Your Customers are using Social Media right now, you should be too.

Networks like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are great places for you to talk about your business and create relationships. 

Unlike traditional campaigns, effective Social Media marketing requires interaction; it is the ability to respond to individual people that makes the whole thing Social.  This means that although some elements of a Social Media campaign can be outsourced, by far the best way to manage Social Media marketing is in-house.

Kilted Chaos works with you to develop an overall online marketing strategy that starts with your website and identifies what parts of the social media world are going to deliver the best results.

Contact us to see how Social Media can benefit your business

3Gsignage

“So our designer just fell off the planet and we need to launch in 4 weeks and the budget is half gone – can you help?” 

Yes – we can help ‘cos we are Kilted Chaos and we are awesome.

Ok – so it didn’t really go down like that but it was close – either way – we think you’ll agree – the site turned out pretty nice!

3Gsignage are a European based technology firm that make it super simple for any size company to build and manage their own smart phone application and digital signage.  We’ve built a few iPhone apps here at Kilted Chaos; it kinda reminds us of the early days of the web – you’d hire a programmer to build you a site and then when you wanted to change anything it cost you an arm and leg and took four weeks.  3gsignage have built an easy to use content management system so that businesses can change information inside the app without spending a fortune – genius!

The key message for them was to get across that they deliver Content Management Systems for the iPhone and for Digital Signage systems, plus they then wanted to funnel the visitor by customer type so they could better shape the language.  They are just starting out with Social Media but they wanted a simple way to add blog entries and have everything hooked up to Twitter and Facebook.

We built on Wordpress using the Thesis theme - we had an outline of what the front page should look like - the font and the iPhone image but that was pretty much it.  Much of the design involved some subtle image and CSS work and we learned a few new things along the way.

We worked pretty much round the clock for a couple of weeks and hammered the site out.  We moved them from their existing host (who we won’t name but seriously – having to fax in a signed copy of your passport just to change DNS and waiting all weekend for it to happen seems ridiculous in 2010) moved them to a new registrar and reduced their ongoing monthly costs – nice!

If you would like to know more about 3Gsignage's services - you can contact them here.

If you would like some Kilted Chaos in your life – or maybe just on your website – give us a shout – although we’re out of here until the 5th – have a great holiday American people – we love you!

Turning Fickle Fans into Friends

Just got off the weekly skype call with one of our artists – Drastic Jo – she has a release scheduled for November 13 and we’re busy developing the direct to fan marketing plan.

Typically one of the most important parts of such a plan is the acquisition stage – this is where you set up the digital platform in order to reap as many email addresses, Twitter followers, Facebook and MySpace friends as possible. Figures show that the more people you have on your “lists’ the more dough you make.

However, over recent months there has been a lot of discussion around the importance of developing a deeper relationship between the artist and their existing fans. Having been out and about this week, it was interesting to hear one established management firm state that “Fans suck – it’s all about Friends” – and he wasn’t talking about the digital ones.

With the exploding number of bands and tracks now being marketed to the same audience – an artist not only has to grow new fans and convert them to friends, she has to look after her existing friends in order not to lose them to a competing artist.

Current Direct to Fan marketing is still based around a traditional release date – it makes sense on many different levels; having a specific event and a date allows both artist and fan to focus on each other at the same time. How then does the artist engage the fan and deepen that relationship outside the period of a specific release?

There’s a longer post brewing here – but here’s the short version.

Up until recently the people behind the music were strange mysterious creatures – beings that had this amazing ability to create stuff that changed our lives and made us feel. We assumed that ‘cos we liked their music we would like them – prior to the last decade the only exposure we had to artists were either on stage or through corporate controlled media channels.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder - though we had their music in our heads every day – the artists themselves were distant figures and we loved them. Compare that to nowadays: bands are encouraged to Twitter their every move – it’s hard to distinguish between your favorite artist and your favorite social media douche.

As the dust settles on the new music marketing revolution one thing is clear – artist’s lives are no more interesting than yours – and considerably less interesting than your immediate friends. If absence made the heart grow fonder then familiarity clearly breeds contempt – just ask John Mayer.

The only reason I am interested in an artist is because they create music – or in Jo’s case not just music but killer art as well. Once I’m beyond the initial rush of having complete access to who they are, the only time I want them to push out to me is when they have something new.

We think artists and bands need to think about how they release their music. We think a combination of specific release date combined with a monthly release of individual tracks allows for dedicated acquisition planning as well as looking after and deepening the relationship with existing fans.

Things have changed – no shit – but things are changing faster than the experts can write about it. A fan will move onto the next new thing – the next free download – the next photo opp or scandal. A friend will stay with you, will open your email, will come to a show and bring a friend. If your marketing plan purely deals with getting fans, you might want to hang on to your day job.

Photo Credit: The Explosion in the Alchemist’s Laboratory, Justus Gustav van Bentum - Chemical Heritage Foundation, Flickr

Myxer - Free Ringtones & More

There are many ways to get ringtones out to your fans but by far the easiest way is to hook up with Myxer.    You can upload tracks, images even your videos and use the platform to get the content distributed straight into the hands of your most ardent followers.  Check them out here:

I first came across Myxer a couple of years back when I was on the Kelli gig and looking for a ringtone solution.  It was late 2007 and Twitter was just starting to kick off, nobody real got it – least of all the team I was working with, but I found it to be an incredible way to access information.

Having gone through the traditional Google search for ringtone providers I ran an early Twitter search for anybody tweeting about ringtones and came across @sass. Jeff Sass is one of the nicest guys you can meet – he’s been working in entertainment and tech for most of his life and for the last 3 years has been the VP of Business Development at Myxer.  A few swapped tweets and phone calls later Kelli was the featured Country artist of the day and we shifted several thousand ringtone downloads before the tour bus even rolled.

What I like about Myxer is that for a big company they are very focused on the Indie artist - if they can help you out they will.  Mobile still has a way to go in terms of over the air track downloads and general usability – but it’s coming.  Companies like Myxer can get you into the game for free and if you’re not there – you’re missing out.

Jeff writes an insightful blog on all things industry and tech over at sassholes – check it out - there’s plenty of good information can help you to reach your fans in better and smarter ways – and who doesn’t need that?

Is Your Band A Business?

You’d better bloody believe it, and just like any business out there – you want it to be easy for customers – call them fans – to find you and give you money.

I’ve been in bands on and off pretty much my whole life; whether as a 6 year old dressed up as Gary Glitter (which in retrospect is just wrong!) or as a “grown up” keyboard player – there’s nothing like the dream of making it in music.  There is however a big difference between playing at it and actually living it – a huge part of that difference is how you manage your online presence.

We know that there is a growing market for easy to update websites that integrate seamlessly with social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook and that don’t require a computer science degree to use.  We also recognize that having an easy to use website doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s enough time in the day for the business owner (lead singer, drummer or keyboard player – guitar players are usually too busy screwing around with their tone!) to write and respond to blog comments, Facebook friend requests or tweets.

If at this point you’re all squeamish about looking at your music – your art – as a business than you’re reading the wrong website. Remember, to do this professionally you need people to give you money and not just once, but again and again for as long as you are making music.

We work with Bands but we also work with Realtors and Telecoms Agents – the product is different but the business relationship is always the same. If you can find the time to work your website, manage your Facebook page and keep your fans – call them customers – updated by email – you dramatically increase your chances of doing this for the rest of your life.

Want to learn more? Contact us..

Facebook Business Fanpages

Facebook is exploding – over 350 million users and growing like a bad staffing problem. Less than 2 years ago networks like Twitter and Facebook didn’t register on business owner’s radar – now – if you’re not on them, you’re probably losing out. We will be writing more on how best to work with these networks but for now we’re going to look at the basics:

How do I create a Facebook Business Fanpage? It’s pretty simple – go here - http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php - and you should arrive at this page:

Use the drop down to choose what kind of business you are – today we’re feeling very healthy – unless you’re one of those super anal types who can’t publish anything until it’s perfect don’t check the box under where you have named the page (remember – we’re in the world of perpetual beta!) Guess the captcha and boff! – hit the create page button. You arrive here:

Now’s the time to make a decision – if you have a personal Facebook profile – do you want to sync your business page with your personal page? You can go either way on this – if your business is about you then it’s probably a good idea, if however you sell adult novelties – which is apparently a very profitable business – maybe you don’t want your page linked. Just for fun – let’s keep this unique and set it up as a standalone profile – enter your business email address – guess the captcha again and away you go - you should end up here:

Ta Da! Ok – first things first – let’s get your business logo up there. Put your mouse over the big question mark - a prompt will come up in the top right hand that says Change picture – click it and you get the menu option to load an image from your computer. This is where you can load up your Business’ Facebook Image ( if you don't have one of these - you might want to check out Kilted Chaos' Logo/Avatar development service)

Here’s one of the tricky things about Facebook and images. The image that you load up as a profile image is also the image that Facebook squeezes down to use as your avatar. Now unless you have the time and are handy with an image manipulation tool like Photoshop, this can be a laborious process. The largest image size you can put up there is 200 pixels wide by 600 pixels deep. But – Facebook will take the information that is between 90 pixels and 240 pixels deep to produce the square avatar that accompanies your posts.

In order to have a good looking Facebook page, you need to be thinking ahead in terms of what your business logo is – how it’s going to translate onto Facebook and how you’re going to produce an image that will produce a good looking avatar. Remember – we can do this for you – contact us here.

Ok – so – your image is in place – what next? Time to fill out your information – start off by getting a link back to your website and describing what your business does in the box that says “write something about…” If you write the URL of your website like htis http://yourwebsite.com – it will automatically become a link when you click out of the box.

Next you want to start populating the tabs that run across the top of the page. Info is pretty easy to handle – events are good ones to use too. You can see on the Kilted Chaos page that we have some fancy stuff going on and you can have that too but that will come in a later post. Here's a screenshot of the Kilted Chaos facebook page - click on it to go there and don't forget to become a fan when you're there - we'd really appreciate it!

For now there’s one thing that you should add to your page straight away – and that is your Blog feed. The whole point of integrating your website with your Twitter and Facebook is that it allows you to get as much bang for your content buck as possible. If you can feed your blog posts into your social networks – you’re getting your content into more places and making it easier for people to see you without having to triple your workload.

On a quick side note – if you’re going to truly drive business awareness through Facebook and Twitter you will need to be producing unique content specifically for each platform – but for now – let’s just get you up and running.

Adding Your Blog / Website Content to Your Facebook Business FanPage

Underneath the question mark – which by now we hope is your business avatar / log – (or even your smiling self!) Click on the link that says edit page. You’ll arrive on the following list of options:

Go to the Notes application and select Edit – you’ll arrive here:

See the box on the right "Notes Settings, " underneath that the link that says Import a Blog? Click on that and you will get to here:

Paste the URL of your website’s RSS feed into the box and away you go. Now – for those of you who don’t know where to get that then maybe you really should ask us to do this for you! However – if you’re using Firefox – then go to your website and look in the URL bar – if you see an orange box like this:

Click on it – and it will give you the address of your RSS feed.

So – to sum up – you have a new page – you have your business image loaded up, you have entered a link back to your website and you have added your website’s RSS feed to the page. Pretty good – now you’re all set up and ready to start attracting fans. This is something we will deal with in a later post.

If you would like Kilted Chaos to take care of setting up your Facebook Fanpage for $150 then click here. You will need to have some idea of a business logo, if you don't and you'd like us to produce one for you that will work across your website, Facebook and Twitter, we can do that also for $150.