© CHRISCB PHOTOGRAPHIE

If you want to promote yourself and sell your music Online, in my view, you need to get yourself a website (not just a number social networking profiles and a blog) - that’s what UnsignedBandPromotion.com is all about! But it doesn’t stop there, once you’ve got yourself a website you will need to promote it to get visitors - your website needs "traffic".

Targeted Traffic is the Buzzword here. What I’m talking about is attracting hundreds of visitors who are interested in your genre and lifestyle to your website. And quite frankly it doesn’t matter what you are promoting online, whether it’s music or cars, if you want to be successful you need masses of targeted traffic. Most websites get the bulk of their traffic from Google! Google is the most important supplier of traffic for the typical business website, in fact, an average of 65% of visitors could come from Google - that’s a lot, but I’m not talking about search engine optimization, I’m talking about asking your fans, friends and family to help - and don’t forget to keep saying Thank You.

5 Ways Fans Can Help To Promote Your Band

1. Ask fans, friends and family (FFF) to join you on: Facebook, Myspace, ReverbNation, Twitter, Wordpress, Youtube. Then ask FFF to spread the word by/via: Updates, Bookmarks, Bulletins, Emails, Pings, Retweets, Tagging, Comments and Posts… talking about your band, genre and lifestyle.
2. ReverbNation almost has a plethora of widgets and a street team ‘organizer’. Ask FFF to share your widget by putting it on their websites, blogs and social networking pages. Via email, ask your FFF to join your street team, then create a street team mission. Read Brian Hazard’s excellent blog post, My first ReverbNation street team mission.
3. Ask FFF to link to you and encourage others to do the same. Create a set of banners and links. Display the banners, provide the code… eg.,
   <!– Start of YourBandName link code - copy & paste to your website –>
   <p><a href="http://www.YourBandName.com/">YourBandName - Rock Band</a></p>
   <!– End of YourBandName code –>
4. Set yourself up with an e-mailing list (MailChimp?). Ask FFF to include the sign-up form on their sites and ask their friends to join your mailing list. They can also include mailing list sign-up details in their email signatures as well as adding a tell a friend link.
5. Tell your fans, friends and family not to Spam on your behalf. Tell them not to contaminate the Internet with the same mind numbing bollocks that would cause a brain seizure in even the most dim-witted music fan and come up with something new and interesting and while you’re at it tell them that if they use the phrase "This band is AWESOME they TOTALLY Rock" you will personally come around to their house and stick the rough end of your Flying V up their arse and the same goes for "Sorry about the shameless self promotion" and if they say "These guys are definitely musicians’ musicians - check ‘em out they’re totally amazing, OMG I can’t wait for the album, everything by this band is SO awesome" send the band around and stick the fully wired and throbbing Roland D-Bass-210 amplifier up their ignorant arse to block the flow of mindless crap that will have the readers and your potential future fans sticking red-hot needles into their eyes rather than read another turd fuelled fabrication about your awesome band, these stupid tossers are only going to impress the lemming-minded who will not actually buy your hard worked album, they will spend their lives exploring how they can download it for free and if you think that they will pass it on to their friends and ’spread the word’ you have got another think coming because they couldn’t pass on influenza. Feed your fans, friends and family with plenty of content and warn them about spamming and quality or it will cost you dearly - silence can be a virtue. You guys totally rock!

If you want to promote your band on on social networking sites, a good idea is to find bands of the same genre and from the same locale and get into conversation with them. You can find these bands by searching in Google [click to search for Punk Rock Bands London].

Type this into Google: site:profile.myspace.com punk rock london [you can just click!] and it will find MySpace Profiles that are predominantly about "Punk Rock" and in or about "London"!

Today I came upon this little nugget via Twitter, 7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing by John Jantsch - it’s well worth a read.

From that article by John Jantsch we get: intitle:"punk rock* on twitter" site:twitter.com [you can just click!] - nice, elegant, handy.

Helping Indie Bands With Their Promotion,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
Helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own.

Band Directory

Sebastian Gibbs of Band Directory contacted me regarding a link - I wonder if that’s a reciprocal link? Anyway, Band Directory is one of those sites like Unsigned Band Promotion and London Gigs, that needs your support if you want to benefit from it - sort of in it to win it - Give tham a try.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that I feel strongly about indie bands promoting themselves locally i.e., Gigdoggy’s Gigs List was high in my esteem (sadly the beta version came to nothing) because it promoted collaborative networking, Band Directory could be seen in a similar light. Their aim is to, “match lots of suitable local bands to venues” and it’s basically Free unless you want Premium Promotion.

I must say, Band Directory does sound a little like Band Direction (a social network for musicians, venue owners and producers)! However, I’m not going to worry about that because Band Directory is UK based and up-and-running, Band Direction hasn’t gone live (may never go live) and is USA based. Lemonrock is worth a mention and more than a gander.

Promoting your band’s website locally is about getting more people to come to your gigs (if you don’t gig, don’t bother), it’s usually only locals who’ll turn up and support you. By promoting your band’s website locally you are also promoting your band locally - it works best if you’re hands-on, real world, for instance, if you want to get a link from the local press or local radio, it would help if your band proactively supports a local charity.

Local is the area around your favourite venue (the venue you like and play most) or your town. Get a map. Find the venue or town centre. Draw a circle with a radius of about 25 miles (about 40 kilometres) around the venue or town centre. That’s local. 25 miles represents the distance people would be prepared to travel to see an independent band in the UK. Because of the transport infrastructure and familiarity with commuting, you can have a 35 mile radius around a London venue (same in most large cities). Bands who operate in large cities have a big advantage - of course you don’t have to target everyone!

1. Swap links and get involved with local: businesses, charities, record shops, fashion shops, cafes, pubs, clubs, venues. Get links from local: press, radio.
2. (Legally) Hand out, post, pin up, stick and drop (accidentally!): flyers, stickers, business cards, button badges - in and around: schools, colleges, universities, record shops, fashion shops, cafes, pubs, clubs, venues and churches. Include your band’s name, website address and free gift details.
3. Team-up and collaborate with 5 or more local bands of the same or complementary genre and promote each other online and offline.
4. Use the networking communities (esp. Facebook, MySpace, ReverbNation) to communicate with the locals. Always make your website The focal point.
5. Create a mailing list / database of fans, friends and family, target those within your locale and ask them for support. And don’t forget, if you can’t make it locally with the support of your fans, friends and family, you’re not going to make it anywhere!

1. Tweak and improve your band’s website 5 times a year. Don’t cloud your mind (or website) with Web 2.0 and Apps., just think about your fans and aim to project your band’s identity.
2. Find the top 5 keywords and key-phrases that best describe your band. Think about what your potential fans will search for. Then stick them in your Title tag, Description meta tag and Body of the appropriate page. Now you’re being found for something else in the search engines other than your band’s name. Example:- it could be: your genre (indie rock band), your location (Chelsea, London), the name of your favourite venue or your album and song titles…
3. Link with 5 other websites each week. For linking think networking and for networking think conversations. So that’s, get into conversation with five new people each week and swap links. Start off by making your website the focal point of your social networking profiles.
4. Blog 3 times a week (What? Not five!). Blogging regularly will really get you thinking about your subject and enable you to talk about your music. It will increase the size, quality and visibility of your website and therefore make linking easier.
5. Announce your website 5 times a year via a newsletter. Start off with a free MailChimp (mailchimp.com) mailing list. Four band members should easily be able to assemble a legitimate mailing list of about 300 people - ask them first if they want to be on the list, then ask them to recommend you to their friends.

Andy Kostek has just released his new album My Mirage on CD Baby, and to help him out I’ve just updated his Micro-Site with the new information. I’ve made a few other little changes too! Andy’s well set up with a website and networking profiles - MySpace, CD Baby, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, ReverbNation - but, how many of you bands and artists know the difference between a website and a profile? Ever since I started helping bands to promote their websites back in August 2004, I have been amazed by the number of bands who have folded and by the number of bands who have abandoned their websites in favour of social networking portfolios (a collection of social networking profiles)! While I realize that these two facts aren’t wholly connected, there is in my opinion a correlation. I think that when a band gives up its website in favour of a social networking portfolio it is a sign of decline and dissolution - it certainly says their website wasn’t working, and maybe it also says they are not very good at networking - I was not talking about Andy there!

A Website is your place on the Internet, you own it and you can express yourself no matter how you like there. A Profile Page is part of someone else’s website, you don’t own it and there are limitations. MySpace, for instance, isn’t your space, it’s Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation’s space! So, an important difference between a website and a profile page is, you own the website not the profile page. I’ve got a 101 Reasons Why Your Band Needs A Website but, I think the top three are (not in any special order):

• Owning a Website shows credibility, control and professionalism.
• Your website is at the top of the promotion, marketing pyramid, your profile pages should form the strong foundation.
• Your fans want you to have a Website.

The Crème de la Crème of profile pages is the UBP Micro-Site - they’re a marketeer’s linking dream, however, they are much under valued and misunderstood by the music community who are in favour of social networking. It will be interesting to see if my little effort helps him. Good Luck Andy.

TURN UP THE VOLUME
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/

I was contacted by Michael Swando of Swanzai - he wants a link, I wonder if he’ll link back? I doubt it! I get the impression he’s on the up - he has done some very good posters. This is what he has to say about himself:

Swanzai.net is a small graphic design firm based in Chicago, IL, specializing in creating high-end show posters, websites, flyers, and merchandise for bands and musicians. We’ve got over 8 years experience and dozens of stunning posters and websites already created for bands in Detroit, Chicago, and Phoenix. On top of this, we’ve adjusted our pricing down to nearly self-defeatingly low rates, and pulled out all the stops to bring in every unsigned band who needs the step-up quality design can give you.

Hanging out, working, and living with numerous musicians and bands over the past 4-5 years especially has opened our eyes to the symbiotic relationship between visual artists and bands. Oftentimes a band can be identified by a unique visual style that accompanies their music in the forms of Album Art, Merchandise, Show Posters and now Websites, and similarly - the work that designers do could scarcely be possible without the legacy of musicians sharing their music for inspiration.

Swanzai understands this. We also understand the budget unsigned artists can be under, and the priority of getting your music out there so the world can hear. We believe our prices are about as low as can be justified, and we’re working to include more relevant discounted package deals. Not every band has the pull to afford a different show poster for every show, so we make it easy to buy a discounted set of different posters that are reusable - just write in the info for each show and keep your promos fresh while still stretching your buck.

Apart from being, in our opinion, pretty good-looking, Swanzai.net’s Web Products can help out the unsigned band in several ways. Starting at $150 for your basic landing site to $600 for a fully-automatic multimedia music-selling machine, each of our websites are 100% custom-made and never from a template. Integrating your web site into a Content Management System (starting at $300) not only gives every bandmate the ability to update your site from anywhere from a familiar (think Blogger / Facebook) interface, but allows us to easily incorporate advanced features such as selling your music, swag, & mp3s online, incorporating a blog, videos, and social media, and more.

Swanzai is a fresh, young update to the online band design scene. With fresh, unique, high-end work and the lowest prices around, we’re primed to become the go-to source for budget show posters and web sites for the Unsigned + Indie Band Scene. Rock on.

As I said I like Michael’s work, I was taken by the Amen Cowboy poster. One thing that did strike me as very odd though, Amen Cowboy who have got a MySpace, haven’t got a website!! Stranger and stranger, they haven’t even bought their Domain Name. www.amencowboy.com is still up for grabs - I like the name Amen Cowboy… I think I might do me some rustling.

Themis the underground gothic rock band from Aurora, Ontario pissed me off last week by sending me an email using carbon copy (CC) instead of blind carbon copy (BCC), consequently I’m looking and laughing at the dynamics and interconnections of Themis’s odd list of email contacts - the funniest being, “first.lady@whitehouse.gov”. My email address is there too, not so funny.

The CC facility in your email client will add a selected entry from your address book to an email message, and display their email address in the header information. The BCC does the same but hides their email address in the header information. So, CC shows the email addresses and BCC hides the email addresses - each method has its uses. If you are going to send out an emailshot, use BCC to hide the addresses and you will not annoy anyone - especially the First Lady!

A bands mailing list is so very precious. Protect it, nurture it, it’s pure gold. Don’t fuck it up in one fell swoop by giving out their personal information - think, discretion. And make sure the recipients are subscribed to your list or the law of nature will eventually come down on you like a ton of hot bricks.

Themis follows a Wiccan creed, has a code of ethics and even a mantra, but no “privacy policy” or unsubscribe information - Pity.

If your band is sending out a newsletter, your subscribers will have privacy and unsubscribe expectations. To create a privacy policy go to: DMA privacy policy generator.

Hey Themis, MailChimp make it very easy for bands to send email newsletters, manage subscriber lists, track campaign performance and send RSS to email. They offer a free MailChimp account (Forever Free Plan) where you can store up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 times a month - that’s not bad. Themis, I recommend that you sign-up for MailChimp’s free email plan, and start building a proper list today.

Cutting The Crap,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/

I’ve just finished a Micro-Site for the talented acoustic folk rock duo from Glasgow, Scotland Fake Gods. Alex McGhie and Alan Wood are brilliant. I would like the Micro-Site to help promote the band’s name, genre and favourite venue. I wish them well and send my fond regards. The Fake Gods’ favourite local spot to play is The Mixing Rooms, Glasgow, which is, it seems to me, to be a very interesting venue with all sorts of ‘musical… recording… things’ going on in the immediate vicinity - so, if you fancy an amazing night out go and see them live. Also, visit the Fake Gods Official Website.

In Conversation With Bands,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/

Came across a really interesting website that tickled my graphic design fancy, created by the very talented graphic design artist Peter Schildwächter, or maybe I should say PETAFLOP? I should also mention that they have got a blog: BLOG.PETAFLOP.DE. If I were in a band I would want Petaflop to design my next album cover and CD sticker.

Ciao 4 niao,
Unsigned Band Promotion
UnsignedBandPromotion.com
~ helping musicians and artists get their websites noticed by fans, search engines
and the music industry in half the time they could do it on their own ~
http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/