Tucker, The Book Is On The Table. (How I became a twitter spam threat to Brazil)

I'm a songwriter and I'm trying to use the social media channels to try and cultivate an audience. To learn about social engagement and music marketing in this new economy I read blogs, and subscribe to newsletters, by respected authorities like Thorny Bleeder, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ariel Hyatt. 

The advice I get from all of them is:

• Be yourself
• Put out compelling content.
• Don't spam people

In a market teaming with incredibly talented indie artists, all vying for the ears and hearts of the internet, I wanted some compelling content, that I coulld publish on a regular basis, to put alongside my music. I came up with 'Deep Readings' where I embrace the time tested gag of reading pop lyrics without the music. The difference being I would do it with equal parts irony and drama and put a twist on the classic. And in a really deep voice.

Don't Stop Believing by Journey was my first Deep Reading.

I posted it on a Tumblr blog and shared it with my normal social media channels like my Facebook page and twitter. Then came the slippery slope to accidental spammerdom. 

I used twitter search and looked for "Don't Stop Journey". I got quite a few results and responded to their comments in a friendly way by responding to the actual tweet and not just sending a link. For example one tweet said their favorite part of singing along with the song was doing the guitar solo. I replyed that there were no guitars in my version. They responded back with a follow and a compliment that it sounded awesome. Super fun, I had achieved engagement. Someone else responded that it was cool and reminded them of Leonard Cohen. High praise! Let's keep this twitter train going ...

Someone else has a hashtag #Nowplaying Don't Stop Believing - Journey and I respond with "When you're done check out my version and tell me how they compare." Their response? They retweeted me and added "THE BOOK IS ON THE TABLE". I Googled the phrase and found this song:

It was my first request! I was so excited I immediately got the lyrics did a deep reading and sent it back to him with expectations of him retweeting it to his 31,000 followers and experiencing immediate and overwhelming web fame. I then twitter searched the phrase and responded to the several others who were using it in their tweets assuming they were talking about this crazy Brazilian dance song.

Nothing. No response. 

Getting a bit of a sinking feeling I dug a bit deeper into Google and found this video where the government of Brazil is trying to explain why it's important to learn english. The punch line of the video is when the Portuguese woman says the only english phrase she knows. You guessed it ... The Book Is On The Table.

I use Google to translate a few of the tweets I had responded to. None of them were talking about the song. In my overzealous attempt to engage people with my silly pop song readings I wound up spamming a bunch of friendly Brazilians with complete nonsense.  

Lesson?

Social rules are social rules. Online or off. People are having conversations with friends and family out here. You can't just walk up and start selling something or blasting your song out the window thinking they'll love it enough to run up and buy your stuff.

So remember:

• Be yourself
• Put out compelling content
• Say hello
• Answer questions
• Be approachable
• Say please and thank-you
• Learn a bit about who you're talking to
• Don't spam friendly Brazilians with nonsense they won't care about

Tucker, can you describe your sound in a tweet?

When I finished my EP I asked a group of friends and fans to listen to the songs and fill out a 5 question survey (Feel free to take the survey if you wish). I was given artists as diverse as Chris Isaak and The Wallflowers to Blue October. I was offered genres of Country and Folk. People pulled out Girl All Alone from the group more often than the songs I was expecting to resonate. I talk about my surprise at the responses in a previous post.

Taking all this into consideration I put together my 'Elevator Pitch', the phrase that intrigues enough to elicite the action of checking out your music. I took pieces of everything and put together a few:

"Imagine Danial Lanois produced The Wallflowers making a folk rock album for dreamers"

"I’m a rock-infused-folk-pop singer-songwriter with songs from love soaked ballads to dreamy lullabies."

"Poppy-folk-rock delivering dreamy lullabies, songs of wanderlust and love soaked heartache."

"Imagine The Wallflowers and Fastball had a fight on Daniel Lanois' front lawn."

All pretty good1 but the advice given by Ariel Hyatt is you have to live with it because it's going to go everywhere your music goes. Everywhere your brand goes. Everywhere you go. So I landed on what my biggest fan (Hi Mom!) is tweeting in the side graphic.  

"Singer-songwriter sharing folk-pop songs of wanderlust, dreamy lullabies and love soaked heartache."

So there you have it, me in less than a tweet. And it only took a survey, a trip through my iTunes library, advice from a few of the other blog challenge participants, rereading Ariel Hyatts 'elevator pitch' chapter a couple times and 10 revisions.

I hope you like it 'cause it's going to be on my site, my Facebook page, my Twitter, My Soundcloud etc...

If you have your own pitch feel free to share it in the comments I'd love to hear it.  

1Although I kinda like the visual of Daniel Lanois in his underwear pulling Jacob Dylan off Tony Scalzo in the middle of the night.

Tucker, you do know that goals aren't tasks don't you?

Last week I not only recapped my entire last year of blogging in a single post, I told you how I had joined 60 other artists in a 9 week marketing and business skills challenge. Read it when you're done this week's post. 

My six month and twelve month goals.

My 6 month and 12 month goals for my music business

The first chapter of the challenge was on setting goals. Sounds simple right?

I kept writing out lists of things I needed to do: Write a blog post, Contact so and so, Stop looking at tech blogs and write a new song already etc. These are all things I need to do but they aren't places I need to be. They aren't final desitnation kind of things. 

I just kept writing and I wound up with a couple pages of tasks I needed to do. Then I started grouping them into common buckets and labeling them with what they pertained to: Grow Audience, Sell CDs, Sell Kids Book etc.

I still had a million things to do but they all fit into less than ten buckets. They felt way easier to deal with because the were working towards something (not just doing work).

I looked at my big buckets and asked myself “What do you think you can do with all of this in 6 months? In a year?” Then I wrote those down. If they didn't really fit with my bigger buckets I wrote it on my 'more than a year' list to be visited later. As an example I wrote down ‘Make a full length CD’. Since I’ve only just put out my EP it’s not really feasible for me to be writing or funding a new album project. 

Once I had my big goals I wrote them out pretty and hung them on my wall. Now every task I do, will be in support of those goals. 

Tasks: What you do to get to your goals. Goals: What you say you'll finally get done one day. 

If you'd like to know more about how I got to my goals just get in touch. Or if you'd just like keep up with how I'm doing with the challenge you can follow me on twitter, @SH_Tucker, or you can come join me at Facebook.com/SongsTuckerWrote

Tucker, are you asking for a challenge?

If you are one of my regular readers (I love every single both of you), then you may remember some of my posts where I was putting together my current philosophy on Getting To Done. 

These five articles are the mantras and phrases that have been helping me get to done: 

1. If you want to do something. You have to do something
2. Done is when you say you're done
3. Find the reason to say yes
4. Success is what you say it is
5. The story is as important as the song

I wanted to get better at networking and buildng an audience for my songs and stories. So, in the spirit of mantra #1, I have accepted the challenge set out by Ariel Hyatt and her book Music Success In Nine Weeks. The challenge is simple: Do each week's exercise and write about your experience each Monday. 

The first chapter is about setting goals so you can look forward to my retelling of the self torture I put myself through because goals I have some trouble with. Tasks I can list out for days. But goals? That's a different story. 

To keep up with how I'm doing with the challenge and meet some of the other artists taking part you can follow me on twitter, @SH_Tucker, or you can come join me at Facebook.com/SongsTuckerWrote 

Tucker, if you want help ... just ask.

Previously on Songs Tucker Wrote I told you about my Jars Project. It's official, it's started. I asked a group of artists if they'd like to take part and they said yes. All I had to do was ask.

I could have talked myself hoarse, with as much passion as the project creates in me. I could have waived my arms and sang the song. I could have filled them with excitement about the project and waited for them to offer their talents. I probably would have been waiting a while.

People are made to be chosen all the time - Wait to be chosen in line at the bank. Wait to be chosen for a record label. Wait to be chosen to for the Red Rover game. It's the greatest playground fear to be chosen last. But who likes to put their hand up? We love to be acknowledged with being chosen but hate to look show-offy by volunteering.

I waited quite a while to be chosen. To have someone say my music was good enough to be put in an album. To say my story ideas were good enough to be made into kids books. Once I decided to complete those projects I guaranteed I would never be chosen last. I put myself in the position of the chooser and as such I have to ask who wants to be on my team. I can't simply wait for people to volunteer, they are probably on the other side of the playground waiting to be asked. Or they are hoping I don't ask 'cause then they'd have to say 'no'.

I'd rather they said no to me when I asked than have them not volunteer when they did want to take part. That being said if you'd like to join us contact me, we'll be glad to have more friends in the project. 

Is there a project you need help with? Choose yourself first then ask someone to help, if you're passionate enough, they'll probably say yes.