SOCIAL MEDIAfor Musicians

WHAT’S INSIDE

Social NetworksFacebookMySpace

MicroblogsTwitter

Music Communities imeemBuzznetLast FMReverb NationPure VolumePandora

Official WebsiteWordpressWidgets Blogs

ToolsBandMetricsArtist DataWeb AnalyticsSocial Media Metrics

ExtrasLinks & Things

IntroMarketing Your Music

Everything has gone digital. It’s a fact. Albums aren’t selling, record stores are going out of business, labels are desperate and taking almost all the profit an artist makes. Fine. The question stands:

What are you going to do about it?

Singers will continue to sing, drummers will continue to drum, guitarists will continue to play. Musicians will keep making music.

Nowadays in the online digital space, every artist has the ability to be their own label, run their own business and act as their own marketer. This guide will help you understand the online social landscape and provide you with tips on how to maneuver and promote yourself to current and potential listeners.

MUSIC AND THE INTER-WEB

MARKETING YOUR MUSICMarketing is the concept of promoting goods to consumers. In your case, your good is your music and band and the consumers are your listeners. Marketing is based around the needs of your listeners. You must provide them with something they need and inform them of things they don’t know yet know they need.

Social media marketing is different from traditional forms (like TV commercials and radio ads) in a sense that you have a direct interaction with your clients. Social media allows you to get in on conversations personally. You’re interacting with people one-to-one. To effectively promote your band online you need to understand the core concepts of Social Media.

1. its essentially making friends with people online.

2. It’s all about conversations... Get in the mix, talk to people. In turn, they will become advocates for your band.

3. UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE! Internet trends, or meme’s, come and go. Stay on top of your content and be sure you’re always posting new stuff and keeping up with the latest news in your genre.

4. No body wants to talk to a droid. Be human and be personable. Let people know what you’re all about and how you feel your music and views on the art are unique. This will help spark discussion. When a discussion starts, be polite and have some consideration.

5. Don’t get upset if people are accessing your music for free. This is the ultimate form of flattery. They want to listen to your music, they’ll share your music with their friends. They’ll most likely hit up one of your shows and buy a t-shirt. It’s a digital world and for this to work to your advantage, you have to be accepting.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

SOCIAL NETWORKSSocial Networking is self explanatory. It’s you (and your band) making friends. Millions of people access social networking sites every day, and a lot of these people are waiting to discover your music.

In the olden days, to make fans, you had to drive around the country, go out, play shows, and mingle. While face-to-face interaction is wonderful, many bands don’t have the funding to be able to quit their day jobs, hop on the road and stay out for months at a time. Social Networks have introduced a very tangible solution to this problem.

Roam the world via internet and remember that Social Networking is all about conversations. GET INVOLVED WITH YOUR FANS.

It’s 2009. If you don’t have a Facebook or a MySpace profile, you

don’t exist.

(n) Any website designed to allow multiple users to publish content themselves. Information may be on any subject and may be for consumption by (potential) friends, employers, employees, etc. The sites typically allow users to create a "profile" describing themselves and to messages and list other users or groups they are connected to in some way. There may be editorial content or the site may be entirely user-driven.*

*www.dictionary.com

About: MySpace is an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.*

For bands: You can create a band-profile where you are able to promote your shows, upload your music for other users to add to their personal playlists (via MySpace Music), you are also able to embed videos, photos, and other widgets. MySpace Music has recently received a revamp and users are able to take advantage of unlimited, free streaming of the entire MySpace Music catalog (which means your fans are able to listen to your music and add it to their own playlists and profiles).

Add-Ons:

MySpace allows for easy profile customization (the look and feel of your profile). Backgrounds, headers, colors, and font are easily changeable.

Most embed-able media is accepted including videos, photos, and widgets.

Things you should know: Be sure to specify your genre of music upon setting up your profile. MySpace keeps track of your fan count, profile views, and play counts (for music). It is recommended that you do not delete songs (or fans) that have ample plays, as this helps boost you in their “Top Artist” listings as well as proves to viewers of your profile that your band is actually being listened to. Currently, MySpace only offers royalties on big label streams, we’re still waiting for them to open up to everyone else.

MYSPACEwww.myspace.com

*www.myspace.com> about

Okay, so this one is kind of a no-brainer, but here’s some info that you may not know...

About: Facebook is a social network with more than 30 million active users. Users share stories, photos, videos, comments, etc.

For bands: Users are able to create “pages” which are official pseudo-profiles used promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor (including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities)*. A regular user (i.e.: your singer, drummer, girlfriend, etc.) must first have a personal profile established in order to create a page. [Don’t worry, the identity of the page administrator is not publicly displayed.] Why create a page instead of a group? Because pages are official representations and you are able to view insights (statistics) on the activity going on on your page.

Add-Ons: Once you get your page set up, there are a few things that I recommend adding, to give your fans an interactive experience. These apps & add-ons are essential and provide your fans with stuff to do and become engaged with:

Descriptive bio, contact & booking information, band members, & links to other sites. If you have a blog, there is a way to have it feed in automatically.

Photos, videos and most importantly a Music Playing application (if facebook doesn’t already have one included, this is the link to the music player application http://ow.ly/k7qb )

Things you should know: Facebook is great for promoting tours and events as their platform groups users based on their networks (location). For example, if you’re going to be playing a show in San Francisco, send a custom invite specifically to your fans in the SF Bay Area. This may not seem like a lot, but it will help eliminate being “spammy” and makes your fans feel like you’re truly seeking them out. Facebook does a great job of updating friends of friends too, so if someone RSVPs to your event, their friends are notified as well. Another great feature is the ability for users to contribute by adding and sharing photos from an event in a specified place (the event invite page).

FACEBOOKwww.facebook.com

*www.facebook.com > pages t & c

MICROBLOGS

TWITTERAbout: Twitter is a service that allows users to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Twitter is a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. People follow other people and sources to access information as it happens.

For bands: If used properly, Twitter can prove highly effective in communicating and sparking direct conversations with fans. Twitter limits the length of posts, or “tweets” to 140 characters, truly sticking to its’ goal of transmitting a real-time thought.

When bands use Twitter, it allows fans to instigate conversations, and the bands to directly reply. There are no other distractions on Twitter, it’s a direct person to person conversation.

Things you should know:

Profiles backgrounds are customizable and should be used to creatively display information about your band, including contact info, bio, etc.

To gain followers on Twitter, always remember that the more that you follow, the more will follow you. Use the “Find People” button to import your existing email contacts or search for people with whom you share similar interests.

Keep in mind that people will only want to follow you if you’re tweeting about things relevant to them. Don’t be the “Hey come to my show, Hey come to my show, Hey come to my show” guy. People want to be engaged. Talking about your band, what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, what you’re seeing, etc, is what will bring an audience. If your drummer is a silly, crazy guy who says funny things, leverage that!

www.twitter.com

MUSIC COMMUNITIES

Online music communities function similarly to social networks, with the biggest difference being the emphasis on streaming and sharing music. Users join these communities, establish profiles describing themselves and their interests in specific bands, artists, and musical taste. The music sites are tailored to automatically make recommendations to the users based on their listening habits.

On these types of sites, users are able to create custom radio stations and playlists with the available catalog that the site provides (with the music being contributed by users, record labels, and other artists).

On a side note, with a lot of these types of sites, when a band registers their original music (either through a digital distribution company, or directly), they are paid for plays (royalties).

MUSIC & VIDEO COMMUNITIES

About: imeem is the world’s leading social music service, enabling music fans to discover, interact and express themselves with music and playlists, and connect with other people based on shared tastes and interests. imeem pioneered the idea of offering fans free, on-demand music and video streaming with the costs supported by advertising. imeem partnered with all four major labels and thousands of artists, independent labels and music distributors to offer their music and video for free streaming.*

For bands: Like Facebook and MySpace, bands create a profile and upload pictures, videos, and music. A great feature of imeem is the ability to combine media into playlists, which are basically slideshows, or groupings of video or music, readily available for viewing and listening. All of the media comes with embed codes for easy implementation on any platforms, profiles, or sites that allow for html. Friends are made by submitting and approving requests. imeem also boasts features like creating polls, battles, and blogs.

Add-Ons:

Profile customization is restricted to the imeem profile customizer ; you can upload images to be used for the background or header.

Further customization is all widget based and imeem provides a dashboard for organizing the layout of your profile.

If you sign on for a VIP account with imeem, they give you the option to implement Google Analytics on your account, to monitor your profile web metrics.

Things you should know: If your band is working with a company (ingrooves, ioda, etc.) for digital distribution, imeem offers direct links for listeners to download the songs from stores on iTunes or Amazon. If you are the artist or own the rights to a song, you will need to register your song in SNOCAP (www.snocap.com). Once you have done this, you can manage which songs you want to stream on imeem. Further, for the songs you permit on imeem, you can also earn money for them.*

IMEEMwww.imeem.com

*www.imeem.com > about

About: Buzznet is a social media site where passionate fans interact in thousands of music communities. Buzznet has thriving fan communities in which fans actively participate by sharing millions of photos, videos and blog posts about their favorite bands. Buzznet offers music premieres, tour dates and exclusive editorial programming. Buzznet also offers music, with licenses from top labels.

For bands: Social network, heavy on blog content. This is a great place to upload photos and videos and connect with fans.

Add-Ons:

Easily import data from other social networks.

Things you should know: Buzznet users are very loyal to the site. If you’re going to spend the time setting up a profile here, be sure to pay special attention to your Buzznet community and make it so that other Buzznet users don’t have to leave the site to get what they want from you.

BUZZNETwww.buzznet.com

About: Last FM is a streaming music service. The Last.fm website is filled with tons of information on artists, albums and tracks, more music similar to them, charts and other statistics and more, all built by the Last.fm users who’re keeping track of what they’re listening to with Last.fm.*

For bands: To get your music on Last.fm, you will need a labels account. You can find instructions on how to do that here (http://www.last.fm/help/faq). Once done, you will then be able to link up your music to your registered account. Once you've registered with Last.fm, you will be able to add music to their radio streams, and manage your presence on Last.fm through the Music Manager.

Add-Ons:

Last FM boasts more than just music streaming. They also offer services like an event management tool, stats and a royalty program.

Things you should know: Visit http://www.last.fm/uploadmusic to register your music and learn more about their royalty programs. Last FM also functions as a social network and allows users to rate, comment, vote, and interact with each other directly on the site. By registering with Last.fm, you can get access to a number of features. To name a few, you can manage your music more effectively, view in depth statistics about your fans, and use a range of tools to help spread your music. All of these tools are highly valuable to both artists, and labels, and Last FM believes that they can help the spread of your music to a much greater degree.*

LAST FMwww.last.fm

*www.last.fm > faq

About: Reverb Nation provides innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Many artists use Reverb Nation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion.*

For bands: Reverb Nation offers several basic and premium features including digital distribution option, press kits, site builders, buzz trackers, music players and widgets.

Add-Ons:

Mega song storage: increases your maximum song size to 25MB from the standard 8MB. $2.95/month

Great mailing list manager that allows you to store emails, create email templates and send messages.

Fan 360: Gives you more in-depth information on your fans and searches based on their email address. There are different pricing options for this feature.

Street Teams: ReverbNation gives every artist a FREE Street Team Program to help activate their fans and make every promotion "viral". These promoters will help you gain exposure by talking about you on blogs, in message boards and posting your music, banners, tour dates, etc. all over the internet.

Facebook Apps: Share your Reverb Nation profile and information across a different social networking platform. Different application are available including the “My Band”, “Shows”, and “My Music” widgets.

Things you should know: Be careful upon adding paid features as monthly dues can rack up quite quickly. A Reverb Nation profile is a great thing to have as it is a quick and convenient way for your listeners to stream an entire album (or whatever you upload) all in one place. And they don’t have to go through the hassles of creating a playlist.

REVERB NATIONwww.reverbnation.com

*www.reverbnation.com > about

About: Pandora is an automated music listening and discovery service whose single mission is to play only music you love. Users create accounts and input their favorite artists and songs. Pandora has an extensive database that has been analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. Basically, it finds and recommends music for you, based on what you already listen to.*

For bands: Pandora is growing and adding new users every day. Since stations are randomized based on the similarities and recommendations, it is more likely that you will be able to reach potential listeners who are more likely to enjoy your music than over look it.

Add-Ons:

Pandora has multiple mobile applications so that users are able to stream their stations directly from their phones.

Things you should know: The only process for submitting your music (or your band's music) to Pandora. (It seems tedious but this is the price to pay if you want nterested and loyal listeners!)

You'll need:- a CD of your music- a unique UPC code for that CD- the CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)- MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD- The legal rights to your music- A standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this submission

For additional steps please go to http://blog.pandora.com/faq

PANDORAwww.pandora.com

*www.pandora.com > about

VIDEO COMMUNITIESOnline video sharing communities allow users to upload and share videos. A wide variety of user-generated content is available for both registered and non-registered users for viewing, including movie clips, tv clips, music videos and video blogs.

Video communities are a great place to house all the footage you may have from live shows or interviews. By uploading to these sights, you’re making it easier for your fans to promote you, as all clips are provided with unique embed codes. So basically, if I really liked your music video, I’d probably put it up on my blog as well as send it along to all of my friends.

www.imeem.com | www.vimeo.com | www.youtube.com

OFFICIAL WEBSITES

www.kingsofleon.com | www.bandofhorses.com | www.djshadow.com

OFFICIAL WEBSITESThis is your identity. Claim your space and get your domain.

www.yourband.com < this is the most important thing to you and your brand (the band).

Your official website is the first thing people look for when searching for you on the internet, and it should be the first thing they see. Your official website should be the hub of all things revolving around your band.

It may be tempting to ignore the need for a personal website and just go with one of your social networks, but there are many things that are unappealing about doing so. For example, in order to use a social network, a user must have a login, have a profile set up, and ‘befriend’ you. No offense to your band, but what if I don’t want you looking through my personal pictures or work information? Also, different people use different sites. A person on Facebook may not have a MySpace profile or a Twitter account. Let’s not forget the importance of contact and availability. Having a long, drawn out URL on a business card or flyer is unprofessional and just seems tacky!

Also, official websites are great places to house blogs and compile content on. Your site should serve as a one-stop-shop for everything related to your band. The following slides list helpful tools and resources for optimizing your website.

WORDPRESSwww.wordpress.org

www.wordpress.org | www.thebuckmaker.com | www.ithemes.com | www.bandwebsitetemplate.com

About: WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

For Bands: On this site you can download and install a software script called WordPress. To do this you need a web host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time. WordPress is completely customizable and can be used for almost anything. There is also a service called WordPress.com which lets you get started with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways and is less flexible than the WordPress you download and install yourself. For more information on how to get started with Wordpress, visit http://wordpress.org/about/.

Add-Ons:

I recommend using Dreamhost (www.dreamhost.com) as your website host. They have a one click install for Wordpress sites and it’s pretty easy on the wallet too!

Wordpress sites are almost completely customizable. If you are unfamiliar with web development and design, there are also many templates that you can build off of. Many of these templates have been designed specifically for musicians and bands.

There are numerous plug-ins and widgets available for installation and integration on your Wordpress site. I recommend installing a Twitter widget, a gig-calendar widget, and a sharing widget (so that users are able to email, tweet, or update their Facebook status with links to the content of your site. For a gigantic list of available Wordpress widgets, go here http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

BLOGS

www.wearescientsits.com | www.chriscornell.com | www.blogger.com

About Blogs: A blog is basically a diary or website that you write things on a regular basis. Readers are able to share and comment on the stuff you write.

For Bands: Blogs are a great tool for bands, as music is all about writing. By blogging, you’re allowing your fans into your daily lives. Fans won’t have to sit and wonder what you’re up to; let them know you’re working on your next album, where you’re going next on tour, and how awesome you thought the town you were in last night was.

Add-Ons:

Enhance your blog by adding pictures and video of all your adventures!

Turn your blog into your own mini newspaper or magazine. Talk about stuff you’re into, music you’re listening to (hey we know you’re not the only band in the world) -- maybe even review someone else’s album? Your blog is always looking for content, so write, write, write!

Things you should know: Wordpress.com is different than Wordpress.org. Wordpress.com is just a blogging platform and does not support the same levels of customization that a Wordpress.org site does.

TOOLS

BAND METRICSAbout: Band Metrics is for musicians, bands, labels, managers, booking agencies, venues, A&R reps, promoters, music supervisors, publicists, marketing agencies, analysts and anyone interested in measuring artists and music. Identify fans, measure social engagement, find hot markets, track radio plays, discover trends, gauge attitudes, in-depth reports and more!

For Bands: Currently in a private beta, meaning you have to wait for an access code. Band Metrics is great and can be used to monitor your online social presence and see what’s working for you and where.

Sentiment analysis Band to Band comparisons Momentum tracking

www.bandmetrics.com

ARTIST DATAAbout: Artist Data is a great tool that helps musicians manage all of their social media in one place.

For Bands: Artist Data is constantly adding new functionality. Use this tool to save time updating your content as it allows you to publish information everywhere from one simple platform. Definitely saves time and keeps you organized. Artist Data also helps streamline and keep everything consistent.

This tool is great because it makes life easy. If you have a show, you can go into Artist Data, update it, and it automatically updates the info across all of your social networks.

www.artistdata.com

WEB ANALYTICSAbout: Web analytics are the measurement and collection of data from a specified place on the internet, like your website. This internet data can be very useful to help interpreting who your online audience is.

For Bands: Website analytics are a very important. By looking at these metrics, you’re basically seeing who’s doing what, and where (in relation to your site and it’s content). You will be able to tell when you had the most traffic and why. You will also be able to tell where the traffic to your website is coming from, whether it be by people google-ing you, directly going to your site, or if they’re being referred by another source.

By having this information, you will be able to gauge your popularity and geo-locate where your fans are. You can arrange your marketing strategy around what these numbers say. Again, a very important part of being online, is having proper web analytics tools.

www.google.com/analytics | www.getclicky.com

SOCIAL MEDIA METRICSAbout: Social media itself produces data that can be analyzed to determine your influence in the space. This information holds basically tells you what people think of you and what they’re saying.

For Bands: There are many free social media analysis tools out there that can help you understand how the rest of the people on the internet (fans, critics, & randoms) feel about you. All the effort you have made in setting up an online presence, writing blogs, chatting up people on Twitter and Facebook can’t be for nothing, right?

See exactly what people are saying about you, understand what they’re clicking on and linking to. Pay attention to the names of these people as they could be boosting or ruining your reputation.

www.socialmention.com | www.technorati.com | www.twitteranalyzer.com | www.hootsuite.com

EXTRAS

OTHER WIDGETS

www.twitter.com | www.facebook.com | www.reverbnation.com | www.vimeo.com

About Widgets: A web widget is a basically a portable chunk of code that can be installed and embedded on a separate web page. Widgets are often on screen tools like music and video players that are frequently used to syndicate content.

For Bands: Places like imeem and YouTube automatically generate embed codes for all of their content. Most blogging platforms and sites will accept the code. By implementing these widgets, you’re providing your website viewers with things to interact with, and perhaps a reason to come back!

Add-Ons:

Facebook provides you with the tools to create a badges to use for promoting your Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/)

Twitter also provides widgets that feed live tweet streams from a specific user (http://twitter.com/downloads).

LINKS & THINGSHere are a few more awesome music tech blogs & tools that you might want to check out:

Blogs & Newswww.sanfranmusictech.comwww.mashable.com/category/music-listswww.hypebot.comwww.digitalmusicnews.comwww.indiemusictech.comwww.musicblogscatalog.com

Band Toolswww.bandize.comwww.kickstarter.comwww.ourstage.comwww.sonicbids.comwww.sonicliving.comwww.elisteningpost.com

iPhone AppsGuitar ToolKit by Agile Partners (www.agilepartners.com/apps/guitartoolkit/)Drumkit by Crimsonjet (www.crimsonjet.com)4 Track by Sonoma WireWorks (www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack)Karajan Beginner (ww.karajan-eartrainer.com/en)Band by Moo Cow Music (www.moocowmusic.com/Band)

ABOUT

At Spoken Social, you’ll find collective thoughts and views on my interactions and experiences in life; most of which will directly correlate with how I spend 90% of my time… working in advertising and social media.

Always looking for interesting articles and people while constantly in search my new favorite band.

Find me here:

www.spokensocial.comalmitra@spokensocial.com

SPOKENSOCIAL.COM

http://ow.ly/nkPH http://twitter.com/almitra