Okay while we’re bloggasminginging lets start catching up with some of those posts I promised last week.
We’ve got our very first blog review!!! I was doing a poster campaign for Tono’s tour and went by his site blog at http://www.tono.co.nz
I actually got a good vibe off his blog but it took me a couple of hours to realise it was definitely worth posting about the examples of what he’s doing right.
Great design – he’s got a wordpress blog and he’s using it as his whole site as I described in a past post, because that’s how awesome wordpress platforms are.
Also looks really professional, looks like he takes himself seriously as an artist and to me that says the music is likely to be of a standard also.
When you’re used to seeing a lot of blogs like I have – its like myspace – you get real sick real fast of seeing the same old busy cluttered blog designs, and if you’re trying to implement a marketing strategy where getting traffic through the blog is part of a chain of events that will lead to leads and sales then the first thing to get right is to have a design that enables a clear focus on desired reader outcomes such as
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We’re going to be talking about outcomes more soon.
Tono also makes “flagship content” readily available through a prominent menu bar under his header. That means it doesn’t matter how people end up on his site it’s easy to get to that page where you can find out that information, extra content and back story without getting frustrated, bewildered and heading off because the content has no context.
This is the thing I particularly find with blogs. With your website, people will most likely come in through the front door but with a blog you never know how or why someone will find you and what page they will land on first.
That’s why when I talked about bloggasming and wild unhinged blogging in my last post, well, that’s okay when you’re starting out because weird crazy posts are going to bring in visitors who are searching for weird crazy things if you know what I mean.
Thats why bloggasming is okay because on your blog, nothing is only going to amount to . . . nothing.
Tono’s blog also has a great voice, great narrative and storytelling – There’s a narrative, there’s stories coming through in Tono’s blogs. As a marketer we get drilled about stories. What are stories? Stories connect us to the person telling them.
There’s great examples, Tono reports on his tour describing venues, support acts etc. but he also reports on incidental events such as his journeys from place to place as he goes. There’s also associated content and themes which is something I encourage all my clients to do – connecting with themes outside of music. Tono’s got a number of reoccurring themes in his blog including some overt discussions on green politics.
You see when you’re branding your music for an audience, it’s not about being safe and broad any more. You’re not going to sell a million records. You want to be connecting with that proportion of the population who are going to respond positively to your message on a number of levels. Where choice is so prevalent, you’ve got to go for a deeper connection with people than just having cool songs.
But now there’s one big issue I have with Tono’s blog and this is the kind of second tier optimisation that you start to recognise once you’ve got the basics right.
You see Tono has got the basics right and his blog looks lovely and it’s behaving as a proper blog should. But lets go back to the outcomes that I touched on before.
What are we trying to achieve here? Basically we’re trying to sink our hooks in by making a memorable impression and hopefully leaving the visitor with as much to take away as possible.
So there is a very high chance that the high proportion of casual visitors to Tono’s site are going to put 2 and 2 together like I did and realise Tono is a musician.
Instantly it begs the question. What does Tono’s music sound like? We need to hear this music immediately before we lose interest in a split second and decide to do something else.
Tono’s got a player there, but I just don’t think that’s enough! People got to know that they must check out this music!
It’s the most important thing
It reminds me of one other really important thing I really want to mention. Remember when I used to put my “link family” in every blog post? Most top bloggers – in fact most bloggers worth their salt full stop – will have some kind of signature or panel or banner or SOMETHING in each post that gemerally advertises the bloggers own products or services.
The big money bloggers will often have a free thing they are giving away, most usually an ebook, if you sign up to their email list. Sound familiar?
That little signature/footer thingee is a prime example of an area where you will be endlessly tweaking, just coming back every few weeks and saying . . .
In fact lets do a new one for me right now. Coming up next post.
Music. Marketing. Management.
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