I’ve been helping out local band Hot Monocles (pictured above) with their onliney stuff recently, and as a result I’ve come across some useful tips for musical types to get their stuff out there.
I’ve been through in some detail with them about what to put out there, when and how, and given them a few new ways to get their messages and content to people. I won’t go into all the details here, but here are five tips I think all bands might want to try online.
Note: These aren’t guaranteed to work for everyone and will depend on how much time you put into them, but hey, it’s a starting point. Also, most of these are free, but you can also go for paid options like Bandcamp, which I’m yet to play with.
Any other ideas, chuck them in the comments!
1. Get a unified online presence
There are loads of ways to interact online, so it’s important to have a unified presence over all the different services. First off, as a band you’ll probably need:
Sign up to them, and try to use the same username (probably your band name), same background images and colour schemes. Get your content uploaded (music to myspace/soundcloud, videos to youtube, photos to flickr) and then it’ll be ready to share.
2. Get an online ‘hub’
Seems simple enough, but not many do it. A blog will give you an online hub for all other links (as mentioned in point 1), allow you to provide regular content – such as photos, videos, demo tracks, etc – and build a following that will then be able to see your upcoming gigs, and maybe even buy your stuff.
A wordpress.com blog with a custom domain should do for most, like Hot Monocles’ blog here.
3. Get a RootMusic page
Rootmusic is really cool. It lets you turn your Facebook page into a place for your music to be heard, downloaded and shared. They make Myspace pretty much obsolete and they look like this:
You’ll need a Soundcloud account to upload tracks (easy done), and then you can give people the option to listen to tracks through the player, download and keep, or share with Facebook friends, Twitter friends, or embed in their own blogs.
As you can see from the Monocle’s page, it gets people talking and engaging with your content and you can then invite them to gigs (through the events tab) and direct them to your other stuff (like your videos, blog posts etc).
4. Talk to the right people
Being online these days is just like a big conversation. Just like in real life, you have to find the relevant people to talk to. As a band, you’ll probably want to chat to promoters, music journalists, music venues, record companies, and recording studios to name but a few.
Do your research. Find them on Twitter (using twitter search or twitter lists), Facebook, Myspace etc and introduce yourselves. This could be done by replying to a tweet, commenting on a blog, or simply saying hi out of the blue.
5. Give people an incentive
Make things available online, such as a couple of tracks, and maybe even make one track an online exclusive. The Monocles did this with ‘Science & History’, which can only be heard on their Facebook Bandpage or through an embedded Soundcloud player.
But just being online won’t really cut it as a band. So use the online presence to give people real-world incentives too. You could do this is many ways. The Monocles have done it by making sure people know they’ll get a free four track EP – including a track unavailable online – if they go to one of their gigs. It could also be badges, posters, discounted cds, t-shirts, or even discounted tickets.
It’s a good incentive for people to go out and engage in real life, spreads the music further, and not only that, can drive people back to the online presence if you include the right URLs on the discs.
Hope that helps someone. Let me know what you think and if you’ve got any other services or approaches that work, put them in the comments.
The other thing to do is to talk to one of the many local filmmakers and see if you can get them to make a promotional video for you. Its amazing what can be achieved on a tight budget
Stickleback Productions are past masters!