GarageSpin

9 Online Tactics to Complement Your Band's Offline Presence

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This week kicks off with a guest post from Nick Lewis of Zimbalam, a European digital distribution company, giving solid tips around leveraging social media to build effective relationships with fans and influencers.  Take it away, Nick…

 A lot of bands make the mistake of treating their online and offline presence as completely separate entities, but actually, they should be used to complement each other.  Bands that gig a lot tend to have the most Facebook fans, and also tend to sell the most music online.

Online marketing is at its best when it’s used as part of a wider strategy, especially when used to maintain relationships that would otherwise have been lost.

Promoting Your Online Presence Offline

 The biggest part of social media marketing is building relationships with your fans. Of course you can build notoriety and establish a fanbase purely online by virtue of blog mentions and online PR, but your most readily available source of fans is gigs.

But think for a second, how many times have you seen a band at a gig that you really liked, but forgot about a few weeks later? That’s where your online presence kicks in, and why it’s essential to make sure people at your shows know where to find you on the internet.  So:

  • Put your Facebook/Twitter/website URL on all flyers and other promotional material where possible.
  • Provide a clear incentive for people to look you up and subscribe (e.g. ‘Free download forall Facebook fans’.)
  • Tell people about it over the mic. (No, it doesn’t damage your credibility, everyone’s doing it).

[Read more…]

How to Move Your MySpace Friends to Facebook

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MySpace is in trouble.  And potentially, so are your Myspace profile and Myspace friendships.  It’s time to move your Myspace friends to Facebook.

If you’ve invested any time, energy, or funds into building a network of friends and fans for a Myspace profile, that can be somewhat alarming.  Granted, MySpace will probably still be around for a while, but the constant bugs, the insane navigation, the banner ad cornucopia, and the now 47% smaller workforce maintaining the site, don’t lend a lot of confidence in the likelihood of site improvement over time.

Import Myspace Friends to Facebook

Yeah right, I wish.  Things are never quite so easy.  You can only indirectly plead with your MySpace friends to find you and “Like” you in Facebook.  Fortunately, Myspace offers several ways to help you jump ship, which I describe below.  If you’re like me, it’s been a long, long time since you’ve used any of Myspace’s functionality, and some guidance will help.

Ask Your Myspace Friends to Move to Facebook via Myspace Email

The best way to get a Myspace friend to connect with you in Facebook is to send them a Myspace email asking them to do so.  It’s a little tedious, since you can only email a maximum of 20 friends simultaneously, and have to enter each email address individually, but it’s the best way to reach your most important fans.  (Not recommended for all 50,000 of your friends, you spammer, you.)

Here’s how:

  1. Log into (or Login to?) your Myspace profile
  2. At the very top of the page, move your mouse over the phrase “My Stuff” (located next to “Discover”)
  3. At the far right side of the pop-up module, click on the “Compose” link under “Mail” [Read more…]

Add Music to Your Facebook Band Page with MyBand

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There are a number of great Facebook apps that enable bands to add a dedicated music tab to their band Facebook Pages.  Some of the best include ReverbNation’s MyBand Facebook app, RootMusic’s BandPage Facebook app, iLike’s (or now MySpace’s) iLike Facebook app, and Nimbit’s Facebook app.

I’ve been using MyBand for GarageSpin’s Facebook Page for some time.  Many of the newer ones, such as BandPage, however, looked sleeker and ran better, to the point where I loosely considered switching.  Until recently — ReverbNation launched a series of upgrades which are quite slick.

Check out the full MyBand App feature details on ReverbNation’s blog.  Or, skim the summary below, which I’m pasting from Jed’s announcement email:

1.  More attractive layout and design (still with unlimited songs, videos, and photos)
2.  Free custom header banner (Artists upload banner and link)
3.  Fan-exclusive downloads (Artists can exchange a free download for the fan’s email address inside of facebook, integrated with our FanReach product)
4.  Tour map, show schedule with details, ticket links, sharing
5.  Enhanced sharing mechanisms.  Fans can share a song, show, video, photos, etc with friends on facebook.  All facebook sharing uses our awesome sharing widget: http://tinyurl.com/28bbu3y
6.  Links to retailers like iTunes and Amazon
7.  Integrated Direct to Fan store (Reverb Store)
8.  Integrated Facebook comments
9.  Aggregated fan count stats (pulling in MySpace, Facebook, ReverbNation, Mailing list)
10.  Song lyrics

Pretty sweet.  I haven’t taken advantage of the new features yet, so don’t bother looking to me as a shining example…yet…

Grab Your Custom Facebook URL, or "Facebook Username"

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It’s Facebook-Username-Land-Grab time! As of 12:01 AM EDT, Saturday, June 13th, 2009, Facebook will allow anyone to create a “Facebook Username” for their existing user profile or Facebook Page.  (Previously, only selected partners were given the ability to do so.)  You should go out and grab your own Facebook Username, as soon as possible, if possible.

How To Get Your Facebook Username

Just go to Facebook.com/username (After 12:00 AM, on June 13, 2009), and follow the username creation instructions.

User Profiles will have to meet one requirement to enable Username creation:

  • They must have been live on Facebook prior to 3:00 PM EDT, on May 31, 2009.  (I’m guessing this will likely change at a later date to require that a user profile have existed for a certain minimum number of days.  Be sure to register your “Coldplay Rules” user profile today.)
  • UPDATE: This limitation is temporary. All users who joined Facebook after the cut-off will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Facebook Pages will have to meet two requirements to enable Username creation:

  • They must have been live on Facebook prior to May 31, 2009.  (Likewise, I’m guessing this will probably change at some point to a “minimum number of days in existance” requirement.)
  • They must have a minimum 1,000 fans as of May 31, 2009.  (Ouch.  So much for getting www.facebook.com/garagespin with my sub-100 fan count.)
  • UPDATE: This limitation is temporary. All Pages created after May 31, 2009 or that had less than 1,000 fans on that day will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Selecting a Facebook Username

Facebook Usernames won’t be able to be edited or changed, and are also non-transferable, so make sure yours is acceptable for the long term.  Only one Username is allowed per Page and/or user profile.  I.e. don’t do anything you’ll regret later.

Additional Facebook Username Info

How to Get Your Band or Music on Faceoook

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I just created a Facebook Page for GarageSpin. If you’re on Facebook, let’s connect.

What is a “Facebook Page”?  (i.e. not a “Facebook Profile”)

Most folks know how to use Facebook to create a regular, personal profile page. But not everyone knows about “Facebook Pages“, and if you’re a musician, band, or artist, you should. Facebook Pages were created by Facebook to enable bands, artists, businesses, politicians, whatever, to create pages for themselves within the social network that are separate from personal profile pages.

Why Should I Create a Facebook Page?

Well, it’s super easy, so why not? But more importantly, Facebook usage is skyrocketing, and it’s become one of the most popular social platforms for sharing stuff (links, photos, music, quotes, news, and random nonsense.) Rather than my writing a “Facebook for Dummies” post, you should try it yourself if you haven’t already. Check out these traffic trends (Facebook is blue, MySpace is red):

facebook vs myspace traffic

It’s clear that Facebook is currently crushing the once almighty MySpace, and isn’t close to stopping. As a musician or artist promoting music or art, you need to get plugged in. The Band Page can be used to communicate to fans, manage gig schedules, store video and event info, and other stuff. You can see an example of one by checking out my GarageSpin page.

How Do I Create a Band Facebook Page?

Create a Faceboook PageIt takes 2 minutes:

  1. Use your Facebook login to access your account (or create a new one).
  2. Then go to the Create New Facebook Page.
  3. Select the 3rd radio button titled “Artist, Band, or Public Figure”.
  4. Then select “Band” or “Musician” (or whatever applies) in the dropdown box.
  5. Click on “Create Page”.
  6. Your Facebook Page now exists. Now pimp it out with stuff. (Note: When you upload your music, you will need to upload a driver’s license or passport photo to verify your ID.)

Facebook Applications: How to Add Music to Facebook

So, maybe you’re not in a band, and you just want to add your favorite music to Facebook. There are some alternative, and pretty cool facebook applications built to let you add music to your personal profile. Facebook apps have been created by a bunch of third party websites. Two great facebook apps are the iLike app and Last.FM app. Be sure to check them out. You’ll need to create an account with any site whose Facebook application or music widget you decide to use.

If you’re in a band, and you want to add your band’s music to your personal profile page, you can do a couple things. Once you create a band Facebook Page, you can add it to your regular Facebook profile’s “Favorites” section. You can also use one of several band Facebook applications, such as the ReverbNation App. iLike’s and Last.Fm’s facebook widgets would also work. Which one you decide to use is your call.

Customize Facebook Profile

Facebook isn’t MySpace; it doesn’t allow much in the way of free facebook layouts, facebook hacks, or the other garbage that plagues MySpace. If you want to play with your band Facebook profile, customise it with the many Facebook applications that exist. There are some ugly apps out there, though, so be careful what you test or activate. (Personally, I use ReverbNation’s Facebook App.)

Be Searchable

A quick word about Facebook search optimization. If you have an odd band name or last name, be sure to somehow, somewhere, include multiple versions or spellings of your band’s name so your fans can find it. For example, if your band was named “Facebook” (though I’m not sure why’s you’d do that to yourself), you might want to include variations such as faceboook, facebok, faceboo, facbook, acebook, etc in a little “keyword” section somewhere within your profile.

Unblock With Facebook Proxies

Another quick word, this time for those of you who can’t use Facebook because it’s blocked at school or at work — use one of many Facebook proxies to unblock Facebook. A proxy is usually able to grant you access to your account indirectly, bypassing your school’s or company’s filtering systems.

Go Forth and Conquer

Okay, I rambled waaaay more than I intended to about the ‘Book. Take 2 minutes to create your own page, or add new music to your personal profile. Then, connect with me so we both have more friends and feel more popular.