The Future of Music and Media Gerd Leonhard at Plugg 2009
June 1, 2009 7:34 pmTrent Reznor On New Business Models, Distribution Channels & More
April 11, 2009 8:36 amThrowing Fire
February 13, 2009 6:36 pmMichael Masnick The Trent Reznor case study
February 6, 2009 4:52 pmAmazing Kid Guitar Player
January 21, 2009 7:35 pmTHE DO ITS - THE ADDRESS SONG (first video!)
January 19, 2009 7:53 pmBuy Music or Subscribe?
January 13, 2009 9:32 pmA Mashup of the Top 25 Hits of 2008
January 4, 2009 10:23 amMusicians: How To Build a Following on the Internet and Directly Engage Your Fans
December 28, 2008 9:08 pm***The techniques below can be used for most businesses and brands to build a presence on the internet and connect with their followers. I tailor this post to musicians as this is the business I enjoy. ***
Background:
The Internet has completely changed the game. Because of slowing CD sales, label revenues are down, a product of the digital nature of music. 360 deals are their latest attempt in gaining extra money from musicians by capturing revenues from live shows and merchandise sales. These are revenues that traditionally go directly to musicians and their managers. This has all gotten way out of hand. Personally, I think signing with labels these days is unnecessary. Why give away ownership of your music when you can easily use the Internet as a promotional tool in conjunction with live performances to build a large and profitable following?
Why the internet? Easy…because people are begging for something new, something tangible in their music. They are sick of being told they have to like the next Mega Pop Star being pushed on everyone by a label and corporate radio. People want to be engaged directly by musicians; they want to be part of tha musicians’ Tribe (as Seth Godin would say). Just a few years ago, it was possible for musicians to directly engage all of their fans and still have the time to write and perform great music. Well, times have changed.
Musicians now have an incredible opportunity to interact directly with their fans with new technologies available FOR FREE on the Internet. They can bypass the need for label promotion because the public can simply access them online. No more middle man! Invite your fans to be part of your inner circle. Offer them a sense of belonging and word about you will spread. They will buy your merchandise and attend your shows - and bring others to do the same! I have outline some critical techniques below that will not only enhance your career, but benefit you financially as well.
Listed below are key steps in building an Internet fan base. It is easy and updates are no problem.
You will need:
1) Your Stage Name - the name you want to associate with your music and the name you want fans searching for online.
2) A profile picture - A small picture of you performing, a picture of your band, your logo, etc. It can be anything you want associated with you or your music group but you should only use 1 picture for this initial set-up. A small JPEG picture is perfect.
An Internet presence (Website or Webpage) should be every musician’s top priority
Most important is your main Internet presence (website or webpage). If currently using MySpace, I recommend setting up your own individual site to avoid any MySpace ads distracting your fans. Having your own website allows YOU to generate your own income through advertising and or sponsorships.
If you haven’t already, purchase a domain name at GoDaddy.com that uses your Stage Name. An example would be STAGENAME.com or STAGENAME.FM or whatever you want. Use dot com if available. If not, no worries, try some other endings that you are comfortable with or add something to your Stage Name like STAGENAMEBAND or STAGENAMEMUSIC to get the dot com ending. When it comes time to check out, get the basic name and don’t worry about purchasing Privacy or other items they try to sell you. The total for dot coms is around $10 per year, dot FM and dot TV can be a lot pricier.
Now, to get started on a simple website for yourself, try Wordpress.com
Wordpress is a blogging service but can really be used for anything. Wordpress.com is a free services but no advertising is allowed. If you want to add advertising/sponsorship later, you can still use Wordpress software from Wordpress.org but you’ll have to pay a 3rd party to host your website (don’t worry about this for now). You can use your actual domain name you purchased at GoDaddy for your Wordpress website for a small fee. Then when someone types in STAGENAME.COM, they are directed to your free Wordpress website.
You could also have your website professionally built and there are plenty of companies that do this type of work. However, Wordpress is free and easy. My sister isn’t a techie at all and set up her Wordpress blog in just a few minutes. Now she’s getting some incredible traffic (if you like crazy healthy food, check it out at:(Heather Eats Almond Butter). My guess is that if your music is good and you engage your fans, you will have incredible traffic as well.
Advice: Keep your site clean (that’s why I dislike using MySpace for your internet presence). One of my favorite musician sites I have come across (found it on Twitter) was the following: TheFireApes.
The FireApes site is incredibly clean and simple. I really like how the YouTube video plays with an example of their music immediately, a great way to capture new fans that are stumbling around the internet. Allow them to hear your music effortlessly. YouTube videos are easy to imbed into your Wordpress blog, just upload the video to YouTube and copy the HTML code at the right. Then place the code into your Wordpress blog. You can also upload PICTURES / VIDEOS / MP3s directly on your page using the Wordpress toolbar.
Now for the Web 2.0 Ninja Stuff:
So now you have your website, but how do you get potential fans there?
Start by going to PING.FM and set up an account with your stage name. What is PING? Ping is a way to push information out to multiple social networks where you have an account with one simple interface. So you can update your Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, etc all at once.
Why do you want to be on multiple social websites? Because the more places you are, the more people will discover your amazing music. Another benefit of using all available social sites is that Google will find you more often in its Search Engine. So when someone is searching for you or your music, they will have a better chance to locate your online presence through all Internet haze. They may find you on Facebook or MySpace or Rejaw or Twitter or your Blog or wherever, but they’ll find you.
So now that you have set up your Ping account, you’ll notice it prompts you to Add Networks to your profile. Click yes. Notice that PING gives you a large list of social networks from which you can choose various accounts. Which networks should you join? ALL OF THEM! You may already have a MySpace account so you can go ahead and add that network first by looking for the MySpace icon and clicking the Add Network link to the right. Here you’ll put in your username and password to allow PING to place your updates on your MySpace page. Go ahead and add any other accounts you already have that you see in the list. Next simply use PING to help you add networks you don’t already belong to by clicking on the Network name directly on the PING page (They should automatically open in a new TAB).
Use the same Stage Name and Profile Picture from above for each account and keep your colors similar for each profile. Branding consistency is key! You want people to recognize you online and avoid confusion of using multiple profile pictures, names, and colors. Some networks allow you to add a URL for your webpage. Simply use the link you created above on Wordpress or use your MySpace URL here (Note: this is very important on Twitter). If the network you are joining is not fully active yet (still in what’s called BETA), go ahead and request to be emailed an account and see if they’ll let you use it early. Most companies will happily give you a BETA account upon request.
You can now use PING to update all your profiles at the same time with information about your music/band or items you just feel like passing to your fan base. The better your content, the more followers you will have.
Monitoring and Engaging your Growing Tribe:
Now that you have all your accounts set up to inform the public of your info. and updates, you may want to establish a social network aggregator. Check out this article from Mashable to discover if you’d like to use this type of service: Social Network Aggregators.
I don’t use aggregators, but instead use a combination of sites to interact with my friends and followers. I “PING” all personal updates as well as any interesting items I think my followers and friends would enjoy. Then I use FACEBOOK and TWITTER to interact back and forth with people on a day-to-day basis. (Why Twitter? Just ask Guy Kawasaki) I set up my other network profiles to alert me when someone wants to interact on those services via email so I don’t miss anything.
It’s important to keep track of what people are saying about you. This is easy to do using Google Alerts, Twilerts, and Twitter Search. Google Alerts is easy to set up. Just enter your Stage Name as the search term and select how often you want to receive an email. I recommend a COMPREHENSIVE search so Google will search all articles and blogs for your Stage Name. Twilert does the same thing but searches all the TWEETS (from Twitter) that mention your Stage Name. Both services send a summary email as often as you request (weekly, daily, etc). Twitter Search is a manual way for you to search all the TWEETS with whatever terms you type in the search bar. I rarely have to use the Twitter Search function as all my information is auto-sent using Twilert. However, it is important to use one of the Twitter services to know when people are talking about you so that you can respond to them personally and engage them directly!
Pimping Your Profiles:
I cannot stress enough the importance of consistent branding across your networks. Most already have a “pimped” MySpace page. If not, just try a google search for MySpace profiles and you’ll see how many services are out there to help. Facebook pages, however, are newer to musicians. I like Facebook pages as they are much cleaner interface than MySpace. See my earlier post on how to set up your Facebook page here: Setting Up a Facebook Page. The one problem is that PING only sends updates to a personal account on Facebook, but will not post directly to PAGES or GROUPS. You will have to log into your Facebook page directly to engage your fans. Pages are a great way to send updates via Facebook to all your fans. Just be careful not to SPAM them with too much.
Example of a Facebook Page: Choo Choo
Example of a Facebook Group: In The Mix
Twitter is actually a bit difficult to “PIMP” as the background is a single image you upload. You have to get the dimensions right for the picture so that information you are presenting is located at the right place, on the page and not obscured by the Tweet column. You can use trial and error as I did until you get what you want (see my Twitter page here: Start My Song) or you can use two new free services that work pretty well to auto-create your Twitter background: MyTweetSpace or Twitbacks.
Now that you have everything set up, you can start posting PINGs and get your name out there. One way to begin building a musical following is by uploading your best songs to Start My Song. Start My Song already has an established network of followers who are looking for new music. With Start My Song you can add three links to your account profile in order to redirect people who like your music to your main web presence and other networks such as your Twitter page. You can also set up accounts with iTunes from Start My Song to begin selling your music!
SUMMARY:
1) Set up your Internet presence using a customized Domain Name and Wordpress.
2) Create accounts at all other social networks using PING.FM keeping your branding consistent.
3) Use tracking tools to see what people are saying about you.
4) Upload your best songs to Start My Song.
5) PING out interesting content and interact with your fans/followers.
I know this post may overwhelm some of you, but once set-up, it is simple to keep everything up-to-date and track using the tools above. You can spend 10 minutes scanning the alerts and PINGing items, or you can spend hours. It really depends on how much information you have to share and how much time you can spend interacting with your fans.
The other solution to Direct Engagement is to outsource all of the above to a Social Media Manager to handle all your online needs. Email me if you’d like to discuss outsourcing these services:
Scott [at] startmysong.com
