Hey guys it’s been a while but CB Blog is back, and the 1st thing I would like to discuss is VOTE FOR ME!!!! :). You can be at ease I am not in a position requesting that you vote for me in some type of contest, but I did find it necessary to discuss a couple of ways to go about getting your followers to vote for you in the case that you might be in a competition that requires public votes to win. I can strongly relate to this concept, earlier this year my group Tha Boogie was chosen to be a part of the Rolling Stone Magazine Cover Contest, where they had chosen 16 bands from across the country & canada to compete to be the 1st unsigned band in history on the cover of the magazine. There is no question that we were totally stoked to have been chosen but then came the “VOTE FOR ME!!!!” kick we had to be on for months on end.

Timeline Etiqutte

The biggest hurdle to get over was the guilt or possibility of looking desperate asking your followers to cast their vote and pass on the word. We were a little nervous about filling our timelines on our social networking sites up with a ton of solicitations. Being that we our selves found it a bit distracting to see the same updates from a user, let alone ones constantly asking for support. Fortunately I have a cousin who specializes in online marketing who gave us some simple yet tremendous advice. She told us that promoting something with a soliciting purpose is never a bad thing, and you have to realize that even updates that do not mention any thing about a competition you are in continue to build the momentum you need from your followers to keep there attention during the times that you do mention said contest. So the moral of the time line story is to space out mentions of solicitation to your followers with genuine entertaining updates, that you should normally be doing on your social networking sites anyway. I would say that 60/40 is a good ratio the 60 being normal updates and the 40 being the solicitation updates. Remember your followers in your network do want to support you in your endeavors, so be sure you give the opportunity to do so.

Conserving Your Brand 

To follow the time line etiquette or some form of it is crucial in regards to conserving your brand in the midst of having to take on a promotions heavy endeavor. You want to avoid coming across as robotic or with a tone of constantly asking your followers for the same thing it quickly loses peoples interest, and that is sometimes hard to get back. You want to try to make sure that everything you stood for prior to something like you being a part of a competition remains through out. Whether it be really entertaining play by play daily ins and outs, our posting interesting art, music or articles (which I’m a big advocate of) to your social networking sites, be sure that these habits don’t get lost in the sauce per-say and that they still remain present to your followers. No matter what the circumstance people don’t want to feel like what initially caught their interest in you is no longer a factor to you, so just be mindful in maintaining all those things that make you cool and interesting.

Avoiding The Competition

Some people may feel like this article does not apply to them, because they would try to avoid being in such a constructed competition. Which I can’t say is a bad thing, the only thing I would say take in to consideration is that in entertainment we’ve have become subject to very competition based opportunities. When (and yes I’m gonna say it) American Idol first came on the air, artist and viewers alike did not see the contestants as talent who would have viable careers but boy were we proven wrong, with success stories like your Carrie Underwood’s & Kelly Clarkson’s who both achieved great heights as musicians after winning the competition based show that depends on the viewers picking the winner. In today’s market place it seems to matter very little how people were introduced to you or your talent but more so whether or not they recognize you, so for some avoiding this competitions maybe be a goal but American Idol has had a major affect on the entertainment industry and it’s major players, Rolling Stone Magazine for example who created a competition with a similar foundation based on their readers and website visitors votes. So at one time or another we may encounter great opportunities besieged by a constructed competition in our rise to the top on several occasions.

Vote For Me!!! Please Buy My…

Even if being able to avoid the traditional competition based opportunity, with in entertainment there will always come a time where you need to solicit something from your followers, whether it be merchandise, album purchases, concert, movie, or theatre/play tickets, there will undoubtedly be something, because the purpose of the entertainment industry is to literally attempt to entertain someone whether you consider that someone part of a small or large demographic. As an entertainer we need people’s interest, so even if you’re not asking someone to vote for you, maybe you need them to see that you’ve just release an EP, published an article, posted a new video on youtube, etc. Anything you are trying to direct traffic to you can use the timeline etiquette mentioned earlier to do so. This concept whether it be for a competition or not is to give you the tools to utilize your networks in the most beneficial way, for you and your followers. The people who follow and support you want to see you succeed, so it would not hurt to go about giving them the opportunity to do so in a cognizant way.

Nu

When ever I find an article on Branding that I’m completely in agreeance with, it excites me because it reiterates my own perspective on Branding. Here is another something I found via Outspoke Media that undoubtedly will shake your doubts about when and what to say and not to say while representing your Brand on your Social Media web pages. Although we sometimes see people with nice sized followings saying things on there Twitter pages or Facebook post that may seem antithetical to what this article is saying, I can a sure you it is because of one of two reasons; either this Brand is in the process of tarnishing what they built or this Brand’s foundation is made up of avoiding things like common sense. Never the less people do grow weary of things of this nature and do tend to move on from Brands that don’t exercise enough personal constraint. Check out the article below:

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