Ariel’s Top 7 Facebook Apps for Musicians
Do you have a fanpage but still not sure how to make it pop?
Here are six Apps that will set you on the right path, help you to stand out from the pack and keep your fans engaged and interested in you on a consistent basis.
Kelly Richey has been described as “Stevie Ray Vaughan trapped in a woman’s body with Janis Joplin screaming to get out.” That’s an apt appraisal of the Lexington, Kentucky native who’s now based in Cincinnati for many years. A working musician since her teens, she began her professional career as a member of the Arista Records group Stealin’ Horses; in 1990 she formed The Kelly Richey Band, with whom she has become both a national and international touring artist.
Kelly Richey is also consummate entrepreneur who refuses to quit. Since establishing her own label, Sweet Lucy Records, Richey has released 11 albums and a live DVD. When I first spoke to her in August 2008 she was at the end of a long struggle to try to break through using traditional PR and radio. She had spent a fortune on radio promoters, and traditional publicists, retail positioning and other old school tactics that were just not working for her.
I met Amber Rubarth through Derek Sivers who wrote a wonderful profile on her on his blog.
Here is what Derek wrote: Amber Rubarth is a 26-year-old singer/songwriter from Reno, who only started playing music five years ago, but is making a full-time living touring, including four tours of Europe, booking it all herself. She’s also one of the happiest musicians I’ve met. Most musicians I know feel it’s tough, but Amber seems to glide through it all effortlessly.
My interest was peaked and I concur with Derek’s assessment! I am delighted that she was willing to be the subject of my ongoing conversation about 1,000 true fans.
In part ii of my 1,000 true fans series I chose to interview my friend Matthew Ebel. I have known Matthew for a few years because he runs in the same geeky podcasting circles that I proudly run in. Matthew is the type of artist I refer to in my book as a “Builder” meaning Matthew is constantly pushing his career forward using not only musical innovation but also technology.What I find most striking about this interview is the fact that Matthew makes 26.3% of his net income from just 40 hard- core fans.
Imagine what it will be like for him when he gets to 1,000? The other thing that really stood out for me is the fact that an artist like Matthew (who is totally comfortable with Social Media and extremely Internet savvy) has very little idea what to do with analytics that he is gathering via Google Analytics, CrazyEgg.com, and Compete.com, as well as email stats via Blue Sky Factory.
53: Have A Killer Website at Your Custom Domain URL
Create a webpage that lures in the “just looking” visitors and gets them to upgrade to level 2 of your site when they give you’re their email / contacts. The level 2 experience of your site should be enhanced from the level one “tire kicker” level in terms of content quality, quantity and how quickly it is updated. Once you have enough level 2 members you will want to create a level 3 experience that is another big step up from level 2. This is for your best customers and most devout fans. At some point this can become a subscription site but early on it will be a la carte. It just rewards your street team/super fans for their support. Here you will sell exclusive merch and sell advance tickets to shows and music no one else gets to buy.
- Tom Silverman
The best place to be is you.com Artists who have their own domain make more money than those that do not. Period.
- Jed Carlson
54: Use the Social Networks Properly: Build That List!
When people pass thru your social network profiles (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.) get them to come back your own web site that YOU CONTROL. To do this, give songs away for free in return for email addresses. ReverbNation’s Fan Exclusive Widget will facilitate this. Offer fans something special that makes them feel like they are a real fan and you really care about them. Social networks are all good, but they should be treated as lead-generation sources. They are free billboards on the super highway of information. Be there, but have something that extracts value and move those listeners down the fan funnel to something valuable for you.
- Lou Plaia
55: Be Active On Facebook
Almost every advance in your career will happen thanks to who you know AND how you treat them, and Facebook is where you can deepen relationships with fans and industry contacts. Ye olde FB gives you one-click access to countless industry folks who have the power to do something about your work. If they don’t respond, leave them alone. If they do, keep the convo going, nurture the relationship, and leverage it when the time is right. Four developments in my career in the past 3 months that started on FB: 5 concert bookings in NYC, 2 new songwriting collaborations, adds of two of my music videos to the HBO Zone channel, and being hired to write a daily column (I’m a writer too) that is now published to every Sprint and Boost Mobile PDA in the world. No joke. Love the FB. Login NOW.
- Phil Putnam
56: Tweet, Please
Twitter has been really big for me and it gives me direct contact w the people who want to listen to me – literally. When I released my new DVD I asked people to check it out and within a few minutes my tweet made it to 100, 000 people who were pre-disposed to care about it, which is a remarkable marketing message. I sold hundreds of them online just using my Twitter connections. I use Twitter as another entertainment channel to say interesting things and show people interesting things and share photos. To share photos with your Twitter friends use these easy sites:
http://www.twitpic.com & http://www.yfrog.com
Between these 2 things Twitter has become my main focus. I no longer am always thinking about updating my blog – I’m always thinking about Twitter.
- Jonathan Coulton
57: Create Twitter Contests
We have had several different types of contests that have caused small frenzies on Twitter but the ones that I think are the most effective are the ones where we have asked people to post links to an actual song via blip or just download links. We have had hundreds of songs posted in a matter of minutes, which means that each of those people’s followers could potentially be listening. I estimated 10,000 potential listeners in just a few min with our last contest. We usually give away tickets to shows or CDs or other prizes. In fact, I should be doing one right now…
- Jason Walsmith / The Nadas
58: Actively Start Conversations With Your Twitter Followers
Artists need to foster the all-important online two-way conversation. Just using status updates for only promotional means is not the best way to do this. Ask fans to comment back/@reply/direct message and they actually will. The more intriguing the question, the more likely people will respond. For example, the other day I asked the fans on my band’s Facebook page “Who is cooler, Nicholas (the guitarist) or Christopher (me)? Please provide reasoning for your explanation haha.” There were 20+ comment-backs by the end of the night. Provide fans with quirky questions that fit your personality. Use status update/micro-blog opportunities to create an environment that your fans want to continually be a part of.
- Chris Gesualdi
59: Rock The YouTube: Make A Sticky YouTube Video
Michelle Citrin made 20 Things To Do With Matzo and it has received over 1,000,000 views. It’s the kind of video that is so captivating and interesting that people share it with their friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMSEFCQCKPo
- Derek Sivers
Before Kina Grannis won the Doritos contest, she was releasing a YouTube video each week, which built her a loyal following and worldwide “street team”. Similar to a TV show, Kina released a video of herself playing an original tune, or cover tune. At the end of her videos, she’d give birthday shout outs, read fan mail, and open gifts that fans had sent her. When she needed votes to win the Doritos contest, her loyal following supported her all the way to the Super Bowl. She later signed a record deal, and she has a ready-made audience waiting to buy it.
- Carla Lynne Hall
Let fans in. Take video of the fans themselves, or encourage them to submit their own videos to you Post these regularly and the fans will watch along and continue to grow as you post.
- Michele Samuel
I riddle my website with videos where I talk about the people in my songs and the stories behind them. Every time I add a new one to the site, downloads of that song go up on iTunes. And new people learn very quickly (1) if they like me personally and (2) if they respond emotionally to the kind of work I do.
- Dudley Saunders
60: Create Cover Tune Videos
Indie band Boyce Avenue created a video of the latest Coldplay when the only version of it could be found on an Apple commercial. Since the song had not been released yet, Coldplay fans searching for the song online found Boyce Avenue’s video instead. The band repeated this technique with video covers of popular songs, and gained millions of YouTube views. This led to a tour of the Philippines where the indie band received a Beatles-like welcome.
- Carla Lynne Hall
61: Get Played On Podcasts – Build a Rabid Loyal Audience
Even small podcasts with only 100- 200 listeners count if you get played on lots of them. The key to understand here is: Podcasters listen to others podcasters podcasts and they get ideas from each other and rebroadcast pieces of each others podcasts – it is a pre- selected audience and Podcasters will help you find your niche if you are not even sure what it is.
- Jonathan Coulton
Podcasters have two things that musicians need: an audience, and a medium to play music. And musicians have something podcasters are looking for: audio content. Since podcasts are “The Radio Of The Internet” musicians should reach out to them the same way they reach out to radio shows. Some musicians make the mistake to just try to get played in music podcasts, but there’s no need to limit yourself that way in this thriving medium. Instead, use podcast directories like Podcastalley.com or podcastpickle.com and find popular podcasts about topics that you enjoy. Become a fan, send an email, and offer your music. In return, they’ll usually link to your website, and talk about your band.
- Randy Chertkow
62: Post Photos on Flickr & Cross Post on Facebook
They say a picture says a thousand words, and it’s true. Flickr is one of the user-friendliest Web 2.0 sites, and Yahoo owns it so millions of potential new fans are waiting for you to discover them and make friends. Flickr works just like MySpace or Facebook. You create a profile, upload your main image, join groups, and make friends, and you can also message people and leave comments on any photo you like. Flickr is a great way to show yourself as multi-dimensional. You can post photos of things other than your band activities (such as vacations, kids, your home, and hobbies) to show your fans you are a well-rounded individual. And if you go to conferences, this is a great way to get people to link back to you and pay attention to you (remember – the most interesting thing for people is THEMSELVES so taking pictures of other people is well advised!). Use this link to synch back to Facebook too! http://www.tinyurl.com/flickr2facebook
- Christina Duren
63: Study Your Analytics – Google ReverbNation & Rockdex
Use the data you can easily get from Google, ReverbNation, and Rockdex (among others) to learn more about your fans – who they are, where they are listening, what they are listening to, for how long, etc. The more you know about them, the easier it is to connect with them and market to them. You can also use this data to easily get sponsors. Brands want to know who your fans are, how many you have, how engaged you are with them, etc. They don’t care about “Friends”, they want to know about your real fans, your engagement with them and the size of your mailing list.
- Lou Plaia
Rockdex can see who is talking about you online and can track how many people are added to each of your social networks by searching blogs, micro-blogs, music sites and delivering you the hard results via reports with actual metrics on how many potential fans have visited your social networking sites.
www.rockdex.com
- Christina Duren
64: No Money For A Tour Publicist? Artist Data To The Rescue!
If you don’t have enough money to get a tour publicist for tour press then no need to worry Artist Data is tour press for musicians made easy! ArtistData allows you to update your tour dates at Jambase, Eventful, Sonicbids, MySpace Facebook and Twitter. It not only updates your social networking sites but it also allows you to submit each of your shows info to the calendar editor at local newspapers and magazines in the specific regions you are touring.
www.artistdata.com
- Christina Duren
65: Ping.FM – 55 Sites Updated At Once – Hours of Your Life Back
Ping allows you to update over 55 social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and your blog all from one easy to use website simultaneously. There are no more excuses for becoming overwhelmed with logging into several websites. This one interface allows you to update all of your statuses at one click.
- Christina Duren
66: Understand The Power of Tagging
Be super descriptive when tagging the titles of your songs, videos, photos, blog posts, and more. The Internet is filled with multimedia these days. But people still search for stuff using words! Make sure your online content is loaded up with the key words your potential fans use to find stuff that interests them.
- Bob Baker
67: Use Search Engine Optimization
When I first heard Jamie Foxx’ “Blame it on the Alcohol”, I fell hard for the groove of the song (although not the message), and considered writing a parody of the song. After searching online for the chords and tabs for the song, I also found a performance video of another singer/songwriter performing an acoustic version on guitar. I was so impressed with the cover version, I blogged about the tune, the cover video, and links to the chords and tab. By twittering links to my blog post, I unwittingly created more powerful links to my blog post. Soon, my blog post ranked on the first page of Google for this song, and to this day, that blog post is one of my most visited pages, which has also led to new readers and subscribers to my newsletter. Now I’m adding more chords and tab blog posts for cover tunes that are actually in my genre!
- Carla Lynne Hall
68: Scratch The Back That Scratches Yours Online: Give Thanks!
Many of the Billboard Maximum 100 “opportunities” and placements are the results of years of favors, legal agreements, negotiating and bargaining tactics, and just plain historical relationships from the labels and commercial outlets. They have little to do with the artist. I maintain all of my bands networking sites as well as my own blog www.dereknicoletto.com, Youtube channel www.youtube.com/dereknicoletto and http://twitter.com/dereknicoletto. My band and my music has been placed on 11 television shows, countless podcasts, radio programs, publications and video programs. For every single placement, I either re-posted the feature on a site, sent a tweet about it or let my fans know in some way. Most importantly, I said “Thank You.”
- Derek Nicoletto
Since I started my career in this business. I’ve always been working within the 1,000 True Fans model.Acoustic Junction and Zuba two local bands became my first clients. Both had been staples in Boulder for a couple of years, and both made fantastic livings touring and selling their independent releases from coast to coast. They did this with no label, no distribution, and no major marketing budgets: just a manager, a tour manager, and me.
I also represented The Toasters, Bim Skala Bim, The Slackers, and Skinnerbox, (and practically everyone touring during the third wave of Ska).
These artists and dozens like them all made full time livings from playing and touring. They had a core group of fans that supported them by seeing several shows a year, buying merch and buying albums.
Today, it feels revolutionary when we hear about bands that make a living based on their music.
What happened? What changed?
The fact that CD sales are decimated has clearly not helped at all, because a major part of the income for each one of these bands who were road dogs was selling merchandise at shows. To top that off Internet has glutted the playing field.
I refuse to listen to the naysayers who are refuting 1,000 True Fans and I am going to focus on featuring as many artists as I can who are proving the model.
My theory is: Plenty of artists are getting to 1,000 True Fans, but it’s going to take some time for them to prove the model because it takes time to build true fans in today’s two-way conversation economy.
One-on-one fan building using touring and social media can be painful. I’m not saying it’s fair, I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that if playing music full-time is your dream, passion, and calling I believe it’s possible.
Trent Reznor and Radiohead proved 1,000 True Fans practically overnight and they will always remain as the two cornerstones of artists who did it quickly and efficiently for obvious reasons that don’t need to be rehashed here.
On our panel at the New Music Seminar in Chicago this past week Corey Denis presented the first artist I will focus on: The Mountain Goats.
Here is Corey Denis’s full report:
I entered the music business at the exact witching hour when the Internet was born. My career was rarely based on physical marketing and very quickly became focused purely on digital content, online street team/ fan base development & digital marketing for artists & projects ranging in genre from comedy (Stephen Lynch), indie electropop (Figurine), funk (Maceo Parker), folk (David Wilcox), to indie rock (Frank Black, The Slip), Jazz (Charlie Hunter) and Jambands (New Monsoon).
And through all of this work over a 12-year period, I’ve discovered 3 key crucial elements to figuring out the new music industry.
1. Run your career like a business, but ditch the myths: there is very little money in the music industry, there never was much to begin with and there’s less now. Record labels are not going to rescue you.
2. Quality Matters.
3. All careers take time: It takes at least 12 years to “make it” (for this purpose, let’s define “make it” as a television appearance on a #4 Nielsen rated late night show).
The three rules generally work together: Setting appropriate expectations, focusing on your art, and connecting to your fans as you develop over a long period of time. Your career is an investment by you, and anyone who wants to pay you to be you. And for a return on your investment, your goal is to make it a desirable investment to your most beloved fans. But how do they become true fans? If you remember the first two rules, the third is up to you. My favorite more recent example is the Mountain Goats. I don’t work with them, but I happen to love the band and know a “superfan” named Matthew. (Superfan: One who spends $100 – $300/ year on a band).
As I interviewed Matthew, he explained how he just purchased a purple vinyl limited edition (only 777 available worldwide) of the new Mountain Goats album; he “couldn’t wait to twitter about it.” He went on to show me that his photo of a rare Mountain Goats collaborative release with Kaki King on swirled vinyl received over 500 unique views – the most views “any photo has ever received on my flickr account.” Matthew beams with pride as he reports spending “at least $400/ year on the Mountain Goats” on items ranging from vinyl (new and rare) to digital EPs and t-shirts. And that is the best-case scenario any artist can hope for – a fan that takes pride in both the full experience and consumption of your art.
Converting pride into a return on investment will take at least ten years.
The reality of 1,000 true fans beyond the joy of garnering fans is knowing what to do once you know you have a fan, while continually growing as an artist.
The Mountain Goats are not just any band making any kind of music. You can bet that their album ‘Sunset Tree’ will end up on multiple “Top 100” albums of the last decade, and the band is regularly revered by music critics worldwide ranging from Pitchfork to Spin.com.
Last week, The Mountain Goats (now on 4ad), promoted their new release by way of a performance on the Colbert Report. And none of this happened overnight. Not even close. Darnielle has been building relationships with his fans for more than 12 years, and their overt appreciation of his art is the result of a pure connection built on respect. John Darnielle, with more talent in his eyelash than most people have in their entire bodies, respects his fans. Here are 5 ways John Darnielle has built one of the greatest indie success stories of all time, based on talent, fans & genuine connections:
1. Communicate With Fans As If They Are Friends
In the mid-90s, Darnielle played extremely small venues (coffee shops, pizza joints) and stayed after the show to sit with anyone who enjoyed the show. “When a connection was made, he took their address and wrote a letter to every single person,” explains Matthew. He loves this story, and with reason: this is actually how Darnielle met his wife. Matthew knows the story inside-out and continues to tell it with a smile, “her name is Lalitree, and the song about her is called ‘02-75’ because that was her Post Office Box number.” Darnielle communicates directly with fans electronically today by posting on the popular forum at The Mountain Goats website. At one point he asked his fans what kind of merchandise they wanted. The forum exploded with fan suggestions and The Mountain Goats delivered: the next tour had a Mountain Goats reusable grocery sack for sale as merchandise. The grocery sack sold out.
2. Make Music Available
The Mountain Goats release an album about every 2 years, but between full album releases, fans are inundated with singles & EPs. John Darnielle has released multiple singles & EPs unexpectedly on the forum, with donations accepted but not required. In addition, Darnielle requests on the forum that fans do not steal. Matthew reports he has “always paid, always. I have to, why wouldn’t I?”
3. Make Limited Edition Physical Product: Take Advantage Of 1K Runs!
Once able, it is wise to invest in physical product to sell on the road and online. The Mountain Goats have released split EPs with Kaki King & John Vanderslice on limited edition vinyl. A limited vinyl edition of The Mountain Goats album Satanic Messiah was released only at indie retail, with a catch: 666 copies only. The most recent Mountain Goats album, The Life Of The World To Come (released last Tuesday) has a similar limited edition purple vinyl release, this time 777 copies. Matthew owns #740 and explained, “Some people on the forum have 3 copies.” Fans did not know which indie retail store would carry the vinyl, so they had to seek it out. Matthew found his at Rasputin music in downtown San Francisco.
4. Your Fans Are Smart, All 1,000 Of Them
If it’s not you on Twitter, your fans will know. If it’s not you on the forum, your fans will know. If it’s bad music that isn’t finished, your fans will know. If you are writing form letters, your fans will know. To build a connection with fans and harvest a relationship, it is important to remember that your fans are as smart as you, they demand the same quality art that you demand of yourself. They are growing with you, aging as you age, over about 12 years, to enable your career as a full time musician making a decent living.
The Indie Maximum Exposure List is Ariel Hyatt’s manifesto on how indie musicians can realistically profit from Web 2.0 & social media. 