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How to engage fans with a mobile app you create…for free

May 11, 2012 by Mike 25 Comments

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…

Let’s face it, pursuing a music career is one of the last professions today where a self-directing individual can be left to his or her own devices. As proof, take a look at these bands and what they’ve achieved so far. Whether it’s Foo Fighters or Queens of the Stone Age, Teenage Fanclub or Radiohead, Twin Sister or OK Go, the single variable that defines any musician is how they built careers on their own terms. That’s the way it is, that’s how it
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!

***

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.

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Filed Under: articles, Music Promotion Tagged With: diy, mobile app

Nimbit's Instant Band Site WordPress Plugin

October 4, 2010 by Mike Leave a Comment

band site plugin for wordpressWell, any band that still doesn’t have a website shouldn’t have too much more of an excuse to delay.  Nimbit (which apparently stands for “New Ideas for Music Business and Internet Technology”…phew, quite a mouthful)  just created a FREE WordPress plugin called Instant Band Site that offers pretty much all of the most important functionality a band might need.  A few of the features include:

  • Storefront for downloads and merchandise
  • Photo album page
  • Email list sign-up functionality
  • Music player
  • A bunch of other pages, plugins, widgets ‘n’ goodies…

Some of the drag-n-drop content modules don’t look as aesthetic as the could be.  If you use too many in the sidebar, for example, it gets packed with quite a lot of text (which is even apparent in the “Developer’s Walkthrough” video).  But otherwise, the key content pages/modules are solid.  The Storefront Page looks especially good, and I’m actually considering using it  for GarageSpin at a later date, when I have more finished music available.

Bands still need to 1) have a webhost (which costs something), and 2) install WordPress (which is free).  “Pro” (non-free) versions of the plugin do even more.  Definitely worth considering if you’re amping up your site to sell directly to fans, especially if you’re looking to spend more time on music, and less on blog-tweaking.  Kudos to Nimbit for a solid offering.

You can check out more info on the free plugin here: Nimbit’s Instant Band Site plugin.

Filed Under: Website Tagged With: Add new tag, diy, instand band site, nimbit, wordpress plugin

Interview: Brian Hazard (Color Theory), Winner of John Lennon Songwriting Contest

June 8, 2009 by Mike 14 Comments

Color TheoryIf you were to list traits and skills of a DIY musician destined for success, what would be on your list? I might argue that strong lyrical and musical sensibility, audio technology mastery, and marketing prowess should be.

Which brings me to Brian Hazard, of the solo act Color Theory.  A little background — Color Theory recently won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the Electronic music category (and is about to go up against other category winners for the Song of the Year award). So clearly, Brian’s got serious songwriting skills.  If you listen to his winning song, “If It’s My Time To Go”, you’ll immediately notice his musicianship and great vocal ability.  He also happens to be an audio mastering engineer, running his own mastering studio at Resonance Mastering.  Furthermore, Brian knows how to leverage online media to successfully promote his own music in a web 2.0 world, and shares his experiences at Passive Promotion.  So check, check, and check.

Once I learned about Brian, I wanted to get to know him better — so I interviewed him.  Check out the Q&A:

***

GARAGESPIN: So Brian.  You (Color Theory) recently won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in April.  That’s awesome.  Tell us about the song, and the process that lead to the victory.

BRIAN (COLOR THEORY): The song was originally created in collaboration with my friend Caesar Filori of Wideband Network. I sent him three piano sketches to pick from, and he sent me back a rough demo of his choice. The dark and melancholy character of Caesar’s demo inspired my lyrics. I recorded vocals and he wrapped up the mix.

After a few months, it became clear that neither of us had time to do an album together, but I didn’t want the song to go to waste. He gave me the okay to create a new version of it for my latest album, The Thought Chapter. The original version that Caesar produced is featured on a follow-up EP entitled Second Thoughts.

As for the contest, that was kind of a fluke. I’ve submitted to song contests over the years and got a few honorable mentions, but overall felt they weren’t worth the effort. The deadline for the John Lennon Songwriting Contest came just after I finished the song and was feeling overly optimistic about its chances.

GARAGESPIN: Where do you get your song inspiration?  What hits you first — lyrics, melody, a song title, a piano chord lick?

BRIAN: I usually start from a title. When one hits me, I’ll rough out some stream-of-consciousness prose to make sense of it. Next I’ll flesh out the song structure and melody. Then I’ll mold the useful bits of my garbled prose into a lyric. The production goodies come at the end – typically the hardest part for me. At that point, I just want it to be done. I can only spend so much time finessing automation envelopes.

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Filed Under: Band Contests, Interviews Tagged With: color theory, diy, interview, john lennon contest, songwriting contest

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