In an effort to try and expand this blog to more than just relevant updates on our music, etc. I have been thinking of extra ideas on possible segments to add. One that I think is a good idea is to share ideas on time savers and marketing techniques with other musicians. So, every Monday I plan to do a quick segment on something under this category. Hope you enjoy and please share your thoughts and comments below this blog post.
Social networking has become somewhat of a vital part in the life of a dedicated musician. The problem with this is one main factor. Time. Updating statuses, listing shows, promoting and all the other countless things that seem to pile up. Alot of musicians have simply relied on just their myspace site alone to network and get peeps to shows, etc. As you may or may not know, Facebook has become the new social network juggernaut and Myspace has declined in numbers and is more oriented towards music-lovers.In addition, their are countless existing and new social networks and music sites out there and seem to continually multiply everyday. Not to mention going out and promoting shows in person and getting yourself out there. What is a musician to do?
Out of following numerous online sources advice, being experimental and creative on my own. I have seemingly found a system that works for me. The first time-saver site that I came across is
Ping.fm and it is great. There are many sites that you may already be on that you are unaware that you can update them all from one place. This is a great place to start. Notice everytime I send a ping out it gets listed on this blog. It gives little micro-blog updates on here every time I update a status, etc. from ping. I like it because it continues to add content on here, inbetween regular blog entries. Also, I have it synced to our fan page on Facebook. If you like this idea, you will need to use the facebook application
NetworkedBlogs. From Ping.fm I can also update many other sites that are listed on our myspace site entitled
The Razor's Edge. It is kind of a visual hub for our online presence. The link for that and the accompany page for facebook are on the right-side further down this blog.
A couple of others that we use are
FanBridge and also
ArtistData. I like fanbridge, first of all, because we already had one set-up. They recently added a FREE function to update Myspace, Facebook and Twitter accounts all at once. I use this inbetween pings or also for additional sites that I cannot send a ping from. Artistdata is another you need to check out. They are constantly adding new features and the beta version has recently been implemented. You can post a show and have that event synced to your Myspace and your Facebook and also have it sent to additional sites to announce your show and also remind peeps the day of show. You can update your statuses and both Artistdata and Fanbridge have other paid resources available. Last but not least, a few others that you may want to check out are
Pixelpipe,
Seesmic,
HootSuite and
TweetDeck. Pixelpipe allows you to update statuses, etc. but also you can upload a picture to multiple sites at once. Seesmic, which is now apart of Ping.fm too, is a downloadable browser in which you can utilize similiar to ping.fm but on a smaller scale. It is also like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck because these three are all used for Twitter and Facebook primarily. However, you can create columns to follow people's updates on twitter, facebook, etc. and the functions differ and range from showing twitter lists that you have made to using a column for following myspace updates, to seeing your comments and likes and also for sending them. One site even lets you follow your facebook fan page's posts. I hope that you spend a little time over the next week checking out these resources and be sure to have patience and take the time to get through set up. Just remember that you will be updating multiple sites and not just one, a mess up means that you will have to go into all the sites seperately and delete/re-do them manually. Utilize google if you have trouble with any of these sites, it can be your best friend online, at times. We hope you find this useful and remember, everyday sites are being standardized, this means even more benefits down the road! Stay sharp...
