This is a guest article from Brian Speronello, a blogger and member of the band, Divergence. Check them out at divergencemusic.blogspot.com. Brian recently left a comment on the post about social networks so I asked him to flesh out his tips on using ReverbNation in a full article. Brian also wrote about ReverbNation in a two-part piece on his band’s blog, “10 Reasons We Love ReverbNation” (Part 1 & Part 2)
I bet a bunch of you are asking “what the hell is a ReverbNation?” ReverbNation is a social networking site for people interested in music. Now you’re probably saying “Isn’t MySpace based on music too and like, 1000 times the size of ReverbNation?” True, MySpace is heavily involved in music, however it doesn’t even come close to providing the kinds of services and opportunities for bands that RN does. MySpace does the basics, you can host a blog, post videos and pictures, put music on your page, and interact with people by adding them to your friends and messaging them. That’s about it. ReverbNation does all of that, does most of it better than MySpace, and then does a ton more on top of that.
The internet has obviously become one of the most important aspects of a band’s promotional agenda. However not every band can afford to hire a seasoned web master or has an internet-guru for a best friend to hook them up with free help on their web needs. That’s where ReverbNation comes in. They’re like the web-savvy best friend you never had, and they’re offering you all kinds of free help.
In order to get the most out of ReverbNation the first step is obviously signing up. Registration is free, and after that there is a little progress bar in the right hand corner of your home page (called the control room) to show you what parts of your profile are still missing. There are also a lot of FAQs and video tutorials so you should be able to get the hang of everything pretty quickly.
Once you figure out your way around the site the next obvious thing to do is put up some content. You don’t have to go crazy and post every demo recording you’ve ever done, just make sure that once you start getting people to check out your profile there is something exciting waiting for them when they get there. That should seem pretty intuitive to you, since the profile page is the basis for every social network out there you probably have some experience setting one up by now. After you’re profile is done it’s time to really start digging in and using ReverbNation for the powerful tools it offers. This is where I’m hoping to help guide you to get the most out of RN with a minimal amount of trail and error on your part.
The biggest advantage for using ReverbNation as the foundation for your web presence is how interconnected its services are. Because everything is being supplied by one provider they can link different features to each other, making each one more powerful in the process. Taking advantage of this connectivity is the fastest way put ReverbNation to work for you.
For me the most important service to set up would be the “Fan Reach” mailing list. If you already have your mailing list hosted by someone else I’d seriously think about switching over because once you have your mailing list on RN it makes a lot of other services on the site more powerful and effective for you. I’d send out one last e-mail from your old mailing list letting everyone know that you’re going to be switching providers for your mailing list, and that they will be getting a confirmation e-mail asking them to approve that they want to be added to the new list.
ReverbNation has fairly strict anti-spam measures put in place, which can sometimes feel like a hinderance. However abusing your fan’s trust is probably the most effective way of destroying your audience, so if you’re running into issues try to remember ReverbNation is most likely doing you a favor in the long run.
The reason I said to e-mail your fans from your old mailing list one last time to let them know you’re switching services is because one of the anti-spam features ReverbNation has in place requires all new contacts to “opt-in” to your list. This means that before you can e-mail someone that you’ve added to your mailing list by hand, one of two things has to happen. The first is that the new contact clicks “confirm” in a confirmation e-mail they get in their inbox, at which point they are added to the mailing list. Don’t worry though, if some of your fans are worthless and don’t check their e-mail on a regular basis the second way they get added is if there is no response after a 72 hour quarantine period. I know that it seems like a big process just to add someone to your mailing list, but in the long run it means you wind up with a lot less people putting your band’s e-mail address in their spam filter and a much more realistic perspective of who actually wants to hear from you.
One of the other benefits of the opt-in process is that it prompts the people signing up to enter information about themselves, like their birth date, gender, and location, which you can use to filter your contacts. Not only that, but you can also create groups for your contacts as well. This allows you to target your fans only with the messages they want to hear. If you’re releasing a new shirt or tank top for your female fans, you can filter your addresses to only message the girls on your list. If you’re playing a show in Belle Mead, NJ (where I’m from, come say hi if you are) you can message all the fans within a certain number of miles of zip code 08502 (the zip code for Belle Mead, NJ). If you usually play bars that are 21+ you can make sure to e-mail all your under-age fans when you’re playing an all-ages show by filtering your contacts by how old they are.
While those filters are a big help, in reality not everyone is going to enter their information for you, and I think that being able to let your fans in specific areas know when you’re coming back to play near them is probably the most important filtering option to have. To address this I’ve also created groups in our mailing list that are based on location. For instance our last show was in New York City, so when I was adding all the addresses that we got on our clipboard after the show, I made sure to tag them all with our “Tri-State Area” group label as well. It’s really easy, just click the check box that says “add these people to group [group name]” when you’re submitting the addresses and all of those new contacts will also get added to the group. That way when you’re looking to contact people about future shows in their area you’ll have two different filters in place to help make sure they get the message even if they don’t put the zip code in when they click confirm.
Another thing I’ve found helpful is hanging on to the mailing list papers you have people sign at gigs, because if someone never clicks “confirm” in the subscription e-mail they get you won’t have any information for them besides their e-mail address. If you still have the paper they signed at the show after the 72 hour quarantine period, you can go back and at least add first names, last names, and most likely genders if it’s easy to guess based on their name, for the people who didn’t fill in any of their own information. Also you can put in the zip code of the venue they saw you at since you don’t have their exact zip code, but if you’ve got them tagged with the geographic groups like I mentioned in the last paragraph you don’t have to.
Ok, so now that your profile is setup and your mailing list has been transferred over to “Fan Reach,” it’s time to take advantage of the connectivity I was talking about earlier to use other aspects of your ReverbNation profile to enhance the value of your mailing list, and visa versa. The next part of this post will go over using widgets, graphic/text links, and “Fan-Exclusives” to drive more people to subscribe to your mailing list, and then will finish with some tips to help speed up the composition process when it’s time to send out your first message from your “Fan Reach” mailing list.
Related posts:
- Get The Most From ReverbNation – Widgets & Fan Exclusives
- Tips for Growing Your Band’s Email List
- Rock Solid Email List Management from Champion Sound (+ Coupon!)
- Social Media for Bands and Songwriters
- Links Roundup: Find an Open Mic
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Thanks for being part of the conversation at Serve The Song. We have a simple comment policy (with thanks to Tim Ferriss) - critical is fine, but if you’re rude we'll delete your stuff. ’Nuff said.
03/10/2009
9:13 am
Matt Rod
Nice, informative article.
Have recently been searching for a mailing list ‘organiser’. ReverbNation’s does seem quite good, although I have found a few alternatives (scriggleit.com, championsound.com) – anyone have any first hand experience with those?
The ReverbNation ‘fan reach’ mailing list looks really well. My one concern is the following: their widgets (especially media players) I pretty slow. Do you find this too? Are there alternatives?
It seems like ReverbNation really jumped on this idea for the self-promoting ‘middle-class’ musician and have some great tools. No one else seems to have as many options as them (this is what is pulling me towards them)
03/10/2009
9:20 am
Brian Casel
Haven’t used scriggleit.com or championsound.com, but on first glance – both look like pretty solid tools and FREE (from what I can see).
good finds
03/10/2009
12:26 pm
Brian Speronello
I haven’t found the widgets from RN to be slow. At the same time there may be sites out there that do widgets a little better, or a mailing list a little better, however they only do that one thing. RN does pretty much everything you could ask for, all from their one site, so for me that was the attraction. It kept things simple, rather than having a ton of accounts at different places I just have one place to go for all of my online promotional needs. And they do a really good job in my opinion.
08/23/2009
12:17 am
Zxirupofrur
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