Unsigned Does Not Mean Unknown

Make It Easy

Can You Believe This? Checked out a singer on Myspace who wanted me as a Myspace friend. 

Her songs are pretty good but it was a case of hmm maybe and hmm maybe not. So I write out a message asking for more info on her and what her plans are. It was refused because I have to be a myspace friend of hers before it will be posted. I just shake my head and wonder if people like her are really serious about getting noticed. 

What if I was an A & R man?

So please musicians, make it EASY for people to contact you. People in the music business are busy people and don't have time to fart arse around looking for ways to contact artists.

I also notice she does not have her own website so how does she expect to get noticed? Luck?

Needless to say I've declined her invite - the people I want on my Myspace page are mostly musicians who have a professional attitude. 

Reviews

Using My Space Bulletin Board

There are advantages and disadvantages of using My Space bulletin board.

Advantages

• Gets your message out instantly to all your My Space friends
• Your friends are able to instantly reply to your message
• They can also instantly comment on your bulletin if you use that feature
• Great for announcing forthcoming gigs
• Also good for announcing release of singles and cds
• Can be used also for any news of your band that would be of interest to fans/friends

Disadvantages

• If your friends have hundred or thousands of friends that may also be posting bulletins on a regular basis, then your bulletin may get lost amongst all the "noise"
• Too frequent posting on bulletin board can cause "bulletin board fatigue" where people just won't open your posts or even worse get fed up with so many posts from you that they delete you as a friend
• It's not as personal as a individual message or comment

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether
Other Blogs:
Reviews of Unsigned and Indie Label Bands
http://thelegendaryfrank.typepad.com/unsigned_bands_and_indie_/

Getting Your Music To Connect With Your Fans

And also getting your fans to connect with your music because music is a dialogue.

How much do you know about your fans?

• Their tastes in music
• What books, magazines and newspapers they read
• What radio stations they listen to
• What are their politics
• Their concerns about their lives
• The clothes they wear
• How they feel about things

How much do fans know about you?

• What your music stands for
• What you as individuals believe in
• Your personalities
• Your background (if it's relevant to your music and of interest to fans)
• Your likes and dislikes

Start the conversation with your fans today. They'll thank you with their loyalty.

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether
Blog: Reviews Indie and Unsigned Bands Music Reviews

Who Are You?

What do you stand for?

Why should your fans and potential fans care about you?

Why do you play music?

How are you going to get across to people what, you as an artist, are all about?

Only when fans know who you are and what you stand for, will they care enough to buy your music and go to your gigs.

Of course this only works if the people you want as your fans have a similar outlook to you.

Identify these people, love em up and they will buy every cd you release and go to as many gigs of yours as they can.

Get people to like you and everything else will fall into place.

The Legendary Frank
http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether

Blog: Usigned Bands and Indie Label Reviews

How Far is Too Far?

You have raunchy songs.

You have songs with swear words that are a vital part of the song.

Do you always use these songs in your set irrespective of the audience or do you customise your set to reflect your audience?

You're invited to do a gig where there are children attending like Fetes or free concerts or gigs at fairgrounds etc.

What would you do?

You have three options:

1. Decline the invitation because you don't want to delete any swear words or leave out unsuitable songs or
2. Accept the invitation and modify your songs accordingly or
3. Go ahead with the gig and refuse to tone down your act and then face the possible consequences

I think most people in the music business would say option 3 is too far.

What do you do if you're at a gig and you find that there are children?

Well, you don't wait to be told to tone down your act. Commonsesne says that you automatically tone it down and then complain to the organisers afterwards for not telling you that there would be children present.

Many bands are tempted to go too far in their acts (not only with audiences with children in them), These are situations where the band do something offensive or illegal. The thinking is that this will get them publicity. Well of course it will but at the same time they run the risk of pissing off the music establishment. Do that and you could end up being blacklisted with venue managers and promoters not touching you with a forty foot barge pole.

So all in all, best to play safe, keep your "adult" songs for adult audiences and either avoid tricky audiences or customise your act accordingly.

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether
Blog: Unisgned Bands and Indie Label Reviews

Your Gig Is Your Shop Window

And what you display is not only your music but

• Who you are
• How you can be contacted
• What you are selling

So how can you get this info across?

First and foremost. A banner! One that is behind you on the stage and that can clearly be read.

One that has your name, your My Space url and any other urls that you have. Also email address and telephone number.

Ok, so people will take all this in. But they'll forget as soon as they get home. So your second line of attack is flyers or table tent cards (ones that stand up on their own.) Same details on these and if possible details of future gigs.

But this is not enough. Flyers and cards can get lost or just thrown away. You want to have these potential fans in a position where they will receive information about you whether it's an email advising of the next gig in their area or a newsletter or even an url to your latest blog.

The third line of attack is to have someone to go around collecting email addresses. Women are best for this as it has been shown that both men and women are more likely to trust a woman and giving a stranger your email addy is a gesture of trust. By getting their email addys and thus their permission for you to email them you now have a direct line to them. Ok, they still might not open your email so you have to make your subject line enticing. That could be as simple as just announcing the next gig or a heading that is a teaser.

Now on to merchandise. Don't announce that you've got cds to sell and if anyone wants one just come up to the stage. People are surprisingly shy and in any case the rule is, as with all marketing, make it easy for the customer to buy. So it's best for someone to go down on the floor and sell the cds.

Or you could have a merchandise table selling your cds and tee shirts etc somewhere that is clearly visible. And don't forget to tell people when you're on stage where the table is.

Now you have a shop window for every gig you do.

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether

You've Got a Gig On! So What's Next?

Ask yourself some questions. 

Why Are You Doing the Gig?
To sell you cd or other merchandise?
To promote yourself?
Hoping to find some A & R people at the gig?
Or is playing your music a hobby where earning income is not important?

How Are You Going to Promote the Gig Before You Play?
Flyers? If so how are you going to distribute the flyers?
Social Networking sites?
Forums?
Chat rooms?
Mates and ask them to spread the word around?
Blogs?
Newsletters?
Email?
Internet radio stations?
Printed Media? Newspapers, magazines etc.

What Do You Need to Do on at the Gig?
Table Tent Cards? Er, to put on tables.
Banner with name of your band and URLs to go behind you on stage?
Visible table with your merchandise?

What's Next After the Gig?
Hand out feedback form immediately after the gig.
Sort out all new email addresses you receive and thank those people for coming.

If you want a checklist of things to do, message me on my page on My Space.

If anyone can add to the above list or to the checklist I have, then message me please. We're all in this together.

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether

Online Friends Are Not Whores

If you invite someone onto your page and just leave the automated message "Xyz wants to be your friend" then you're treating your prospective new friend like a whore.

After all you wouldn't go up to someone in a singles bar and just say "I want to be your friend" You'd chat them up first, find out something about them, pay a genuine compliment and so on.

So why don't people do the same when looking for online friends on the social networking sites, especially My Space?

Then there's the Whore Train and similar software which is the ultimate in impersonal friend searches. It's the online version of promiscuity where the amount of friends you get is more important than the quality of those friends.

And of course A & R peeps aren't fooled. Nor is anyone else for that matter. On the other hand if you have many friends and the number of well thought out comments they post is high in percentage terms then people might prick up their ears.

So make your online friends special by doing the following:

1. When inviting them use the message facility and show that you've visited their page and say something nice (but be genuine) about their site such as the design or you like their songs or comment on something in their bio etc. Anything to show that you've bothered to look at their page properly.
2. If possible address them by name in your message
3. When they accept you as a friend post a comment on their page thanking them but don't leave it as a bare "thanks for the add." Make the thank you different if possible and also say something more about their page/music etc.
4. Aim to post a comment once a month, open a spreadsheet to keep track if necessary. Yes it takes time to do that but it will show that you are a person who cares about your friends.

Remember an online friend is a fan you've not yet met! :-)

The Legendary Frank
My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether

If You're an Unsigned Band, Pray That Your Songs Are Being Passed Around!

If you give out your songs on a CD or make them available to download for free and people start copying them and passing them among their friends then you should be thanking your lucky stars.

Because that means that you're creating a buzz.

That means that people think your songs are so cool that they're burning their own cds of your songs and passing them on because that makes them look cool.

Make some of your songs available for free. Don't be mean and especially don't give them mingy sound clips on your page where you're just getting into the song and it stops. That pisses people off.

What does anyone else think about this? Is giving songs for free a sacrifice too far?

The Legendary Frank

My Space: http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether

How Many Comments Do You Have on Your MySpace Page?

And how many of their comments are useful?

Comments that go further than saying "U rock" or "Just spreading some love."

Relevant comments show the poster has looked at your page properly and/or listened to the music and given you some feedback.

What roughly is the percentage of comments to the number of friends you have on My Space?

If the percentage is low then you may need to do some work to make the Comments tool an effective promotion tool.

Reasons for low volume of comments.

1. Friends on your page are there mostly to make up the numbers so have no incentive to ever look at your page and probably don't have the slightest interest in your page (nor often do you have any interest in their page).
2. You don't post comments on Friends' pages so they feel no obligation to post on your page.
3. You post comments on their page but they can't be bothered to hit the "Comment Back" button for a quick reply. (Bad move, see below for why.)

What To Do

Post as many comments on your friends' pages as time allows
and make the comments friendly and personal and in the case of other bands, that you like their music, that is if you do!

It is protocol on My Space to comment back immediately to other peeps comments (unless theirs are replies to your comments), the only exception being those that are blatantly promoting themselves. Nothing wrong in using Comments as a promo tool but far more effective if the promo is at the end as a sort of "By the was we're playing at xyz" etc.

Friendly and genuinely interested comments will be read by others who will
think, "at last someone who's not just posting to promote themselves."

Try it and watch the number of comments especially useful and genuine ones rise.

The Legendary Frank

My Space http://www.myspace.com/competeyetworktogether