Building a Fan Base One Profile at a Time
Social networks play a surprisingly important role in the average person?s life. We use them constantly; many of us are probably logged into Facebook or Twitter while we work on projects, surf the net, or read blogs. Social networks are useful to us! We can easily tell our huge buddy lists all the exciting news of the day, or just solicit for something to do in the evenings. Social networks allow us to keep in contact, or reconnect, with old friends, and even find some new ones.
Music-based social networks, like JukeboxAlive, work in much the same way. JukeboxAlive is a great way to find and to stay connected with people who are interested in the same types of music, or just music in general. Social music networks are an efficient, easy way to express yourself with others in your area. They are also a great way to find new local music that you may not have heard before and learn about local shows.
If you are a musician, social music networks are a great way to recruit interest in your music. While there are certainly other ways to make sure that listeners in your area hear your sound, posting your latest songs to your JukeboxAlive page makes your work easy to find. People will stumble across it while they search through members. You can also search for potential fans by browsing the members in your area as well. In no time you could make sure that your album finds its way to plenty of eager new fans and that your shows are always packed!
One More Way to Put Yourself Out There
You may have noticed one of the links at the top of the page: FlyJBA. It?s not quite ready yet, but it?s on the way! In the coming weeks, the beta website will be up and running. FlyJBA will display a wide variety of Asheville events for you to enjoy and pass on to friends. It?s a great way for you to find ways to connect with your community and have a great time doing it! FlyJBA will display regional events, workshops, concerts, classes, and unique Asheville gatherings. It?s user friendly and a great way to make sure that you don?t miss any of the Asheville fun!
Using FlyJBA, you can pick your location and how far you are willing to travel for an event. You can search by categories and customize your search too, so you don?t have to spend a lot of time shifting through events that just aren?t what you?re looking for. You can search by band name if you?ve got something in mind already or by music genre if you?re not quite sure what?s out there. FlyJBA will make finding something to do simple! You can even keep your dates organized with a handy calendar widget. If you find something that you know a friend will enjoy, you can send them details directly from the website!
You can put yourself out there too! If you have an upcoming Asheville gig, a listing on FlyJBA will be a great, easy way to promote yourself. Your fans, and maybe even some music lovers who haven?t discovered you yet, can find when and where you?re playing. It?s an easy and fun way to make sure that your shows stay packed!
New Perks for Premium Musician Accounts
If you currently have a JukeboxAlive (JBA) free musician account, you?ve discovered the great features already available to you. Your JBA profile doubles as a great website for your band, and it?s easy to manage! You?re able to upload your music and news about your band, and post and share upcoming gigs. It?s a great way to connect with fans, and attract new ones. Have you thought that you might want to do a little more with your page?
If so, it might be time to look into upgrading your free account to a Premium Musician account. Premium Musician accounts on JukeboxAlive offer an array of awesome features that are not currently available to our free users. By upgrading, you can upload and share videos of your awesome live performances. You can upload multiple albums to your page so that fans can hear even more of your unique sound when they log in. You can post performance and backstage photos that you?re excited about, and make use of your electronic press kits (EPKs). Premium accounts make it easier for you to make an impression in the music community and to share all of your hard work and good times!
Now, there?s one more perk to having a Premium Musician account: you have the option to turn off the ads on the site! That?s one less distraction for you while you connect with your fans. Sounds like a good deal right? And the best part: All of this is available to you for less than 20 cents a day!
Getting Publicity for Your Band Part 1
If you?re an independent musician, chances are you?re wearing several hats on any given day-- booking agent, manager, publicist, and anything else that needs taken care of. When it comes to being your own publicist, the goal is to get your name out to potential fans and even current ones as much as possible. Staying in their ?radar? will help you immensely, helping you get attendance at shows, selling more records, and the like. One place to get started is to create a fact sheet for your band that you can then distribute to booking agents, send to music journalists before an upcoming show, or anyone else who needs to know about your band and what you?re about.
Here are some basics you?ll want to include on your fact sheet:
The name of your band: Nirvana
Genre of music you play: Grunge
City of Origin: Seattle
Band members?by name and instrument: Kurt Cobain- lead vocals, guitar....
Points of Interest- how many records have your released? What venues have you played? What are your lyrics usually about?
Additional Info?here?s where you include anything else you may think is worth knowing. Who?s reviewed your band favorably, any radio or TV appearances, and the like.
Contact information- I can?t stress this enough. At the bottom of your fact sheet, include your band name, contact numbers, email, your website, JukeboxAlive URL, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace information. Remember that the more opportunities you give to be contacted, the better!
Tips for Band Photos That Rock
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and you should certainly keep this fact in mind with band photos. Decide as a band what kind of impression you're seeking to get across to the world and then make sure your photos are striking in just the way you wanted. Your band photos will immediately convey some image, so make sure it's a good one.
Keep in mind that many professional photographers specialize in a particular variety of photography, so hold out until you find a professional music photographer. If there's a local band with photography you've admired, contact them for their photographer's contact information for an easy connect, or ask around your contacts in the music business for a referral. Ideally you'll find a music photographer who can provide a wide range of services like album covers, live concert shots, and maybe some shots in their studio or your band's favorite hangout spot. Remember that working with a photographer makes you the customer, so make sure you talk to the photographers and choose the one you think best understands you as a band and the kind of photos you're looking for.
Music Promotion Tip Ways to Distribute Your Demo
In the same way that grocery stores give out free samples of products that you'll hopefully try and maybe even purchase, giving out your demo is a good approach to getting out the word (and sound!) of your music to as many people as possible. Besides the more obvious ways of handing out your demos at your shows and giving out copies to your street teamers to give out, here are some more unique yet amazingly effective ways to get your demos out to the music-savvy masses:
Donate to Libraries- Most libraries today have a nice collection of CDs of all musical genres to checkout patrons, so why not donate your own record to add to the mix? You can even talk to local school libraries to see about donating your CD. Making your CD available to the public is a great way to get your music out to a wide audience, and you're doing a good thing for society by contributing to music programs.
Give free copies to record stores. Your local independent music store will probably be happy to randomly distribute your demo to their customers when they make a purchase or have an area of their counter where you can stack a few and invite people to take one. What better way to deliver your music to the right audience than to put it in a store where people shop for music?
Leave at coffeehouses, lunch counters, etc. I found a book once on a bathroom counter that said "Please take me... I'm free!" I did, and later found a note inside encouraging me to either pass the same book along or to pay it forward with a book from my own collection. Why not try and do that with your demo? Everyone loves free stuff, and who knows the hands it will end up in? Make sure you attach a note to it, though, so it won't end up in the trash
Turning Your Fans on to Other Artists
If you're longing for a more supportive environment to introduce your music into, why not do the best you can do to create and nurture this type of environment? When you do what you can to build a positive atmosphere to share music, it's only natural that this same energy will come back to you, so ready to get started? Think of it as the Golden Rule of Music Marketing... basically, treat others' music the way you'd like others to treat yours. If you just heard a local band's record and were impressed by it, why not blog about it? Fans love updates, and they'll appreciate the tips about local music they should check out. And, more importantly, you'll come across as generous and accommodating-- not so obsessed with marketing your own music that you don't have time to appreciate someone else's.
Professionally, bands will start to hear through the grapevine that you're the one that's been sending all these new fans their way via your recommendations-- and these are the kinds of contacts and connections that help you secure a spot in the local music scene, not to mention opportunities to open up for other bands, collaborating with them musically, and getting other bands to recommend your music.
When you treat other musicians and the music they make with the same respect you'd like your own band and music to receive, you're doing your part in creating the supportive environment you want your music to exist inside.
Designing the Perfect CD Cover Part 2
Printing or Label on the disk- Some artists leave their discs blank for artistic effect or maybe even to cut costs, but try to at least have the name of your band and your logo. Also include contact information including the URLs to your band website and links to the social networking sites.
Booklet or Tray Card - Credits, lyrics, thank yous, pictures, and common features for the CD insert, and include all of your contact information again. Remember that including your contact information in as many places as possible will make it easy for those interested in you and your music to get in contact with you.
Spine-Standard details are the artist name and logo, the name of the album, and the name and label of your record company (if you used one).
Put thought and informed criticism into every aspect of your CD's design. Think about the last time you visited a record store and bought a CD of a band you'd never heard of before without listening to it first. What factors made you interested in buying it? It's this interest you want to cultivate in music executives, promoters, and consumers, compelling them to buy your CD.
Designing the Perfect CD Cover Part 1
Chances are that when you were a child you were instructed never to judge a book by its cover, but you still did it, right? In the same way, you should design your CD cover with your audience in mind. They're going to be more interested in listening to your music if your cover appeals to them. Your CD cover truly is the best advertisement for your music, and may be the deciding factor of whether or not music executives decide to listen to your demo or consumers choose to buy your album without being able to listen to it first. Here's how to pick a cover that really pops and works to generate fans and CD sales:
Front Cover- Make sure the name of your band is on the upper third of your cover and clearly visible, ideally in a unique logo design. You also want to make sure that the title of your album is easily distinguishable from your band name. When it comes to your cover art, try to make it relate to the genre of your music. The style of it should hint at the genre of music you make... when it comes to designing your front and back covers, remember that in many cases this is your only chance to appeal to the music industry and the consumer, so make the space work for you!
Back Cover- on your back cover, you'll want your band name, a numbered list of song titles/times, contact information, and links to your band website, JukeboxAlive and other social networking profiles. Even if someone just sees your CD in the store and goes to visit your website or social networking profile later, you'll still have made some headway in recruiting fans. Plant as many seeds as possible to grow your fan base by including all the contact information you can-- you may be surprised at the amount of information that "sticks" with people enough to follow up on interesting musical leads later.
The Importance of Good Web Design
Your website is often the first point of contact between your potential customers and your business. That being said, what does your business' "front door" say? A good search engine ranking will certainly direct traffic to your website, but keeping internet users on your website should really be the goal. The key to effective web design is communicating with your visitors in such a subtle way that they don't even realize it. Even better, a website with well-written content that delivers your business's message inside of an easy-to-navigate site design will please both visitors and search engine spiders alike.
When you trust Big Blue House Designs with your website redesign needs, we'll make sure your site is easy for users and search engines to navigate, includes several specific calls to action, and loads quickly, all while improving your website's search engine ranking. Whether you have an idea in mind to improve your site by adding a blog, a content management system, developing and equipping your website for e-commerce, or other goals you have in mind, Big Blue House Designs experienced team of designers, programmers, and writers will help you get there.