What can I say there are only so many hours in the day, it's tough getting things done on the music end and also updating all the social media outlets I have to do for Radio la Chusma and my other side business Checkered Past Promotions. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Reverbnation, Chuco Artist, Song Kick, Artist Link, Spread Shirt, Cafe Press, you get the drift... it's difficult to find time to get on my horn to practice or edit video/audio, do some graphic design on photoshop and just get away from my phone or computer!
This is starting to sound like first world problems right?! Well I started thinking, is it really neccessary to do all of it? I mean I've set up Hootsuite which handles 5 sites and I can schedule posts for the whole week if I wanted but that still leaves me 5 more sites to manage individually. Do fans really want to keep that up to date with bands? How engaged are fans? I worked market research for quite sometime and never really fully understood the demographic angles and line graphs until I started amassing hundreds of likes on the RLC facebook, now we're up to 3k likes and I view the insights of every post and try to keep things on the up and up, keeping track of what days/time I get the most likes and what kind of posts get more hits than others.
Most of us arty types don't have or like to have a set schedule and our organizational skills are a bit shit but with the use of Excel, SMemo on my Galaxy 3 and some creative Calendar syncing I'm starting to put together a steady campaign of how to get more time for actual life vs "social media life". So here is my little regiment on not burning out on social media! *This is fairly new right now so I'm giving it a month or so to figure out if this is fruitful and profitable in the long run.
Mondays
Monday's I'm dedicating to selling, using our online presence on CafePress and SpreadShirt as well as other sites that have music iTunes, Reverbnation etc... So typical day will be 8 postings on where to get our merchandise (2/morning 2/afternoon 2/mid evening 2/late evening) through Hootsuite I'll have it pre scheduled within a 3-4 hour timespan on Facebook and Twitter then manually share on Google+.
Tuesday
I'll use this day to just post articles, photos, anything that I read or view on my personal facebook I'll share on the RLC and Checkered Past pages. Doing so will break up the monotony of just business as usual vibe a lot of us get into (Don't forget about our upcoming ________ and check out so and so blah blah blah from us kind of posting). Also I'll be focusing on things away from the computer and not posting too much, it's good practice to not saturate your feed with too much crap! Instead I'll be planning things like upcoming tours, posters, events, PRACTICE and enjoying the day!
Wednesday
I'll use this day to hit the photoshop hard and come up with new designs/logos and update the blog weekly about upcoming events, where to buy merchandise, and just general rants and things that come to mind throughout the week and whatnot. On the social network front this will be a moderate day of maybe 6 posts throughout the day. Usually Wednesday is the highest traffic day for most social networks so having a quit time of 4PM latest should give me plenty of time to do other things like PRACTICE :)
Thursday
Thursday will be pumping up the weekend shows and future upcoming events as well as links to the blog to generate impressions and revenue. This will be a moderate heavy day with 8-12 posts throughout the day with links to merchandise, events, and upcoming projects. Planning on having everything I need to post done by 8PM with maybe 1~2 posts in late evening.
Friday
This is just an extension of grouping of all the previous days with higher frequency with the majority of the posts centralized around lunch hour, to hopefully get people checking their cells/laptop/tablets enough time to plan their night out. Also I don't want to over saturate again because Saturday is the time to overdue it ;) Also this can be a good day to push the online sales, most people get paid or will be getting paid via direct deposit or over the weekend so they can download/order something from you and also have some money to blow at the bar and hopefully your gig!
Saturday
Same as Friday and interacting with fans but this is EXTREME, like a few posts every few hours 20+ posts but majority concentrated on promoting shows and merchandise. Also send people from your personal page to the business page, post something like "I'll be on this page all day today so stop by leave a comment etc..." You'll get friends that sometimes rarely goto your musician/business page maybe pop in and boost your insights! Don't forget to push shows, merchandise and anything business related
Sunday
Posting photos/videos from the weekend shows, sending thank you's/shout outs and also going through the previous days and saying something about merchandise, funny store/picture, then taking the rest of the day to relax and get ready for Monday all over again! This can also be a Hootsuite day where you line up all the things you're going to post for the coming week and have them pre scheduled or at least a draft of what you're going to plan out for the week.
I'll be running this routing all through December and keep track of the Facebook weekly insights and posting if it was a success or what I need to fine tune!
