Sound Marketing for Bluegrass

Sound Marketing for BluegrassDid you know that Bluegrass Today publishes a periodic newsletter about online marketing for bluegrass professionals? It’s free to all comers, and is delivered by email twice each month, written by branding expert Barry Silverstein.

Each issue of Sound Marketing for Bluegrass focuses on some aspect of promoting and advertising your product, service, or music on the internet. He analyzes trends, points out dead ends, and demonstrates what has been proven effective. Occasionally we post them here as well, as a reminder to readers that they can sign up to get them sent to their inbox at no cost.

Barry is now preparing a 2-part series on how to effectively market your CD to radio, and to the general public – a primer of sorts for bands and artists. If you are working on a new project, you’ll surely want to read these.

Here’s his most recent report..

Barry SilversteinLast time, I shared some usage statistics from Social Media Examiner’s recently published Social Media Marketing Industry Report. The report covers the use of social media by more than 3,700 marketers, the majority of whom work for small businesses.

Now let’s take a look at the social media networks and platforms commonly used by these marketers.

What are the most popular social media platforms? As you might expect, the overwhelming top social media platform is Facebook, which is used by 93 percent of marketers. Twitter is second (79 percent) and LinkedIn is third (71 percent). The next four platforms in descending order are Google+ (56 percent), YouTube (55 percent), Pinterest (45 percent), and Instagram (36 percent). Despite Facebook’s dominant position, however, only 45 percent of marketers think their Facebook marketing efforts are working.

Which social media platforms are the most important to marketers? More than half of marketers (52 percent) said Facebook was their most important platform; however, there is a significant difference between marketers who target consumers vs. those who target businesses. Almost two-thirds of consumer marketers (65 percent) say Facebook is their number one choice, while 41 percent of business marketers say LinkedIn is number one, followed by Facebook (30 percent) and Twitter (19 percent).

What are marketers planning to change in their future use of social media? Two-thirds of marketers (66 percent) plan to increase their use of Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, while 62 percent plan to increase their use of Facebook. According to Social Media Examiner, there has been a decline in the use of Facebook by marketers over the past two years. Instagram, on the other hand, has seen an increase in planned usage from 42 percent in 2014 to 52 percent in 2015.

Which social media platforms are marketers most interested in? Marketers want to improve their knowledge primarily about Facebook, but LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and YouTube all rank relatively high (over 50 percent each) as social media platforms marketers want to learn more about. While Snapchat has gotten a lot of buzz lately, 82 percent of marketers say they have no plans to use it. In terms of new social networks, marketers are generally conservative when it comes to new social networks – only 5 percent actively adopt new social platforms.

How are marketers using paid social media? An overwhelming majority of marketers (84 percent) say they use paid Facebook ads. Google ads are used by 41 percent of marketers, while LinkedIn ads (18 percent) and Twitter ads (17 percent) have far less usage. A majority of marketers (53 percent) plan on increasing their use of Facebook ads.

These statistics are indicative of current usage and trends. They give you insights into the time commitment, benefits and platforms that your peers are using. You can get a free copy of the full report from Social Media Examiner.

Be sure to sign up for Barry’s Sound Marketing for Bluegrass newsletter, and get a copy of the free eBook collection of his first two years of newsletters.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.