gone from strength to strength and ticket sales have remained a reliable source of income for everyone playing to crowds in the triple digits and upwards. For a while it was suggested that only legacy acts, those built on the revenues and marketing of the pre-file sharing era, were the main beneficiaries of this phenomenon.

As more and more acts graduate to worldwide fame and exploding ticket sales without those record label development budgets and marketing support, however, the justification for blaming all of the wider industry’s ills on piracy rings ever more hollow. 

Increasingly, we see that the challenge facing actual musicians isn’t how to get listeners to stump up for recorded music, but how to gain wider attention for their songs and leverage that recognition into income from other sources, be it ticket sales, diverse merchandise, or licensing agreements.

The Curious Case of Billy Van

The third example I mentioned on this report should be conspicuous by his absence from my preceding bluster, and with good reason. More so than the others, Billy Van exemplifies this nascent attention economy in music. As a dubstep artist, one small element of a burgeoning EDM scene with massive potential for touring revenue, Van faced a challenge even to get his music noticed so early in his career.

In this scenario, breaking through the sea of competing noise and becoming a familiar sound to a groundswell of listeners, is the most crucial part of forging a career that pays.

Billy Van is one of the few artists in this case who has primarily given away his creations for free, as a means to break out. Making it that much easier for fans to access his music has clearly helped it to be shared widely and built a momentum of its own, leading to this (admittedly unorthodox) point of recognition by more mainstream media channels. Step one complete, he has our attention.

Step two is where the rubber meets the road, however, and is playing out as I type… can he turn that attention into loyal fans who support his craft with their wallets? Given the phenomenal success of individual artists like Skrillex, whose prominence has again come during this supposed barren period for developing new acts, the rewards on offer if he can pull it off are enormous.

Takeaways

So what can you take away from this jarring shift in the sands of the music industry?

1. Free Isn’t Failure – Giving away music may not yet be the right model for everyone, but it certainly doesn’t equate to a failure on your part. On the contrary, it could become the foundation of your career.

2. It’s an Attention Economy – First and foremost, you need to attract ears and show people why they should care about you. There’s way too much music for any one person out there… what makes you stand out?

3. Ways to Pay – Recorded music isn’t the only way to make a buck or two. Once you turn those listeners into fans, offer them plenty of ways to support you. I talked about this more in Diversify Your Product.

Is this report a sign of an emerging new era for the music industry?

Or is it simply another indictment of a culture breeding little respect for recorded music? 

Fire away in the comments below!

Last week I got a bee in my bonnet – yes, my part time job is subbing for Little Bo Peep… what of it? – about the lack of creativity in marketing music.

Rather than just whinge and whine, though, I thought I should probably make an effort to turn things around.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world” and all that motivational malarkey…

Music Marketing Matters

And it matters especially on Mondays, which is when I’ll be publishing my contributions to moving music marketing forward.

I have two simple goals for this series:

1. Provide ideas to market your music that offer something new and are practical for you to act upon,

2. Highlight examples of artists who are pushing the envelope in marketing their creations.

Today I can hopefully deliver on both of these, with a look at Amanda Palmer’s recent ~$1.2 million Kickstarter haul and what you can adopt from her methods.

Diversify Your Product

Whether or not you agree that music is a product, if you are striving to be any kind of career musician then you need to accept that it is vital to market your art according to similar principles that govern product and service marketing.

Standalone products are only sufficient if they have vast mass market appeal, which is something that rarely applies to music  (how many artists have made the big time with just one release, on one format?) So it falls upon you to offer your fans a wider variety. Not only variety in ways to experience your music, but also the live experience, the fan experience, and even varying the type of art that you make available.

Image Source: Mela Sogono

Circling back to the curious case of Amanda Palmer, this million grossing Kickstarter campaign was a tour-de-force of artistic diversity. Here are some concrete actions that you can  pull from her success:

• Format diversity - Know your audience. In many cases they will vary from pure digital downloaders to geeky speccy nerdy collectors (these are the folks that you especially need!). You need to offer a cheap and easy format for the former, a beautifully crafted limited edition vinyl for the latter, and anything in between that caters to what you know to be attractive to those purchasing your wares. Put out informal polls on social media, talk to your fans, ask in an e-mail newsletter… whatever it takes to find out what diversity people want and how you can give it to them.

• Build in real world connections - It’s all too easy to be pulled into the digital world and build relationships exclusively with fans online. Palmer offered tangible real world connections to fans in cities across the world, baked into the decision to purchase her new music. Play to the themes of your music and match as many physical events to it as you can afford to deliver. Sound expensive? Cut your cloth accordingly and tailor events to where your fans can gather. Also note, people will often pay more for a real event… and they will feel more invested in your music for having done so. This is especially true if you make a visible effort to make the event special for them personally (song dedications, personalised gifts, private meet and greets…what else would you include?)

• You are more than music - Heresy, I know, but you have a lot more to offer. What’s more, your fans know it and are more likely to part with their cash if you serve it up for them. Don’t panic, music is still at the core of what you do. But offer art work, lyrics/poetry, personal inspirations in the form of unique merchandise, video content, the work of others that you admire or with whom you have collaborated, and you start to stand out  from the crowd. You also have something to offer at higher price points, providing those who want to spend more a reason to do so. Look at Palmer’s art books as just one compelling example. For bonus points here, make some of the alternative products you offer limited edition. Those who snag them will feel an extra sense of accomplishment as your fan; those who do not will be on increased alert for the next time.

• Make it community-based - What characterizes Palmer’s online successes (and they are very much in the plural) in particular is the sense of belonging that she evokes in fans. They remain fanatical (in the positive sense), yet there exists a kinship, a degree of equality, in their relationship with her. True, she has built this up over many years, but it can and should be applied right down to the level of brand new artists building fan bases in small towns.This is also a concept that can be applied to your product diversity. How can you make your live appearances more of a communal affair, rather than limit them to artist broadcasting? Playing more intimate gigs like house parties or word-of-mouth outdoor gatherings brings you closer to your audience. Bringing in fans to help you organize such events, with special access for them and a few friends, makes your music more communal. In the short term, these tiny events placed alongside larger, more standard shows, breed a healthy symbiosis between attendance of the two. Longer term, you’re making memories for fans on a one-to-one level, and their emotional investment is far more likely to yield a financial one.

• Expand into other audiences – Less related to product offering, but nonetheless a useful action point to take from this example, is the idea of branching out into the audiences of other artists and creators. Collaboration is often a smart way to do this, as it breeds unique creations that are of interest to both sets of fans. Reciprocal offerings are another, with a contribution from one artist to your next project and you providing something for them in a similar fashion. Palmer offered books, art work, scripts, photography, and all manner of extras from fellow creators, ensuring cross over into many new networks.

Admittedly, Amanda Palmer has an established base of fans and  can already reach many more people than most independent musicians. But it was the diverse offerings and alignment of them with fan passions that helped her to move from a good Kickstarter campaign to a phenomenal one. $1 million is out of reach, but a healthy return on your investment in music is not.

Take away: Understand your fans’ desires, create a wide range of ways to cater to them at multiple price points, then deliver with passion and flexibility across as many networks as possible.

 

Over to you…

What did I miss? Are there better ways to diversify what you offer to your fans? 

Does the notion of having to go beyond the provision of music offend you as an artist? 

Let’s go at it in the comments section here. We’ll learn from one another and possibly have a good old scrap in the process! 

Records have been broken, talent celebrated, winners heralded…. 

So why do I feel that something is amiss?

Disconnect the Dots

We’ve established that there is a desire for fans to use social media to engage with television events.

From the trending topics on Twitter being dominated by TV shows on any given evening, to Facebook beginning to aggregate status updates into “## people talked about (insert event here)” style summaries, we can see that enthusiastic fans are utilizing social media to share their views on what is being broadcast. The conversation is rampant and swirling like a raging storm around the big events.

So why does the broadcast itself reflect none of this?

Why does watching the show on network television feel like the eye of the storm, so eerily quiet and removed from the passion circling around it? 

To my mind, it represents the substantial disconnect between traditional standards of broadcast media and the emerging concept of social media, of involving your audience in as many ways as possible. The tools and platforms now exist. The channels to your audience are ever-widening. Yet the will to travel up and down, making the show a two-way street is still found wanting. 

The Connection Is Made

To give the Oscars due credit, their web presence offer fans plenty to dig their teeth into. From preview blogs to after-show video, Facebook fan questions to live tweeting the winners, the content is undoubtedly present to lure fans in deeper. The integration is what’s under scrutiny here. The curious relegation of fan passion to a side show, as the restricted Big Top basks in its own glory.

The Grammys made some effort towards this integration with separate performance areas for sets by Foo Fighters, David Guetta, Deadmau5 and the like, but it still amounted to a select few. The floodgates weren’t opened to the enthusiastic masses tweeting and sharing around the event in cyberspace. Even the live television broadcast was restricted in certain markets, leaving certain sections of music fans left out and frustrated.

The challenge to broadcasters is now to integrate as many of these media, as seamlessly as possible, for a diverse and two-way fan experience. 

Transmedia Momentum

This may seem like a pedantic moan, based on the fact that both broadcast and social media elements of these events were booming. Though I agree that progress is being made, is it not the remit of leading broadcast events like the Oscars and Grammys to push boundaries, to lead the way in engaging their enormous fan base and show other industries what can be achieved?

Shows like Bravo’s Last Chance Kitchen show what can be achieved when social media are smartly weaved into the fabric of a television program. Fans feel more connected, invested in the developments of the show, and return value is increased as a result of this investment. This trend towards transmedia – telling your story across multiple platforms, involving those who gather along the way – is gathering momentum among more niche programming and holds a lucrative future for those broadcaster that begin to explore and experiment with it in these early stages.

The passion of fans around the entertainment industry – or, at least, the creative talent that it supports – already exists. It is the envy of many other industries who find it much harder to fire up their audiences. Let’s use that to challenge the traditional one-way thinking of artist to fan, instead focusing on a more inclusive model in which fan passion fuels creativity in real time and their involvement breeds an ever-greater connection.

Photo Credit: T. Buchtele

Takeaways:

- Your fans are having a conversation with or without you. Jump in and be a part of it!

- Lasting connections and greater fan loyalty are built when you involve your audience in the creative process.

- Use the strengths of individual platforms to build an integrated experience across all channels. 

What are YOUR feelings on the Oscars and Grammys as an inclusive fan experience? Am I way off the mark here or do they need to involve fans to put on a better show?

How can you improve your web presence for fans through blending in more media?

Synchronicity by Peter Westermann - Visit Threyda.com for more

A picture is worth 1,000 words, common wisdom has it.

So social media should make it easy for artists to share their work, right? Image galleries, slideshows, done…

…except there’s much more to it than that.

Copywriters are valued for a reason and engagement, though a notorious buzz word, is widely heralded on every social media blog from New York to New Zealand.

For artists, creating a visually stunning piece is just the first step on the road to sharing.

Social Success Story

Threyda, an arts collective based in Wisconsin, is one of the first visual artwork organizations that jumps to mind when I think of in terms of social savvy.

From a simple Twitter follow early last year, I’ve been prompted to move through to their Facebook page, from which I’ve regularly checked out the gorgeously presented artwork showcased on their website. Having not yet taken the plunge to buy a piece, I’m almost certain to do so at some point this year, as soon the right deal pops into my inbox via their regular, though not  annoyingly so, e-mail updates.

In summary: Threyda gets it. And they’ve got me.

The Whys & Hows

For a relatively small group of independent artists, Threyda’s army of 11,000+ fans on Facebook and thousands of Twitter followers is impressive in itself.

Digging deeper, there are a number of practices that make the company a shining example to anyone seeking a wider audience for their art.

Here are just some of those best practices:

• A Competitive Streak - Regular competitions that couldn’t be easier to enter. Post a new piece, have fans ‘Like’ the post, random winner picked. Hundreds of likes (which feeds into how often fans see their posts in the ‘Top News’ stream - more on that here) and plenty of attention for new creations, even from those that don’t win. Competitions encourage participation and return visits.

• Adopt & Adapt – They’ve learnt along the way that each social media channel has its own potential and limitations. Initially posting to Twitter only through Facebook automation, this tweet showed their intention to adapt to a more interactive, Twitter-friendly approach. Though they still have some work to do on interacting with followers, the adoption of Twitpic and @ mentions to friends show the importance of learning and developing…

• A Place To Call Home – Despite the many outposts, the (not so) humble website is the central hub of a web presence. These folks seem to get that, with a powerful and visually striking site that is clearly the best place to check out all the creations of each artist. The outposts of Facebook, Twitter et al then feed into this, offering tantalizing thumbnails and Twitpics of the work as a draw to view more angles and full archives back on the website, where visits can be accurately measured and sales more easily driven.

• Call To Action – Threyda posts always let you know what their intention is. From transactional (“Save 50% at checkout”) to inspirational (“It’s never too late, go create!”), there is a reason for what they put out there and they explicitly state it at the close of their piece. Clear calls to act drive engagement and sales.

• More Than a Feeling - Other than quoting 80′s power ballads, the reason I include this intangible quality is that Threyda create an aura around their web presence. In truth, it is principally fueled by their other-wordly artwork. But their supporting content, such as this blog reflection on a night snapshot from Cleveland, feeds into the ambiance that they exude. Aligning your style to your social media makes the whole experience feel consistent for fans across multiple platforms.

There are always new, innovative steps that we can take to develop our web presence and improve social media efforts. First, however, the foundations need to be set up strongly and the platform hierarchies clear. In looking at the web presence of Threyda, I find a solid base and flexible approach to new media that I think helps them better deliver their stunning art to the world.

And your good selves? What artists or collectives do you see utilizing social media channels effectively?

What aspects of Threyda’s example do you think could be improved?