Lately, I've been asked by a few labels to help them set up and improve their online presence. Mainly, what they've been wanting is to get set up on some of the main music related social networks and integrate them to improve the effectiveness of their communications online.
While setting these up is neither rocket science nor limited to experienced pros, I've done it a few times now and I'd like to share some tips from my experiences. The good thing is that a lot of these social networks are now working to integrate themselves more effectively, and if you take some steps in the early stages, it can save you a lot of time down the line when it comes to getting your word out.
For the last label, I set them up the following: A Reverbnation account, a Twitter account, a lastFM account, an ilike account, and a Faceboook artists page affiliated with their already existing Facebook account.
Once these are done, I've found the following integration to be very effective.
Bulletins and status updates:
Use Ilike as your main control panel for general label updates and bulletins.
Using Ilike, Once you have posted a bulletin, you have an option to "Post To Myspace". Clicking this option and selecting to automatically post it to your myspace blog means that you will not have to also write a blog on myspace. You can also easily tell Reverbnation to pull in your Myspace blog into it's own blog section.
So from Ilike you can post a bulletin and update both your Myspace and Reverbnation blogs automatically.
In addition to posting your bulletins, Ilike provides an interface for sending out quick 140 character updates. This is simply like a little tweet - say for example something like "New XX remixes coming soon!". They have recently made it very easy to integrate this with your Twitter account with the click of a few buttons, so your status updates from Ilike will show up in Twitter.
Both reverbnation and Facebook now include the option to link to your Twitter account. So now, by sending out an update through Ilike, you are automatically sending the same information to your Reverbnation, Twitter, and Facebook accounts - making it a loss less time consuming and more far-reaching.
An additional function in Ilike is the option to put a "music" tab on your Facebook account. This will automatically update your facebook "music" page with new songs that you upload to Ilike, any bulletins or status updates etc.
As mentioned, you can use Ilike to automatically populate your Myspace and Reverbnation blogs from bulletin posts. Unfortunately, I haven't found this option for Facebook at the moment. So, for this I have set up a blog at blogger
It's then a few steps to have your blogger feed pulled into the notes section of your Facebook account.
Thus, with a few steps, you now can populate 5 sites - Reverbnation, Myspace, Facebook, Ilike and Blogger with your blog by posting it in two places (Ilike and Blogger).
I've mentioned Reverbnation a few times and I recommend that you sign up. Why?
Reverbnation provides for easy integration of a "My Band" tab into your Facebook page. An example of what this looks like is here. Essentially, the Reverbnation "My Band" feature allows for you to put all of your uploaded music, a mailing list sign up and more on your Facebook page and it integrates this with a bunch of very useful tools available at your Reverbnation control panel. These features include a newsletter template/ mass mailer service, and a fantastic selection of easy to use widgets to spread your music around the net. You'll see that I've included their music player widget in this blog with a few clicks. There are loads of very useful widgets that they provide and this service is FREE.
Reverbnation also provides great and easy to understand stats on how your promotion is going, and inlcudes a great "buzz tracker" that lets you quickly scan where you are being mentioned on the net. I can't really say enough about Reverbnation - for me it's one of the best tools on the web for independant artists.
A Note on Twitter.
As mentioned, you can use Ilike to send all of your quick updates and these will be automatically pulled into Twitter. Between that and using your phone to tweet you may feel you have little reason to log into Twitter to send messages. HOWEVER it is important that you start collecting a following on twitter. The best way to get followers is to log into Twitter start following some people that interest you. What comes around goes around. And, of course, you want to make your Twitter username obvious in your promotions etc so that people who are interested know where to follow you.
With regards to lastFM, there is bound to be debate on whether or not to upload your music as you probably aren't going to see a penny from their "royalty" programme.
This might be true but I look at it as a form of promotion - mainly it's a way for people to discover your music whilst listening to similar artists. You can set up links to your favorite online shops for all of your music that will show up on your lastFM label or artists page, so there's at least some incentive.
That's all for now. Of course, as mentioned, I am always happy to try and help if someone has a question, although I must state as usual that I am not claiming to be an expert.
Best,
Kelvin
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