If you have read our Free E-Book ‘The 10 Commandments of Music and Social Media’, you will be aware that the first chapter is entitled; Get Your MTV Crib.

Your MTV Crib is your website, your blog, your home; it is the place that you send your core audience to and the place that if you understand how to influence your audience; it is where you can entertain them to buy into your brand.

The first step to becoming an online brand, is giving your website a vanity url name, also known as a domain name. By vanity, we mean, the title that you will be proud to say to people for example; go to www.mydomain.com for more information.

It has to be catchy, it has to be easy to remember and most importantly, it has to be relevant to your brand. So where can you get yourself a domain name from? Well at The Worst kept Secret, we have done the research, so you don’t have to. Our trusty Resource page has the low down on all the tips, tricks and advice for building your online brand and below we have outlined the Top 3 Domain Name Registration sites, taking into consideration; price, special offers, reliability of the company and customer service.

1). Go Daddy

Like Hostgator in the Hosting world, Go Daddy is at the forefront of domain name registration. They specialize in simplicity and from the moment you decide on your domain name to the moment you own it, Go Daddy will guide you through a hassle free process. Go Daddy Domain Prices start at $1.99 depending on what kind of url you want, and if you have any questions their customer service is top notch.

2). 123-Reg

Ask anyone about domain name registration and they will generally point you here. Does what is says on the tin, and with a very user-friendly control management page. 123-reg is one of, if not the best in the business. If it were not for 123-reg taking weeks to reply to our email queries, we would have gone with them; so we chose Go Daddy.

3). 1&1 Instant Domain

Not much separates these from the other two above apart from the fact that we don’t like the look of their website. Makes us go dizzy just by looking at it. In terms of value for money and customer service though, we can’t knock their packages. 1&1 domains start as low as £5.99 for a .com and £2.99 for .co.uk – That’s cheap!! Like the budgie.

If you have been living under a rock this Christmas or don’t live in the UK, then you must have been aware of the Xmas battle for Number 1 in the charts: X Factor’s Joe McElderry Vs Rage Against The Machine (RATM). It’s no secret that the power of Facebook made RATM victory, so here at The Worst Kept Secret we took it upon ourselves to have a bit of fun and see what TV reality music stars have the largest presence on Social Media.

We used the big 4: Facebook & MySpace (Social Networks), Twitter (Micro-blogging) & YouTube (Content Community) to do our research and looked at how many fans, friends, followers and subscribers they have.

Enjoy and please feel free to discuss & let people know the results.

10: Susan Boyle
Facebook (1) Twitter (n/a) Myspace (n/a) YouTube (4)

Britain’s Got Talent’s Queen and cat lover Susan Boyle drops in at number 10 on our list of Talent Based Reality TV Stars and their Social Media platforms. The crazy haired phenomenon tops the Facebook Fan Page with a whopping 1.77 million fans, and the video of her first BGT audition on YouTube has amassed well over 80million views, putting her fourth in our YouTube rankings! That’s enough to make anyone’s hair go wild!

9: Cheryl Cole
Facebook (2) Twitter (11) Myspace (n/a) Youtube (11)

Reality contestant, turned reality Princess with the world at her feet, Cheryl Cole leaps into ninth position on our chart. The rags to riches beauty has 1.5million Facebook fans, and without much of a social media presence or interaction with her community, she still has the power to overthrow governments. Cheryl for Prime Minister!

8. JLS
Facebook (8) Twitter (10) Myspace (18) Youtube (7)

X-Factor runner up’s to Alexander Burke (who doesn’t appear on our ladder), JLS fly into a healthy eighth in the world position, with a strong social media following. Their Facebook Fan Page boosts almost 400,000 followers, but it’s their Twitter page that we are most interested in.
The hunky chaps have almost 80,000 followers and interact nicely with them.

7. Adam Lambert
Facebook (7) Twitter (3) Myspace (11) Youtube (n/a)

American Idol 2009 Runner Up, Adam Lambert climbs into seventh in our chart. The 27-year-old Pop/Rock sensation has almost 300,000 Twitter followers and 400,000 Facebook Fans! At The Worst Kept Secret were not too familiar with his music, but we do think he looks the part for a Twilight movie cameo.

6. David Cook
Facebook (13) Twitter (8) Myspace (10) Youtube (7)

Multi-Talented Musician and winner of American Idol 2008, David Cook is our sixth place social media prince. He is floating about in the digital world on all four of the major networks, with his Myspace game boosting a healthy 187,000 friends and his Twitter with over 85,000.

5. Jordin Sparks
Facebook (22) Twitter (1) Myspace (2) Youtube (8)

In at Number 5 on our Social Media chart is American Idol 2007 winner, Jordin Sparks. Now Sparks’ Facebook page may be slightly below the Susan Boyle’s and Cheryl Cole’s, but it’s her Twitter and YouTube that shows the most life. The 20 year old tops our Twitter list with a mind blowing 435,000 followers, and not only does she have the largest herd of sheep, she also interacts with them well, and has tweeted over 6,300 times!
Jordin Sparks also is up there in our YouTube chart with over 120million views, placing her second to the video queen Leona Lewis!

4. Leona Lewis
Facebook (5) Twitter (n/a) Myspace (4) Youtube (1)

The UK’s most heart-felt voice and X Factor Queen, Leona Lewis is the highest UK artist in our chart. The 2006 X Factor winner is by far and away the Queen of YouTube with an eye watering 230million video views! That’s over 100million more than second place Jordin Sparks. Now while we all love to hear and watch Miss Lewis, her social media statistics elsewhere are extremely impressive also.
Her Facebook Fan Page has over 670,000 and her Myspace page has almost 300,000 friends. Gwan Miss Lewis! Moreover, Leona’s ground breaking first single “Bleeding Love” came in at Number 11 in the best selling singles of the decade!
That’s some ‘bleeding’ pennies for mogul Simon Cowell!

3. David Archuleta
Facebook (10) Twitter (2) Myspace (6) Youtube (6)

As we reach the Top 3, you have to be ready for some seriously alarming statistics. 2008 American Idol Runner-Up, David Archuleta is our highest ranking male artist. The 19 year old Musician rose to fame as a teen sensation on the US Talent show and since then has gone on to sell over a million albums worldwide and build up a strong online fan base. Archuleta’s community features highly across all four networks, with his Twitter showing almost 300,000, his Facebook Fan Page has over 250,000 and his Myspace has over 230,00 friends.
That’s some serious marketing power!

2. Kelly Clarkson
Facebook (6) Twitter (7) Myspace (3) Youtube (3)

The original reality TV Music Queen, an American Idol 2002 winner, in at number two on our chart, is the super talented, Pop/Rock sensation Kelly Clarkson. Although Clarkson doesn’t top any of our individual charts, it’s her consistency across the four major networks that suggest how strong her community fan base is. The Multi Grammy Award Winning artist has a YouTube channel with over 100million views, a Facebook Fan Page with over 530,000, a Twitter page with over 100,000 and a Myspace page with wait for it… over 460,000 friends!
Did someone say Social Media was a fad?

1. Carrie Underwood
Facebook (3) Twitter (6) Myspace (2) Youtube (5)

Top of the pops, Queen of the night, leader of the crusade and lion in the jungle, is an unexpected artist. The winner of our Reality TV within Social Media chart is the 2005 American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood.
Like Kelly Clarkson, Underwood doesn’t feature as a leader of any of our individual Social networking charts, but her concrete Social Media game is of vast proportion. The multi-talented blonde beauty climbs to the top of our chart with an impressive array of statistics.
A Facebook Fan Page with over 800,000 fans, her Twitter has over 130,000 followers, a YouTube channel with over 66million views and a Myspace page with over 630,000 friends.

Well there you have it, the Top 10 Talent Based Reality TV Stars and their Social Media presence. If this proves anything, it is that having a wide variety of fans across your free social networking sites is as important as anything. Imagine how much revenue is generated by having those statistics turned into single and album sales, and you can see the power between Reality TV and Social Media.

As we begin a new year and a new decade, and as Reality TV paints the daily news and with Social Media sharing it, we can only wait in anticipation for the next X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, American Idol, Pop Stars, Pop Idol, Making The Band and Fame Academy style show to dumb down our minds into Simon Cowell and Simon Fullers pockets and bring to the masses the next array of speculative break through talent.

Also if you want to know how you can up your Social Media level and get networks as strong as these guys WITHOUT going on a talent show, then download our free ebook and ecourse: The 10 Commandments of Music and Social Media.

Article by Luca Massaro
Images by Google

Just before interviewing Usher

When it comes to being media trained there is one key skill:

Have at least one key point that you want to get across.

If an interviewer asks you only one question, try and get this point across.  If 10 questions are asked , try and get this point across.  Even if no question is asked, start a conversation and get your point across.

Last year I met Usher to talk about his album.  Usher has been around for over a decade and is very well media trained and not much gets past him.  He, like every artist who has an album to promote, should have one main thing to get across and that is “buy my album”.

So here was the scenario: I was working for MySpace at the time and my presenters, Rickie and Melvin (MTV and KISS FM) were interviewing him while I was producing.  The interview was going well…… but we were missing something juicy so we wanted Usher to give Russell Brand relationship advice.  By now Usher had settled down was married with kids and Russell Brand was still in his womanising ways.  We were expecting Usher to say something controversial but instead he said something that took us all by surprise but made us realise how professional he is:

Rickie and Melvin: So Usher, what advice would you give Russell Brand?
Usher: Buy my album

Usher, we salute you and I took a lot away from how to answer interview questions.

He turned the question that most viewers and bloggers would potentially talk about to his advantage and stressed what he wanted out of the interview.  He knew the video interview would get tens of thousands of hits and he picked that moment to get his point across…  Buy the album.

I am sure you have all seen or heard about Kanye West’s appearance on ‘South Park’ last week. Most people probably watched it online – I know I did – but would the hype, news stories and even Kanye himself taking to his blog site to comment about it, have happened without the influence of social media?  I think not.  Here’s why.

The Pre-Match Hype: As soon as it was announced that Kanye West was going to be on ‘South Park’, the bloggers were the first to go crazy about it.  Blogs are crucial for building up hype and they certainly did an excellent job with this.

The Episode: The episode aired on TV but was on YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo, MSN and just about every other video platform on the web, within minutes after being broadcast. (Do a Google search of Kanye West South Park video for the full list of sites). In true ‘South Park’ tradition, it lived up to the hype and there were several talking points within the script to spark debate.

The Aftermath: The bloggers, social networks and social bookmarking sites went nuts and the video spread like wildfire.  There were videos embedded on people’s profiles, URLs included in status updates; people were bookmarking it like crazy and, most importantly, people were talking and forming opinions about it.

The person whose opinion was heard the most was, in fact, Kanye West. Instead of ignoring it and pretending it didn’t happen, he took to his own blog site to post his thoughts hours after the show aired.   Again the bloggers, social networks and social bookmarking sites went nuts. It went from the general public talking about it to a full-fledged news story with reports on MTV and the BBC to broard sheet newspapers and tabloid mags. All of this happened with very little marketing from the distributors of ‘South Park’. Without the Internet buzz, I am sure Kanye would not have even addressed this.

To his credit, Kanye embraced and continues to utilize social media very well. Instead of running away, he got involved and even though he said he got murdered (and let’s face it, he did take a beating), by using the technology available to him, I think he’s actually starting to come away from this very well.  Now, some people think it was all a PR stunt and Kanye’s blogging was to reduce damage control. I disagree.  I think Kanye West took to his blog, like most bloggers, because he had something to say to his fans and wanted to voice his opinion.  It wasn’t to plug an album or a concert, it was his feelings – straight from the heart. (He has posted 3 times about this so far).

This shows, yet again, how social media has changed the way in which we use the Internet. Where before we were defined by “where we clicked”, now we are to defined by “what we share”.  I was happy to see Kanye come out (no pun intended) and address this …. and if his Twitter game was a bit tighter, then I am sure he would beat CNN, Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher to be the first ‘millionaire’ in the Twitterverse.

Andrew TWKS

The old England football team kit

This week I was fortunately enough to be given the opportunity to see the new England kit.  It is the first time Umbro has attempted to do anything like this and only a handful of people within Umbro and their parent company Nike, has seen it.  I would never wear an England kit (and I know a lot of other people wouldn’t), not because I don’t support them but mainly because it doesn’t go with my jeans or trainers.   Now I can’t go into much detail about this new kit but I think the designers have got it spot on and more people will be wearing it as a fashion item.  They even have shirts in traditional sizes.  For example, size 36, 38, 40, and not small, medium and large.

What really interested me about the kit was not so much the look but the story behind it. The kit was tailored on Savile Row with each player having to be personally fitted, and even the England manager, Fabio Capello, having a very important say in the design from start to finish.  That didn’t surprise me really as Italy is known for fashion and being Italian he brings a sense of pride to the kit, which was what they wanted to create: A top that makes the players feel proud to wear.

A funny story was when Rio Ferdinand tried the kit on.  He looked at himself in the mirror, fixed himself up and said “SOLD” and walked off.  Once they heard that reaction, they knew it was right.

One of my favourite marketing experts is Seth Godin.  Now Seth Godin really emphasises the point of having a story and the importance of it.  Everyone has a story and sometimes hearing that story can be the difference between doing something or not, being inspired or being put off, buying something or not buying something. Hearing someone story can really change your perception of the way you view things.

Anyone who is successful right now has a story and a story can be so powerful that sometimes it overshadows the talent behind a person’s success.  Everyone knows the story of 50 Cent and how he got shot nine times or the story of MySpace’s “Tom” and even how the characters were selected for Sex And The City .  If you are promoting anything/anyone (including yourself), make sure you have a story.

Note: make sure the story is true because a lie will get found out…. Remember Vanilla Ice and his background lol

What is your story?  I would like to hear.

Andrew TWKS