Madalyn's Music Biz Blog

by Madalyn Sklar



There is a really cool blog post over at KnowTheMusicBiz.com titled The $52.45 Music Marketing Plan written by David Rose. It's a great read and I'd like to throw out my two cents and add to what he discusses in the post.

Marketing your music is not so difficult. The hard part is wading through the massive resources and finding the right opportunities for you. That is why it's wise to read music business blogs like mine and KnowTheMusicBiz.com. Attend music events, conferences, seminars, panels, etc. Do what you can to learn more about the music biz and how to take advantage of everything that is out there.

David says and I couldn't agree more...

There are numerous solutions now available for marketing music at a minimal cost but keep in mind that none of them can offer a magic bullet for success in the music business.

RADIO
When it comes to marketing your music I agree with David that Pandora and Last.FM are great radio resources. There is also XM Radio as well as tons of resources in the Indie Bible. And for "women in music" there is my favorite NetteRadio.

LICENSING
Again I totally agree here that Rumblefish and PumpAudio are two great resources worth checking out. Be sure to also check out Taxi's Film & TV Music FAQs. There are some great articles here worth a read.

GIGS
I have a few suggestions that are worth checking out when it comes to gigs. David mentions Sonicbids but we now have OurStage offering *FREE* EPKs. They have a new area on their site called "Marketplace" with gig opportunities. It's worth investigating. Then there's ReverbNation's Gig Finder that is FREE. ReverbNation also has their own version of EPK called Reverb Press Kits or RPK. Brilliant! It's not free but has more features than a Sonicbids EPK.

MOBILE
David mentions Broadtexter but I'm a fan of using Mozes for mobile texting. For the last two years I've actually used Mozes to broadcast a twice weekly motivational text message that goes out to indie musicians and friends. You can check it out at Motivation for Musicians or text keyword motivate to 66937. Yes it's really that easy and yes it's free.

AWARENESS
Here David mentions OurStage which I am a big fan of. I would add ReverbNation here because of their incredibly awesome FREE widgets that will help you create a buzz with your music on the Internet. Plus their Facebook applications are great.

So there you have it. A few extra resources to check out. I hope you find David's article useful as well as my added resources.

Send me your comments and feel free to add ones that are not listed here.

Copyright © 2008 Madalyn Sklar, IndieMusicCoach

Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach & consultant, blogger, social networks expert and author. She has spent over 12 years helping independent musicians and music business professionals achieve greater success. Her motto is: working smarter not harder. She also founded GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest + largest online community of indie women musicians.

Madalyn's Sites:
http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/
http://www.gogirlsmusic.com/
http://www.socialnetworksformusicians.com/

Labels: music marketing, ourstage, ReverbNation

by Madalyn Sklar

So this morning I'm reading what is turning into quite the interesting article and blog comments about TuneCore raising $7 million for its digital distro service.

Apple’s iTunes music-downloading service and its iPod music players disrupted the music industry’s CD business. TuneCore is helping to complete that process.

That’s how the company just raised $7 million in a first institutional round of funding from Opus Capital. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company allows artists to distribute their music, videos and films to iTunes and a host of other online vendors.

I'm happy for TuneCore. They have done a great job building this company up and now with $7M they can do even more. I've known Jeff Price for a long time and he's come up with a great way for indie artists to get their music into the digital arena at an affordable price. They don't keep a percent of sales. YOUR SALES! This is why I feel strongly that their platform is better than CD Baby's. Why give your money away to CD Baby if you don't have to? I have been recommending TuneCore for years.

But then I run into a very interesting counter post on this subject at hyperbot asking a simple question: TuneCore Gets $7 M From Opus Capital. Why? They question this because ReverbNation is now offering digital distro at a cheaper rate than TuneCore.

Opus Capital's Gill Cogan told VentureBeat that he'd "screened a lot of music internet companies but didn’t find any that could do what TuneCore does." Well, Opus and VentureBeat should both hire new research departements. The flat fee distribtuion model has already been adopted by several companies. The largest, ReverbNation, offers a similar and sometimes cheaper flat fee service to 250,000 artist members. And ReverbNation offers an integrated suite of free viral promotional tools that TuneCore would do well to spend its $7 million copying.

I love ReverbNation! I'm a big fan. They offer hands down the BEST widgets to promote your music on the Internet. I love their Facebook applications too. I have been recommending them to everyone for a long time now. And I was thrilled to recently learn they are now offering their own digital distro and it's priced better than TuneCore. So you can guess which company I started recommending to my clients and the GoGirls community. Yep, ReverbNation. Oh and by the way, it's not just because their pricing is better. Nope. I've spent time with the people at ReverbNation. They "get it" when it comes to indie artists. And they are damn nice.

Here's a tip to remember: people like to work with people they like. Always be likable in this business!

I think this topic is going to get interesting. I'll be keeping a watchful eye. Stay tuned as this develops...

Send me your comments. I welcome your thoughts on this and would love to hear what you think!

Copyright © 2008 Madalyn Sklar, IndieMusicCoach

Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach & consultant, blogger, social networks expert and author. She has spent over 12 years helping independent musicians and music business professionals achieve greater success. Her motto is: working smarter not harder. She also founded GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest + largest online community of indie women musicians.

Madalyn's Sites:
http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/
http://www.gogirlsmusic.com/
http://www.socialnetworksformusicians.com/

Labels: digital distribution, distro, ReverbNation, tunecore

ReverbNation Adds Distribution to iTunes, Amazon for Any Band
Artists Pay Flat Fee, Keep 100% of Royalty Revenue, Comes with Promotion Tools

(New York, NY – October 14, 2008) ReverbNation, the preferred marketing and promotion platform for over 250,000 musicians, labels, managers and venues, has introduced a low cost ‘On-Ramp’ for musicians and bands that want to get their music for sale on ten of the top digital retailers.

The service allows any Artist to submit their music for sale on iTunes (worldwide), Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster and eMusic for a flat fee of $34.95. Coupled with ReverbNation’s highly acclaimed marketing and promotional tools like FanReach (free email for musicians), Widgets, and Social Network Applications, the service will allow Artists from all walks of life to sell their music AND give them the tools they need to drive sales and grow their revenues from their fan base.

“Our sole focus is to provide Artists, and those that support them, with the tools and technology they need to grow their business and earn money,” said Lou Plaia, vice president of Artist Relations at ReverbNation.com. “Getting music up on the major retailers is important. But Artists need to be able to tie that purchase opportunity into every fan touch point in order to be effective. ReverbNation Artists, labels, and managers already use our marketing and promotion tools to reach 30,000,000 uniques per month. Adding a buying opportunity will help Artists take advantage of the reach they’ve already establshed.”

The service, dubbed simply ‘Digital Distribution,’ is available to every Artist at ReverbNation via their Reverb Toolbox. The feature is powered by INgrooves, a leading distribution technology company who also counts Universal Music Group as a client.

“The world of digital distribution is constantly evolving. We wanted to find a partner that could fulfill our Artist’s needs today as well as tomorrow,” said Mike Doernberg, chief executive officer of ReverbNation. “INgrooves has the technology, credibility, and a focus on building innovative products.”

“ReverbNation has quickly become a leading marketing technology platform for indie artists, and it’s easy to see why,” said Robb McDaniels, president & chief executive officer of INgrooves. “Their creative products and treatment of clients as business partners help to empower artists in the digital world. We are looking forward to ReverbNation and its artists utilizing our technology platform to manage the distribution of their releases around the world.”

Learn more about Digital Distribution from ReverbNation.com.

About ReverbNation
ReverbNation provides the innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical “closed” communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole - be it via social networks, blogs, email, IM, or the artist’s homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, TuneWidget, and Street Team Manager give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. ReverbNation empowers Artists to take the music to the people, no matter where they spend their time online. For more information, please visit www.ReverbNation.com.

About INgrooves
INgrooves is a digital media infrastructure company that provides various distribution and marketing services via its INgrooves and ONE Digital services. ONE Digital uses the company's proprietary software platform to provide distribution and administration to large distributors, record labels and film production companies at rates far below the industry standard. INgrooves provides clients customized distribution, marketing, promotion, synch licensing and administrative support to help maximize the earnings potential of specific releases or catalogues. For more information, check out http://www.ingrooves.com.

Labels: digital distribution, ReverbNation

Leading Indie Music Marketing Platform Enables Over 250,000 Bands to Reach 30,000,000 Fans

NEW YORK, N.Y. and DURHAM, N.C. – (October 7, 2008) ReverbNation, the leading marketing and promotion technology platform for musicians, labels, managers and venues, has secured $3 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor ETF Venture Funds and included follow-on investments from Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Southern Capitol Ventures (SCV).

“ReverbNation’s comprehensive marketing platform makes it simple for musicians to communicate with fans wherever they are on the Internet,” said Tony Bifano, partner, ETF Venture Funds. “Over 250,000 artists have already selected ReverbNation as their marketing partner to promote their music and generate royalty revenues through brand endorsements.”

ReverbNation acts as the ‘home base’ for Artists that want to tap into the power of multiple social networks at once, including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Hi5. Artists can deploy powerful tools and interactive functionality to these networks, their homepage, or their blog - stimulating the viral spread of their music and tracking where it goes across the entire Web.

ReverbNation can also help Artists capture the value of their reach and influence by connecting them with consumer brand partners that want to engage their fan base.

“We have observed that Indie Artists are actually more influential, pound for pound, than their established counterparts. They know their fans personally, and have stronger relationships with them,” said Mike Doernberg, ReverbNation co-founder and chief executive officer. ”Alone, these individual Artists cannot deliver the reach that Brands need, but bundled together they can. We configure entire ‘portfolios’ of participating Artists based on the fan demographics the brand is targeting, and allow the Artists to opt-in to the program. These types of paid partnerships have traditionally eluded Indie Artists.”

“It is increasingly difficult to connect with consumers in a meaningful way via mainstream media,” said Jason Caplain, general partner, Southern Capitol Ventures. “ReverbNation’s Artist Influencer Network, comprised of millions of loyal fans, represents a focused evolution of permission-based marketing that works.”

For more information about ReverbNation.com, go to: http://www.reverbnation.com

About the company
ReverbNation provides the innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly distributed online environment. Unlike typical “closed” communities, Artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole - be it via social networks, blogs, email, IM, or the Artist’s homepage.

Powerful marketing tools like TunePaks, FanReach, TuneWidget, and Street Team Manager give the Artist the ability to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Users can see real-time stats and a 360-degree view of how fast music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. ReverbNation empowers over 250,000 Artists to take the music to the people, no matter where they spend their time online. For more information, please visit www.ReverbNation.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. MySpace® is a registered trademark of Fox Media.

Media Contact:
Jed Carlson
Reverb Nation
919.682.9593
jcarlson@reverbnation.com

Labels: ReverbNation

Sign up at http://www.gogirlsmusic.com

About ReverbNation ReverbNation provides innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical "closed" communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole — be it via social networks, blogs, or the artist's homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, and Widgets give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages.

Labels: contest, giveaway, ReverbNation

by Madalyn Sklar

I've been on the Social Networks bandwagon for sometime now. I can't help it, I'm a techie geek. I love new technologies. I get it. It make sense to me.

It's so cool how my two business worlds have collided by being a techie in the music business. On the flip side I find it interesting that there are plenty of music biz professionals out there who seem to think they get the techie stuff. Many don't. You can't just read about it and decide you're an expert. You have to do it, live it and teach it. And for a good while, no doubt.

So let's discuss my favorite social networks for musicians and why.

Myspace:

I have been a big fan of Myspace since early 2005. I will admit it was much easier to use up until earlier this year. Seems people have really bogged it down with their image heavy pages. Some take forever to load with their backgrounds, photos, videos, etc. I have been an internet marketer and web site developer since 1996 and I have to say download time on a homepage is critical. It can make or break a site. We live in a "hurry up and give it to me now" age. We don't have time to wait 45 seconds for a page to load. You have seconds to make a lasting impression. Sad but true.

What's so great about Myspace today? Well it's still a valuable site to gain new fans who will come to your shows and buy your music. Fans who will become your street team members, advocating your music. Like any social network, it doesn't work unless you work it. You have to spend consistent time on it.

Check out my Myspace pages:
http://www.myspace.com/gogirls
http://www.myspace.com/indiemusiccoach

Facebook:

I will admit that like most of you it took me awhile to like Facebook. We all got comfortable with Myspace so when we tried messing with Facebook it was so different. So confusing. But I soon found that I could have a really great presence on Facebook with little effort. How? They provide some great applications that shortcut things for you. I could set up Notes to automatically import my blog posts. Every time I blog it shows up on my Facebook page. Awesome I know! I also set up my Flickr photos to do the same as well as my Twitter posts. I then added ReverbNation's music application. And the mobile photo upload feature is great. I can take a picture with my iPhone (or any camera phone) and email it right to my Facebook page. Only takes seconds! I figured out so much that I recently put together a FREE "Facebook Marketing Tips for Musicians" e-Course at http://www.socialnetworksformusicians.com/. I would love for you to enroll in my free course and then let me know what you think.

Check out my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=696545329

Twitter:

This is a techie favorite. It's taking longer for musicians to embrace Twitter but it's slowly happening. I think the biggest problem is that musicians are saying, "do I have to join ANOTHER site??" Um, no you don't... just the ones that matter is what I say. And you know what, this one matters in my opinion. Twitter is micro-blogging, plain and simple. You can only type up to 140 characters so you have to be concise. I love that! I've watched musicians use Twitter to let their friends and fans know what they are up to whether it's busy recording in the studio, being out on tour or just sharing a bit of their everyday life. What I love about Twitter is that it's a great resource for news and information. So many people are using it to share articles, blog posts, etc. And like Facebook I can email photos from my iPhone using Twitpic. Last night I was at the Melissa Etheridge concert here in Houston and Twittered photos in real-time. It's super cool and easy to do.

Check out my Twitter pages:
http://twitter.com/gogirlsmusic
http://twitter.com/madalynsklar

I recently polled our GoGirls Elite members, asking them what was their favorite social network and why. Interestingly one member said it was GoGirlsMusic.com. Funny how I started an online community for women in music 12 years ago not realizing that I had created a social network. There just wasn't a name for it then other than online community.

Here's some interesting responses to my poll:

"I thought I’d let you know about this new place I found called Reverb Nation. It seems a lot friendlier to musicians as far as downloads and such, plus it’s got this cool feature called widgets that they give to you and you can inbed in all your other pages (websites, myspace, etc) to make navigation and updating a whole lot easier. I’ve only just started using it but I can see a lot of potential for a non-geek like myself to be a little more in control of a my geek pages." -- Lojo Russo, http://www.lojorusso.com

"i am really loving facebook right now. i jumped into it a few weeks ago and every time i use it, i'm kicking myself for not joining sooner. why? lots of reasons, but for now, here's the top 3: unlimited photos; i can connect it to my blogs in the "notes" section, which saves a lot of time and work; the fans can interact with me and with each other, and that's especially cool. myspace is too massive to ignore and i'm updating there regularly but facebook feels like the next wave." -- Queen Esther, http://www.queen-esther.com

"MySpace continues to be my favorite social network because I've worked out a system that works for me. When it comes to networking with bands, industry people, venues and building relationships with potential new fans, MySpace is still #1 with me. Sean, my drummer, is our Facebook guy and he loves Facebook because it is easier to add friends and the ability to use applications that import your blog, schedule, etc. make it lower maintenance than MySpace. I'm just not sold on the rewards of Facebook in comparison to MySpace." -- Tish Meeks, http://www.3kisses.com/

Post a comment and tell me what are your favorite social networks and why.

Copyright © 2008 Madalyn Sklar, IndieMusicCoach

Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach & consultant, blogger, social networks expert and author. She founded IndieMusicCoach and has spent over 12 years working with a wide range of independent musicians all over the world. Her goal is to help indie artists achieve greater success in the music business by working smarter not harder. She is also the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest and largest online community of indie women musicians, with a vision of bringing together and empowering musicians from around the world.

Madalyn is available for one-on-one consulting and coaching at affordable prices. Check out http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/ for more info.

Labels: Facebook, flickr, myspace, ReverbNation, social networks, twitter

Once again Reverbnation is scoring points with me because they offer up such great tools to help indie artists. And best part, it's FREE! So listen up, if you are not on Reverbnation stop what you're doing and get on there. And take advantage of these great tools!! -Madalyn

‘Press Widget’ Makes Posting Album Reviews and Web Buzz a Snap for Any Artist

(New York, NY – Aug 5, 2008) ReverbNation, the leading Marketing and Promotion Platform technology for Musicians, Labels, Managers, and Venues, today introduced the ‘Press Widget’ to over 215,000 Musicians and Bands that use ReverbNation applications to enhance their social network pages (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc), homepages, and blogs.

The ‘Press Widget’ allows Artists to aggregate accolades from the media or fans into one place, and then deploy them to all of their other sites. Artists can add an unlimited number of clippings, with each one containing a link back to the original source for fans to read more. The deployed widget can be customized to match the color of any webpage, and will update in real time when the Artist adds, edits, or removes old clippings. The widget has smart word detection, which rotates clippings at a slower speed for long quotes and a quicker speed for short quotes, timed with the fan's ability to read them. Typical of all ReverbNation widgets, the 'Press Widget' can easily be shared by fans or made the object of 'Street Team' missions that incentivize the most rabid fans to spread it virally.

“Reviews and peer opinions are incredibly important for musicians. Often times, a well-placed quote from a credible source can be the difference between a potential fan actually engaging with the music, or just passing by,” said Jed Carlson, Co-Founder and COO of ReverbNation.com. “But all the super reviews won’t mean anything if they aren’t actually seen by fans or potential fans. The Press Widget can’t get you good reviews, but it can help you showcase the ones you do get.”

The Press Widget is FREE for any Artist, Label, or Manager to setup, and only takes seconds to deploy it to other sites. ReverbNation tracks the Press Widget, reporting back to the Artist how many times it has been viewed, clicked, and shared.

For more info on the Press Widget, and all ReverbNation widgets: ReverbNation Widgets
(http://www.reverbnation.com/main/features_tabs?tab=Our%20Widgets)

About the company
ReverbNation provides the innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical “closed” communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole - be it via social networks, blogs, email, IM, or the artist’s homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, TuneWidget, and Street Team Manager give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. ReverbNation empowers Artists to take the music to the people, no matter where they spend their time online. For more information, please visit www.ReverbNation.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. MySpace® is a registered trademark of Fox Media.

Media Contact:
Lou Plaia 212.367.0826 or
Jed Carlson 919.682.9593 jcarlson@reverbnation.com

Labels: ReverbNation

I'm a big fan of ReverbNation. You just can't beat their free promotion tools for bands, venues, managers and labels. I'm thrilled to report they hit 200,000 artists. What an accomplishment! They truly exhibit the power of the Internet and social networking and taking it to new levels. If you are not using ReverbNation, what are you waiting for?? -- Madalyn



(New York, NY – July 8, 2008) ReverbNation, the leading Marketing and Promotion Platform technology for Musicians, Labels, Managers, and Venues, signed up its 200,000th Artist last week, adding 100,000 in the last six months alone. In addition, over 6,000 Labels and Managers have created profiles to promote themselves and their rosters, and more than 2,500 Venues and Clubs are using the ‘venue tools’ to help pack their shows, grow their fan bases, and integrate promotional efforts with musicians. To date, Artists and Labels have posted nearly 700,000 full-length songs to the site.

The success can be primarily attributed to the free suite of Fan Relationship Management (FRM) technologies the company provides for Artists, Labels, Managers, and Venues . The suite includes a content repository, promotional widgets and applications for viral distribution across social networks and blogs, integrated Street Team tools for motivating, tracking, and rewarding rabid fans, a communication platform to keep Artists connected with fans, and a comprehensive stats package to provide the insight they need to make marketing and promotion decisions.

"Its like Salesforce.com for Bands and Labels,” said Josh Baron, Editor-in-Chief of Relix Magazine, ‘The Magazine for Music’.

Since inception, the company has focused on helping “Independent” Artists and Labels by providing marketing tools, for free, that are usually reserved for major labels with large budgets.

“In all my years as a musician’s coach and mentor, I have never seen the likes of ReverbNation for Indie musicians. They get it,” says Madalyn Sklar, owner of GoGirls Music and operator of the ‘Indiemusiccoach.com’ website. “They absolutely understand the needs of the independent musician and build software that makes a difference for them everyday.”

“Are you an Artist that needs to generate a newsletter and send it out to 10,000 fans?” asks indie Artist Jeff Nelson of the Syracuse, N.Y. Rock band ‘Merit’. “Need a music player for your homepage or your Facebook page? Want to build a Street Team and have their actions tracked automatically? Want to know how long people listen to your songs before they turn them off, or if they passed them on to friends? Do you need help finding venues for your tour? I need all of that. ReverbNation delivers this and more. These guys offer the sickest platform of tools I’ve ever seen, and I can actually afford it, because it’s free.”

Use of the ReverbNation technology has recently spilled over from the indie ranks to some of the more recognized names in music as well, like 50 Cent, Kenny Chesney, Madonna, O.A.R., Natasha Bedingfield, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sara Bareilles, and Sean Kingston, to name a few. Over 60 of the Billboard Top 100 now have a presence at ReverbNation.com.

Said Chris “Broadway” Romero, Creative Director, G-Unit Records (50 Cent), “ReverbNation's TuneWidget and tracking tools have been great for us here at G-Unit Records and Thisis50.com. Their tools and applications let our fans easily become involved in the marketing and promotion of our music across the web. There are a lot of ‘all in one’ solutions out there, but the ReverbNation platform is the only one that allows us to develop a marketing strategy first, then use the technology to execute it.”

“We build technology that can help virtually any musician, label, manager, or venue,” says Lou Plaia, Co-Founder and V.P. of Artist Relations at ReverbNation.com. “We help Artists take the music to the people, wherever those fans are spending their time online, and then empower Artists with tools for leveraging their content to drive real business objectives at those touch points. Artist objectives might include selling music, merch, or tickets, extracting valuable fan relationships from the social networks, or keeping content up to date across all of their sites. We give them real insight into what’s happening with their content and how their marketing efforts are affecting their overall Band EquityTM. At the end of the day, the most important asset an Artist has is their portfolio of fan relationships, and it’s our mission to help them grow that asset.”

Over the coming months, ReverbNation will expand the offerings to Artists even further, giving them more tools to succeed at the ‘business’ part of the music business, including: Low-cost digital distribution to iTunes and other retailers, a dynamic ‘Reverb Press Kit’ for media outreach and gig submissions, a ringtone generator and sales tool, and several enhancements to the FanReach communication tool. In addition, the company plans to introduce an “Artist Sponsorship Platform’ where Brands can link up with thousands of interested Artists at a time, creating a new revenue stream for Artists in these challenging times of declining music sales.

About the company
ReverbNation provides the innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical “closed” communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole - be it via social networks, blogs, email, IM, or the artist’s homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, TuneWidget, and Street Team Manager give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. ReverbNation empowers Artists to take the music to the people, no matter where they spend their time online. For more information, please visit www.ReverbNation.com.

Band EquityTM is a proprietary method for measuring the ability of a musician or band to engage and influence fans. Delivering a more holistic view of an exposure and promotional success, Band EquityTM synthesizes four factors that contribute to the value of an Artist's portfolio of fan relationships: reach, access, influence and recency. This proprietary metric is designed to prepare Artists, and those that support them, for new revenue models that rely less directly on music sales and more on their ability to develop meaningful and lasting relationships with their fans. For more information on Band Equity, visit http://www.reverbnation.com/main/features_tabs.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. iTunes® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.

Media Contact:
Jed Carlson
919.682.9593
jcarlson@reverbnation.com

Labels: ReverbNation

I'm so impressed with ReverbNation. If you are not familiar with them, they are a cool music company that according to their web site, "is responding to the changing music business paradigm." That right there is the missing link in the music biz and the reason for ReverbNation's success. They know what they are doing and they're doing it right! And the best part, it's free.

If you are an indie artist, they provide really great marketing solutions that sets them apart from the dime-a-dozen companies out there trying to compete. You have probably seen their cool widgets on Myspace, Facebook and other social networks. I have and they rock!

Co-Founder and VP of Artist Development Lou Plaia sends out periodic emails detailing what is going on with this fast rising company. The latest update came out today and I want to share some of this information with you.

Combined, Artists at ReverbNation reach over 24,000,000 uniques per month via our website, widgets, and applications. Content deployed from ReverbNation (widgets and apps) is now present on approx. 1,100,000 unique urls, and is being displayed a total of 180,000,000 times per month.

Wow, this is impressive stuff!

Now here is what excites me the most. They have a new program called Fan Exclusive Songs. It allows you to give access to full-length streams or downloads to those who become registered fans.

So check this out:

Initial data suggests that Artists that have designated at least one song as 'Fan Exclusive' have been growing their list of registered fans at a rate that is 600% faster than Artists that are not.

That is awesome! If you are not taking advantage of something like this, you are missing out. I was just talking in my blog recently about The Indie Music Box and how you need to set yourself apart from what everyone else is doing. Well here you go! This is a great way to increase your fanbase.

Embrace technology! Take advantage of web 2.0!

In addition to my 12+ years in the music business I also ran my own web development firm. Yes, I'm a techie in the music biz! If you would like to learn more about how you can take advantage of new technologies, get in touch with me to schedule a phone chat.

Copyright © 2008 Madalyn Sklar, IndieMusicCoach

Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach, consultant and author. She founded IndieMusicCoach and has spent over 12 years working with a wide range of independent musicians all over the world - U.S., Canada, Ireland and Japan thus far. Her goal is to help indie artists achieve greater success in the music business by working smarter not harder. She is also the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest and largest online community of indie women musicians, with a vision of bringing together and empowering musicians from around the world.

Madalyn is available for one-on-one consulting and coaching at affordable prices. Check out http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/ for more info.

Labels: ReverbNation, web 2.0

I get lots of information that relates to the music business. From time to time something really cools pops into my inbox. This is one of them...



Friends of ReverbNation,

I'm writing to tell you about our latest innovation a few days ahead of the official announcement. Its called 'TuneWidget', and it is live and available to our users today. Its our belief that this widget will become an indispensable tool in the music promotion and cross-promotion arsenals for artists, labels, and managers. Play around with a working sample here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/main/tunewidget_overview

What's so cool about it?

1. Its the closest thing to having an entire band website in a portable, sharable, trackable widget. It contains music, video, an interactive tour map, join the mailing list function, and more.... with more to come (including selling music).

2. The artist, label, or manager can customize the background image of the widget and change it whenever they want (thus changing the image in real-time on all outstanding widgets). This is an effective way to make real-time announcements about things like a new CD launch, tour, etc using the image as a communication vehicle.

3. The most unique, and arguably most important feature of Tunewidget is that it allows artists to cross-promote other artists to their fan base. Labels and managers understand the value of cross-promotion as a way of introducing new acts to their established fan bases, and for years artists have used the MySpace Top 8 as an effective way of recommending other artists. TuneWidget makes it easy for anyone to cross promote friends, label-mates, touring partners, etc. across the web as a whole. They can have any number of recommended artists in rotation at any time, and can change who they are recommending in real time. Clicking on the "recommended" artist at the bottom of the widget switches the widget to display the complete mini-site of the recommended artist (including songs, schedule, video, mailing list, etc).

Like everything else we build, the TuneWidget is tracked and comprehensive stats are reported back to the user.

Does it work as a promotion and cross-promotion tool?

Beta test results indicate that TuneWidget is extremely effective for both promotion and cross-promotion:

* Fans played the music at double the rate of other music widgets

* Fans stayed engaged longer with TuneWidget than other music widgets

* Fans switched to view recommended artists almost 50% of the time if they had played the primary artist's music

* Fans tended to listen to a significant portion of the song from the recommended artist when they switched to them

Update on ReverbNation.com

TuneWidget joins our other widgets, the My Band application at Facebook (creates a mini artist profile on your facebook page), the integrated music player at Freewebs, the TunePaks that send music via email and IM, the FanReach email system, and our Street Team module to create a complete online "hub" where artists, labels, and managers can base their promotional efforts and track the results.

Every metric on the website is growing at over 30% month over month, with artists adding over 1,500 songs each day. Growth is good and important, but we continue to focus on our "artist first" philosophy, believing that we can create a company that has real lasting value for the customers we serve.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you have about TuneWidget or anything else at ReverbNation.

Best,

Jed

Jed Carlson
Chief Marketing Officer
ReverbNation
jcarlson@reverbnation.com

501 Washington St.
Suite D
Durham, NC 27701
919-321-2268

Labels: bands, CD, indie, music, ReverbNation, share, tunewidget