This document provides information to musicians about using social media and online tools to promote their music. It discusses various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace that musicians can use to connect with fans. It also covers music streaming and sharing sites like Pandora, Last.fm, and imeem where musicians can distribute their music for fans to listen to. The document provides tips on setting up profiles and using features on these sites to most effectively promote a music career in the digital age.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
for Musicians

2. WHAT’S INSIDE
Intro Microblogs Official Website
Marketing Your Music Twitter Wordpress
Widgets
Blogs
Social Networks Tools Extras
Facebook BandMetrics Links & Things
MySpace Artist Data
Web Analytics
Social Media Metrics
Music Communities
imeem
Buzznet
Last FM
Reverb Nation
Pure Volume
Pandora

3. MUSIC AND THE INTER-WEB
Everything has gone digital. It’s a fact. Albums aren’t
selling, record stores are going out of business, labels
are desperate and taking almost all the profit an artist
makes. Fine. The question stands:
What are you going to do about it?
Singers will continue to sing, drummers will continue
to drum, guitarists will continue to play. Musicians will
keep making music.
Nowadays in the online digital space, every artist has
the ability to be their own label, run their own business
and act as their own marketer. This guide will help you
understand the online social landscape and provide
you with tips on how to maneuver and promote
yourself to current and potential listeners.

4. MARKETING YOUR MUSIC
Marketing is the concept of promoting goods to consumers. In your case, your good is your music and band and the consumers are your listeners. Marketing is based around the needs of your listeners. You
must provide them with something they need and inform them of things they don’t know yet know they need.
Social media marketing is different from traditional forms (like TV commercials and radio ads) in a sense that you have a direct interaction with your clients. Social media allows you to get in on
conversations personally. You’re interacting with people one-to-one. To effectively promote your band online you need to understand the core concepts of Social Media.
1. its essentially making friends with people online.
2. It’s all about conversations... Get in the mix, talk to people. In turn, they will become advocates for your
band.
3. UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE! Internet trends, or meme’s, come and go. Stay on top of your content and be sure
you’re always posting new stuff and keeping up with the latest news in your genre.
4. No body wants to talk to a droid. Be human and be personable. Let people know what you’re all about and how
you feel your music and views on the art are unique. This will help spark discussion. When a discussion starts,
be polite and have some consideration.
5. Don’t get upset if people are accessing your music for free. This is the ultimate form of flattery. They want
to listen to your music, they’ll share your music with their friends. They’ll most likely hit up one of your
shows and buy a t-shirt. It’s a digital world and for this to work to your advantage, you have to be accepting.

5. SOCIAL NETWORKS

6. SOCIAL NETWORKS (n) Any website designed to allow multiple users to publish content themselves. Information may be
on any subject and may be for consumption by (potential) friends, employers, employees, etc. The
sites typically allow users to create a "profile" describing themselves and to messages and list other
users or groups they are connected to in some way. There may be editorial content or the site may
be entirely user-driven.*
Social Networking is self explanatory. It’s you (and your band) making friends. Millions of people
access social networking sites every day, and a lot of these people are waiting to discover your
music.
In the olden days, to make fans, you had to drive around the country, go out, play shows, and
mingle. While face-to-face interaction is wonderful, many bands don’t have the funding to be
able to quit their day jobs, hop on the road and stay out for months at a time. Social Networks
have introduced a very tangible solution to this problem.
Roam the world via internet and remember that Social Networking
is all about conversations. GET INVOLVED WITH YOUR FANS.
It’s 2009. If you don’t
have a Facebook or a
MySpace profile, you
don’t exist.
*www.dictionary.com

7. MYSPACE www.myspace.com
Okay, so this one is kind of a no-brainer, but here’s some info that you may not know...
About: MySpace is an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.*
For bands: You can create a band-profile where you are able to promote your shows,
upload your music for other users to add to their personal playlists (via MySpace Music), you
are also able to embed videos, photos, and other widgets. MySpace Music has recently
received a revamp and users are able to take advantage of unlimited, free streaming of the
entire MySpace Music catalog (which means your fans are able to listen to your music and
add it to their own playlists and profiles).
Add-Ons:
MySpace allows for easy profile customization (the look and feel of your
profile). Backgrounds, headers, colors, and font are easily changeable.
Most embed-able media is accepted including videos, photos, and widgets.
Things you should know: Be sure to specify your genre of music upon setting up your
profile. MySpace keeps track of your fan count, profile views, and play counts (for music). It is
recommended that you do not delete songs (or fans) that have ample plays, as this helps
boost you in their “Top Artist” listings as well as proves to viewers of your profile that your
band is actually being listened to. Currently, MySpace only offers royalties on big label
streams, we’re still waiting for them to open up to everyone else.
*www.myspace.com> about

8. FACEBOOK www.facebook.com
About: Facebook is a social network with more than 30 million active users. Users
share stories, photos, videos, comments, etc.
For bands: Users are able to create “pages” which are official pseudo-profiles used
promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor
(including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities)*. A regular
user (i.e.: your singer, drummer, girlfriend, etc.) must first have a personal profile
established in order to create a page. [Don’t worry, the identity of the page administrator
is not publicly displayed.] Why create a page instead of a group? Because pages are
official representations and you are able to view insights (statistics) on the activity going
on on your page.
Add-Ons: Once you get your page set up, there are a few things that I recommend
adding, to give your fans an interactive experience. These apps & add-ons are essential
and provide your fans with stuff to do and become engaged with:
Descriptive bio, contact & booking information, band members, & links to
other sites. If you have a blog, there is a way to have it feed in automatically.
Photos, videos and most importantly a Music Playing application (if facebook
doesn’t already have one included, this is the link to the music player application
http://ow.ly/k7qb )
Things you should know: Facebook is great for promoting tours and events as their
platform groups users based on their networks (location). For example, if you’re going to
be playing a show in San Francisco, send a custom invite specifically to your fans in the SF
Bay Area. This may not seem like a lot, but it will help eliminate being “spammy” and
makes your fans feel like you’re truly seeking them out. Facebook does a great job of
updating friends of friends too, so if someone RSVPs to your event, their friends are
notified as well. Another great feature is the ability for users to contribute by adding and
sharing photos from an event in a specified place (the event invite page).
*www.facebook.com > pages t & c

9. MICROBLOGS

10. TWITTER www.twitter.com
About: Twitter is a service that allows users to communicate and stay connected
through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are
you doing? Twitter is a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple
networks and devices. People follow other people and sources to access
information as it happens.
For bands: If used properly, Twitter can prove highly effective in communicating
and sparking direct conversations with fans. Twitter limits the length of posts, or
“tweets” to 140 characters, truly sticking to its’ goal of transmitting a real-time
thought.
When bands use Twitter, it allows fans to instigate conversations, and the bands to
directly reply. There are no other distractions on Twitter, it’s a direct person to
person conversation.
Things you should know:
Profiles backgrounds are customizable and should be used to creatively
display information about your band, including contact info, bio, etc.
To gain followers on Twitter, always remember that the more that you
follow, the more will follow you. Use the “Find People” button to import your
existing email contacts or search for people with whom you share similar
interests.
Keep in mind that people will only want to follow you if you’re tweeting
about things relevant to them. Don’t be the “Hey come to my show, Hey
come to my show, Hey come to my show” guy. People want to be engaged.
Talking about your band, what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, what you’re
seeing, etc, is what will bring an audience. If your drummer is a silly, crazy guy
who says funny things, leverage that!

11. MUSIC COMMUNITIES
Online music communities function similarly to social networks, with the biggest difference being the
emphasis on streaming and sharing music. Users join these communities, establish profiles describing
themselves and their interests in specific bands, artists, and musical taste. The music sites are tailored to
automatically make recommendations to the users based on their listening habits.
On these types of sites, users are able to create custom radio stations and playlists with the available catalog
that the site provides (with the music being contributed by users, record labels, and other artists).
On a side note, with a lot of these types of sites, when a band registers their original music (either through a
digital distribution company, or directly), they are paid for plays (royalties).

12. MUSIC & VIDEO COMMUNITIES

13. IMEEM www.imeem.com
About: imeem is the world’s leading social music service, enabling music fans to discover,
interact and express themselves with music and playlists, and connect with other people
based on shared tastes and interests. imeem pioneered the idea of offering fans free, on-
demand music and video streaming with the costs supported by advertising. imeem
partnered with all four major labels and thousands of artists, independent labels and music
distributors to offer their music and video for free streaming.*
For bands: Like Facebook and MySpace, bands create a profile and upload pictures, videos,
and music. A great feature of imeem is the ability to combine media into playlists, which are
basically slideshows, or groupings of video or music, readily available for viewing and listening.
All of the media comes with embed codes for easy implementation on any platforms,
profiles, or sites that allow for html. Friends are made by submitting and approving requests.
imeem also boasts features like creating polls, battles, and blogs.
Add-Ons:
Profile customization is restricted to the imeem profile customizer; you can
upload images to be used for the background or header.
Further customization is all widget based and imeem provides a dashboard for
organizing the layout of your profile.
If you sign on for a VIP account with imeem, they give you the option to
implement Google Analytics on your account, to monitor your profile web metrics.
Things you should know: If your band is working with a company (ingrooves, ioda, etc.)
for digital distribution, imeem offers direct links for listeners to download the songs from
stores on iTunes or Amazon. If you are the artist or own the rights to a song, you will need
to register your song in SNOCAP (www.snocap.com). Once you have done this, you can
manage which songs you want to stream on imeem. Further, for the songs you permit on
imeem, you can also earn money for them.*
*www.imeem.com > about

14. BUZZNET www.buzznet.com
About: Buzznet is a social media site where passionate fans interact in thousands of music
communities. Buzznet has thriving fan communities in which fans actively participate by
sharing millions of photos, videos and blog posts about their favorite bands. Buzznet offers
music premieres, tour dates and exclusive editorial programming. Buzznet also offers music,
with licenses from top labels.
For bands: Social network, heavy on blog content. This is a great place to upload photos
and videos and connect with fans.
Add-Ons:
Easily import data from other social networks.
Things you should know: Buzznet users are very loyal to the site. If you’re going to
spend the time setting up a profile here, be sure to pay special attention to your Buzznet
community and make it so that other Buzznet users don’t have to leave the site to get what
they want from you.

15. LAST FM www.last.fm
About: Last FM is a streaming music service. The Last.fm website is filled with tons of
information on artists, albums and tracks, more music similar to them, charts and other
statistics and more, all built by the Last.fm users who’re keeping track of what they’re listening
to with Last.fm.*
For bands: To get your music on Last.fm, you will need a labels account. You can find
instructions on how to do that here (http://www.last.fm/help/faq). Once done, you will then
be able to link up your music to your registered account. Once you've registered with
Last.fm, you will be able to add music to their radio streams, and manage your presence on
Last.fm through the Music Manager.
Add-Ons:
Last FM boasts more than just music streaming. They also offer services like an
event management tool, stats and a royalty program.
Things you should know: Visit http://www.last.fm/uploadmusic to register your music
and learn more about their royalty programs. Last FM also functions as a social network and
allows users to rate, comment, vote, and interact with each other directly on the site. By
registering with Last.fm, you can get access to a number of features. To name a few, you can
manage your music more effectively, view in depth statistics about your fans, and use a range
of tools to help spread your music. All of these tools are highly valuable to both artists, and
labels, and Last FM believes that they can help the spread of your music to a much greater
degree.*
*www.last.fm > faq

16. REVERB NATION www.reverbnation.com
About: Reverb Nation provides innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete,
cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Many artists use Reverb
Nation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion.*
For bands: Reverb Nation offers several basic and premium features including digital
distribution option, press kits, site builders, buzz trackers, music players and widgets.
Add-Ons:
Mega song storage: increases your maximum song size to 25MB from the standard
8MB. $2.95/month
Great mailing list manager that allows you to store emails, create email templates and
send messages.
Fan 360: Gives you more in-depth information on your fans and searches based on
their email address. There are different pricing options for this feature.
Street Teams: ReverbNation gives every artist a FREE Street Team Program to help
activate their fans and make every promotion "viral". These promoters will help you gain
exposure by talking about you on blogs, in message boards and posting your music,
banners, tour dates, etc. all over the internet.
Facebook Apps: Share your Reverb Nation profile and information across a different
social networking platform. Different application are available including the “My Band”,
“Shows”, and “My Music” widgets.
Things you should know: Be careful upon adding paid features as monthly dues can rack up
quite quickly. A Reverb Nation profile is a great thing to have as it is a quick and convenient way
for your listeners to stream an entire album (or whatever you upload) all in one place. And they
don’t have to go through the hassles of creating a playlist.
*www.reverbnation.com > about

17. PANDORA www.pandora.com
About: Pandora is an automated music listening and discovery service whose single mission is to
play only music you love. Users create accounts and input their favorite artists and songs. Pandora
has an extensive database that has been analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by
a trained music analyst. Basically, it finds and recommends music for you, based on what you already
listen to.*
For bands: Pandora is growing and adding new users every day. Since stations are randomized
based on the similarities and recommendations, it is more likely that you will be able to reach
potential listeners who are more likely to enjoy your music than over look it.
Add-Ons:
Pandora has multiple mobile applications so that users are able to stream their stations
directly from their phones.
Things you should know: The only process for submitting your music (or your band's music)
to Pandora. (It seems tedious but this is the price to pay if you want nterested and loyal listeners!)
You'll need:
- a CD of your music
- a unique UPC code for that CD
- the CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)
- MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
- The legal rights to your music
- A standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this
submission
For additional steps please go to http://blog.pandora.com/faq
*www.pandora.com > about

18. VIDEO COMMUNITIES
Online video sharing communities allow users to upload and share videos. A wide variety of user-generated content is available for both
registered and non-registered users for viewing, including movie clips, tv clips, music videos and video blogs.
Video communities are a great place to house all the footage you may have from live shows or interviews. By uploading to these sights,
you’re making it easier for your fans to promote you, as all clips are provided with unique embed codes. So basically, if I really liked your
music video, I’d probably put it up on my blog as well as send it along to all of my friends.
www.imeem.com | www.vimeo.com | www.youtube.com

19. OFFICIAL WEBSITES

20. OFFICIAL WEBSITES
This is your identity. Claim your space and get your domain.
www.yourband.com < this is the most important thing to you and your brand (the band).
Your official website is the first thing people look for when searching for you on the internet, and it should be
the first thing they see. Your official website should be the hub of all things revolving around your band.
It may be tempting to ignore the need for a personal website and just go with one of your social networks, but
there are many things that are unappealing about doing so. For example, in order to use a social network, a user
must have a login, have a profile set up, and ‘befriend’ you. No offense to your band, but what if I don’t want you
looking through my personal pictures or work information? Also, different people use different sites. A person on
Facebook may not have a MySpace profile or a Twitter account. Let’s not forget the importance of contact and
availability. Having a long, drawn out URL on a business card or flyer is unprofessional and just seems tacky!
Also, official websites are great places to house blogs and compile content on. Your site should serve as a one-
stop-shop for everything related to your band. The following slides list helpful tools and resources for optimizing
your website.
www.kingsofleon.com | www.bandofhorses.com | www.djshadow.com

21. WORDPRESS www.wordpress.org
About: WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
For Bands: On this site you can download and install a software script called WordPress. To do this you need a web host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time. WordPress is completely
customizable and can be used for almost anything. There is also a service called WordPress.com which lets you get started with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways
and is less flexible than the WordPress you download and install yourself. For more information on how to get started with Wordpress, visit http://wordpress.org/about/.
Add-Ons:
I recommend using Dreamhost (www.dreamhost.com) as your website host. They have a one click install for Wordpress sites and it’s pretty easy on the wallet too!
Wordpress sites are almost completely customizable. If you are unfamiliar with web development and design, there are also many templates that you can build off of. Many of these templates have
been designed specifically for musicians and bands.
There are numerous plug-ins and widgets available for installation and integration on your Wordpress site. I recommend installing a Twitter widget, a gig-calendar widget, and a sharing widget (so
that users are able to email, tweet, or update their Facebook status with links to the content of your site. For a gigantic list of available Wordpress widgets, go here http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins/
www.wordpress.org | www.thebuckmaker.com | www.ithemes.com | www.bandwebsitetemplate.com

22. BLOGS
About Blogs: A blog is basically a diary or website that you write
things on a regular basis. Readers are able to share and comment on the
stuff you write.
For Bands: Blogs are a great tool for bands, as music is all about
writing. By blogging, you’re allowing your fans into your daily lives. Fans
won’t have to sit and wonder what you’re up to; let them know you’re
working on your next album, where you’re going next on tour, and how
awesome you thought the town you were in last night was.
Add-Ons:
Enhance your blog by adding pictures and video of all your
adventures!
Turn your blog into your own mini newspaper or magazine.
Talk about stuff you’re into, music you’re listening to (hey we
know you’re not the only band in the world) -- maybe even
review someone else’s album? Your blog is always looking for
content, so write, write, write!
Things you should know: Wordpress.com is different than
Wordpress.org. Wordpress.com is just a blogging platform and does not
support the same levels of customization that a Wordpress.org site does.
www.wearescientsits.com | www.chriscornell.com | www.blogger.com

23. TOOLS

24. BAND METRICS www.bandmetrics.com
About: Band Metrics is for musicians, bands,
labels, managers, booking agencies, venues, A&R
reps, promoters, music supervisors, publicists,
marketing agencies, analysts and anyone interested
in measuring artists and music. Identify fans,
measure social engagement, find hot markets,
track radio plays, discover trends, gauge attitudes,
in-depth reports and more!
For Bands: Currently in a private beta, meaning
you have to wait for an access code. Band Metrics
is great and can be used to monitor your online
social presence and see what’s working for you
and where.
Sentiment analysis
Band to Band comparisons
Momentum tracking

25. ARTIST DATA www.artistdata.com
About: Artist Data is a great tool that helps
musicians manage all of their social media in one
place.
For Bands: Artist Data is constantly adding new
functionality. Use this tool to save time updating
your content as it allows you to publish
information everywhere from one simple
platform. Definitely saves time and keeps you
organized. Artist Data also helps streamline and
keep everything consistent.
This tool is great because it makes life
easy. If you have a show, you can go into
Artist Data, update it, and it automatically
updates the info across all of your social
networks.

26. WEB ANALYTICS www.google.com/analytics | www.getclicky.com
About: Web analytics are the measurement and collection of data from a
specified place on the internet, like your website. This internet data can be very
useful to help interpreting who your online audience is.
For Bands: Website analytics are a very important. By looking at these
metrics, you’re basically seeing who’s doing what, and where (in relation to your
site and it’s content). You will be able to tell when you had the most traffic and
why. You will also be able to tell where the traffic to your website is coming
from, whether it be by people google-ing you, directly going to your site, or if
they’re being referred by another source.
By having this information, you will be able to gauge your popularity and geo-
locate where your fans are. You can arrange your marketing strategy around
what these numbers say. Again, a very important part of being online, is having
proper web analytics tools.

27. SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
About: Social media itself produces data that can be analyzed to determine
your influence in the space. This information holds basically tells you what
people think of you and what they’re saying.
For Bands: There are many free social media analysis tools out there that can
help you understand how the rest of the people on the internet (fans, critics, &
randoms) feel about you. All the effort you have made in setting up an online
presence, writing blogs, chatting up people on Twitter and Facebook can’t be for
nothing, right?
See exactly what people are saying about you, understand what they’re clicking
on and linking to. Pay attention to the names of these people as they could be
boosting or ruining your reputation.
www.socialmention.com | www.technorati.com | www.twitteranalyzer.com | www.hootsuite.com

28. EXTRAS

29. OTHER WIDGETS
About Widgets: A web widget is a basically a
portable chunk of code that can be installed and
embedded on a separate web page. Widgets are
often on screen tools like music and video players
that are frequently used to syndicate content.
For Bands: Places like imeem and YouTube
automatically generate embed codes for all of
their content. Most blogging platforms and sites
will accept the code. By implementing these
widgets, you’re providing your website viewers
with things to interact with, and perhaps a reason
to come back!
Add-Ons:
Facebook provides you with the tools
to create a badges to use for promoting
your Facebook Page (http://
www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/)
Twitter also provides widgets that feed
live tweet streams from a specific user
(http://twitter.com/downloads).
www.twitter.com | www.facebook.com | www.reverbnation.com | www.vimeo.com

30. LINKS & THINGS
Here are a few more awesome music tech blogs & tools that you might want to check out:
Blogs & News
www.sanfranmusictech.com
www.mashable.com/category/music-lists
www.hypebot.com
www.digitalmusicnews.com
www.indiemusictech.com
www.musicblogscatalog.com
Band Tools
www.bandize.com
www.kickstarter.com
www.ourstage.com
www.sonicbids.com
www.sonicliving.com
www.elisteningpost.com
iPhone Apps
Guitar ToolKit by Agile Partners (www.agilepartners.com/apps/guitartoolkit/)
Drumkit by Crimsonjet (www.crimsonjet.com)
4 Track by Sonoma WireWorks (www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack)
Karajan Beginner (ww.karajan-eartrainer.com/en)
Band by Moo Cow Music (www.moocowmusic.com/Band)

31. ABOUT

32. SPOKENSOCIAL.COM
At Spoken Social, you’ll find collective thoughts and views on my interactions and experiences
in life; most of which will directly correlate with how I spend 90% of my time… working in
advertising and social media.
Always looking for interesting articles and people while constantly in search my new favorite
band.
Find me here:
www.spokensocial.com
almitra@spokensocial.com
http://ow.ly/nkPH http://twitter.com/almitra