How to Engage Fans with a Mobile App You Create…for Free
Guest Post Highlight: More bands are leveraging mobile experiences to drive awareness for and engagement with fans. Wheng will share her thoughts regarding the emerging fan touchpoint, and will also share one example of a way to build your own band mobile app presence for free. Take it away, Wheng…
always has been.
And while some bands can’t seem to crack the music monopoly dominating the mainstream, that’s never a reason to stop to forging ahead and making music that sends ripples across airwaves, earphones, and attention spans of an infinite audience. Creating music on your own terms is still very much possible today.
The fact that millions of people own smartphones these days means independent bands like yours have an exciting new audience to explore. Think along the lines of a band-specific mobile app dedicated to spreading your music. Bands can get exposure to, drive engagement with, directly communicate with, and sell goods to fans via a growing number of mobile device apps opportunities.
One example worth considering is the FANtastic4Bands music app builder. What I like about this tool is that you don’t need any computer coding skills to build your app and it’s really easy to use and update. And to top it off, it’s free. It includes:
- Simple drag-and-drop design
- Tour schedule sharing
- Fan engagement through live Q&A chats and Twitter
- Direct-to-fan music sales
- Direct-to-fan merchandise sales
How is it free? The app includes embedded targeted ads and links – a fair compromise considering what a band gets. A $49/year premium version offers a few premium features, and a $499/year premium version is ad-free and band-branded. Definitely an option worth trying out. (By the way, they’re running a contest on their Facebook page where they’re giving away microphones.)
Start building a mobile experience for your fans today. There are plenty of mobile apps to choose from. Good luck!
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Wheng Enojo is a writer, inspirer, and life-enhancer. Currently, she is exploring and enjoying the world of DIY mobile apps as her newest hobby.
- Live streams of concerts and gigs
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Promote a Band via Social Media? You Could Earn $117K
If you’re actively promoting yourself, your band, or another artist, you’re applying and developing social media marketing skills that could bring in a pretty solid salary in the corporate world. According to the Onward Search Social Media Salary Guide, a Social Media Marketing Manager in New York City or San Jose earns anywhere from $73K to $117K. Suh-weet.
How far a stretch is it? Less than you think. Much of what you’re doing now can easily translate into corporate social media bullshit buzz speak for your shiny, new resume. And if you’ve been keeping up with the likes of Hypebot, Bob Baker, Sound Advice, and DIY Musician, you’re especially good to go. Just add the letter “R” to “band” to create “brand”, polish the ol’ resume with a little smoke’n'mirror magic, and get ready to update your ‘corporate casual’ wardrobe.
Here are some helpful examples to help get you started:
“Dude, I manage my band’s Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Pinterest stuff” translates to:
“Manage brand community monitoring, engagement, and expansion initiatives.”
“So, I sell CDs at the merch table and on CD Baby” translates to:
“Manage social distribution channels via integrated offline and online channels.”
“I stand outside of radio stations, faking “accidental” encounters with DJs leaving the building, sneaking thumb drives with our music into their pockets” translates to:
“Build strategic relationships with key influencers to extend brand reach and message.”
“I post pictures, videos, and updates from every party, gig, outing, arresting, and blackout we’ve ever been involved in” translates to:
“Manage content marketing program to drive word of mouth exposure to Brand assets and Brand message.”
Marketing is all about hype, buzz, translation, targeting, and spin. You too can live the dream and wear dress pants every weekday of your life. Just be careful what you wish for. ;)
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Youtube is a Beast of a Marketing Channel
Patrick Walker (Senior Director, Youtube Music) rep’d Youtube at Midem, along with a number of labels, etc, sharing some pretty interesting factoids. (Live blogged by MusicAlly, via Michael Kauffman) I’ll share a couple highlights that stuck out for me:
Youtube is growing. No, really FAST.
- YouTube now generates 4 billion views per day, a 30% increase in the past six months.
- It’s got 800m unique monthly users.
- 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute.
Youtube has new TOOLS for ARTISTS.
- Multiple new site templates are available to choose from.
- The new Youtube Merch Store plugs into 3rd party services such as iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, Songkick and Topspin among other services, to enable artists to sell, well, merch.
Youtube will be monitoring, managing, and MONETIZING consumer generated media more tightly.
- Youtube’s Audio ID / Content ID technology identifies videos that use other artists’ songs. (Labels can pay to use it, and extract licensing revenues in doing so.)
- Youtube’s Melody ID technology can match “cover song” melodies to existing original songs. (Again, Labels can pay to use it, and extract licensing revenues to do so.)
- Youtube recently acquired Rightsflow, a licensing and royalty service provider that enables artists and labels to secure rights to music for various media.
Youtube advice to artists…
- Make playlists.
- Shoot videos when touring.
- Video-announce news like tour dates and releases.
- Collaborate with other artists.
- Youtube’s algorithm rewards more frequent uploads, high volumes of likes/shares/comments/etc. Keep this in mind when creating content.
- Professional quality does not necessarily mean success. “Raw”, ‘honest’ video can to well when appropriate.
There you have it. Progressive labels and artists are starting to dedicate entire departments to creating, deploying, sharing, promoting, monitoring, and engaging video content. How can you leverage these new tools to promote your music?
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Lord of the Rings Pez Dispensers – An Epic Find
It’s a Christmas miracle, thanks to a quick, routine RiteAid shopping run. I am now the proud owner of The Lord of the Rings PEZ dispenser Collector’s Series. (For the collectors among you, it’s #117812 of 250,000 produced.)
Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gollum Pez dispenser heads in a box. Tolkien would be pleased, I’m sure. Now the question — open and eat, or store and hoard?
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Why All Bands MUST Have a Video Strategy
Did you know that Youtube is the second largest search engine in the United States? Did you also know that 80% of searches in Youtube are music-related?
A ton of your potential fans consume music and video concurrently. If your content focus is on digital downloads and albums only, you’re missing a huge opportunity to reach your fans in a unique (most bands don’t do this yet) and relevant (if your fans like video, you should be creating video) way.
Here’s a slice of an online music info graph from Grovo (a site that “teaches people how to use the internet”…one of the more lame and uninspired taglines I’ve seen in a while) that shares some evidence along these lines:
Be sure to ask yourself: Am I creating the right content that’s reaching the right fans at the touch points most relevant to them? If the answers is “yes”, please share what you’re doing below! If the answer is ‘no’, spend some serious time with your bandmates brainstorming some ways you can.
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Poll: Best Name for Cover Song & Portrait YouTube Mashup?
We’re constantly thinking of (often bad) ideas for new songs, YouTube channels, Facebook Apps, etc. Here’s a silly, hypothetical one — a YouTube channel with a cover song and pop star portrait mashup. For example, imagine simultaneously seeing a portrait of Usher being painted from scratch and hearing a cover of his hit song.
The BIG question: What should the name of the YouTube channel be? (Pick 1 or 2)
Loading ...The other big question: Sure, it might be a fun endeavor for kicks. But would any YouTuber care to watch? Let me know what you think.
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How To Create a Google+ (Plus) Band Page
You’ve already got band page set up in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, ReverbNation, SoundCloud, YouTube, WordPress, and 50 other social networks. So why in the world should you create a Google+ Band Page?
Why creating a Google+ (Plus) Page is a no-brainer:
- It’s way to early to predict whether or not Google+ will build up a critical mass of followers, but it’s Google. Don’t ignore it.
- Google search results are likely to weigh Google+ profiles heavily in search engine results. It’s an easy way to get your band, your band’s music, your band’s videos, and your band’s witticisms indexed immediately within Google. (Google+ Direct Connect is a hint of what’s to come.)
- Google Plus enables you to actually communicate with your fans more directly and in more ways than does Facebook.
- Google Plus allows you to segment and organize your fan base into circles — friends, family, strangers, groupies, you name it.
- At the very least, it’s another opportunity to generate a free link to your other band properties for a little SEO love.
- It’ll take five minutes. Step away from your preamp and create Google+ magic while you down a doughnut.
Why it’s semi-brain dead:
- There is currently no way to add your music to your Google+ page, which kind of defeats its usefulness for bands. However, I’m sure all the big players (ReverbNation, SoundCloud, RouteNote, Nimbit, etc) are hard at work creating a Band App that will plugin.
- You can’t sync with your YouTube account. However, you CAN upload your music videos separately.
- Very few people are using it yet. But again, it’s early — don’t hold it against Google just yet.
How to create your Google+ (Plus) Band Page:
1. Pick a Google account to use. If you’re like me, you may have several. For example, I have one for my personal self, and another for my GarageSpin alter ego. Do I create a Google+ Band Page using my personal account, or my band account? It’s a simple decision, but will impact 1) what contacts you’ll be able to easily import at the outset, 2) where email notifications regarding Band Page engagement will be sent, and 3) how many Google+ profiles you’ll be forced to manage.
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Traffic Cut in Half on October 14th – Youch!
Organic traffic to GarageSpin.com dropped by 50% on October 14th, and I have no clue why. Don’t you hate that?
If you can explain why — perhaps a Google algorithm change? a once high-ranking post no longer carrying weight? — I will send you the first copy of my very next song to you for free. (Perhaps posting less than once a month contributed to the drop..?) Ah well. I usually try not to think too much about traffic, SEO, and rankings, but yeesh, that’s the most dramatic dip I’ve seen since I launched the blog in 2005… Onwards and upwards.
[UPDATE: Here's one theory and another theory. Many seem to be confused and bewildered as I am.]
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