Now before you sign up to half a dozen new sites just because we mentioned them, it’s important to decide ahead of time what your goals are.  Are you looking to reach a wider fan base, connect with other musicians, or experiment with innovative artist tools? While most music-centered social networks offer all of the above, we recommend doing some research and asking your fellow musicians and music fans which sites they enjoy.

If you’re looking to expand your fanbase, you’ll want to join networks that fit your target audience  It’s important to go to where your fans are rather than expecting them to find you.  Remember that effective marketing means targeting the right groups.  If you make face-melting metal, don’t bother joining Dilettante: the classical music social network.

Below are a handful of popular social networks that are worth checking out.  Just remember, the best social network for one band might not be the best one for another. This list is hardly comprehensive and we encourage you to do some researching on your own.

YouTube

Yes, we all know about YouTube.  But people often forget that YouTube is a place where you can engage music fans and musicians socially.  Create your own YouTube channel and your fans can subscribe to your updates.  Did you know that YouTube is one of the most popular online tools for discovering music? It’s true!

Tumblr

Tumblr is similar to Twitter but is growing in popularity because it does not have a 140 character limit.  Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything.  Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos.

Tumblr seems to appeal primarily to users between 18 and 34 years of age (audience profile at  quantcast).

Flickr

Flickr is a hugely popular photo sharing site.  Uploading photos of your performances, band pics, album artwork, and other related images will make it easier for people to find and share your content online.  It also makes your photos available to the press and bloggers (providing you publish with a Creative Commons License) so they can use your pics in the glowing articles they write about your music.  Flickr also allows you to put a slideshow widget on your website.

Musician Focused Sites

Last.fm

Last.Fm is a popular music discovery site.  Similar to Pandora but with social networking aspects so that fans can promote the music they like.  You can use this site to get feedback on your music and learn more about who your music appeals to.

iSound

Similar to Last.FM, iSound is a intelligent music discovery tool that musicians can use to connect with new fans.

Sellaband

Sellaband connects fans and listeners of bands in a unique way.  Fans are able to invest in a band or artist they support in order to fund their favorite group’s next recording. Every single investor that supports a successful band will take home a small cut of the profits made by them. Artists not only get financial support but also share 50% of the ad revenue coming from the free downloads of their music.  A similar fan-funding service  is Rockethub.

Soundcloud

This site is great for music sharing! It allows people to leave time based comments on your music tracks and the social features make it great for managing collaborations.  The drag and drop features make sharing super easy.

Lafango

This site reaches a slightly wider audience, bringing together musicians with photographers, videographers, and more. It can give you control over how you look to others and what collaborative projects you can jump on. Very cool site overall!

There are a number of sites out there that cater to geographical locations, languages and music preferences as well, so a great place to really delve into the world of social networking sites is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Now it’s important to remember when reaching out to your fans to first make your website the hub of information. Think of social networks as your fishing poles and your website as your boat. All those social networks should draw people to your website. Having your own branded  site is incredibly important.  It’s great to have your content in other people’s stores, you should have your own store and promote yourself the way you want, on a site that’s all about you and that you control.

If you would like to recommend a social network to your fellow musicians.  Please share them in the comments.

]]> http://blog.hostbaby.com/2010/08/social-networking-beyond-myspace-facebook-and-twitter/feed/ 5 http://blog.hostbaby.com/2010/04/put-your-website-on-top-of-the-heapimprove-your-site-listing-on-search-engines/ http://blog.hostbaby.com/2010/04/put-your-website-on-top-of-the-heapimprove-your-site-listing-on-search-engines/#comments Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:30:17 +0000 Toby http://blog.hostbaby.com/?p=919 Now that your website appears on search engine result pages, wouldn’t it be nice to see your site appear at the top or close to the top of the list? There are commercial services out there that sell “web site promotion” and “search engine optimization” services. These can be costly and there is a lot you can do to improve your site’s ranking without shelling out the bucks.

I. Embed links to popular websites

One powerful way to improve your search engine score is to include links to popular websites.

1. If you have any videos on YouTube, add them to your site. A recent Hostbaby blog post dives deeper into adding videos to your site.
2. If you are on Facebook, add a Facebook Badge to your site
3. If you use Twitter, share your tweets on your site.
4. If you use Myspace, add that link to your site.

II. Adding links to online stores

1. Add links to stores that sell your music. If you sell your music through CD Baby, use the cool “Buy Now” buttons CD Baby offers. You can search for your album buttons using the CD Baby Link Maker.
2. If your music is available through iTunes, add links to them as well.
3. Other online music sites (Digstation, Rhapsody, etc.) and basic stores (Paypal, Payloadz, e-junkie, etc.) also may be embedded into your site.

III. Enable Share-It

A recently added feature to wizard accounts is the “Share It” feature, which makes it easy for visitors to share your web pages on their social networking (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) sites. It’s a great way to get some fan-driven viral marketing rolling. A recent Hostbaby blog entry explains how to use this feature.

IV. Build an online community with a Blog

Blogging is a great way to communicate with your fans. If you enable comments to your blog articles, you have the potential of building an active online community fans. This takes a commitment as you will want to make sure you submit new blog entries as well as respond to fan comments, but the more traffic generated, the more your internet search engine score will be increased. Here’s a blog entry giving an introduction on how to blog.

V. Forget Meta-Tags

One obvious omission from this list is using meta tags. Meta tags used to be a significant factor years ago in search engine indexes and scores – so much so that they became overused to the point of being meaningless. In fact, Google no longer even uses meta tags. Forget about using meta tags. If interested read more about them here.

Let’s get one thing straight here right away – good photography can make or break whether or not people will hire you, feature your music in their magazine, or even just stay on your web site for more than 10 seconds. Is the image you are projecting about your music accurate and compelling?

Following are tips and ideas about how to translate your music into a look and feel that calls attention.

THE BASICS

Let’s check out an example of the way, sadly, that many musicians handle their images.

1. It’s a dark snapshot taken with a point-and-shoot camera.
2. It doesn’t pack a visual punch equal to his amazing ukelele skills.
3. He looks like he’s being sent to time-out.
4. The image is too dim to be picked up and published by an interested writer, or envisioned on a poster by someone booking acts for a festival.

In the end, grandma and his friends may love it… unless grandma is a print journalist who wants to feature him.

…

A better way to go about it.

1. It’s got great contrast because was taken with a DSLR camera, and then edited with a free online editing tool.
2. It reflects the idea of crisp, professional playing.
3. He took more time to relax and have fun during the shoot, which brought more confidence into the photo.
4. The image is something a promoter or fan would be happy to print out and use.

DETAILS, AND MORE ABOUT CAPTURING YOUR SPECIFIC STYLE

Show them what you are about.
Just as it’s important to be able to describe your musical style in a few words, it’s also a good idea to repeat that with your visuals. So what is your style? The depths of a goth ocean? Lighthearted powerpop? Wacky? Then be sure to keep that as the theme of your photographs. Interact with your band members in the photo, set up a scene. If you don’t like to act and want to have a straight portrait made, even the depiction of the motion of adjusting a collar says volumes. People won’t be able to hear you on a flyer, so make it good!

Be yourself.
If you are relaxed you’ll get better pictures. Jump around, loosen up, be silly a bit, breathe. It’s often good to have the camera on rapid-shot setting to capture the more casual look people have on their faces right after looking at the camera.

Avoid the cliche’s, unless you want to break them out of the mold!
The two most tired out themes of musician photos are:
1. Person walking down train tracks.
2. Band in front of a brick wall.
Those two setups are so ubiquitous that they have become an old joke in the music industry. You’ll find tons of articles making fun of them. However, the only reason those don’t work is because people think they can just stand in front of a wall and it will have meaning. Sorry, but it doesn’t, it’s generic. However, it’s really easy to break out of that mold. Some say that such rules are made to be broken, and they sure can be. So if you REALLY want to stand in a row on the train tracks, in front of a brick wall and are ready to WORK IT… go for it! Just make sure that instead of blankly staring at the camera, you are *doing something*. Act out the name of your latest album. Tell a story. Have a herd of cattle running at you up the tracks. Or people in cow suits. Be pounding on the brick wall. I think you probably get the idea now.

Use good equipment if you can – and edit your photos after taking them.
Professional photos are great if you can hire someone, but if you are low on cash, a friend with a decent camera will be fine, or you can find a student photographer who wants to add more to their portfolio – just be sure to credit them for their work if it gets published. Try to use natural light where possible. If you want to go low fi and use a polaroid for that retro indoor flash vibe, that’s fine, just be sure to give the photo a lot of contrast using a photo editing program to heighten the look! Editing can be crucial, especially if you don’t have access to a good camera. You can use free tools online, or offer up your image to the Fix My Pic group on flickr.com to see what other folks can do to spice up your images.

Make sure you have high resolution images taken, in color.
Most publications will want high resolution (usually 300 dpi) images, so keep those versions ready on your computer in case you need to send them out, or link to them from your web site. It’s easy to convert color images to black and white if necessary, but obviously if someone needs color shots of your band, you’ll be out of luck if all you have are black and white. The easier you make it for folks to use your images, the more likely they will!
…

AND IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO… FOCUS!

In the end, it’s about capturing your sound, distilling your spirit, and translating that into an image that folks can take away to better remember who you really are… which is probably what you have been doing with your music, right? Enjoy!

Resize Images for Image Bank

Most digital cameras take pictures at very high resolutions. Images for web pages should be much lower resolution to ensure fast loading and display for online visitors. This article explains how to resize pictures and includes links to several free online picture resize/ crop tools.

Log Into New Wizard

All Hostbaby wizard account users should be using the new Hostbaby2 wizard to take advantage of the latest features and fixes. This article explains how, as well as what to do if you encounter login problems.

Adding Dates to New Calendar

Hostbaby has recently added new features to the calendar. This requires a different sequence for adding events. This article explains how.

How to export, clean up, and import addresses into Listbaby

Many people have large contact lists they wish to import into Listbaby, which is Hostbaby’s mail list program. The data file must be in the proper format. This article explains how to clean up the data to ensure a smooth import into Listbaby.

Adding CDBaby Buy Buttons to your website

If you have recordings for sale on CDBaby, there are some very nice Buy Now buttons you can enter into your website. This article explains how.

Changing your Credit Card online

Hostbaby customers may check their charges and payments online, make payments anytime of day or night, and change the credit card we have on file. This article explains how.

Streaming Audio Player

Hostbaby customers who want to have music play for website visitors should refer to this article.

Check out our step-by-step tutorial here:
http://www.hostbaby.org/wiki/Embedding_Youtube_Video