Indie Music Tech

Promote your Music and Expand your Fans with idiomag

A couple of weeks ago I learned about idiomag, a personalized digital music magazine that keeps you in the loop with your favorite musicians/bands by aggregating various types of content about these artists in a centralized and interactive format. The content includes audio, articles, photos, gigs, videos and more. What's compelling about this service is that idiomag deploys an intelligent system which adapts to a reader's interests as he/she rates the appeal of the content they are viewing, helping to refine the viewer's preferences.

An interesting service, I see at least three ways indie artists could benefit from using idiomag:

1) Bands and musicians can submit their MySpace profile for inclusion in the magazine for FREE. Within 24 hours, your MySpace profile and information will be sent to idiomag subscribers and readers that like your genre of music, enabling you to reach new fans.

2) Artists can promote their music on idiomag to relevant viewers for as little as $10. To do so, just send idiomag an email.

3) You can submit your band's feed for inclusion in idiomag, and then create a personalized magazine focused on your band that you could also publish on your Facebook page. Here's an example of what it could look like:

indieSOLO: get your band showcased

I just got an email from Johnny Ioannou, the founder of indieSOLO, a web site aimed at finding the best independent bands and musicians, and then showcasing them one artist at a time, each day. To have your band showcased, you must apply. If they like what they hear, then your band and music will be featured without any other bands for 24 hours, including your band's promo pic, a couple of songs and a brief bio. The site seems to be another tool to market your music, as on MySpace they say "it’s a destination for industry professionals, a place where they can uncover, book, and sign new talent." I don't know what their traffic numbers are nor who their audience is, or where their viewers are coming from, so it's hard to gauge how much value they can bring to your music. But the idea of presenting one band per day has promotional opportunities for you because it allows your music to be marketed without any other artists.

Broadcast your music in real time with Synchronicity Live

Looking for a way to broadcast your live shows in real time to your fans for free? Synchronicity Live can help you do just that and then some...  Synchronicity Live is a new music startup (about 9 weeks old) based out of Jacksonville Beach, Florida that is providing a way for bands and musicians to stream their live performances for free to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Here's how it works:

1) create a free account with Synchronicity Live
2) schedule your live performance and select on demand viewing
3) set-up your own video camera at your show's location and connect it to a computer with a high speed connection (at least a 300Kbps upstream) - it will also need to have the Flash Media Encoder installed with a few adjustments that allow it to communicate with Synchronicity Live
4) make sure your computer's internal clock and time zone are set to the location from which you are broadcasting from and
5) a few minutes before you take the stage activate your stream via the FME and your show will immediately be broadcast in real time on Synchronicity Live for anyone to watch.

Once the show is over you can archive it on Synchronicity Live for free, allowing your fans and lurkers who missed the show to view it when they can. Here's an example of an archived show from Sovus Radio.

I caught up with the founder of Synchronicity Live, Aric Berquist at the Atlantis Music Conference last week and he said that they make their money from forthcoming content distribution deals as well as advertising, but the ads are not intrusive and are barely noticeable. Right now there are about 3,000 people that have registered for a free account with Synchronicity Live, about 1,000 more than last week so the excitement is spreading.

Synchronicity Live is a very cool service.  Not to mention there are lots of ways you could use it beyond just broadcasting your live shows. For example, you could broadcast your studio sessions. This kind of real time streaming video will help you connect with your existing fans and tap into other music enthusiasts that may have never heard your music before.... what are you waiting for?

As always, I welcome your comments.

Peace

100 Places to Promote Your Music Online

I was just reading the Secret Music Life of Kat and stumbled upon this article, Marketing for Musicians: 100 Places to Promote Your Music Online by Laura Milligan on the Bootstrapper. It is just too good not to share so here it is.

Peace.

PayPerPost for Indie Musicians and Bands

Here's a promotional idea for you that you may or may not be aware of. When you release your next single or CD, have bloggers write about it by hiring them through PayPerPost. Not only will you receive reviews about your music, but you will also generate awareness about your band and gain traffic back to your site, increasing your changes that people who have never heard about you will like what they hear and purchase your music.

Here's how it works:

1) go to the PayPerPost web site and create an advertising account
2) deposit money into your new account via your credit or debit card - the amount is up to you, but typically you will need to pay each blogger at least $5.00 for them to take the time to write a blog review of your music, so 20 reviews will cost you $100.00
3) provide the details and settings for your music promotion, including providing the picture of your band you want bloggers to display in their blog posts, links to your music, the audience you want to target, the amount you wish to pay each blogger, etc., and then release it into the blogosphere. Once people begin blogging about your music you can see the statistics and traffic being generated.

That's it. You should start seeing posts written about your music and traffic back to your site within a day. If your music is good, the promotion may generate enough sales to pay for itself. More importantly, you will have new fans that you may have not reached without doing it.

However, there's a lot of controversy about paying people to blog about your music, so you may want to take that into consideration before doing this. Additionally, word-of-mouth marketing is more effective than paying people to write about your music. But, the bottom line is that there's a ton of music available online these days, so you've got to create ways for people to discover it. PayPerPost is only one of many possible solutions out there to help you do that.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Peace.

Twitter for Indie Bands and Musicians

By now, most of you Indie musicians and bands have a MySpace page, a Facebook account, a web site and a blog, and maybe a few other social apps. But I'm surprised as to how many of you still do not have Twitter accounts. Twitter is a great tool to stay connected with your fans throughout the day and week, as well as pick-up new fans as well.  Essentially, Twitter is a tool that allows you to quickly post brief statements about what it is you are up to. For the Indie musician, this means, for example, you could provide a quick update about new shows, new music releases, tour changes, links to reviews, ticket info, new swag, website or blog changes, new downloads, videos, venue info, etc... you get the picture, just be creative and be yourself, as it comes down to this: Twitter is another social App. you need to use to market and promote your music, and here are my top 5 reasons why you should start a Twitter account today:

1) It's a great way to tap into your existing fan base and grab a lot of new ones as well, as word of mouth travels fast on Twitter. Let me provide a brief example... Since Henry Rollins started using Twitter, he has generated so much momentum from his FREE self promotion on Twitter that he now has almost a 1,000 people following him on Twitter. You too could achieve this number with time and persistent Twittering, especially if your posts are creative, as everyone likes to follow Tweets that are interesting :-)

2) It's free and very easy to use, not to mention it takes less than 15 seconds to sign-up and get started posting.

3) You can add a another level of interacting with your fans in addition to your MySpace page, Facebook account, web site and/or blog. It's not about replacing these. Rather, it's about supplementing them, as it's simply another marketing tool to tap into new fans, as well as connect with your existing fan base.

4) The Indie music scene as a whole has not really begun using Twitter, so you could still be one of the early bands or musicians to start incorporating Twitter as part of your marketing efforts, which could pay off in a big way for you.

5) You need all the help you can get to market and promote your Indie band and music, so the question is, Why not?

BTW, when you register for a Twitter account and start posting, make sure you let your existing fan base know via all your other social apps, and send out an email announcement as well. They in-turn will forward this onto their friends that are using Twitter.

Peace, and as always, I welcome your comments.

Atlantis Music Conference

Some of you Indie musicians may be wondering if music conferences are worth the time, effort and expense, and the answer is a resounding yes, at least for most of these types of shows.  One such worthy music conference, the Atlantis Music Conference will be held in Atlanta, Ga in just a few weeks (September 19-22), and here are my top 4 reasons why you should attend this show:

1) It will be a great way for you to meet and introduce your music to scores of label and industry executives that will attend, not to mention a great way to connect with some of the estimated 32 thousand plus music enthusiasts that will gather during this 4 day event... It's your chance to get creative, become an extrovert and do some feet on the street marketing for your music.

2) There will be excellent panel discussions on topics like touring, publishing, music videos, song writing and more from folks like Allan Tepper of the Bicycle Music Company, Matt Singleton of Singleton Studios, Jay Harren of Columbia, Orlando McGee of Warner Brothers, Steve Robertson of Atlantic, Ken Blaustein of Capitol, Mike Jackson of EMI, and many, many more.

3) It's the 10th Anniversary of the Atlantis Music Conference and they are pulling out all the stops for this one, like the Music Industry Face Off.

4) Watch over 300 musicians and bands perform, some may even become tomorrow's headliners as during the past 10 years, Atlantis has helped launch the careers for many of today's most successful acts, like: John Mayer, Sugarland, Drive By Truckers, Angie Aparo, Shawn Mullins, Los Lonely Boys and many more.

So, what are you waiting for... go buy your tickets and get your game on. Here is the music schedule for the conference.

Peace.

Dinner with the Band

Denise Fraser of DC Communications just emailed me today about a relatively new on-line show from ON Networks called Dinner with the Band. The idea behind the Internet based culture show where culinary arts intersects Indie music is to introduce the public to new bands by appealing to their appetites. The show is hosted by Sam Mason, a former pastry chef of New York’s famous WD-50 and the proprietor of the soon-to-open contemporary dining and cocktail parlor, Tailor (rumored to have opened yesterday). Mason hosts the show from his apartment in the city and cooks up some eclectic cuisine while interviewing the bands during each episode, bringing together two passions for a lot of folks, including myself: food and music.

soon-to-open contemporary dining and cocktail parlor Tailor

Dinner with the Band looks like a really cool show. Here's a clip of a recent episode with the band Holy Hail making Miso Butterscotch Halibut... Wow! Looks fantastic!

So, if your an Indie band and live in New York, or are going to be in the area, then you need to send the folks at Dinner with the Band an email to get booked on the show. It would be a great opportunity to spread the word about your music, introducing yourself to thousands of potential new fans, and learn some cooking tips as well.

Peace, and as always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.