update – Fiona Z – The Musician’s Five Star Assistant

Twitter rolls out a fresh new look.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and the start to your weekend is going great. I’m so happy spring is FINALLY here. I’ve had quite a week with events kicking off the spring and summer season, so I’m happy to be enjoying a little down time to balance out the festivities.

To add to the excitement, Twitter has rolled out a whole new look for its users. Part of my position as assistant is to keep my clients updated on social media – if there is a new feature, a new rule, or in this case, an entirely new look. As you know, this happens quite often.

First things first, have you seen it? (You have to – I love it!) Check out the first two featured musicians who switched over: John Legend and Weezer.

Here’s what you need to know to keep your profile updated with Twitter’s new look.

Larger, customizable header photo – You will notice on the two examples that now the header is larger and more prominent, and they got rid of the background image. John Legend uses the space to promote his latest album and makes his profile picture a photo of him, while Weezer, a more established brand, focuses on featuring their band members in the large banner and their infamous logo as their profile photo. Either looks great, but you will want to figure out what you want to feature.

If you have a new album that you really want to push, you might want to have a header featuring the release. Or if you have an upcoming tour, you can highlight the band and dates on your header.

The size of the new template is 1500×500. TWELVESKIP offers great advice on the dimensions as well as a really good template to help you build your best looking header, which includes invisible vs visible space. Check it out here.

Filtered Tweets – Social media platforms are all about featuring only the best of what they have, so it makes sense for Twitter to start filtering, pinning and featuring tweets. Your best tweets (ones that have received more engagement) will appear larger than the others. You can now pin tweets, so if you want to make sure everyone sees your tweet on your new concert date, or what you had for lunch, you can pin it to the top. Lastly, you can choose from different timelines when looking at profiles. Select from these options: Tweets, Tweets with photos/videos, or Tweets and replies.

If you haven’t seen the option to switch over yet, don’t worry, it is coming. You can prep ahead and have your team design a new header photo while you wait!

Are you ready to make the switch? Log into Twitter, then visit this site. Scroll all the way down and click ‘Get it now’. The change will be instant!

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Social Media - 05/02/2014

4 Ways to Spruce up your Facebook Page!

One part I love about my job as an assistant is helping musicians carry out their branding on their social media pages. Often, musicians have the branding in place on their website, but their Facebook page doesn’t match it. I can’t count how many times I go to a musician’s page and see so many small things they could do to make it look fantastic! I’ve become accustomed to updating musician’s pages for them so that their branding matches across the board, one of the many tasks I do for my clients.

Considering a Facebook page is most likely the place people will go to check out your music after your website, shouldn’t you pay more attention to make sure it reflects your brand? Short answer – yes.

Here are 4 ways you can spruce up your Facebook Fan pages.

1. Put a cover on it

Some pages I’ve come across feature a picture of themselves as their cover photo, along with a picture of themselves for their profile picture. Going that route doesn’t allow for anything to stand out and it can feel cluttered – like a bad photo collage. Do you have an amazing logo? Make it your profile picture and then feature a photo of you as the cover. Have a new album or tour? Make the cover about that, featuring dates and links, and choose a great shot of you for your profile picture. Keep in mind the size of the cover it 851×315 pixels and if you are creating a cover with information on it, keep in mind where the profile picture box will be on the left. I use this handy template whenever I am building a new cover.

Beyonce’s Facebook admin does it just right here, using her new logo and contrasting it with a photo.

2. The info under the profile picture.

For this info box, keep it simple and be sure to include a link! I’ve seen pages not utilize this space correctly by either a) not including a link or b) include too many likes! Choose one thing you’d like to focus on – whether it’s your new album, new website or your twitter account – and write a quick sentence or tagline with the one link. For example:

More than just a girl with a guitar – (link to website)

Get Kelly’s latest album, ‘Girl with a Dream’ here (link to purchase)

3. Choose the right Facebook Tabs

You’re a musician – you tour, you have merch, you have an email list, you want people to buy your music, right?. So why not feature those revenue streams as well as fan connecting streams on your Facebook page?

^On my page, I feature what’s important to my followers.

First of all, get rid of the ‘Number of Likes’ Tab. This is super unimportant to people visiting your site – plus, they can see how many likes you have under your name if they need to know. That tab can be used towards a link to your newsletter sign up, your blog or a link to your online store. One thing you cannot remove is the Photos tab, but find the apps you can include and use the space you have wisely!

4. Personalize your Facebook Tabs with Images and Text

Once you have the best Facebook Tabs picked out for you, it’s time that you personalize them to match your branding. You do NOT want to keep the generic tab cover or title. If you use Mailchimp for your newsletters, as many of us do, adding their app to your page gives you their generic picture / title:

So, instead of ‘Newsletter Sign Up’ which doesn’t even fit in the title, keep it short with ‘Email List’ or ‘Mailing List’. Then, get rid of the apps tab image and replace it with a branded text image (Note: the size of these images have to be exactly 111 x 74). Take a look at John Mayer’s tabs. His team created matching images that reflected his branding and is easy to read and more importantly,UNDERSTAND. Job well done by John Mayer’s Facebook admin:

So, how do you change the Facebook Tab Image?

Here’s a quick tutorial:

Take these four ways to freshen up your page and you will change the entire feel of your page for visitors in just a few hours. After seeing what it could look like after a few minutes spent with it, why would you go back?

Social Media - 02/17/2014