Band Promotion Blog

Want to know how I feel about MySace? Read this: The MySpace Matrix by Metal Music Promotions, it hits the spot.

Calling all bands, GET A REAL WEBSITE

Now, this isn’t The full Unsigned Band Promotion endorsement and recommendation of Band of Me because I don’t really know them, but, it is a Link to a new community where musicians can be seen and heard through their music videos.

What they have to say about themselves: watch music videos of the top emerging bands and solo artists. Browse videos by instrument and genre. Join the Community and have your voice heard! "Where Musicians Come to Strut Their Stuff"

And I say good luck to them. It is another place for bands to post videos, and let’s hope it attracts music lovers who will become Your fans

Out for kicks,
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/

No news is good news. Err, no.

When a person visits your band’s website they’re probably just looking for a free download of your music. But, they will also discover your credibility! If your band’s website has a NEWS page that contains No News or Very Old News, the visitor will think, “no action”, and wonder if your band is going down the pan. Why support an ex-indie band? - so many bands break up. Give your visitor what she’s looking for. Band News!

No news is not good news

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/

I’ve just finished a Micro-Site for the beautiful and amazing indie rock band from Gainesville, Florida Sweet City Action. Vilma and Christina are brilliant. I want the Micro-Site to help promote the band as they don’t have a Website just various profiles - watch this space as I may change the design. I wish them well and send my love. Sweet City Action’s favourite local spot to play is the 1982 Bar, Gainesville, which is just down the road from the University - so, if you fancy a fun-filled night out go and see them.

I’ve just followed a bizzarre trail of links and found myself reading a creative and fun blog post on "creative band promotion", it’s well worth a gander, it will give you some colourful band promotion ideas, see: Creative Promotion Ideas for Your Band by Vilma Jarvinen

Dear Matt (Bnudd),

Here is UBP’s response to me-nets’ nonsensical post - Splash Bang Codswallop. Your main criticism seems to be of my definition of what I call a splash page, you quote me “a 500×400 image saying ‘Click to Enter’” in my post Search Engine Optimization SEO For Bands. This is what I actually say, “A splash page is an introductory page to your band’s website, it often contains just a link to the band’s home page and an extravagant attention grabbing logo or some flash abomination“, and I think that that is a fair description, not too prejudice I could have said that a splash page is a website’s default opening page (index.html) that precedes the main home page! The point is, most (if not all) bands’ websites are a billion miles away from the BBC’s opening page, which is full of interesting content and has a Page Rank of 8. A lot of bands’ websites really do just have an image and a link, and it is these bands I’m writing for - as you said, “There is totally no point in having a splash page if it is just a logo image with a CLICK TO ENTER“.

Matt, the point of the SEO blog post was to help bands and encourage them to think about their website’s content. Yeah, splash pages can work for those who know what they are doing, but I’m writing for those who need help. SEO and band promotion is about being found for something else other than your band’s name, for instance, wouldn’t The Malloys like to be number one in Google for: Punk Bands South East London or even: Punk Bands London and South East? The Contortionists’ Micro-site is #1 in Google for Punk Rock Bands South East London & #2 in Google for Punk Rock Bands London and South East just because of a little content!

I don’t know why you couldn’t leave your comment here Matt? Gremlins? One does have to register though!

Out for kicks,
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/

Paris is so lovely at this time of year… … …

anyway, do your want to promote your band on MySpace? Then you need to seek out and add bands who are of the same genre and from the same locale. You can find these bands by searching in Google, type this into the Google search box:
site:profile.myspace.com punk london
it will find MySpace Profiles that are predominantly “Punk” and in “London”!

I’ve made a list of genres with the respective MySpace and Google links here: New GENRE Meta Tag for bands - please don’t be put off by the title.

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/

Promoting gigs from your band’s website may seem pretty pointless to a lot of bands who only use Social Networking sites. But, I bet it’s better than only promoting your gigs from your band’s "Profile" - you have got a website, haven’t you? Promoting gigs from your band’s website will have a positive knock-on effect, it will increase the number of fans who roll up to support you, and that in turn will get you more repeat gigs - venues like to book bands who can bring a (thirsty) crowd - and help you sell more albums and merchandise.

It’s Very Easy

The wrong way: post the gig information on your website, direct everyone to your website at every opportunity, they see the information and about 0.01% of the visitors will come to the gig - if you’re very, very, very, very, very lucky (0.01% would be ultra, extremely good)! Caveat: unless you’re Coldplay or any other well known band, but then again, you’re not reading this are you!?

The correct way: post the gig information on your website, direct a targeted local audience to your website, offer a freebie, they see the information, pick-up the freebie and about 1%-3% of the targeted ‘local’ visitors will come to the gig - not much luck required, just hard work!

Unless you have a hard core of about 500 fans who will support you what ever the weather, you should keep your promotion efforts local to the venue - meaning: within about 25 miles. It might be odd thinking local with a World Wide Website, especially when you have fans from every corner of the globe downloading your music! - but it’s usually only locals who are going to turn up and support you.

Note: don’t leave it all to the last minute, there can be long lead-in times for online promotion, it should be continual and ongoing even if you haven’t got a gig booked!
don’t just rely on your website for gig promotion, you must take the holistic approach and you must exploit every avenue, otherwise you will probably fail.

The Website
You could fit all the required information onto one page, but I’d go for three: Home Page, Gigs Page and a Venue Page. Each page needs to contain: full contact inf., a mailing list sign-up form, how to book your band inf. and a couple of short, recent gig reviews (maybe in the sidebar?).

What’s On The Home Page [file name example: index.html]
If you run a blog on your home page (which is a good idea for lots of reasons), you can give a running commentary of the build-up to the gig, but, you only need to keep listing the basic details.

• Date & time of gig, inc. hypertext link to Gig Page.
• Venue name, inc. hypertext link to the Venue Page.
• Description of the freebie.

What’s On The Gigs Page? [file name example: flying-footstools-gigs.html]
Keep the presentation and the information, incredibly clean, simple and uniform.

• Date & time of gig, plus: doors open @… first band on @… etc…
• Venue name & town, inc. hypertext link to the Venue Page.
• Hypertext & image links to the "one off - pre-release - special edition" freebie. The freebie must be easy to find, if it’s an MP3 (which it normally is), then make it very available. There should be a pay-off with a free gift, meaning, you give a free gift :: they sign your guestbook/read your blurb. Or, you give a voucher from the website and they get a free gift at the gig.
• The line-up - with hypertext link to other bands’ websites (use: target="_blank" attribute).
• Ticket price.
• Age restrictions of venue &/or your performance.
• Your available merchandise list - that you are taking to the gig.
• Free gift (if you’ve got one) @ gig information.

What’s On The Venue Page
I keep going on about being found for something else other than your band’s name, well, being found for a venue’s name is one of the options. When you promote a gig from your website you are actually promoting the venue as well, so make the most of it.

• Venue’s name inc. hypertext & image links to the venue’s official website.
• Hypertext link to venue’s MySpace.
• Venue’s Full address.
• Box office details (link to box office &/or online ticket agency).
• Normal ticket (admission) price.
• Usual doors times.
• Age restriction details.
• Full travel information and directions inc., how to get there: on foot, by rail, by bus, by car with parking inf., and hypertext links to Google maps.
• Video link to your band playing the venue.
• House DJ details.
• Open mic. details.
• Local information might inc., independent record shops, fashion shops, cool coffee houses and pubs etc. that reflect or complement your genre.

Direct A Targeted Local Audience To Your Website
The people who want to come to your gigs are the people who like your sound, genre and lifestyle. They probably hang out in the same colleges & universities, independent record shops, fashion shops, cool coffee houses, pubs and nightclubs that you do, they live next door, they listen to the same music and they want to dance like you, or maybe you want to dance like them! They’re your friends, or they could be. You know who these people are, where they are, what they want and how to approach them. I don’t. I can only generalize.

Real World Stuff: get a map, find the venue, draw a circle with a radius of about 20 miles (about 32 kilometres) around the venue, hit those streets with your flyer. Go to all the places where your potential fans are, then (legally) hand out, post, pin up, stick and drop your stickers, flyers & business cards - they should include your band’s name, your band’s website address, your contact information and free gift details.

Online Stuff: Linking (all local addresses)
swap links with: bands of the same genre, indie record shops, fashion shops, coffee houses, pubs/nightclubs/venues.
get links from: fans, friends and family websites, local charity, local press and local radio.

Set up a mailing list - a mailing list and a website go together like Rock & Roll. If there are four members of your band, it should be easy to make a list of about fifty people. This group of fifty people are not subscribers to your mailing list, they are fans, friends and family. Invite them to the gig, ask them to forward the email and recommend a friend. Include opt-in and opt-out information - you then have the beginnings of a mailing list and a quantifiable fan base. Keep it local and Always include at least two links to your website.
Tip: A fan who just subscribed to your mailing list is HOT, and is the most receptive to buying a CD or merchandise, reply straight away to their sign up request with details of how to purchase your products.

Set up an e-team - an e-team is an online version of a street team. Yep it’s those stalwart fans, friends and family again! They can give you their time and skills to help with online promotion, the mailing list, networking, merchandising and even with the accounts, etc… it’s a long list. Their pay-off for helping is usually free gig tickets or merchandise, but, you’d be surprised how far a beautiful bouquet or scrumptious box of chocolates goes.

The e-team should be helping your band by: running a fan site, social bookmarking your website, posting in forums, commenting in blogs & profiles, emailing the local radio station and requesting your "single", using your flyer as an avatar, putting up e-posters, wearing your band’s promotional T-shirt and inviting their friends to your gigs. All with a smile and at the same time not pissing anyone off.

Get Your Website Indexed - today?
This is the big one, everyone wants to get their newly updated websites crawled and cached as quickly as possible. Having a proactive and knowledgable e-team can really help to get your band’s website indexed by the search engines quickly. Obviously it’s not only about being indexed quickly, where you are positioned in the search engines is also important - it’s no use being indexed quickly and being number one hundred and fifty in the search engine charts. Getting indexed quickly and search engine position are related and helped with ‘good quality‘ incoming links.

I suppose my top tip for getting indexed quickly is: participate in popular and ranked (PR4+) forums and blogs that Google visits regularly because the information is constantly being updated - always post using a signature with a hypertext to your website. Write a daily blog yourself, so the search engines crawl all over you - tickles, but it’s lovely.

If your website is Rome and all roads lead to it, you will get indexed and cached very quickly.

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’ve just finished a Micro-Site for the very talented Alt. Country singer/songwriter Richard Murray. Richard, who originally comes from Northern Ireland and now lives in London, is on his way up (even though his website has a splash page, I hope to change that). Go and see him when he next plays ViVa ViVa in Hornsey, London and buy his CD Desert Wind (which is a snip at about £6.50) a really exquisite and outstanding, folk rock album.

Band In Difficulty? If you want to spot a band or a music business who are non-starters, in difficulty or are on their way out, take a look at their website. Phrases like: "under construction", "new site coming" and "website is undergoing major redesign, will be finished soon" are dead give aways, especially if the U.C. signs have been up for over a month. Most under construction signs don’t come down to reveal a brand new website, they just come down - good-night.

If you don’t believe me or fancy a holiday from success, try it for yourself.
Delete all the files from your web server and replace with:

<html> <head>
<title>UNDER CONSTRUCTION</title>
<script language="javascript">
<!– {
/*Bollox javascript*/
image_swap();
useless_javascript_here();
} //–></script></head>
<body bgcolor="Black">
<div align="center"> <p><img src="./under-construction.jpg"
width="100" height="100"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://free-counter.com/"><img
src="http://free-counter.com/images/counter.gif?
tag=band&j=n" border=0></a>
<script src="http://free-
counter.com/counters/track.jsp"></script></p>
<p class="very_small">© 2005 YourBandName all rights reserved.</p>
</div> </body></html>

Leave the page to brew for about six weeks (the more weeks the merrier).
Watch your band go down the pan.

Of course it’s not always the case that the bands and the music businesses who have under construction signs up are losers, but it mainly is. LOL!