photo by Cayusa

This post was written by Greg Rollett from Gen-Y Rock Stars, a music marketing resource and community for indie musicians. Check out their free Gen-Y Rock Star Tool Kit or email Greg for more information.

Social media is beyond the craze of the day. You can’t turn a corner online without hearing the latest social media trend, craze, site, testimonial or campaign. Everything from the beloved Twitter to Facebook to Wikis to blogs to Social Networks, everyone wants to have this conversation with their fans, customers and viewers.

And they should.

Conversation and word of mouth is one of, if not the, best way to increase sales and conversions for your products, your music, live shows or other endeavors. The problem for smaller bands, start-ups, bedroom songwriters and first time producers, who may have extreme talent, is that no one wants to talk to them because no one knows who they are.

How do you find these fans?

Essentially there are 2 ways to find fans online these days. You push hard for the free way, friending everyone in sight, commenting on blogs, walls, forums, etc, producing content in exchange for emails, use of sites like Digg, entering contests and other strategies for finding fans. This is very effective, yet time consuming to create media and build relationships.

What about buying some fans?

The second way is to leverage traffic from an existing site and find the exact people that would love your music and get it in front of them. This is also called advertising! Social network profiles allow for extreme demographic breakdowns and that can be a blessing for advertisers. In the music marketing world, it opens even more doors as most people on these networks are very open about their favorite artists, albums, movies and songs. This is advantageous because you can now place ads on the very pages of the people like like either a) your music or b) music that is similar.

Myspace and Facebook both offer this form of advertising and will only charge you when someone clicks on your ad. Myspace MyAds were designed for indie musicians to connect with fans on the service. Facebook’s platform is even more robust, offering targeting options for age, location and profile keywords.

The Future of Indie Artist Music Advertising

While the afore mentioned ad options are great, due to the sheer number of people on the networks, the best place for someone to learn about your music is when they are actually listening to music! Sounds simple right.

Think about it. You are listening to a station on radio, be it an FM station, Sirius, Pandora, whatever. You are hearing songs that you are familiar with and like, which makes since because you chose to listen to that station for a reason. When a new song comes on, one that you have never heard before, you become curious. You might look to see who the artist is and keep that artist on your mind, becoming more familiar with them every time you hear their music.

There are 2 services taking advantage of this scenario today. Jango and Grooveshark are taking the music discovery from the radio and adding in elements of Pay-Per-Click and demographic advertising together to create opportunities for indie artists to build their fan base.

With both services indie artists choose music and other artists that their own music would flow together with. When a listener on Jango or Grooveshark is jamming out to one of those artists, pay per play tracks will be added to their station giving indie the same opportunities to have their music heard on these stations. Listeners can instantly learn more about the artist in question and even buy tracks or support the band from inside the network, allowing for an instant increase in new fans with which to have conversations with, build trust and invite to shows.

Grooveshark estimates that from a 2,000 song pay-per play you can grab around 250 new fans. Not a bad trade off for $250. That’s about $1/per fan.

So the next time you think about finding some new fans, don’t be scared to buy some. These fans will be more interested in your music, your blog, your videos and attending your shows than those who get your SPAM messages and requests.

If you have used advertising for your band, tell us about it. What was cool, what wasn’t and what helped you on your quest to become a Gen-Y Rock Star.

It’s a question that so many songwriters that are just starting out will ask themselves: “Should I sell my music or give it away for free?”

You may be thinking, why would you give it away?!  If you want to make music your career, then you need to make music make you money!  True.  That is certainly the long-term goal of many songwriters.  But is charging a buck per song from the very beginning always the best way to acheive this goal?

When you’re on your very first EP or demo release, and you’re an unknown fish in a sea of gigging artists and bands, your goal might have a bit of a twist:  Get your music heard and appreciated by as many people as possible.  Maybe charging for your music is not the fastest way to acheive this goal.

But what about all of the hard work you put into writing, recording, and performing your music?  Do you not deserve to be compensated for this effort?  I say you absolutely do.  But the harsh reality is that only a lucky few ever reach a level of success that brings in real money from selling your music.  Furthermore, this is the wrong thing to be focusing on.

Focus on your passion.  It’s the reason you create music in the first place.  It’s the reason your music is good.  It’s the reason your music is appreciated.  I say set your music free by spreading it to as many mp3 sharing listeners as possible.  If your songs touch people’s souls, and you work hard to grow your fanbase and churn out more music, monetary success will come.

There other ways to keep your musical career afloat financially while you work to advance your career.  Drawing crowds at your live shows will earn you some cash.  Touring outside of your local scene has the potential to pay even better (although touring does have many expenses to consider).  Selling merchandise at shows and through your website is another way to monetize your musical endeavor.  But these methods will earn you nothing unless you have a growing fan base that is hungry for your goods.

Give the people what they want.  Free music that they can share with their friends.

Consider option 1: A first-time visitor to your website or Myspace page is absolutely floored by the streaming audio preview of your song.  They want the mp3 for their ipod, but it requires purchasing with a credit card.  Sure it’s cheap, but it requires getting out the plastic, typing in the credit card number, expiration, blah blah blah… “oh forget it, I’ll do this later” they think to themselves.  They forget to do it later.  You lost a potential fan.

Consider option 2: A first-time visitor adores your music and clicks to download the free mp3.  They throw it on their ipod, jam to it in their car, and play plugs your name or band to their friend.  The friend checks you out on the web and is not quite as sold on your sound as the first person was, but takes the trusted recommendation for what it’s worth and downloads the mp3 anyway.  After a week of listening they’re converted.  And they email your web link to a 3rd friend…

What do you think?  Is music for free the only option for budding artists in today’s music industry?

Open mic nights at local bars, coffee shops, libraries, and other places are a great outlet for songwriters looking for an easy way to take their music to a receptive audience.  If you’re a newbie to public performance then playing some open mics when you’re just starting out is a must.  If you’re a more experienced gigger, you might use open mics to try out your latest songs on a real audience, or use your open mic performance to promote an upcoming full set performance in the area, or at the same bar.

Here’s a list of some of the best go-to resources for finding a great open mic.  If you know of any other directories out there, please share them in the comments section.  Or if you’d like to promote a specific open mic, give it a shout out below and be sure to include the city, address, and start-time!

openmikes.org – This is a great resource.  Search nationwide by zip code, and find open mics in your neck of the woods.  They recently added embedded Google maps which makes the whole process even easier.  Another great feature of this directory is the comments section for each open mic listing.  User’s give some very helpful (or not) reviews of each spot, how it’s run, their experiences, tips, and advice.

Craigslist Open Mic Search – Craigslist is still a tremendous resource for just about anything.  This link takes you strait to an open mic search for New York City.  If you want to search in your city, and you’re new to craigslist, and you have come out from under the rock you’ve been living under, here’s how to quickly search for an Open Mic:  Click on your city, click on community, in the search box, type “Open Mic”, click submit.

Myspace Open Mic Search – There’s more to Myspace than posting mp3s and skinning your profile with nauseating designs.  The classifieds section is  pretty robust.  This link takes you strait to search results for “Open Mic”.

NJ Open Mic – This is a directory for all open mics and open jams happening in the glorious state of New Jersey.  It’s separated by the day of the week which makes it nice.  However if you’re not local to the dirty Jerse, then nothing is nice about this site.

Gigglechic.com Open Mic List – This list has a decent amount of open mics from a few specific regions.  There’s a detailed submission form for folks to post their open mics to the site.

This week’s links roundup is all things design and art related to the music world. Artwork, graphic design, and photography play a huge role in the presentation and appreciation of music. From concert promotion, cover art, web design, band photography, t-shirt design, you name it… great design matters. Here’s a batch of links to get your creative ideas flowing.

35 Beautiful Music Album Covers – From Smashing Magazine
The album is not dead!  At least when it comes to cover art.  This is a great source of inspiration if you’re planning an album or EP release.

Best Album Covers of 2008 – From Rolling Stone

Band Logos from Band ID book – From Sleevelessness

60 Concert Posters From Ten Amazing Artists – From Smashing Magazine
Lots of great stuff here.  This is a great display of styles from different corners of the design and music world.  Tremendous variety here.  I personally really dig the work of Mike Klay.

50 Amazing Gig Posters Sure to Inspire – From Well Medicated
Another helping of sweet concert poster art.

Billboard Top 40 Design Showcase – From Smashing Magazine
This list reviews the website of the Billboard’s Top 40 artists.  Whether you dig the mainstream stuff or not, the work that went into the web presence of these artists and bands is top notch.  Is your website ready to compete?

50 Hot Myspace Music Layouts That Rock – From Mashable
90% of the design on myspace is crap.  It’s unfortunate that the most popular network for bands and musicians is littered with so many awful and ametaur design layouts.  These are the exceptions, which are quite exceptional uses of the Myspace medium.

The Best Damn Live Music Photography – Flickr Group
Flickr has become a great time consumer for me.  This is an awesome collection of music photography.  Could be a great place to post and promote your concert snapshots of your band.

T-Shirts Countdown Chart: Music T-Shirts – From T-Shirt Countdown

One of the hardest things for an artist or band to do when they’re just starting out is to grow your initial following. You can only rely on bugging your friends and family to come out to your shows for so long.

Growing your email list is crucial to securing and keeping a following. It’s the most effective way to communicate directly with the people who make gigging and recording worthwhile.  In this article, I will talk about ways to increase your email subscriber count.  Be sure to check out the next article in this series, where I discuss the most effective ways to craft and send out your promotional emails.

There are several ways to gain new subscribers to your email list.

The first and best method is to promote your mailing list at all of your gigs. Mention it at least once while you’re on stage. Place lists with pens throughout the venue – near the stage, at the bar, at the door.  Be sure to provide a dark ball-point pen that writes well!  I have made the mistake in the past of using a pen that’s running out, or a sharpie marker only to find a list full of addresses that I can’t read!

Ideally, you should have somebody walking around with a sign-up list while you’re on stage.  If people are enjoying your set, they’re more likely to offer their contact info.  But they have short memories!  You can’t expect many first-time listeners to sign up for your list an hour or two after you get off-stage.  They’re already wrapped up in the band that came on after you, or they have left the bar and moved on with their bar crawl.

If you’re rolling solo, and don’t have a girlfriend or buddy to help you out with the leg-work during your live set, then you must get out there and promote your list yourself.  Do this immediately after wrapping up your set, so you are still fresh in people’s minds.  This is not the time to be shy.  Be friendly and outgoing and politely ask the people who watched you play if they’d like to offer their email address.  If they decline, you must respect their decision and simply move on.

In addition to grabbing email subscribers at your shows, you should have an email sign-up form on your website, Myspace page, Facebook profile, and all of your online social networking tools.  There are lots of easy ways to implement this.  I will write about this in depth in a future article.  For now, try Googling to find an email sign-up widget to place in your myspace profile (or contact me directly for web design inquiries).

You might also consider using a service such as iContact.com or aweber.com for managing your email list, adding sign-up forms, sending and tracking email blasts.  These are very powerful tools and they’re quite easy to use.

Get creative by adding incentives to signup for the mailing list.  If you’re promoting an album or EP, you might want to offer a few of the tracks as free downloads to those who enter their email address.  At your shows, offer a free sticker or other merch for signing up.

The next article in this series focuses on how to use your email newletter effectively.

I now turn it over to you – Which methods for growing your email list have worked for you?  Share your ideas in the comments!

It’s clear that the web is at the center of today’s music industry. Buying and selling music, watching concert videos, catching up on the latest music news, following the tour dates of your favorite artists, and most of all sharing music and the all important “word of mouth” — it all happens online.

Songwriters and bands embrace social networking sites to promote their music and gigs, reach out to fans, and create their web presence. For musicians, Myspace has long been the go-to resource, but the massive popularity of Facebook certainly makes it a community not to be ignored.

Each site has its advantages and disadvantages. I’ll break them down here based on the needs of songwriters and bands:

Promoting Songs

Myspace is still the easiest way to get your songs online and available for public streaming. They also just recently added some nice tools for selling music right on your page.

Facebook has music streaming capabilities however they require you to provide valid ID and wait for manual approval by Facebook admins. In addition, all Facebook pages are only viewable by logged in members, which leaves out many who haven’t signed up for Facebook.

Gig and Tour Promotion

Promoting events on Facebook is much more interactive than on Myspace. Friends can respond with comments and RSVP on the dedicated page for each event (gig). Since Facebook users tend to be obsessive about checking in and chatting it up, this can be a great way to create online buzz about an upcoming gig.

For larger tours, Myspace may be better suited here. Myspace friend lists tend to be much larger than those on Facebook. This is due Facebook’s structure as a network for your real world friends whereas Myspace is geared more towards meeting people and befriending strangers, which results in a lot of spam. Still, Myspace tends to have wider reach for keeping fans outside of your hometown informed.

Web Presence

On the one hand, Myspace pages are very customizable and finding a skilled designer who specializes in Myspace web design can do a lot for your online image.

On the other hand, Facebook lends itself well to constant interaction, making it a great way to reach out to your fans on a more personal level. Artists both small and large benefit from an intimate fan-artist relationship, resulting in a more dedicated and loyal fan base.

Bottom Line

My recommendation is to invest time in both Myspace and Facebook for your music networking and promotion. Each have very different communities so it pays off to find ways to get both into the mix when it comes to advancing music and growing your network of fans.

I’d love to hear your feedback about which of these sites works best for you, and hear about struggles and successes in the online space.