Part 3 – How To Get A Ton Of Facebook “Likes” Fast
Okay, sorry this final post in the Facebook series took so long. I just returned to Los Angeles from New Zealand and it’s been a whirlwind of a week.
Anyhoo, before I share with you a number of valuable things I learned about the efficacy of Facebook Advertising, I need to give a quick bit of back story.
If you’re a Music Marketing Manifesto member then you already know that the crux of the strategy I’m trying to teach is this:
- Drive traffic to an offer for free music.
- Capture email information in trade for the free music.
- Treat your subscribers well and build a genuine relationship with them.
- Use direct response marketing tactics to generate album sales.
That is what is referred to as a “sales funnel”
When it comes to marketing, everything I do needs to support that sales funnel.
So while social media is a great tool, for me personally, it means nothing if it does not enhance the sales funnel and ultimately my bottom line.
That was the trouble that so many of us experienced back in the Myspace days. We all had thousands of friends, kick-ass looking pages, but no sales funnel. So at the end of the day it didn’t mean squat.
Many musicians are starting to use Facebook in the same way. Thousands of “likes” but to what end?
That was the persistent question I had in the back of my mind as I went into this Facebook experiment.
Could I convert “likes” into sales?
As I pointed out in Part 2 of this Facebook series, I was able to more or less break even on my initial advertising experiment. Incidentally, I have since profited as a result of the campaign.
BUT, it was not as straight forward as it might appear. What I found was that while some of the sales I brought in were a direct result of the activity I generated on Facebook, many of the sales came in from people who were already on my mailing list, but who purchased as a result of the more intimate relationship that I was able to form with them on Facebook.
In other words… it wasn’t my Facebook ad or my FB page itself, which brought many of these new customers. Rather it was the Facebook relationship that pushed things over the edge and closed the sale.
To clarify that further because it’s actually VERY important… at least half of the people that bought Music Marketing Manifesto via Facebook were people who found my FB page as a result of my email blast, NOT the ad. HOWEVER, had it not been for the ad, those people never would have ordered.
It seems pretty conclusive that people purchased because Facebook enhanced the bond and helped create social proof, it wasn’t a result of Facebook’s direct impact.
So what does all of this mean?
Keep in mind that when it comes to anything in marketing, results will vary from artist to artist and from demographic to demographic, but this was my personal conclusion:
Facebook is very effective as a tool to REINFORCE your relationship with your fans, but on it’s own, it is a poor replacement for the sales funnel.
I think my Facebook campaign was effective because I had put so much effort into building a mailing list of subscribers who were already very aware of who I was and what I was about. Connecting on Facebook reinforced that relationship to the point where many people felt comfortable taking further action.
Had I simply put all of that effort and money into a campaign designed to build a Facebook following, I’m confident it would have been a total loss. But when I used Facebook to reinforce my existing relationship with my followers, suddenly I’m seeing a positive ROI.
So how should you use Facebook as a musician?
I have now spent well over $5000 in Facebook advertising over the last few months, both for Music Marketing Manifesto and to promote my music and the music of various clients. There are a few ways that I have been able to make Facebook work.
- By driving traffic with FB ads directly to a squeeze page on an external URL. (If you don’t know what a squeeze page is, sign up to watch this free video).
- By using Facebook ads to promote my FB page, for the sole purpose of reinforcing an existing relationship with my mailing list. In other words, build a list, use advertising to get your “likes” up, and then share your page with your list. Make sure to have various interactive elements and calls to action on your wall.
- This is outside of the scope of the FB Likes experiment but I have used Facebook ads to create market awareness SPECIFICALLY on the day of the album’s release. With this strategy I sent people directly to an order page. The idea here is simply to create a media blitz on a small scale. For something like this I would only target people who were already fans of yours. You are making sure that your fans are getting hit every where they look come launch day.
- Finally, Facebook is a fantastic tool if you simply use it as the relationship building tool it was designed to be. By making a conscious attempt to connect with your email subscribers on Facebook in addition to a mailing list, you create an additional channel where your presence can be felt. By posting regular updates on your FB wall, you stay on your fan’s radar without being intrusive. When you send out that email blast for the important stuff, they become all the more likely to open and read your message, and more importantly, take the action you are requesting.
Now a couple of additional points…
Many people have justly pointed out that Facebook is just another Myspace and is not worth the time and effort.
Here’s my feeling on that: Facebook’s functionality is much more conducive to building genuine relationships and therefore has MUCH more value than Myspace ever did. They’ve also recently surpassed Google in the number of daily page views they receive. So the bottom line is that they cannot be ignored.
With that said, when you don’t own the property, you are always vulnerable to changes in the market place as well as an ever changing terms of service clause.
It is not wise to put all your eggs in a basket that you don’t own. Do this and you might wake up one day to see that everything you have worked so hard for is gone. Use Facebook to compliment a sales funnel that you own and control.
Facebook is a fine place to start the relationship, but the goal should be to eventually move the relationship over to your mailing list. That is where most of the album sales will come from.
Another very important thing to be aware of is that the impact of a social media message is infinitely less than the impact of an email message.
As I write this Music Marketing Manifesto has 3850 fans on Facebook and an email list of 4638 subscribers.
I happened to use bit.ly to shorten the URLs I sent out in two recent broadcasts. The first was to Facebook, the second was to my email list. Take a look at the difference in the results…
That’s HUGE.
So while my Facebook list makes up 43% of my total number of followers, it only accounts for 3.8% of the clicks (at least in this example) that I get from a promotion that I send to both lists.
So all you folks who think you have 2000 fans because you have 2000 “likes” on your Facebook page… think again. The value of a Facebook fan is NOT equal to the value of an email subscriber.
Again, not discounting Facebook here. As you saw, I made over $800 in less than a week with my Facebook test. I’m simply saying that you need to know what you’re getting into when you focus your efforts on Facebook, and you need to use Facebook accordingly.
So here’s what I want you to do next…
1. For those of you who DO NOT have a decent size email list, do me a favor and take a look at Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0. Building your mailing list and converting your list into record buyers is what I teach in the course and it’s the back bone of everything I’ll be teaching on this blog. Take a look and see if it’s something you think might help you. If not that’s totally cool. But be sure to watch the member testimonial videos while you’re there (there’s a dedicated testimonial page coming soon.)
2. Leave a comment below and let me know what questions you still have about Facebook, and how to use it to promote your music. I’m considering doing an interactive video workshop on Facebook for Musicians, but want to know if Facebook is something you guys are interested in learning more about. I’d love to hear from you.
Finally, if you’re still reading this. Thank you 🙂 I know this was a long post.
I learned a lot from this experiment and it has been really great to go though the process with you guys watching over my shoulder. All of your kind comments and emails have really made this a lot of fun. Plenty more case studies coming your way soon.
Okay, sorry this final post in the Facebook series took so long. I just returned to Los Angeles from New Zealand and it’s been a whirlwind of a week.
Anyhoo, before I share with you a number of valuable things I learned about the efficacy of Facebook Advertising, I need to give a quick bit of back story.
Good stuff as usual John. Puts things in perspective. I love interacting with my facebook friends and posting interesting info that might give insight and help them becoming more successful in life whatever that might mean to them. So, reading your test results really shed a bright light on what to focus on. Thanks again!
Thanks James. Glad you liked the case study.
Hey John, once again a very thoughtful article. I like how just as in your article on guest blogging to increase web traffic, you focus on the importance of relationships to really get your target audience. Interested in reading more on generating sales traffic to a site. Thanks again!
Nicholas Cote
My pleasure Nicholas. Glad you liked the post. Thanks.
Thanks for the info! Really great that you’ve gone and tried out different advertising methods in Facebook. Lots of valuable and useful information.
Thanks Graeme. Much appreciated.
John,
This is excellent – my team has been advertising my fan page for months with mixed results. My new album drops in February and I’m looking for better ways to advertise. I will put in place some of what you have suggested.
Bless!
Glad you liked the post. best of luck.
Thanks! You have really interesting and helpful posts. Im a finalist in a EMI music Canada competition to get my song released by EMI. It’s really tough to rally people, friends, acquaintances and to get them to vote. I don’t want to be annoying. Is there a way of creating a supportive base that will vote daily without having to annoy people? Support me and other indie artists here : http://www.moartist.com/chiara
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiara-Casi/150423441646293
Thanks so much for your time!
Very interesting site. I would love to be notified of new posts. Thanks!
Thanks John,
To be notified just sign up over there on the top right hand side of the site. You get some free training as well as blog post alerts.
Hey Loved The Post Cant Wait To See What You Got Next!
Thanks. Got something new coming soon 🙂
Hey John, thanks for the info, and the work you put in!
George
Thanks George. I really appreciate the comment.
So glad I found you! This is the stuff I am working on and learning and I really appreciate your insight! 🙂
Thanks for the comment Karen. Much appreciated. Glad I could help.
Hey John,
Thanks in particular for the stats on email vs Facebook links.
For me that’s possibly the most valuable things your experiment has revealed.
A quality mailing list is worth it’s weight in digital gold!
Definitely is. Honestly, it surprised me. I really expected more responsiveness from the Facebook list. Still, FB has many benefits, as outlined in the post.
Thanks for the comment and the continued support.
Very helpful as always John.
You know, FB may make some changes in the future to actually enhance the ‘pages’ functionality for this purpose (musician pages), or perhaps more options and target population in the ads.
What do you think of FB as a squeeze page it self? sometimes FB users maybe discouraged to click to go to external websites. Besides, you mentioned a very important aspect which I hope you address further in the future; “How to convert ‘Likes’ into sales”.
How can we further enhance the FB page experience to enhance our impact/sales…etc. beyond merely providing 1-2 free music tracks.
Thanks
Musically yours–
Luay Rifai, MD
Instrumental Rock Guitarist
http://on.fb.me/fBHdkE
Hey Luay.
I have not found it beneficial to advertise to a squeeze page on Facebook. I played with it a bit but my results were terrible compared to just sending people directly to a real squeeze page.
I think there is some benefit in driving your likes up with advertising to create an active Facebook hub, but beyond that I think the best way to create a good Facebook experience is to just offer great content and respond to your followers. The more interactive you can make your posts the better.
Hey John, I’ve been really interested to see your results here, thanks a lot for posting.
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve been testing a new plugin that lets you sign people up to aweber with 1 click using facebook connect.
I would guess that this would increase your opt in rate on facebook ads.
It’s a paid tool on clickbank called “Social Squeezer”
Let me know what you think.
– Chris
P.S Hope you didn’t get caught up in the trouble in New Zealand.
Useful stuff as always john
Thanks Greg.
I have experienced the same issue of turning Facebook fans into solid mailing list subscribers. Each idea has brought a few in but nothing substantial. My next pushes will be stating that I’m going to be releasing a couple of new demos only to mailing list members and letting the mailing list members be the ones who decide which song is going to have a video made for it.
**Just a side note for those who are reading. The paid advertising on Facebook seems to have proven beneficial in getting some new faces at my shows when I play new areas which has ultimately turned some of them into mailing list subscribers who have purchased downloads of my album. Dollar for dollar I’m slightly behind but the relationship is started.
Good point Chris about advertising for live shows. I haven’t actually done that yet because I haven’t been touring for a while, but geo-targeted advertising is a fantastic way to get the best bang for your buck. You might try advertising free, or discount tickets in exchange for email addresses. That way you get a bunch of targeted subscribers on your touring circuit that you might be able to pull to shows down the line in the event that they don’t show up to the show you’re advertising. Good stuff.
I definitely would like to see a tutorial on Facebook. Good Job John,
Thanks for the feedback Tim. If that’s the consensus I’ll definitely do something.
I second what tom said. This is so much better than the same old stuff that doesn’t really say anything other than, go promote your band blah blah blah. Real numbers, real examples, and no easy answers. I like that. Keep it coming John.
Oh, and yes, I’d love to take a Facebook workshop if it had some interactive element where i could ask questions along the way.
I love that you always share actual numbers and screen shots to back them up. Great post!