Most people in the music industry have seen those pages where someone has 250,000 likes on Facebook, but only “15 people are talking about this”. Well it is starting to catch up and hurt those bands or artists who are buying “fans” when there music cant back up the base (Remember this image? or you can just search Google for “buying Facebook likes” and you get the picture). Peter Graves of Red Seas Fire goes into more detail about it here and below.
So the measurement of social media metrics is not just straight numbers, its reading behind the numbers says Adrian Gariba, who Managers a handful of highly interactive and noted musician and fashion based social media accounts since 2007. “the target per most responding to is actually 10% of those who saw the post…typically a post on social media reaches 15% of the fan base of that person on that network…so 10% of 15% is what you should be seeing on every single post or more.”
— LETS PLAY A GAME — Can you identify who may have bought “fake fans” out of the pages below (PS. I have no idea if they have purchased fans or not, but feel free to comment below [PPS. I do not have any connection to any of the artists, please do not send hate mail as I personally “like” most of their music and these are just examples of many different music accounts])
AN21 DJ Bl3nd David Guetta Excision
Roger Sanchez tyDi U2 Markus Schulz
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The other thing a label or music agent is looking for is regional interaction. “If there is an artist with 10,000 fans that are very active but very very global and spread out then you can’t actually earn a good income from them” Gariba comments on. “If on the other hand their 10,000 fans were all in the same city, then you have real potential for earnings at a very local level”. A closer and tighter-nit fan base encourages interactions with pictures, videos or event attendance, and increases the likely hood of something going viral as it begins with a strong and truly dedicated group of supporters.
This does not mean that metrics are a useless, its quite the opposite as many posts on this blog illuminate. What is important is finding the correct metrics to utilize, which comes down to planning and knowing your industry. Altimeter Group charted a few ideas below as potential metric identification opportunities (and you can view the full report here), for example. 
Lessons Learned:
With this in mind, what can we learn about internet metrics specifically in the music industry?
- Number of “likes, fans or followers” can’t win you respect but it can get you into trouble and be viewed as a fake.
- It is critical to decide (in advance), what your target is, and what internet metrics you will use to determine if it truly represents how successful you are.
- Regional or localized interactions are more important and profitable then general world-wide interest.
- Focus on what you do good, and make it better. Not always on where you see gaps in campaigns. (i.e. its easier to do what you do best even better then try to change something you cant do at all)
- Real supporters cannot be bought; content, quality, determination and patience is critical to social media support.
- As with most marketing and metrics, you need to carefully review your techniques on a case by case basis, or face the possibility of reaching out to the wrong type of consumer (see below)
Web References:
Google
Red Sea Fire
Facebook
Altimeter Group 2011 Report on Analytics
Submitted by: Barry Rooke – SMBP Student University of Waterloo.
To contact the author of this entry please email barry@infinitesm.com.
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.