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apple / how to / iphone / twitter — 1 Comment
27
Oct 09

How to replace twitpic with your wordpress blog

Requirements:

  • Wordpress self hosted blog (free)
  • An iPhone (definitely not free)
  • Tweetie 2 installed on your iphone ($2.99)
  • Twitter2press Wordpress plugin (free)

The first thing i recommend is get your copy of Wordpress upgraded to the latest version. If you’re running an old version like i was, follow these instructions carefully and be sure to make a backup of your data first. I had some issues with the Twitter2press plugin before i upgraded.

Account Settings -> Image Service -> Custom...

Account Settings -> Image Service -> Custom...

1. On the Tweetie accounts page, click on “settings”, then “Image Service” and “Custom…”. Just put in the URL to the root of your blog (i.e “http://www.davidschultz.org”). That’s all the setup you need to do on the iPhone.

2. Download and install Twitter2press into your Wordpress blog. After you activate the plugin, you’ll need to configure it a bit. It will ask you for the username/pw of the Twitter account that is going to be posting images and you’ll also need to specify a page on your blog that will act as the “image gallery”. I just created a page called “Gallery”. Also, make sure the wp-content/uploads folder is writable.

That’s all there is to it, now instead of giving free traffic to Twitpic, you can direct people to your blog to view your Tweeted images and enjoy a traffic boost on your own site.

business / facebook / ideas / marketing / music / myspace / twitter — 5 Comments
4
Feb 09

Some tips on using social media for bands

Update Jan 16 2010: Check out my Q&A with a reader which elaborates on this post.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/3001411113_cb33e76c35_m.jpgHave you heard of Joe Purdy? Me neither. He made a healthy six-figures last year from his music, bought a house & sold more than 650,000 tracks on iTunes. How?

A good friend of mine was over for dinner last night and we had a chat about his band’s marketing efforts for their upcoming album, and here are some of the ideas that came out of our discussion:

- Maintain a blog/podcast, Twitter account, Facebook group, Myspace presence and any other worthwhile social media tools out there (don’t neglect them!)
- Advertise all the above at shows, in interviews, on the band’s website…EVERYWHERE!
- Give away mp3’s of your music for free (from your website), and encourage people to share it with their friends using the above tools. Maybe even seed it on Bittorrent.
- Never spend a cent on traditional advertising. It costs way too much to cut through the noise these days and the ROI is small.
- Use social media to ‘rally the troops’, crowdsource & interact with your fans – keep them engaged!
- Make damn sure all your music is on iTunes & Amazon. Even though they may have a few mp3’s they got for free from you your true fans will buy your music.
- Have a consistent ‘branding’ from the myspace page to the live show

The bottom line is, these days people have too much choice, and to make matters worse there is too much noise in the world. This means people aren’t listening to you. They are however, listening to their friends and people they trust. The key is finding people who have the Otaku for your music and making it as easy as possible for them to do your marketing for you.

I almost forgot – above all else, make amazing music.