* Polls work. People love them. Asking people for their opinion on something gets them excited.

Image via CrunchBase

A recent poll asking simply “Which band are you most looking forward to seeing” not only attracted a lot of visits, but also a lot of click-throughs to the ticket selling page. (I’d put links for all the shows below the link to the poll).

* Talk / reply / comment – responding to people’s comments is a sure fire way to drum up interest in what you are doing. Even a simple acknowledgement of their response it better than nothing

* Horses for Courses: Different bands draw traffic from different social networks. All blog links are placed on Facebook, Twitter and Myspace (which never delivers). The header is also fed onto the venues ticketing website.

Facebook and Twitter do pull in readers, but it entirely depends on the band. Almost 100% of the traffic to a Carl Barat story came from Twitter, whereas the bands Exit Calm and Band of Horses pulled in traffic from Facebook. Older bands seem to generate the majority of traffic from the ticketing website onto the blog, not vice versa.

I always tag the bands in the post  – LIKE them on facebook, befriend them on Twitter – then use an @ to link to their page.

* Buzzwords are great – think, what will people be searching for on a particular day? Events that are going on, celebrities? Without unnecessary shoehorning, a post about the World Cup  or Glastonbury festival can be very effective.

* Double tag: working for a venue, it is quite easy to “double tag” a post – i.e. talk about 2 different bands in one post. A review of last nights show, doubled with a review of this evenings works well.

* Multiple tag: a new format of post I am experimenting with is the “news roundup”. By following all the bands due to play the venue over the next few months, I put together a “Road to Wolves” post with smal tidbits, links etc about those bands. One post in, and it has proved popular.

WHAT NOT TO DO

* false promises: it seem to be clever to write the headline “Meet s0-and-so’s support band” – for an introductory piece about the smaller bands on the bill. With a lot of visits I pressumed people were generally interested in finding out more about the support band. Unfortunately a high bounce rate and a glance at the search words (Meet so-and so”) proved that people wanted to know how to meet the headliners. The post was offering something it could not deliver.

Instead of a straight bulletin read though, I decided to turn a standard bulletin (recorded into my laptop with a clip on mic and with Audacity) into an audio slideshow.

The Process

Write the Bulletin

• Check the main music news websites (including NME.com, Kerrang.com and Gigwise) as well as the press releases I have received, for the top stories of the day.
• write a short 2 minute bulletin with 4-5 stories, an intro and an out

Record the Bulletin

• Using a clip on microphone and Audacity sound recorder, I recorded the bulletin into my laptop
• Edit the bulletin for any mistakes/re-recording

Add Images

• Unfortunately I do not have an extensive gallery of rock stars so I have had to use images from the internet.
• I am aware that this may be in breach of copyright, so I have offered the opportunity for photographers not happy with images being used to contact me via the video hosting website Vimeo.
• I selected pictures that supplemented the story. For example the image of Pete Doherty with the policeman and Damon Albarn with the cigarette were obvious choices.
• I used movement throughout the slideshow to add to the story – for example, zooming in on the eyes of Robin Whitehead, the heiress and filmmaker found dead in a London flat. This seemed appropriate in this situation.
• I also used images to highlight the fact that the lead singer of Killswitch Engage has the same name as 80′s pop star Howard Jones. By putting the WRONG picture up initially, then correcting it, it brought some humour to the report.

Uploading the Video

• Initially I did not want to use a public video sharing site (Vimeo or Youtube) over concerns about using  images  and would ideally have liked to host the video on my site for assessment purposes. Unfortunately it was necessary to use one of these to embed the video into this blog due to the file size.
• I used Vimeo, and embedded the video into this post (see below)

Thoughts

I found creating this audio slideshow a very fulfilling experience. Unlike video, which seemingly takes hours to edit, render and upload, this was JUST as effective and much quicker to turn around.

As usual, any feedback much appreciated

Thanks

Music news audioslideshow from caroline beavon on Vimeo.