Lately I have felt a critical mass of friends talking about using ReverbNation’s Promote It in order to get new fans and concert attendees. The service has the ability to take the thinking out of Facebook promotions and ads for those who find their interface complicated and annoying. They offer pre-designed plans for you to either promote a song, an upcoming show or just get more Likes for your page. Get more info on this service here.
Our first post of 2012 was on that it is way past the time when you should delete your MySpace Music profile. Since we wrote that we have deleted the MySpace for all of the artists we work with. What we have seen since than was a pleasant surprise. All of our sites whether they are websites designed on WordPress or OneSheet have all seen at least 25% more traffic. This means more people are discovering music and information on our music in a much better way and e are making a much better impression on new fans. This is news that tells us you should get rid of that MySpace as soon as possible.
I know, I know everyone is trashing Google+ but we keep sticking up for it. As hinted before, it is shaping up to be true that Google+ is the key to getting good SEO on Google’s service. The always amazing, Evolver.FM has up a fantastic article on the effects and logistics around why musicians need to be a part of Google+. Check it out here.
For some, a $60 price tag to get your music out to all of the various online stores can be a bit intimidating. For those who merely want to test the waters or do a short term promotion of a release, TuneCore has now added a $4.99 per month option. This can be quite handy for those who want to put their single up for a month or two before release or those hoping to expand upon a release in the near future. Just head to TuneCore‘s front page for details.
In the past, we have told you how to market your music on two of the big three social music streaming sites – Rdio and Spotify – which both offer similar way to market your music, but what about MOG? While the service doesn’t have some of the features that Rdio and Spotify do for making personal pages, it does have an incredibly powerful feature set that can spread the word of your music to tons of potential fans in a much different way than the other services do.
We have long preached that you need to have your website, places to buy your music and merch in the info bar of your YouTube videos. One of the things that is also overlooked is that you should make annotations on your YouTube videos that also link this information. These annotations make it so that when your YouTube video is embedded on Facebook, Twitter or blogs (see above video) that the viewers will see your information and you can drive traffic to the places you want. Annotations are easy and effective, so don’t miss out.
One of the cooler things to come to marketing in a while is ThingLinkand it just got way cooler for musicians. You can now take your press photos, album covers or any image and make it so it has embedded links to YouTube videos, Soundcloud players, iTunes, TopSpin Email For Media Widgets and tons of other cool stuff, all within a normal looking picture. This can be a great way to increase awareness and get fans to where you want to drive them, by getting blogs to post them or using it as your picture on your website. ThingLink’s also post easily on Tumblr pages so getting your fans to spread the word on there can be a powerful way to drive your next promotion. Check out more details here.
Slowbizz is a great website that connects hosts who want to have a house shows with musicians who want to play them. The service provides a social connection between the two that sets guidelines for garauntees, venues and professionalism so that the shows run smoothly. Similar to Concerts In Your Home, this can help build a network that enables artists to make small connections with fans. If your music lends itself to playing in living rooms and making small intimate connections, this can be a great opportunity for your touring and promotions. Check out their service here.
One of the most frequent problems bands have is a constant wondering how to get on bigger shows? While many questions musicians have, don’t have a simple answer, some like this do. Most cities have an ecosystem of clubs where the larger clubs look at certain smaller venues to find the talent that should open for the bigger shows in town. In our home of New York City the concert promotion company Bowery Presents has a magnet system where small bands play their small venue The Mercury Lounge and the bands that show turnout and talent get picked up to open shows at their much larger venues like Bowery Ballroom, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Terminal 5 and The Wellmont Theatre.
Many other cities have the same things and it is important to research which clubs you should be playing in order to not get stuck in the rut of playing shows that will get you nowhere. In every city there exists insular venues that rarely help elevate bands to the next level and others that can help building upon your fanbase. Finding and researching these avenues is one of this hidden tricks that make quantum moves for your music and following.
Many people bemoan the fact that most music fans will often take in your song by watching a YouTube video. This basically gives fans free access to a song and the lack of ability to collect fans information to contact them again later. Not so fast. TopSpin has comes up with a great use for their Download Anywhere, that will allow you to offer a email for media widget that pops up on your YouTube video page. A very cool concept that can really up your fan collection and email list. Read all about it here.
If you have been working on promoting your music for a while and don’t know how to code, you have probably had countless ideas that you could easily execute if you just knew how to code better. Whether it’s making email capture widgets, iPhone Apps or your band’s own webpage, learning to code can help you promote your music and also give you a means of income while out on the road touring and a skill set that can take you may places.. The fine people at CodeAcademy are doing a year of lessons in coding that will teach you how to code this year. While this seems a stretch for a music blog to post, this really could be an amazing thing for your music career. Check out CodeYear here.
A while back we told you all about Flavors.me, a great service for building a good looking band website on the cheap with a great looking SoundCloud player built right into it! The good news is they have updated their platform and added SongKick to it. This means you can easily automatically add concert dates to your Flavors/me powered website automatically. Pretty cool! To find out more head here.
None of this “digital sales will increase” type of business-these predictions are bold and likely not on anyone’s short list. Take them to Vegas, challenge friends, or just toss them out – either way trends indicate the compass will point towards these 6 predictions in 2012.
For quite some time we have made the argument that there were some good reasons to keep a MySpace profile. Among them were bands who have trouble with SEO would often get placed high atop the Google results and many local papers still used concert listing submitted by MySpace to fuel their local concert calendars. Seeing as it is a new year we feel the need to reevaluate this stance anmd we ill finally come out and say it – DELETE YOUR MYSPACE PROFILE NOW!
Whether it is the annoying dropdown ads, the horrible sounding player, layouts that are usually a wreck from constant code revisions it is not worth it to ever have MySpace be your first impression on a new listener. If someone happens to Google your music the poor impression and frustrating experience they will have is not a way you should be presenting your music to a new listener. No one like to try to discover music and have such a horrible experience. So I say, delete your MySpace and all the links to it from your other web presences. It is a horrible, horrible first impression on listeners and you would be much better off having new fans hear your music any other way but on this sad, pathetic social network.
