The real answers to your questions about social media usually aren’t solved by learning about new services or techniques.  More often than not, the confusion and lack of direction in using these tools comes from a lack of a defined purpose or philosophy at the core of how you deal with your fans.  Once you know how you want to deal with people and what effect you want to have on them then you can view all of these tools through the lens of that cause.

For example, my goal here is to help musicians gain clarity and success.  I see all of these tools as a way for me to make that happen.  When I evaluate a new technology or social media tool, I look at it through that lens.  What I’d really like to do is to spread ideas and info to as many people as possible.  I’d love to have face-to-face conversations with every musician in the world and swap insights with them all.  Obviously I can’t do that, so instead I use the tools at my disposal to get as close to that as I can.

You might decide that you want to inspire people, capture their imaginations or entertain people and help them escape their mundane lives for a little while.  Whatever it is, know it.  Know what effect you really want to have on people and let that shine through in your communications and let it guide you in your decisions.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to be on Twitter or Facebook or Myspace or any other specific site or service.  You just need a platform or platforms that work for you and allow you to connect with people and make good on your purpose.  Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketing gurus, doesn’t tweet. He don’t feel it plays to his strengths and he prefers his readers digest what he has to say on his blog.

Do what feels right for you. Don’t do things because you’re ‘supposed to’. Know the outcome you want and trust your instincts.

Remember, you’re trying to connect with real people, not to impress yourself or anyone else with inflated numbers. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how many people are your friend on Facebook or how many people follow you on Twitter.  Only the number of quality connections and relationships matter. One way or another, that’s what you’re really after. Seth Godin tells it best:

So remember this when you’re out there in the technology jungle.  The real goal is to establish and grow meaningful relationships and to exchange real value.  It’s not about running up meaningless numbers.  It’s about exchanging more value.

So my message is this:  Know your purpose as an artist and what effect you want to have on people and then use the tools at your disposal to establish real relationships with real people.  Don’t get lost in the medium.  You’re not looking to connect with cyber people.  There are real people on the other end of your interactions.  Treat them as such and you’ll be able to get results that translate to the real world.

My first thought is that you might get a better return on investment with facebook advertising. You can advertise your fan page on a pay-per-click basis. It’s pretty easy to set up. Right under your photo on your fan page you’ll see ‘Edit Page’ and then right under that ‘Promote with an Ad’. Just click on that and follow the instructions. Chances are that if these fans are going to give a good recommendation to other people, then they’d buy the CD themselves. Sell them the CD for $10 instead and then invest that money to gain 50 fans per CD via facebook advertising.

I do like the idea of encouraging fans to spread the word though. You might also consider doing a promotion for people who tweet about you. I’d suggest creating some specific content just for that kind of promotion. Your superfans are the ones who will make the best evangelists and give the most passionate testimonials for your band. They’re also the ones who would want your b-sides/ live tracks/ bonus videos etc.

If you don’t ask your 50-100 best fans to buy your CD then you might be giving up the money that would have paid for a new website, a professional photo shoot or new video. Your true fans want you to succeed and in most cases, would feel good about their $10 going towards a brighter future for your band.

Also, I would hesitate to advertise free CDs unless you ask for something of high value in return and/or you have a great plan to leverage the free CDs into something profitable. I’ve seen artists who think that the way to go is to indiscriminately give everything away for free or very cheap. I think this is usually because a) they have their own ‘issues’ with money and b) because they think that if they spend enough of their own money to give things away for free then they’ll get so many fans that they’ll somehow become successful. Instead they end up broke, burned out and disillusioned. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re doing, but it’s a scenario that you want to be aware of.

You really need to believe in the value of what you’re offering. If you have any doubts about the value of your CDs or anything else then you’re going to have a hard time selling those things. If, on the other had, you know in your heart that your latest CD is priceless, that it will be the soundtrack to amazing memories for those who buy it and that you, yourself would walk 10 miles to a record store to pay $15 for it then you’ll do a much better job of conveying that value to your fans. Anything less and you’re doomed from the start.

You want to assign massive value to everything that you offer, whether you give it away or not. If someone gets something from you for free then you want them to feel like they really got hooked up. If you don’t give much value to the things you give away then not many other people will either.

If you’re interested in other ideas about selling CDs then check out some more discussion from that post:

One of my favorite ideas for selling CDs came from Terry McBride of the Nettwerk Music Group. He was managing a band who sold an average of $300 per night in CDs. They would mention from the stage that they had CDs in the back for $15 and on average managed to sell about 20 of them. Terry asked them to change their approach. He came up with the concept of ‘everyone leaves with a CD’.

The band would talk about their CD (build value) and how much it means to them and how much they wanted everyone to leave with a copy. They asked people to pay what they could, but even if they didn’t have any money they asked them to take a CD. They made their pitch twice per show. Before long they were averaging $1,200 in cd sales a night! And the best part was that because so many people had left with a CD they had an enormous increase in attendance for future shows.

Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons learned about this idea through Derek Sivers. The band was selling a disc for $5. They started with the ‘everyone leaves with a cd’ idea and the results were as follows: The average price that people payed for the cd was $4.98, but the total number of CDs the sold per night doubled!

If you decide to go with this approach then my advice is to practice your pitch. Say things that build value for your CD, connect with fans on a level where you really want them to share the experience of your music, and keep your pitch simple. Don’t say things like “pay what you can, but if you can’t pay then just find Tenise and give her your email address and then Joe will give you a CD.” Make it super simple: “Tara has CDs – right over there – pay what you can, but PLEASE LEAVE WITH A CD.” etc. If you can, then have someone collect email addresses from people in line to get your CD, but don’t mention anything about that during your pitch. Give them one simple call to action at a time.

Click HERE to view the original post “CD Release Tips” on the Disc Makers Blog.

You’d better grab them fast. You’ve got a Hell of a lot of competition! People don’t have time to search through 17 youtube videos, they don’t have time to try to figure out how to find the content they want on your weird website and they don’t have time to listen to 5 songs on your Myspace page before they get to your best song.

Give them your best stuff on a silver platter. Lead them right to your best song, your best photo, your best video etc. Don’t know what your best stuff is? You need to find out. Ask people if you have to, but know what your strongest material is if you want to know how to grow your audience. Don’t randomize the experience of the people who are giving you a chance for the first time. If you’ve got 6 songs on your Myspace page, why randomize your playlist and take the chance that someone who goes to your page will hear your 6th best song?! Give them your best stuff on a silver platter.