1. Pick the Social Media that works best for you/you relate to the most. To do this, you need to try them, of course, which is a great way to do #2:
2. Establish a presence with a few posts and link(s) to your primary site on at least 5 social media sites.
Some to Choose From, (each has strengths, weaknesses and a specific focus/slant):
Tumblr, (social multi-media)
Facebook, (social multi-media)
Twitter, (social multi-media)
Digg, (link sharing)
Blogger, (personal pages/blogs, can be used as a website/domains avail. etc)
YouTube, (video)
Flickr, (photos)
Blip.fm, (mp3 sharing)
ReverbNation, (bands)
My suggestion is to use Facebook, Twitter and then one auxilary account that best suits what you do. If you want to focus on video, use YouTube; photography, Flickr etc
My advanced suggestion is that, once you have a solid number of followers on both Facebook and Twitter, move to Tumblr and link the three. Tumblr has reallllyyyy cool features and allows you to post from there to the other two. This optimizes your ability to reach the maximum number of people in a minimum amount of time. Or, if you really fall in love with Tumblr, and some do, start with that first and add Facebook or Twitter later, depending on which you choose.
3. Twitter can seem kind of pointless until you've been using it for a while. There are some amazing. free tools to help you make it more fun and understandable. If you have a business, Twitter is essential, in part because it is heavily used, in fact more than Facebook, by younger consumers. It's also an extremely effective way to reach potential consumers immediately before events.
The two best tools I've found are (free):
Tweepi - this revoloutionized my Twitter page in a night. I spent a year doing it and enjoying it to an extent but not quite seeing the whole point, (I had a lot of followers but was following way more than followed and was getting a huge jumble of posts I couldn't enjoy because the irrelevant was so intermixed with the way cool).
Tweepi allows you to remove and add followers really quickly and easily, with features that allow you to search and add like people or organizations friend. With this invaluable tool, you can be sure what you're following is relevant to you and that you're requesting people who will be interested in what you do. I WISH Facebook and other media had a feature like this, it's amazing.
Tweet Deck - this allows you to post and read from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn all at once. When I first started using it, MySpace wasn't quite as obsolete - and who really does more than just set up a profile on LinkedIn? (Something that time is much better spent doing on accounts that relate to what you do, see suggestion above about establishing a presence on other sites). So, it's not as useful as it used to be. It's great, however, if you want to simultaneously post to Facebook and Twitter and don't want to fool with Tumblr, (see advanced step above).
4. Talk about more than what you're promoting. I cannot stress this enough. The point of Social Media is not just to engage people but to keep them engaged. 5 posts a day about your show on the 18th or your new CD will not engage them. It will bore them and, if only unconsciously, make them think your show will be boring too.
Instead, post once about your show on Friday. Then post about other things too. Do this as you feel like it but I suggest at least 2 more times that day, ideally at different times, (ie morning, noon, evening at hours people are most likely to be looking - remember, Social Media is in real time).
It is also ideal to post in different media. For example - if you're writing about your show Friday, post a video of yourself performing or of a song you're going to cover, (both if you have time), a photo of something entirely unrelated, a link to something else interesting etc
The same applies to promoting your event on other people's walls or pages. Do not just visit to post your info. Post and comment about other things too. Above all, Social Media is social. Of course, with some media the whole point is to just share links or photos or videos etc, in that case, again, vary them. Don't always post your bands music on Blip.fm, for example. By doing so, whatever the means, you're severely limiting your own exposure when you get right down to it because you're only giving people one reason to look at what you're doing.
5. Last but not least, even though this sounds like it will take hours upon hours of your time each day it won't. At first adding friends does, yes, but tools like Tweepi and cross promoting accounts can make this proccess faster. Also, don't try to do it all at once. Instead, just take 10 minutes a day to just focus on friends.
Similarly, pick about 5 min. at a time for posting. Do it while having coffee, then just before you go to lunch, then when you're winding down at night, for example. It takes no time at all to find a link to the song you've had in your head all morning, log into Tumblr and poof!, posted to Facebook and Twitter too if you've linked them. Do take a minute to answer replies and comments on posts, that part is very important because, again, above all Social Media is social.
Hope this helps! More on it's way.
