The Web Marketing PowerProgram

How My Son Increased His Band’s FB Fans by 570% (Without Spending a Dime)

It’s no secret I want to kill Social Media. I consider 72.3% of it a cocktail party with no end and even less of a point. Yet the remaining percentage has some viability for business. The more we experiment, the more we “throw out” the useless, and the more I see a twinkle of marketing light at the end of the tunnel.

No need to send the “But you’re a caveman” argument my way; service businesses rank barely above funeral homes and municipal services in number of “likes”. True. So this ain’t about fixing me. It’s about finding a fix for the losers who are selling YOU this current crock that Social Media is the “answer” to your marketing ills. Hardly. It is the answer to their marketing ills.

Last month’s Coaching Call with Sheila Lathan (www.snappysocialmedia.com) showed a path that has worked for us and clients. In another call, we found intelligence and strategy in the approach from www.marketinghardware.com. Those traits are mystifyingly lacking in most other presentations.

Yet, as the formula continues to change, and we continue to throw money and brain cells at the answer, I mentioned we were also experimenting with:

1. Facebook ads. Yeah, I know Social Media is all about peace, love, and understanding but somebody mentioned “ad revenue” in a meeting and Zuckerberg clearly liked it. Though I would personally like to torture him for lowering the collective IQ of those addicted to FB, our ad experiment increased “likes” from 104 to 822 in 21 days. A 790% increase.
   
   Calm yourself. An upcoming Coaching Call and later SMI will cover this technique. For now, focus on this no-cost gem…
   
2. Bribery. Oh whatever. There are groups out there who you can pay to generate “likes”. Sure, it sounds like digital prostitution to me too, so I didn’t go that route. Then my son discovered a way (actually “re” discovered an old principle forged anew) to earn likes and shares, deceptively simple, and astoundingly effective.

 He was doing it the “old” way that everybody tells you to do – very slowly, gaining single digit additions after each effort. He then made one change and fans went up 570%. Click to see how (plus get free music, really) …

My son Davis is in a band. Before you get the idea he’s living in my basement drinking bong water and piercing himself for entertainment, he has a full scholarship, a 4.0 grade average, and remembers to bathe almost daily. Yet he is 19, loves music, and his band is actually pretty good.

Last spring, the "Zealous Friars" (as they're called),  got pretty serious about making music and started writing songs. They pooled together some of their money and recorded 4 songs in a real studio. Not easy, not fast, and not cheap, but a “differentiator” from 90% of the other attempts. Where’ve you heard that before?

He and his band mates are tech savvy and naturally looked to Facebook to promote their music. So they created a page and told their close friends about the page. This amounted to 37 Likes in about 4 months (not very much). And it nearly stopped. Fast out of the gate, then nothing, like most every contractor out there.

They kept hearing about all these mega-successes, but couldn’t break through. The power of social media hadn’t fully come in to play.

Then a tip he came across mentioned this idea: instead of giving away content to anybody who tripped over the page…

Have them “like” the content to get the content.

Let that soak in for a second. Dwell on it.

A simple post on Davis’ personal profile that had a link to their music, but required a “like” to hear it, led to over 45 new likes in one night. They had 154 unique visitors to their website. This generated 51 unique listeners to their songs. All of this happened in one night. The snowball process has continued with periodic links to the Facebook page.

They’re now up to 248 likes in less than one month, which is 570% increase over their previous 37. Fans are spreading across the US and in Great Britain. (How could this have ever happened pre-Internet? Answer: It couldn’t.)

Want to hear this band NOW? Head over to http://www.facebook.com/thezealousfriars

What he did was in parallel to:

1. Free energy survey. Appointment (“like”) before purchase.
2. Discount Certificate/gift/bonus with purchase.
3. Free newsletter for email address. (Squeeze page concept.)
4. Free contractor video offered on FB (requires email address)

See? Same principle. Networking is a powerful tool. No two networks are alike. The more you share your links through social media, the more people will see it.

Just know that (according to Facebook analytics) Davis’ 248 fans have over 87,000 friends. That’s 87,000 people who are just waiting to be approached. Maybe they like music, maybe their music. So let’s consider a much larger audience…

Rumor has it that many people on Facebook enjoy heating and air, have indoor plumbing, and some version of electricity. Maybe I can like Social Media after all. More to come.

Marketing Masters at Hudson Ink? Post it here.

Adams Hudson

P.S. Like my Facebook Page  | Follow me on Twitter