Social Media for Musicians:Part II : Building your Fan Base

This picks up from my previous post Social Media for Musicians Part I: Developing your songs.

Call it Fan Relationship Management. Social media is making a big difference in the life and careers of a musician. No longer do you have to travel the world or spend long nights in smokey pubs trying to attract fans. You can now build a huge following completely on-line. Of course, nothing has more impact then live music, but with the power of social networking today, there are powerful resources available, for free, to build and grow their fan base...and this is just the beginning.

Aside from setting up your profiles, here are a few tips to consider once you have immersed yourself and your band into the social media world.

1) Establish your presence online and manage it.

Below are the must have social media sites for building your fan base. As a musician, FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, etc are the pillar profiles to establish and manage. Most other sites and applications can link or feed information from these profiles. You can easily use these sites as your base when trudging through the digital world and expand as you feel more comfortable.

2) Be Active...but pace yourself
Setting up your page is easy. Inviting your friends is easy too. The hard part is creating a consistent, active social presence. You want to appear active. Resist the temptation to post all your music, content, gigs and photos all at once. Establish a basic presence with a few key bits of content, start inviting and gathering fans, then post more content as your fan base grows.

Set a publishing schedule and pace yourself. Set goals (daily, weekly, monthly) based on the amount of content you have and how much time you have to create and publish new content. Every new content post gives you an opportunity to broadcast a message and another chance to get your name and message out to your fanbase. Each impression provide a little reminder that you and your music are out there.

3) "Friend" or "Become a Fan" of similar musicians or bands
Be proactive. Seek other musicians out and "friend them" or "Become a Fan".  Return the favor when other musicians do the same for you. Build a network of musicians and bands with something in common with you and your musical style. This is powerful way to draw listeners to your music.

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Social Networking Sites for Musicians:
Below are the must have social media sites for building your fan base. These are the pillar profiles to establish and manage. Most other sites and applications can link or feed information from these profiles. Use these as your primary base when trudging through the digital world.

Facebook Musician Page [www.Facebook.com]



Rick Dill Facebook Musician Profile


Key Features:
+ Musician Profiles
+ Become a Fan link
+ Song upload
+ Photo Albums
+ Events (with RSVP)
+ Blog (using the Notes feature)
+ Video Uploads
+ Discussion Board

General Overview:
Setting up a Musician profile on Facebook is a must have nowadays. Make sure to set up a personal profile first and then create a separate Musician profile for your music or band that you will administer. The difference being that Personal Profiles have "friends" (mutual acceptance) and Musician profiles have "Fans" (one-way opt-in) This will allow your Musician profile to have a broader reach beyond your friends and family.  Also another difference is that Personal profiles are more private and Musician profiles are indexed in a way that make them more public which will allow you to be more discoverable by potential fans not only on Facebook, but increases your chances of showing up in relevant search results (e.g. Google, Yahoo)

A Musician Profile provides a place for fans to discover, listen to your music, and with additional applications, purchase your music. You can easily set up and broadcast events, promote your music, or to just shoot out messages to keep in touch. The best part is you are building a fan base has opted-in. They have invited YOU to keep in touch with them. Don't miss the opportunity. Keep it meaningful and fun. But obviously, don't abuse it.

Ease of Use:
It's a very simple set up, you just need to know where to go to create a separate musicians page. Follow this link and make sure to select "Musician" page.

Fees:
Mostly free! Cost will occur if you want to start using the Facebook network for advertising. The "promote this page" puts you little more then a click away from selecting a target audience and placing ads onto their Facebook pages.

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YouTube Channel [www.youtube.com]


YouTube Year of the River Musician Channel


Key Features:
+ Musician Specific Profiles
+ Video Uploads
+ Allow fans to Subscribe
+ Viewer Comments & Ratings
+ Events
+ Blog

General Overview:
The music video didn't die with MTV...it just is in a state of transition. This is an often overlooked social media resource for musicians. Don't miss the boat. YouTube channels put some amazingly powerful promotion resources at your fingertips. Of course it's all based on the fact that you have videos to publish, but don't let that stop you! Make some videos! Even if it's just you performing your songs up against a back drop or a slideshow with your music playing as the soundtrack.  YouTube is one of the largest sources for streaming music! It's a great way to get exposure in a unique way while other bands are still tinkering with their FaceBook and MySpace pages.

With YouTube you create a "Channel" page that has many of the social networking features you would expect to find on FaceBook. You can also easily share your videos on many other social networking sites since YouTube is such a common video hosting platform.

So make it a point to bring a video camera along with you to your gigs, recording sessions or rehersals. Give your fans and potential employers a way to enjoy your performances from the comfort of their laptop!

Ease of Use:
Uploading videos couldn't be easier...just look for the big yellow "Upload Video" button! YouTube provides you with a few "themes" for customizing the look of your page. It's a bit limiting, but hopefully soon they will allow you the ability to customize the look of your page further to better align to your band's branding.

Fees:
No fees at all. As a matter of fact, you can actually make money by setting up a YouTube channel. You can set up an affiliate program with YouTube to place ads in your videos and on your page. Depending on viewership and click-throughs, you can actually be earning some extra money based on your content.


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MySpace [www.MySpace.com]


MySpace Derek Trucks Band Musician Profile

Key Features:
+ Artist Profile
+ Song upload
+ Photo Albums
+ Events
+ Blog
+ Video Uploads
+ Friends Comments
+ Background Themes

General Overview:
MySpace is still holding it's own despite FaceBook's huge land grab. But as you can see from this chart, Facebook is trending much stronger then MySpace. Feature for Feature, MySpace does have a lot to offer such as blogs, photo gallery's, videos, third party apps, as well as the classic MySpace music player.





As you can see in this chart, based on unique visits, Facebook has created a huge potential audience as compared to MySpace. But despite FaceBook's huge impact, MySpace (the greenline) has not experienced an equal drop in visits. MySpace is holding on to it's core user base...it's not growing...but there also hasn't been a huge mass exodus. MySpace is still a strong player in this social media "space." The real measure of success will be to determine if there's still the same level of engagement occuring on MySpace as it was experiencing even a year or two ago.

Ease of Use:
MySpace has recently redesigned parts of it's interface, but it still has an awkwardness that keeps it old school. Modifying your MySpace page is possible, but expect to be frustrated if you attempt to do it. There are third parties offering ways to "pimp" your MySpace page with new themes, but this tends to contribute to the problems around "ease of use" rather then help solve it.

Regarding all the customization that users have been doing, the many different page layouts and themes that exist from site to site, and lack of consistent wayfinding (navigation), it's very hard to find what you are looking for. The themes are rarely elegant, often time there's a lot of blinking going on! (reminiscent of the very early days of the web..."just make it blink").

The upside of customization is if implemented properly, a band can express it's unique character and brand better then on FaceBook. Expect to recruit the efforts of a good designer to help. Other then that, uploading songs, posting to your blog, adding events are all quite easy tasks to perform

Fees:
Free!...I have seen some third parties charging for use of their themes, but aside from that not much to pay for here.

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Reverbnation [www.reverbnation.com]
Your Social Media Control Center!


Example ReverbNation Control Panel

Key Features:
+ Artist Profile
+ Song upload
+ Photo Albums
+ Events
+ Blog
+ Video Uploads
+ Friends Comments
+ Press Kits
+ MyBand Integration with FaceBook (Sync Fans)
+ Sell your Music
+ Player Widgets
+ Detailed Stats
+ Website Builder

General Overview:
Reverbnation is a feature-rich music publishing center. It provides tight integration with FaceBook through it's MyBand application where you can sync up fans you gain through Facebook and Reverbnation. It quite amazing all the tools and resources that are provided to you for free. You literally can use Reverbnation as your control center for all your digital publishing.




Example MyBand application for FaceBook

Ease of Use:
With it's wealth of features, comes a challenging user experience. It has a slightly dated look and feel, there are attempts to adopt a more bold graphical interface within some of it's modules. Overall not terrible. I tend to put up with some of the UI awkwardness in exchange for all the cool tools that are provided.

Fees:
It's all free! But when you sell your music on iTunes or Amazon published though ReverbNation, they do grab a percentage of the music sales, but it's quite minimal. I'll add the actual amount once I actually publish a tune.



Reverbnation Year of the River Profile

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Social Media for Musicians Part I: Developing your songs

There has never been a better time to be a musician! A career in music nowadays is being revolutionized by all the resources available online. Digital technology revolutionized the music creation process, and now it's revolutionizing how artists are marketed, how fan bases are established, how music is distributed, and how music is sold.

There is so much of their destiny an individual musician or band can now control. At their fingertips are tools and resources that allows musicians to promote themselves in ways that, in the past, required the backing of a large record label, a publicist, a manager, a webmaster, a marketing professionals, concert promoter, rich uncles, and more!

In part one of my series on Social Media for Musicians, I'm going to explore some of the most popular Social Networking and music publishing sites. I'll explain how musicians should leverage them to build their careers.

I've organized a number of social networking tools and resources into the following categories...

Part 1 - Developing your Songs
Interact with target audiences and fellow musicians to post songs in various stages of development to get insightful feedback on how to improve it.

Part 2 - Building your Fan Base
Whether you envision your fan base to be local or worldwide, these everyday social networking sites can serve the musician quite well. The trick is to set 'em up properly, and make them work hard for you and your band.

Part 3 - Publishing & Exposure
Upload your music so it can be heard and accessed by your target audience and fan base.

Part 4 - Selling your Music
Yes...you can have your tunes selling right along side of greats such as Bob Dylan, Count Basie, Bob Marley, Snoop Dogg or whoever. In the online world...YOU own your distribution channel.

Part 5 - Finding Musicians and Putting Together a Band
Sometimes you need a little help from your friends, what if your musician friend can't make it to a gig or just charges too much? Well, fear not...quickly finding other musicians to create a band, collaborate with, lay down some tracks, or to just hang out with, is so much easier nowadays. (Remember the days of posting those "Bass Player wanted" flyers in the music store?)

Let's get started with social networking sites for developing your songs....

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Part I - Developing your Songs

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GarageBand.com [www.garageband.com]

Screenshot from www.garageband.com/artist/yearoftheriver

Key Features:
+ Band Profile
+ Newsletter
+ Event Listing
+ Fan Listings
+ Song Upload

General Review:
This is an ideal way for you to refine your tunes before publishing to other sites. You get the opportunity to receive reviews from other musicians on your songs and mixes. Garageband.com works on the premise that you are submitting your song into a contest.

Ease of Use:
The site interface is a bit dated, busy and a bit hard to navigate. It IS a feature rich site, but unfortunately, it's boxy layout, small fonts give it an old school feel. The site is still confined to a 1024x758 layout that does not take advantage of the full width of the screen.

Fees:
It's basically free if you complete 15 reviews of other artist's songs, then you get a free entry for your song. Of course you can bypass that process by paying the $18US entry fee. But do the reviews, get involved...it's fun! Garageband also links in nicely with iLike (it's actually owned by iLike) which will be beneficial for when you set up your Facebook page and also when you want to sell your music.

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Soundcloud [www.soundcloud.com]

Screenshot from www.soundcloud.com/yearoftheriver

Key Features:
+ Artist Profile
+ Stats (see how you are doing)
+ Player Widget (to embed onto your site)
+ Badges (for directing users to your profile)
+ DropBox (for uploading tracks)

General Review:
Soundcloud was created by a few innovative musician/developers out in Berlin. It started out mainly as a site for uploading music and allowing other musicians to provide comments. This is still it's main function, but they also have a social media aspect to it where you can build a community of "followers" and find artists you like are interested in and can "follow."

The "killer app" here is the Soundcloud player widget. When you upload your MP3s you can grab the code and embed the widget on your website or on your Facebook page. All that and a real elegant website interface.

Sample Player (Just a Few More Minutes - Mark DiSciullo):




Ease of Use:
The designers of this site provide the user with a fresh, graphical interface. It's a stark contrast to sites like Reverbnation and Garageband. The flow is nice. Tasks such as uploading songs, joining groups, following other musicians, and building a following are all very intuitive. It also has a unique way of leaving comments on your song, you do it right on the audio waveform. All the tools you need are easy to find and use.

Fees:
I was lucky enough to get in on the Beta phase so my cost were minimal. There is a free account available (info at the bottom of their page) that will allow 5 song uploads a month, ability to place their player widget on your site (best part!), and some basic stats. There are also PRO accounts that will allow for more uploads and a greater degree of interactions with other Soundcloud community users. The basic (PRO light) will run you $12US a month or $140 a year and for the power user (PRO MAX) is as high as $85US a month or $855US a year. Pretty much out of reach for most of us trying to get established. I highly recommend the free account for the player widget alone!

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Next Post: Part II - Building your Fan Base

Agile AL-2000 Guitar Review (Root Beer)

Just posted to YouTube and officially added to the gear section of the site is my review of the Agile AL-2000 Les Paul copy.



I'm really happy with the tone and feel of this guitar. The craftsmanship is impressive for the price range. Even though they are on the low-end of the price range, the wax potted ceramic humbucker pickups, actually pump out some great sounds. Not exactly a P.A.F.s or a Gibson Burstbuckers, but a decent enough set of tones to work with live or recorded.

The YouTube hosted video has a review and sound demos of each pickup position played through a Marshall AVT50 (Clean and Overdrive). I'm using my Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (for the overdrive) and a MXR Super Comp Compressor effects pedals through the clean channel on my amp.

Just Arrived...my new Agile AL-2000 "Les Paul"

I've included a more detailed review of my Agile AL-2000 on the site. You can see it here gear section of the site.

I wanted to get a quick review out of my most recent guitar acquisition an Agile AL-2000 "Les Paul" copy. I purchased it online at Rondomusic.com for US$219. Right out of the box it was in tune and quite playable. I did my own set up to fine tune the intonation and to put my preferred string gauges on in .10-.52's (Heavy top, light bottoms) My next order of business was to round the fret ends off and smooth the neck edges on the binding to give the guitar a more worn-in feel | See post.

Initial soundchecks are coming back hot! This guitar rocks. The pick-up are definitely not PAFs (Classic '57 Gibson Humbuckers) but they will do for now.

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Related Posts:

• Agile AL-2000 Video Review


• Fret End Dressing - Smoothing down a sharp fretboard for a vintage feel

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