For some great tips on marketing your music online, we recently turned to Eric Hebert, CEO of Evolvor Media. His company works with bands and labels to roll out successful web marketing campaigns. Here are his thoughts…
In your opinion, what are the essential social networking sites that bands MUST be on these days?
There are a ton of networks out there, and with new ones coming out every day it seems, the task of setting up all these profiles can be time consuming. Obviously MySpace and Facebook are no-brainers, they’re going to be the ones you use the most. If you’re in the rock genre, Purevolume and GarageBand are must haves. Virb is becoming very popular because of its clean but customizable options. You’ll have to get on YouTube for videos and Flickr for photos, they’re part of the plan as well. You’ll also need to make traction on the big three streaming networks – Last.fm, iLike, and Imeem. Saving the best for last, Reverbnation offers the best tools out of any of these networks to help promote their music and nurture their fanbase.
How can an independent artist use MySpace effectively to develop a fan community? Is that even possible anymore?
MySpace is just a tool in your toolbox. It has to be part of a bigger plan. You’ll use it to gain fans and communicate with them, but ultimately you’ll want to have your own website, your own blog, your own contact list. Use MySpace and the other networks to interact and bring them to your website. Do you own the contact list you have through MySpace? You want to build your communnity and own the asset.
What are some of the most exciting music marketing tools you’ve seen lately?
I mentioned Reverbnation, they are offering fantastic tools, mostly for free. They have the best streaming music widgets out there, the sound quality is far superior to MySpace’s player. The have a full list management system that also coordinates your street team. I used to pay money for a similar system that was harder to use! Full analytics for everything as well, all in very nice charts and graphs. Their Gig Finder helps you book shows with contact information available right there. Soon they’re going to be rolling out some awesome new options, you really need to check them out.
What do you see as the biggest opportunities online for artists to get heard?
That’s a tough question. The “opportunity” is the website. If someone land’s on your site, how soon can they hear one of your songs? Do you have your album streaming? Are there free downloads? That’s the opportunity. Many bands screw this one up. They force you to buy an album first or make it difficult to just hear a song. The sooner someone can hear something the faster they’ll become your fan and hopefully buy the album, see the show, etc. I could answer this question ten different ways, but being smart about how you present your music is just clutch.
Do you think unknown artists should give away music for free?
Abso-freaking-lutely. Artists that don’t want to give some music away for free are in denial. I’ve found that if you give a song away, just give them a file, you’re halfway there. People love free stuff and will take anything that’s free. If they like it, then they’ll want more – and that’s when you sell the album. You give away the “single” for free. Then maybe you give another song away for free, but this time you ask for their email so you can add them to your list. If they like you after one song, they’ll LOVE you after two. I’m seeing bands give away entire albums, and I think that’s great too. The album isn’t the only revenue model anyway, and any band that wants to become financially successful should have alternative models – touring, merchandising, sponsorships, and fan club revenue. Get them to hear the music and you have a chance to sell all of those things as well.
What are the fundamentals of Evolvor’s music marketing strategies?
I’d say the basic underlying fundamentals are building the brand through interaction. Yes you have to have good music that people will enjoy, but you have to interact with them so they become true fans. The web offers us the ability to do this though things like blogging and creating videos and viral content. An artist that works with me better be prepared to constantly interact with fans, to open up their lives a bit and share their experiences with us. You have to make people give a shit about you, otherwise you just one on a million. There needs to be an emotional bond.
Can you give an example of a successful web marketing campaign you’ve done with an artist?
The Fear Zero guys get it, and it’s doing great things for them. You have to understand a lot of the concepts my campaigns are based on come from the internet marketing sector that I’ve worked in for years and are just being tried out as we speak with musicians, and those guys understand it. I tell every artist that seeks my time out that if they’re not committed to things like updating their blog or creating behind the scenes content, or giving a track away, that they’re better off doing things the old fashioned way.
At what point in their career should a band outsource their online marketing and strategy to a company like yours?
I’m much more of a project manager, a teacher, to artists more than anything else. You can’t just expect to throw money at me and expect magic to happen. So I’d say that once you’ve established that you want to be a musician and you have a band, literally at that moment, is a good time to give me a call. If you get started early enough, especially in the blogging and content creation department, you can slowly build your fanbase while you begin to find your identity and record your music, and by the time that first record gets finished you’ll be armed with all kinds of content to put out there. So many bands wait until they have the album in hand and come to me expecting to get it out there in a few months time. That’s possible, with a large budget. I’d much rather work with them before they even go into the studio to teach them why documenting the recording process is vital to building their fanbase.
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Thanks Eric for the excellent ideas! Take a second to check out Evolvor’s blog.
You can also download a free Fear Zero track.
Great interview guys. Eric, ReverbNation is really taking music promo to a whole nother level. Two sites that are a little left field that I would like to add are Twitter and Pownce. I love the fact that Pownce can be used as a super mailing list with free songs, videos street team files and more!
Thanks Greg for adding Twitter and Pownce. The Material Myspace page you mention on your blog IS very impressive in its use of Twitter and a great example for others.
I haven’t checked out Pownce but it looks like a cool idea. Would welcome any info on how you’re using it!
Twitter for sure, although I feel it’s something that I tend to focus on after I have people blogging for a bit. It’s hard to get someone to do so much right off the bat when they don’t yet understand the value behind it.
Twitter is a great “micro” blogging tool that artists can use to update their communities with small tidbits of what they happened to be doing at the time.
I wish someone like Eddie Vedder used twitter, he’d have a zillion subscribers.
Pownce is good for sending files, but if I’m already using Reverb, I can just send a link from there to download a file and track each and every download all form one place, which is clutch.
Having been doing this for the last two years I’d say Eric is pretty spot on – but all the tools mentioned (and twitter is an absolute must,) are nothing but facilitators for the live show. It is the act of playing that establishes the relationship with the fans, the activity around the music is what is interesting. Nobody gives a damn about what you ate, what you’re doing, what clothes you like or who you’re boning unless they’re hooked on the music you’re making – its the fact that you can make music that is addictive.
And yes – the Materials MySpace page is very impressive – nice work.
Very true! Twittering to no one or no one that gives a shit about you won’t make much impact…
At the same time, there are a lot of musicians that I love and follow but will never actually see play live. But these musicians probably hit my radar screen when other people are out seeing them live, and then turn me onto them.
With web videos and other media, I am optimistic that conversions can happen even more easily without live shows…
It’s all about interaction and LIVE is the ULTIMATE interaction! Okay, aside from maybe some sexual encounter, that is, but you pick up what I’m putting down.
@evolver – that’s why I went into the music business in the first place ;-p
It is all about interaction – and the live show is the most interesting and content rich experience
@brian “…But these musicians probably hit my radar screen when other people are out seeing them live, and then turn me onto them.”
– that is exactly the point – ..whereas…
“…With web videos and other media, I am optimistic that conversions can happen even more easily without live shows…”
– misses the point – what are those web videos and other media going to be of? They should be of the band playing – and preferably playing live. If a band are resourceful enough to have someone on the team who can capture a performance – even with a cheap $150 camera – and then pull the audio track from the soundboard – that’s cool – that’s real that’s authentic and it is also unique to the band. You can upload it, tag it, etc etc.
But the beauty of playing live today is that the majority of the audience will be doing the same thing – on phones – on cameras – hell, you can ask them to do it and they love it
I have a theory about an artist’s digital footprint – the bigger the better – and the only way to take it exponential is to get other people, lots of other people, the fans to create it – and they will be happy to do it if you have a great band and a great show…
When I think of my own radar screen – whether its a twitter post, an rss feed, a network friend referral – it’s been a long time since I received “you gotta hear this” – its pretty much “you’ve gotta see this.”
K – rant over ;-p – but I would caution any band that thinks that they should take time away from playing live to focus on social media – if you’re good – your fans will take up the slack.
Good point, that the majority of good media content will be live performances. And it’s true, that most referrals these days are video and not just audio. Kind of unfortunate for those with great sounds but poor performances.
I tend to divide groups into two categories: those with studio recordings better than the live show, and live show better than the recordings. For example, I stopped going to extreme lengths to see Radiohead in concert because their concerts are not sonically great reproductions of their albums. And since they don’t really improvise too much, I sometimes prefer the perfection of a studio recording. Their in-studio videos, though, are a great compromise in my opinion, because I get to watch them playing the songs up close, and the sound quality is really good.
With other groups like Pearl Jam, the Grateful Dead, Phish, or My Morning Jacket, the energy and emotion of live performance really doesn’t translate to studio albums, so live performance is absolutely where it’s at.
Again, great stuff. I love this blog. Still, I am wondering… in all the discussion, are you talking about YOUR music or confusing marketing talk = music talk… I just emailed Derek S. about this, and he’s put out lots of good stuff. Ditto Cdbaby… I think your blog will get people who are trying to sell music, but not always fans.
Think about a good book, and the last good book about writing books you read….
Just a thought,
Scott Clous
http://www.clousfamily.com
I however, am being driven crazy because I can’t hear the music 🙂
Must me my “snobby nature” 🙂