You've heard about messenger Bots, you've heard about chatbots. Let's talk about it with Michael from Stu. She me on this episode of the music industry blueprint podcast helping you navigate the music industry. Here's Rick Barker with the music industry blueprint podcast. All right, so I have finally connected with Michael Bridges fromMusta she me and we first met a couple years ago at the DIY musicians conference and he was showing me we were talking messenger Bots and I didn't realize that you guys were way ahead of the curve on some things because now everywhere you turn it's chatbots messenger bot. So first off, let's talk a little bit about what you guys saw coming what you did to get ahead of the game and then how you're seeing artists utilize. These chat bots in these messenger Bots and maybe we should even go in Michael and tell people what this is for those that have no clue what we're talking about first. And then we'll Dig Down Deeper into that. Yeah. That sounds great. I'm so glad to be to be a part of this have a chance to talk with you about it because I know you're reaching all kinds of people and you're bringing so much value to what into independent creators can create. So to the extent that messenger tools can help them. I'm super excited about it. You know, my background is I toured As an independent musician for 25 years and a you know week after week. You know, I'm old enough that when when we started out we put sticky labels on postcards and we mailed them to people absolutely point at some point. We thought we should get into that electronic game, you know, when we heard about websites and emails and then we had an email list and of course ten years ago. We got social media five years ago. We got into the mobile space as a band three years ago. I got out of the band. And and started with some Partners this tech company, but you know our experience in the band was always that we would we would send a postcard we put something out on email. We'd post on social we would tweet we did Instagram, etc. Etc. Etc. And people would say. Hey, when are you guys coming to Milwaukee and say help three nights ago. We were in Milwaukee. Then people would say. Oh, I wish I would have known I'm so we just kept missing people and now what and so to get to messenger and the utility of Messenger it is that what I think everyone is recognizing is that emails are being opened with with less frequency than they were once opened and similarly social posts are being engaged with less than they once were so post something on social media. You know, when you get you get a 1% engagement rate and email you get you know, two to three percent click-through rates. And so part of that is that people have a little bit of fatigue with those Technologies, but it's also the people are moving to messenger. So all of the data seem to indicate that people are moving away from me if I can even use the term traditional social media since it's raining right on 15 year old industry, but people are moving away from social media platforms. They're moving away from using email and they're moving toward messenger. And so in this case messenger platforms might include WeChat kickline telegram even SMS or Slack But what we focus on right now is Messenger which is a Facebook own property. So Facebook owns WeChat Instagram messenger and Facebook, but a person can certainly use messenger without using Facebook. So it is a standalone messaging platform and 1.4 billion people are on that platform more people are using Messenger than use Gmail right now and more people use messenger than use Instagram Twitter and Snapchat combined. And so that's why it's such a good place for artists to reach their fans. So what have you guys seen as far as your own engagement numbers, you know, it's like so you made one for me and it's been running in a test pattern in the background. But I mean, it seems like it's consistently every time something cool goes out on Instagram my test goes off. It's like you have the ability to Act these conversations to platforms that people are engaging with anyway where they might not have actually seen that Instagram post your popping that Instagram post up inside a messenger. Let's talk some of the numbers, you know, that's where it is and making sure that like, you said if Instagram or Facebook, so only going to show it to this many people how many what's the percentage of people that are seeing it through Messenger? Yeah. So this is a way to make sure that 100% Aunt of the people who are connected to you on Messenger will see that message and so what kind of sets you know, and there are many different about bought building platforms and I do want to talk about why you know Bots are a useful piece in themselves. There are lots of different ones in our case. It says she me what sets us apart of it is it were very focused on the music industry. And so we index all that content your YouTube channel your Instagram Channel your Facebook, of course. First bands in town until we're able to integrate these pieces and that means just like you said without the artist having to lift one finger or do anything. There's continue to run their business and do their normal life, but the bot makes sure that everyone who's on messenger and connected to that artist gets a notification. So what we're seeing is that when artists so when artists send the message, of course, it goes to 100% of the people and that's a real that's a difference right away from the social. Well sure, but we're seeing an artist is that open rates are in excess of 85 percent sometimes in excess of 90% And that holds true across demographics. So for instance our clients who have a little bit of an older demographic they see these 90% open rates and our clients who have a much younger demographic see these high open rates as well. And then we see click-through rates on targeted messages of 50% and on kind of broad messages that aren't necessarily targeted to a specific set of your users. We see consistent click-through rates of 30% Wow. So even in that case that's at least 10 times higher than email click through rates. So what what is it, you know, what's it cost of like so for example, you know Saturday 417. Do you want to learn how to be a social media ninja in under an hour then sign up for my free training. So this basically pulled my Graham story and then when it says view details that I view it it now opens it up on Instagram, right? So it's almost like driving people. So it's not only showing them what it's all but now it'll take it there. And if I decide I want to share it I can send this directly to anybody who's following me on messenger or only one on one, you know, you can send it to anyone. So that's another thing that enables this this peer-to-peer this one click peer-to-peer. Sharing so what we've done is we've developed we designed the buttons such a way that when you click through to the Instagram content, it opens a three quarter window, right so that you can engage with the in a van eyck and so forth. The first is the credit for likes and YouTube go ahead and repeat you got is not little combat a little but let's go ahead and repeat that last segment. You got a little fuzzy there it went robotic on us. Okay. Okay. So we've designed the bots in such a way that when you click through to the Instagram content, it opens that content in a three quarter window that means so when you in get you can engage with Instagram or with Facebook or with YouTube. The artist is still getting credit for those views on YouTube not just on messenger, but by opening a three quarter window you can engage with the post, but you're still In the conversation with the Artist as a fan that way you don't forget. So it's not one of those things where you you open a YouTube link by an artist and suddenly an hour later. You're looking at stuff. You never expected to look at today. And you forget. Oh, what was I looking at the first place? You know what I mean? So this way you're still invest injure. So do you guys set the timer? So it's like let's say that I'm active and I'm teaching people. I want you to be on Twitter Facebook Instagram. Do you set the timer in your dashboard to say Okay, Papa Facebook one up here pop this up or give them the scrolling option to do this. Is that all done in your back end because you guys do a lot of this. Let's explain a little bit here too. Is that once you guys set it up? I really don't have to go in and do anything that's also the big difference when you guys offer and many chat and some of these other ones now, there's great bought Builders out there. I have a many chat bot that runs right now. The difference is I have to go in and upgrade all that stuff had to go in and do it. Guys actually go in and do this. Yeah, so you don't have to you don't have to wake up every morning and think about updating another platform. Now, I know from being an independent artist that my day is so full with you know between I'm booking the show's I'm playing the show heck. I'm driving the van. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm boarding the inventory. I was consult. The last thing I need is another social media platform to update but what I do need is a convenience tool. All that makes sure that when I update my social media my Instagram or Facebook or what have you and I can be sure that everybody's going to see that message. And so that's what the bot does automatically so in your case, like you say, you know, when you use a mini chatbot and many chats a great Builder and nothing there fabulous company, but you have to go in and update your information all the time. In this case. We've indexed it so that that's all done automatically for you. Now, of course, you can turn off the automatic. Notifications or you can selectively turn them on or off. So you may want people to know every time you add a date to bands in town, but you don't really want to notify everyone every time you put up an Instagram picture. So you just your dashboard and you say notify them automatically when I add a new concert date or and make a new video but not when I you know, post it on Facebook of my you know, my nephew's birthday party man. So are you also able to go in and segment who sees These so that's one of the features that that I love about a many chat as well. And I think they all do the same thing as you could say. Okay, like you just talked about earlier. You used an example. Oh, we were just in Wisconsin or whatever or Milwaukee whatever you said so you could go segment anyone how much information do you gather from them to be able to segment? Yeah, like for touring and things like that great question. So that's where the tool becomes super powerful because you're sending out messages and you're getting 90% That click-through rates. So on one hand, all your content is in one convenient place on an app that people already have and that's a great Advantage but another essential advantage in perhaps one of the very most important advantages is that you're able to send out messages and you're able to do it based on all these data that you've been collecting now what what messenger lets us know automatically is name gender country and language time zone you get a few things like that and then our dashboard automatically lets you know, the What time you engage The First Time The Fan engaged the last time they engaged and you can kind of see you know, how active they've been in the boss all other information, especially now in the post GDP our world the general data protection rule world all the other data, you have to ask for once you asked for it. Then you can sort those users by anything in the world. So for instance, we can easily we can ask. Hey. Do you want to know when we're coming to town? So for instance the bought that we've built for the country singer? Blake Shelton as as you want to know when Blake's on tour in your area. The person says yes, and it's pretty obvious. Next question is going to be okay. What's right? What's your area? Right exactly. So we feel like as long as we give the people a reason to ask the question, they're apt to give us the information and then we have an interface in there where you don't even have to put your email and we say, you know, do you want to share your email and your email automatically pops up? Because in the background, we already know that information. We just can't legally use it unless you tell us we can use it or we also put an option we put an option in everyone else's everyone's bought two that says enter a different email because sometimes the email that's associated with your Messenger account is not necessary email you on an artist's mailing list, but no problem. You can put in either one kind of thing. So we make it possible to do that. Once you gather that information, which could be where you live. What's your email? You know, how do you how do you consume music Spotify apple or Amazon or vinyl? Now that user has a tag you get an unlimited number of tags on the platform and then sort the users that way so some of our artists send out a simple question. How what's your favorite way to listen to music? And then the fan with one simple button press says either Spotify or Amazon or vinyl or something. Now you would never use email that way and that's where you start to realize how How this is a really different medium so you would never send an email to your fans and say what's your favorite way to listen to music because no one's going to write back, you know, dear artist Spotify sincerely yours the fan. But if you send them a simple one question with a button they can press they do that and then the artist maybe maybe you know 700 people click vinyl right now is an artist, you know, you can afford to make a vinyl record. Absolutely. No, you should be Exactly and you already have the consumers before you ever print that record. Well, I explain that to someone the other day because they were asking me they said Rick I said what? Messenger has done for me is it's allowed me to have a conversation. Like if I were with this person live it's like they ask a question. I answer it. I answer the question they respond to it and it's happening in real time. Whether it's you that's actually doing it or if these are pre setup answers that you've arranged. Do you have the ability with the steamy app to go in and take over a conversation live? Yeah. Yeah sure. It's called the Handover protocol got end it we Then into about half the bot I would say half of the artists don't want that. They don't want people to be able to put a message in there. But those are normally the artist like, you know, we build about for you know guns and roses and some bands who have millions of fans. They don't really want people to send them a message so it's but I guess it's okay for me to say that it's not that they don't want measured they do want messages. It's just that they're not going to have time to write back to 40 million people. So on the other hand Lots of what I mean by that is that if somebody came in and I could jump in as Rick. It's a hey, it's Rick. By the way. This is what you need exactly already bought so everybody knows they're talking to a bot. I don't try to mislead anyone of course exactly do that. But I have the ability to jump in and do this. Yeah. I think that's one of the most important things in setting up a bot for an artist to know, you know, there's certain things we'd learned about what makes about successful. The one are some lives. Let's share those poor. Okay. So toward the top of the list would be setting accurate expectations that people are not, you know people they're not concerned about how well your boss works as much as they're concerned about it working the way you said it was going to work. So so setting accurate expectations. So for instance and the welcome message, you want to say something like connect here to get the latest tour dates and music videos and you know special promotions or concert discounts or whatever it is you offer and then your about would have that stuff in there or you connect here to take the lyrics quiz and put a put a profile change your profile picture with the frame kind of thing. You wouldn't and then people be satisfied if you have that in there on the other hand, if you're welcome message said ask me anything right people will be disappointed. So, you know, you just want to set expectations in the right way. We also know that people are more satisfied. This fight with the messenger tool as users when they can reach a human if they need to write. So we always build something in there where you can bail. It's kind of like in the old days of you know, telephone customer service who are you'd be like representative representative exactly a 0 kind of thing. Yeah. And as long as people have the Out Bait they know what to expect and their expectations are met and they have the ability to leave a message for or contact live a human when they when they need to then, you know to very satisfying experience now in the case of bands who have that free text input turned on which means the user context something to them. They'll need to we having their dashboard. We call it a default message and that's just the message people get when they text free text just so they don't go to kind of the black hole of messaging great. If you don't have if you don't have a bot. It's almost like having going back to the Metaphor, you know analogy. It's like having a business and you have a telephone number and it just rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and then and and that's what it's like having Facebook or having messenger but not having a chat bot what just think of it as a voicemail system in a way. So here's here's what I'd like to do because this has been a great conversation people have heard the term tossed around some of them have experienced it with their favorite. Artist where's the best place to send people to see a demo of this in action? And then where can we lead them to have a conversation with you? I don't want him to have to sit around and wait till the next DIY musician conference. But so we'll put this in the show notes, but if you want to go ahead and say it now will make sure that you guys have links to this. Where can they go see a demo and see how easy it is to utilize. The best thing is to go to our website stash gmail.com as ta Shi MI.com Then on there you can you can just click and set up a demo and I'll get an email and it'll say this person wants a demo and I'll call or email you right away, or you can also click on the icons of some of the artists we work with and go to their Bots and see their odds of action. Yeah, see how Zed G-Eazy Chainsmokers Blake Shelton, you know, whoever else how they're about to work. Okay. So let me just go ahead and bring this up right now because I know a lot of people are going well. Well, if the major label artists are using it and it's obviously not something that I can afford. Let's let's just go ahead and bust that now how it is. Is it because you guys did something and this is what I appreciated when we met the first time. So I said the same thing to you and the two years ago and like it's a little bit out of the Wheelhouse man, you can get that from label but not an independent artist. Tell people how affordable this is because I know right now they just went up said using it Lakes using it. I'm out. I can't well Rick as you and I both know the the bigger the artist is the less likely it is that they pay for anything. Yeah, right. Anyway, so you might hear those names and you think oh good the Bots free, but the truth is we well we have a special, you know for your listeners. We have a special that we offered at the DIY convention, which is independent creators can sign up and use the Bots for for $10 a month. That's it. Yeah. And that's that's a that's a that's a very good deal. And that's with you guys helping them set it up. Now. Let's let's explain that $10 a month includes you guys helped set it up. Yeah, it's right that we send we send you a bot. We send you a bot. I'll send you I can send you a specific link that'll help them get started. There you go. You go to the link and then you put in a couple of your your URLs and Then we send the but we send them out to you. So let me explain something full disclosure to you guys. I didn't even send Michael links to anything and he went and jacked my stuff and made me a bot just with what he was able to find on the internet. So that's how great this technology works also to I just want to let you guys know that I am not making anything from this that's why they're able to offer it at such an affordable price to you. I just believe in the software. I believe in the concept like I told you guys I'm using a mini. A chatbot right now because that's what I had that's what was available to me. And that's what I made and I'm having for my independent brand I will have this toshimi app setup and that's where I'll be more driving people through my my podcast and all those different types of things and bringing people into my other world, but I just want to go ahead and give you guys full disclosure to let you know that that they created one for me and I didn't even have to send them anything. It was like you just pulled a couple of Or else the next thing, you know, I've got tests are be now. It's not out there the public but and he turned it around and such a fast time because he's a smart businessman. He said look, let me show this guy how fast we can operate and it's spot-on. So I love the look. I love the feel of it. We've been waiting for months to be able to get you on here. I think that the time is right. You are episode 101 Bobby Bone says if you get to 100 you're legit, so now I guess I'm Legit and you're the first First guest I have after my legitimacy. I'm super glad I'm so glad to connect with you. I mean, you know, I think everybody knows that you bring so much value to Independent creators. And and what you're offering is the best is the best thing out there for independent creators to really get their career launched and off the ground. So I feel honored to be a part of it because I know that if if you're including us on your podcast then already you know it. Tells the folks that they were offering a good thing because I appreciate it. So go ahead shoot me an email with that link. I'll make sure that you guys have it available to you in the show notes. Also, too if you're listening and you can't get to the show notes, but you are on part of my community. I will be sending out an email to all of you. So you'll find it there. And for those of you listening if this is the first time you found me that's right a hundred and one episodes. They've been a lot of good ones go back and listen to episode 50 where we talked about playlist curation with Warner go back and listen to episode 66 where Michael elsner decided that he was going to share with you guys how to get your music placed in film and television and then episode 101 the third of the Michaels Michael Bridges now, I just don't interview people named Michael. That's just how it happened to work out Butthead overs my website Rick Parker.com grab a free copy of the book and if you feel someone can benefit from this, please go ahead and share it and I will talk to you guys on the next episode. Ciao. You've been listening to the music industry blueprint podcast with Rick Barker. You can follow Rick on Twitter at Rick Barker music and remember you don't drown by falling into the water you drowned by staying there.
Do you currently use Facebook to help market your music and engage with your fans? What if I told you there was a new way artists were using Facebook messenger to connect with their fans to help the unique wants and needs of your audience without having to personally respond to each message... would you be interested in having something built out for you to help you reach your fans in this new and exciting way? Check out this episode of the Music Industry Blueprint podcast to see how Michael Bridges (of Stashimi) and I can help you! "Now everywhere you turn it's chat bots and messenger bots..." - Rick Barker What do you want to hear from the Music Industry Blueprint Podcast? Tell us here! ***Want to be a guest on the Music Industry Blueprint Podcast? *** Send an email to podcast@musicindustryblueprint.com With the following information: Name, website, social handles, questions you would like to ask Rick and contact information  Resources:  Stashimi Offer Free Training “How To Become A Social Media Ninja In Under An Hour.” Click HERE If you're listening after January 24, 2019 & Want the Free Training! Artist Assessment  with Rick:  Facebook Instagram Youtube  Twitter Soundcloud RickBarker.com Contact: podcast@musicindustryblueprint.com for a chance to be a guest on the MIB podcast show  ---   Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/music-industry-blueprint/message 