*Social Media Network analysis, network authoring, strategy consulting, redesign, execution, and maintenance
*Facebook Fan Page creation and maintenance, ad buys, custom fan page tabs
*Twitter Custom Page creation and use strategy
*Myspace friending, custom page design, and commenting campaigns
*Additional Social Network seeding for SEO
*Website Production ( hand coded, FourFour, or WordPress ), and maintenance.
*Total Web site content migration to CMS system ( Want to blog / update yourself? )
*Basic Sysadmin projects ( moving Websites, e-mail creation i.e. you@yourband.com )
*iPhone app execution and launching, maintenance
*iTunes Digital Booklet Production
*Entertainment PR
*Physical and Digital Distribution
*Special Project Management
*Graphic Design
Want some free DIY advise? Click the top images ( WEBSITE – MYSPACE – FACEBOOK – TWITTER – WEB RADIO – PR ) for informative tidbits on using the Web and Social Media to market your music on-line.
Bill had lots of content so FourFour.com was the right choice. He will be Blogging and Video Blogging from the road with Santana, so again this self publishing platform was perfect choice for Bill to be able to keep his fans up to date with ease. Check it out at www.billortiz.com . 5thbeatle.net can work with a range of budgets to help your band achieve such Web presence.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 11:32 am. Add a comment
While working on Santana’s Trumpeter, Bill Ortiz’s upcoming Website using the www.fourfour.com Band Website CMS I had to create a few pages to showcase his music. Featuring his latest release was easy to-do by using the built-in “Store” and music player widget in the CMS. But then I had to create two pages to feature “Live with Santana” and another entitled “As a Guest Artist” and upload a number of one-minutes samples of music he has played on including Toni Toni Toni, Luce, Rebeca Mauleon, and Joyce Cooling just to name a few. After considering a custom hack of the Yahoo Media Player, and a couple others, I landed on Soundcloud.com .
The new feature to reach out to your Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail contacts is pretty nifty to get the word out that you are on Soundcloud. Also the Social functionality is tops, you simply click anywhere on the time-line of the sound file and you can leave a comment, after logging in at Soundcloud of course. The widgets are up-to-date looking in presentation and easy to use. For free accounts, if I have this correct, you have a limit of minutes of audio ( 120mins ) you can upload, but there are no limits on outbound streaming. The site has other “fee based” options to be able to share audio with others. Check it out here.
This is some serious cool-factor. Below is the “standard” Soundcloud widget I made for my band. I would show you Bill’s widget but you will have to wait until we launch his new site. The Premium widgets look great and come with their Premium services. BTW, you can upload multiple songs into one widget. You can also embed these nifty widgets on Facebook via the Soundcloud Player Facebook App.
Happy New Year! Wanted to take the the time to thank all those who where a big support in 2009! Looking forward to 2010 with all of you!
Brian and Shoshana Zisk – SF Music Tech Summit
Christopher Buttner – PRThatRocks
Steffen Franz and everyone at IDC! Mario Previti & Terry Morton Renegade Studios
Kenny Stavropolous – Bay Street Studios
My team and ( hopefuls ) at Super Secret Underpants, LLC – Curtis, Jaemin and everyone at Ropers, Majeski, Bentley, and Kohn, Buzzmakers, Inc., @toxic, Secret Weapon Dude, Brenda Walker / Rebel Content, Kara Murphy, Shannon Clark, Design About Town, & Secret Mobile Guy.
David/David and Ashli at Musica Tecnomica. The best and longest running *monthly* Music Technology Mixer right here in SF!
My 5thbeatle clients! That you for making the music you do and letting me help you with your Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement. I provide the platform; you provide the inspiration for fandom.
Alright let’s make some music and get it out there with the technology.
Starting as of September 24th, bands can sign up to FourFour for free, and then, optionally, choose to pay for upgrades from an a la carte menu of Premium Features.
As expected, the new free version of FourFour comes with limitations:
* Premium accounts can map their website to an official domain. Free accounts
must use their FourFour URL (i.e. http://bandname.fourfour.com)
* Free accounts may have outside advertising incorporated into their website
* Free accounts can stream up to 3 songs in their Music Player, Premium accounts get more!
* Premium accounts can make any songs available as MP3 downloads and
can access and use embeddable play buttons
* Premium accounts can add a Press Kit to their website
* Premium accounts can send emails to subscribers on their Mailing List
* Premium accounts get super-awesome customer support
Go to the following links to learn of the options:
A bands Website should be “Home base.” Not Myspace, not Facebook, nor Twitter et al Social Networking sites. Those sites should be maintained, and the fan relationships within maintained, but you want to drive traffic back to home base.
My personal favorite as a main platform or CMS (Content Management System) is the “Indie Band Management Platform” Fourfour.com . No extreme coding experience needed, though more malleable CSS capabilities are going to eventually be implemented, I am told. I would guess they will be more malleable than a Myspace page, knowing the FourFour development team.
Yep Check it out:
Starting as of September 24th, bands can sign up to FourFour for free, and then, optionally, choose to pay for upgrades from an a la carte menu of Premium Features.
As expected, the new free version of FourFour comes with limitations:
* Premium accounts can map their website to an official domain. Free accounts
must use their FourFour URL (i.e. http://bandname.fourfour.com)
* Free accounts may have outside advertising incorporated into their website
* Free accounts can stream up to 3 songs in their Music Player, Premium accounts get more!
* Premium accounts can make any songs available as MP3 downloads and
can access and use embeddable play buttons
* Premium accounts can add a Press Kit to their website
* Premium accounts can send emails to subscribers on their Mailing List
* Premium accounts get super-awesome customer support
Go to the following links to learn of the options:
One creative hybrid or “mash-up” I did with my FourFour Website was to use the “add a Web link” feature and I put the “minimalist” Web site platform “Bandcamp” as a top navigation tab offering Digital Downloads in *any format*! I can sell my downloads directly to my fans via Paypal, if they are hip with technology. My only worry is that they are “iTunes brainwashed” and that they really do not know how to operate anything but iTunes. So I have the music in iTunes via a digital distribution company, of which there are many popping up or “in the works” these days.
Audio formats:
MP3 (320k)
MP3 VBR High
MP3 VBR Low
AAC High
AAC Low
FLAC
Ogg Vorbis
Apple Lossless (iPod native format)
One supercool feature is the ability to match graphics with an existing site, upload multiple albums, or singles, and the tools are pretty cool also, including mailing list merges with their “download code” generator. From their Website it reads:
“Download codes let you reward your biggest fans with free downloads of tracks or albums that they’d otherwise have to pay for. Send codes out via email, or print them up and bundle them with vinyl, t-shirts, posters…you name it!”
You get 200 free codes when you sign up, then afterward they are $30 for 1000. $.03 a piece is not bad at all. You can get really cool “cards” made by a cool company called “Moo” for another $20 per 100 cards or you can go DIY like I did and make your own. I think with color copying and time it’s still like $20 per 100 cards to tell ya the truth! The satisfaction of DIY is so sweet I suppose.
This is what my DIY cards look like (for now at least):
Bandcamp also includes ability to sell your digital albums or songs via Paypal, either the album or singles, and you can make “hidden tracks,” track statistics, or play the game “Defender”.
Many bands have already jumped on this platform that was authored by a former Yahoo Music employee, Ethan Diamond. Check it out: http://bandcamp.com/artists
So as you can see you can make your band’s Website pretty bad ass for kinda cheap, or you can spend $1000-10,000 with a Web developer and you’ll pay them again when you want something updated, unless you’re Blog savvy and you or a friend whip up a blog and make your domain pointer go where it needs to go. I presume you have a domain name? GoDaddy.com, hey, yeah, a little sexist on the marketing, but #imjustsayin that is how this Website was pointed here.
The three solutions I have proposed for a band Website are 1) A FourFour / Bandcamp hack 2) You or a friend using a blogging platform like WordPress or Joomla 3) Paying boo koo bucks for a custom site from a hot Web Developer. Solutions 1 & 2 can be “self-serve” after initial set-up and a novice can be taught pretty quickly how to maintain and update the system, so you can keep in touch with your fans.
Totally clueless on how to get your Website up and running on the cheap or with a modest to huge budget? I may be of some assistance if I am available. Let’s continue this conversation if need be.
Most of the information on this site is painstakingly formatted in this PDF file below so you can print it on white paper with easy to read black text. Or you can print for FREE by subscribing to the RSS feed at the top of the page, and also be in tune with any and all updates. Try Google Reader, its’ pretty cool. Also many hyperlinks will take you into the Web and show you the examples given. In some cases better then the Website! Ha!
Ebook – ” Web and Social Media Presence for Music Marketing and Fan Engagement” by Todd Tate – Take it for free!
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 12:32 pm. Add a comment
