Making The Most Of Your Online Presence.

[Steve]

Are you making the most of your online presence? There are plenty of ways to increase your audience, and it doesn't have to cost you anything! MySpace is a great example. MySpace has been around for a long time now, and there are lots of established artists that recognise the benefit of having a MySpace page. Social networking is a great way to aquire new listeners and potential customers for your CDs or downloads. But it does require some effort on your part.

When you first sign up for a MySpace page, you get the basic page layout, which is OK! But really, what you want is something to catch peoples attention! Something that sparkles or grabs you by the throat and gives you a little shake! Well the lovely people at MySpace allow you to do almost anything you like with your page! If you look at most pages, you'll see adverts for 'pimp my profile', or some other page transformation site. There are a few out there. Just do a Google search. It can make your profile page look like anything you can imagine! There are some fantastic looking pages out there. Obviously custom built with imagination and flare!

Once you've 'pimped your profile' and uploaded your songs, it's time to go out and get some friends! The first port of call should be your own friends and family if they have MySpace pages. Then, try to find other artists that are similar in style to to you. Or just those artists you find you like! When you find somebody you do like, just click on the 'Add Friend' button to add then. They will accept or deny your request. If they accept you as a friend, make a comment on their page and, if possible, open up some dialogue. Nobody likes free loaders, so making some effort to actually make friends with other Spacers pays dividends in the long term. Going onto other artists pages and listening to their music, then making comments about it encourages return visits. It's absolutely essential to build up a rapport with those that visit your page and listen to your music, and it helps to reply to those that leave comments.

New content on a regular basis also helps to create interest. Whether it's a new song or some new photographs! Regularly updating your page draws people back to see what's new. You can also post a regular Blog. Which seems to be the daily diet of a lot of people these days! Again, new content!

Visiting and listening to those people that come to visit you is a must! Making comments is also looked upon as a good gesture. People like to think that others are interested in their music/photos/Blog etc.

It can take time to establish a MySpace page but the effort can pay off. In the short term, it can seem like an uphill struggle. But in the long term, there are a great many benefits to having a MySpace page. It gets easier as time goes by. When you have a solid base of frinds, thier friends might also find you interesting and also become friends. It can build exponentialy! But patience is the key. A small amount of time regularly set aside to manage your page will reap some rewards.

I have spoken here about MySpace. But there are other social networking sites that you could use. If you do join any networking site, be sure to advertise it any way you can! The most obvious is to have the link in your signature of any forums you belong to! We have a forum thread with all MySpace links from our members, and of course, we have a MySpace Songstuff page, which can be added to here.

http://www.myspace.com/songstuff_club

If you need any help setting up your page? Please feel free to start a new topic in the Forum, where we can give advice and guidance.

[john]

Hey

Nice one Steve.

Cheers

John

[Mazrocon]

Youtube is also a good way to spread the word. If you really wanna go all out you could even make your own site and have the http printed on your shirt. That maybe a bit much though

~TIMOTHY~

[MisterT]

Great advice!

Here's some extra advice:

When you have a big following or even during your time of building your friends lists on anyone of the social networking sites, you should always have point them towards your main www.yourbandname.com site. Set it up to ask people to give you their names and email address (with permission), so that you can send them updates.

Social networking sites are a great source of getting traffic to your website.

If you are just starting out and would like to get some helpful tips and knowhow, visit:

http://www.independentmusicstartup.com/recordlabelguide.html

[neoism]

hey all....some really useful info....