Every band that has recorded music would like to have their music played on the radio. Even with the listenership of traditional radio falling off dramatically as people listen to iPods, there are still enough people listening to radio stations to make it worth the effort to try to get some airplay. Even if there are only a few hundred listeners, that’s a few hundred that might otherwise never hear your music.
How do you get your music played? Just send it in. Mail in a CD, email a MP3, whatever you have. But first do a little research. Make sure your songs are the best possible quality that you can produce. Take a little time and figure out what makes a song “radio ready.” Check out the various radio stations in your area (to start with) and determine if any of them are likely to play your kind of music, who makes the decisions on what music gets played and what format they prefer to get that music in.
Get your song Radio Ready: A good producer can help you out here, and even a half-assed one should know more than nothing. It’s not rocket science. Just Google “Radio Ready Song” and you will get more info than you can handle. The bottom line is that you need a radio ready mix for your song which will sometimes be different than the version you play live or sell on your album.
A few pointers:
Make sure the lyrics are clean. No four letter words that are not allowed on TV or Radio (even if you are sending it to cable TV or internet radio, this rule is commonly enforced to make sure grandmothers don’t call in to complain about the material their grandchildern are listening to.)
Keep your intro short. Live you can noodle on for 5 minutes before the lyrics start, but radio prefers that you go 4 bars and then start the singing.
Master the song. Mastering is a step that comes after mixing. This involves keeping the volume and levels to within a desired range. Without mastering, your song will sound “local.” (that means “amateur” or sometimes even “bad”) You need someone who really understands mastering to have this done well. It’s worth the extra cost. You may want to create a version that is specifically mastered for radio.
Once your song is ready:
Make sure the station you will submit to plays your genre of music. No matter what the station, they have a specific genre or genres that they will play. This is more true for traditional radio than Internet, but even many Internet stations have a specific kind of music they want to play. Make sure your music will fit that format before you even inquire. If it doesn’t fit, you’re just wasting your time... and theirs.
When sending in an MP3: Don’t send an email that says “Hi there, Music Director, We’re a cool band Please check out our music here <link>” First, you want to address the Program Director by name. If you can’t be bothered to figure out the name of the person you are sending this to and address them specifically, they will likely not bother to listen to your music. Second, they will never visit your website, fan page, profile or whatever, no matter where it is. This is because they have all been spammed into submission by bad guys who send them links to viruses, trojans, robots, scams, etc. Send them a polite inquiry asking if they would be interested in hearing your music, what genre it is, and what format they would prefer to receive it in. (unless this info is already clearly spelled out on their website) Then you can send them an MP3 file, or whatever they prefer.
Send only 1 song at a time. (Unless they tell you it’s OK to send more) They don’t want to plow through listening to an entire albums worth of songs to find the good one. Just send them the one song you think is the best. If they play it, wait a few weeks (or months) and then send them another one. Never send them a zip file with 80 songs in it. (Yes, we’ve seen this before.)
Make sure your MP3 file has all the appropriate tags embedded: The title, artist name, genres, etc. Some stations also have a preferred format for the file name. “Artist Name - Song Name” Because their files are all sitting on a hard drive, alphabetical order by artist is the easiest way they have to find a particular song. Name your file wrong and they may never find it.
Don’t be surprised if they ask for a small payment in order to listen to your song and consider it for playing on their show. This is because they get so many submissions that listening to them all becomes a full-time job. Just like anyone else, they’d like to get paid for all that work. A couple bucks insure your song at least gets a listen.
Don’t bother them after fact with questions like “When will my song be on the air?” or “How many people were listening?” They aren’t likely to answer. They have better things to do, like listening to new songs and putting a show together.
Most Program Directors, as well as booking agents/talent buyers, do not want to get CDs in the mail anymore. They take up a ton of space and mostly end up in the trash. Radio stations of all kinds generally play MP3 files now. They can store thousands of songs on one hard drive which takes up a lot less space than thousands of CDs would.
If you do send in a CD:
Please remove the shrink wrap first. PDs hate having to tear that stuff off.
Make sure your contact info, and all the other info, (artist name, song name, album name and track lengths are noted the CD itself as well as the packaging) Imagine it’s only on the CD, you put that into the drive and then have to announce the name of the song. You can’t see it while it’s spinning the drive.
Put a note on the CD that indicates which one track you want them to listen to. They have better things to do than listen to your entire album and try to decide which one is best. Without that note, they will probably listen to 30 seconds of the 1st song and then, if they aren’t interested, they will take out the CD and listen to the next submission.
Where to send your music: Many radio stations, even those owned by huge corporations that program all their music from a single office in the midwest have a locals program. It might run at midnight on Sunday, when the ratings are lowest, but they commonly have one. You can find out by checking their websites. Find out what stations are in your area here: http://radio-locator.com/ Many of the big corporate owned stations hardly even have DJs, much less Program directors or Music directors (the people who decide what gets played), so if you can’t find a local or independent show, don’t bother sending anything in. There’s likely nobody there to get it.
A better bet is to seek out College radio stations, independent radio stations, Internet radio stations, Podcasts and Digital stations. Send them your music. This is a much bigger market than you may think.
College Radio: Every college with a communications department will usually have a radio station as well. They use it to teach their students how to become DJs and Program Directors. College Stations have for decades been responsible for breaking the hottest new bands and new trends in new music. The staff are college kids who are interested in finding the next big thing, usually music that doesn’t yet fit on the big corporate stations. They will be much more open to playing something edgy or avant-garde. Get in good with enough college kids and your band could be the next big thing.
Independent radio stations (also called: Public or Community Radio Stations)are commonly found in small or isolated communities. These stations will have lower power and may only broadcast to listeners within a few miles. Many of them are also non-profits Mostly, these are run by a small group of people who just love the music and they play whatever they want. Because of that, they are much more likely to listen to whatever you send them and play it, if they like it. There are hundreds of these kind of stations all over the continent. If you are getting airplay all over the rural parts of the country, it will be that much easier to put together a successful tour, as well.
Internet Radio stations are multiplying like rabbits. They’re everywhere. These stations can play literally whatever they want and are not tied down by as many FCC rules and regulations. According to Wikipedia, there are an estimated 52 million actual Internet radio listeners. The number has been growing steadily and will likely continue with people switching from broadcast over-the-air radio to Internet radio more and more. There are hundreds of thousands of people listening at any given time and some of these stations have more listeners than their traditional counterparts. Additionally, they can, and often do, keep a copy of their shows online for people who want to listen later. Sometimes they even play these shows over again when they don’t have time to put together a new show. Another cool thing, is that they can tell in real time, exactly how many people are listening in.
Podcasts are sometimes indistinguishable from Internet radio, in that they are available only online and are archived, replayed, etc. Some of them are never really “aired” at a given time, but they are available all the time. There are thousands of podcasts being produced every day. Just use Google to find them.
Digital Radio: Many big traditional stations now have digital sub-stations. These are only listenable on a digital radio or online. But with new stations and programs, digital offers new opportunities for new music. While researching the biog stations, check out their digital offerings and see if they have a local or unsigned band program there.
Syndicated Radio Shows: A quick way to get on a lot of stations all at once is to get your music on syndicated radio shows - E-Town, Acoustic Storm, Acoustic Cafe, World Cafe, The Colorado Wave. These shows generally have a big audience because they are on hundreds of stations.
Radio Promoters: Radio promoters are people who are paid to take a recording of a song and put it in front of the people who decide what gets played on the radio. The best of them have good relationships with Music/Programming Directors at many stations big and small all around the country. Many of them will even promote to the bigger Internet stations. Major record labels have a staff of radio promoters who do this full time for their roster of artists. There are also a large number of independent radio promoters/companies. Some of them do an excellent job. All of the good ones are really expensive. We’re talking $100,000 or more to get one song into regular rotation on appropriate stations across the country. Most of these promoters will only take on an artist or song that they feel is of high enough quality to fit well onto a given genre of stations. That means, good songs, well produced, and mastered correctly.
Beware the promoters who guarantee airplay. Like most facets of the music business, there are sharks, cheats, and rip-off artists in radio promotion. A legitimate company will not guarantee any airplay, but will guarantee that they will put it in front of Music Directors and make them listen to it. If the MDs don’t like it, they won’t play it. Any guarantees of airplay should be scrutinized with a fine tooth comb. What stations will play your song? What shows? What is the promoter’s relationship with the Music director there? How can this guarantee possibly work? Could you probably get your music on that station without the promoter? If so, do it. The true value of any radio promoter is their ability to get you onto stations you could probably never get on without a promoter.
Follow these guidelines and spend a lot of time on it and your band could get enough air play to make a huge difference in touring, album and merch sales, and take a big step towards the ultimate goal of being a rich and famous rock star! Good hunting!
Obviously, we can’t tell you exactly which songs to play or in what order, because this article is intended for any band of any genre. It all depends, of course, on what kind of band you are. Tribute bands know exactly what songs to play. Cover bands have to decide what genre or era of music to play, and may want to tailor that to specific venues or audiences. But what about bands playing original music? Here again it depends on the genre. Does your original music have a heavy dance groove, like 1970s disco? Or is it more contemplative fare that encourages an audience to sit there and listen, like The Fray. Are you playing only originals, or do you want to incorporate a few selected covers. Are you playing in a biker bar? or a coffee shop? or a theater? Does your music cross genres? Do your fans already know your music or are you a relatively new band still trying to win people over? There are obviously a lot of variables, so we will try to guide you through them so you can put together a killer set list.
If you are playing in a biker bar or a neighborhood pub, you will probably go over best if you play music people are familiar with. This is also true for weddings, corporate gigs and many street fairs and festivals. That means covers, and the more danceable they are, the more the crowd will like you. In this case, you should play 50-100% covers, with originals sandwiched between compatible cover songs. If you play all covers, like a typical blues/rock cover band might, you’ll probably be a big hit.
If you are playing in a coffee shop, you will want to play mostly acoustic, so as not to overwhelm the audience. Hopefully, you aren’t a punk or metal band.
There are different theories on the best kind of set and it will, of course, depend on the audience and genre. In many cases you will want to play an attention grabber, one of your best tunes, right off the bat. If you are playing first or right after a band that wasn’t so great, it’s important to get the attention of the crowd as soon as possible.
In all cases, you will want to heed the old show-biz saying: Always leave them wanting more. Save your very best number for the end of the set. This one should be so great that all your fans scream for an encore. Hopefully, you have at least one song that people just love every time you play it. You need one to end your set with. Make sure you’ve saved a couple more good ones for that encore.
If your repertoire is reasonably diverse, you should be able to grab them and get them dancing right away, or during the first few tunes, then slow it down a little, speed it up, slow it down and then hit them really hard at the end. Hopefully, your fans will leave feeling like they had an experience, not just a few beers.
You want to avoid playing all your best stuff right off the bat and then end with a blah. People may remember they liked you at first, but then they will forget the rest of your set and walk away with a disappointing impression of your band. They’re gonna remember the way they felt at the end of your set.
If your music is such that all the songs have the same or similar tempo/time signature, and some genres are like that, your best bet is to grab them and hold on tight as long as you can make it last. If you want to take your show up to another level consider including songs that have different tempos. Most people appreciate a little calming down after a few fast songs. Or a little pepping up after a few slower numbers. Try experimenting with your originals by simply speeding them up or slowing them down 10-20 bpm (beats per minute), to see what difference it can make. Do it live and then ask your fans what they thought after the show. Sometimes things that may seem stupid in rehearsal have unexpectedly good/bad results when tried on stage.
Timing: Make sure you know how long it will take you to play your set, including the encore and between song banter. Make sure you know how long they are giving you to play your set. If you are playing in a situation where there are bands playing after you and/or there are other time constraints, include your encore into your set time planning. It’s great to leave them begging for more, but, if you don’t have time for that encore, then your set was too long.
If you need/want to introduce each song beforehand, you will need time for that. If your guitar player must tune-up/swap out guitars between each number, plan for that. One rule of thumb is to plan for your set to end a few minutes early. Then, if people want that encore, you have time for it. Or if things get delayed a few minutes, you will still be in good shape.
Do not plan on playing a 30 minute encore at every gig. If the sound guy says you have time for one more, he means one more of about the same length as the other songs you’ve been playing. If your tunes are all about 5 min, but you insist on doing a 20 minute jam when you only have 5 min. left in your set, you will risk pissing off the sound guy (always a bad idea), the club manager, the staff, and any bands that have to play after you.
Should you play covers or not? Every original band struggles with this question. Our answer in most cases is: Yes. You should do at least a few covers, especially if you are a new band. Once people have become familiar with your original music, you may be able to drop the covers from your set. Pay attention to the big successful national touring acts. Most of them do play select covers. Many have released entire albums of covers. That said, we have also heard bands who’s original music is so good that they didn’t need to play covers, and other bands who’s original music sounded so much like it could have been covers that they didn’t need to play true covers. (but they did anyway)
One observation that we have made is that people don’t dance to music they are not familiar with. If people start dancing right away when you play your originals, you may not need covers. Most bands, though, need to play something that people have heard before, many times, in order to get their attention and bring them out onto the dance floor. Of course, if yours is not the kind of music anyone will dance to, this point should be ignored. You may become highly successful, if your fans yawn all the way to iTunes and buy all your music.
When selecting covers, choose music popular in your genre that is complimentary to or at least compatible with your originals. Start with the bands who have influenced you and then move into music that you love. Chances are, these songs will work. However, don’t be afraid to cover stuff completely out of your genre. We know a popular alt-country band that covers Neil Diamond and Ozzy Osbourne. They just play them in country style. Just be careful, it’s easier to ruin a popular song than it is to make it your own.
One sure fire way to grab a crowd’s attention is to play a tune that has a very different tempo. Bands that play songs all in the same time signature, no matter the genre, commonly get tiring after 20-30 minutes. You need to incorporate some diversity into your sets.
Tailor your set to the crowd.
Is the crowd mostly over 40? Play some oldies. If they are mostly under 25 play something new. If they are bikers, play “Born to Be Wild” If they are soccer moms play sappy love songs. Bottom Line: play what they want to hear. If you don’t know what they want to hear, just ask them. Every crowd has someone who will shout out some requests. If you don’t know that song, play whatever you have that’s as close to that as you can. If you’re playing all originals, go ahead and tease them by asking what they want to hear anyway. If it gets them involved in the show that’s a good sign. Hopefully, they won’t just get pissed off at you because you don’t know any of their requests.
First, you need to know what kind of material you have. It doesn’t matter if they are covers or originals or a mixture of both. If everything is all the same tempo, it may not matter what order you play it in. Most bands... Most successful bands, that is, have material that is fast and slow or relatively so, depending on the genre.
Second, guess what the crowd will be like. It may be obvious from the venue, but it also may not be. Be prepared to change things up midway through the show, if needed.
Next, set the pace: You may wish to start out slow and then gradually speed things up over the course of a set or you may want to start out strong and then slow things down and build them back up at the end of the set.
Play your heart out.
Finally, take note of the audience reaction. If they love you, great! You’ve got a good set, if they start out loving you, but then they all leave during one particular song, you know you goofed up. It can take a lot of gigs to get it right. So don’t get discouraged. Keep at it until you get it figured out.
Your band has a gig coming up, you've printed up stacks of flyers and posters and now you need to get them out there where people will see them. Seems fairly easy, right? You just staple or tape up posters hand out a bunch of flyers and sit back and wait for the crowds to roll in. Right? Sure. Just be careful and avoid a few simple mistakes.
First off, never put up posters for your show at venue A inside venue B. Postering space is limited inside any venue, even the ones that let you tape it up anywhere you want. They aren't going to be excited to see posters advertising a show at another venue. Same goes for flyering. Don't put out free tickets for your upcoming Herman's show on all the tables at your Dove show. Likewise, don't plaster the restroom at the Cricket with posters for your show at the Toad. This kind of behavior is simply discourteous to the venue you do it in and likely will result in them being less inclined to book you there again.
Is there a way around that? Yes. It's usually acceptable to mention your upcoming gigs while you are on stage. It's also acceptable to walk around the room and personally hand your flyers to people you know or have just met, as long as they don't immediately drop them on the floor and walk away. "Put this in your pocket." is a good way to handle it. Also a poster that has been printed up with a month's worth of shows can be safely hung in most venues without fear of pissing anyone off. It's not gonna stay on the wall past your gig in that venue, but if you post it a couple weeks beforehand, it might be helpful.
Along the same lines, it's not cool to flyer outside of most local music venues. Don't put them on all the cars in the parking lot, unless it's for a gig at that venue. Don't hand them out to patrons leaving a venue unless it's for an upcoming gig at that venue. A major exception to this rule is to hand them out as people are leaving a large concert venue. Hang on the sidewalk out in front of the Fillmore or the Pepsi center when a compatible national act is playing and hand out your flyers. It's an excellent way to build your fan base.
Don't run afoul of the law. In many cities it is against the law to put up posters on telephone poles, etc. A few cities even enforce these laws. You can be certain that they will know exactly what band is responsible, by simply reading the poster or coming to the show.
Always bear in mind that you promotional activities can also reflect upon the venue. If you plaster all the cars in front of Herbs with flyers for your show at the Skylark, the management of one place may well call the other to complain. Remember, venue owners and booking people do talk to each other, even while competing. Word can spread quickly, so try not to piss these people off.
Some more things else that can pis off a venue:
Duct tape: Don’t use this to attach your posters to the wall. In addition ot being ugly, duct tape leaves a sticky residue where ever it gets stuck. This can gum up the walls or windows where your poster is hung and the poor schmuck who has to clean it up after your poster is taken down after your show just might be the booking guy.
Taping all the edges of your poster: the poster only needs to hang for s couple weeks, you don;t need an airtight seal all the way around. Small bits of cellophane tape (Scotch tape) will probably do the job. If nobody can get a grip on an edge, it’s that much harder to take you poster down. After your show, your poster need to come down to make room for new ones. Don’t make it a pain in the ass to do so.
Stickers: Stickers are an awesome tool to get your logo/name out there. But be careful where you put them and who you give them to. Throwing a handful of stickers out into the crowd at a club can be cool, until the venue manager comes up to you later and insists that you scrape all those stickers off the dance floor, the tables, the walls and the mirrors in the restrooms before he will pay you for the gig. Never stick a sticker anywhere in a club without asking permission first.
True Gig Story: A cool little urban club changed hands and the new owners renovated the place, trying to change it from a dive into a classy joint. The new owners kept some the bookings from the previous owners until after the grand re-opening, when one band stuck a sticker up in the freshly remodeled Men’s room. The new owners (who didn’t have a lot of live music experience) threw a fit and canceled all the live music on what had been their busiest nights because they were pissed off about that one sticker. The club closed a few months later. One less venue for a whole of bands to play.
So, you have a new band, you've been jamming a little, have some songs worked up, you're considering playing out or recording, but you're still struggling with what to name the band. We are continually amazed by the creative names that bands come up with. There never seems to be an end to them, however, sometimes a band comes up with something that just leaves us wondering,"What were those guys thinking?" Here's a few things to consider when naming your band: A great band name should be short and easy to remember. Common words that every child knows but aren't already associated with music are the best. Examples: Hole, Garbage, The Samples, More Than Medium, and Ocean. We are a big proponent of naming the band after the leader. Examples: Nina Storey, Wendy Woo, The Jill Watkins Band. These band names have the added bonus that the lead singer can never be fired from the band (without them having to change the name, anyway) but any other band member could concievibly be replaced. Some common mistakes that bands make when naming themselves include:
Always check to make sure another band isn't already out there using your preferred band name. A quick Google search should do the trick, there.
Avoid using unusual capitalization or punctuation, like: "nGOma," "The FaiL-YeRZ," "P-Nuckle," or "Yo, Flaco!" The reason that this is a problem is that most club owners aren't going to remember correctly, or even care very much if they get it right and therefore, the signs will read "Ngoma," or "The Failures," or "Pinochle" instead of the correct spelling. These same club owners will have trouble with the advertising they run in the local papers/magazines and on their websites, where those kind of capitalization and punctuation issues can create havoc with a database.
Avoid Names that are too long: "Eddie Clendening & the Blue Ribbon Boys" is likely to be cropped down to "Eddie Clendening" or just "The Blue Ribbon Boys" when advertising space is at a premium.
Avoid Names that are not easy to spell. If the band leader doesn't make sure to spell his name from the stage at every opportunity and with the booking manager, he's likely to see it posted as "Eddy Klendenning and the Blue Ribbon Boys." Fans trying to find the website will not likely remember if it was "Eddie" or "Eddy" and how many n's are there in "Clendening?" "The Blue Ribbon Boys," though, is a fine name. Our all time best example of a bad band name was the short lived "Scheherazade." Not only was it hard to spell, but nobody could pronounce it either.
It's OK to make up a new word or use one that isn't well known, but make sure you are consistent with explaining the pronunciation or spelling. "Xiren" (pr. Seerin) and "Marcy Baruch" (pr. bah-ROOSH) struggle with this constantly. It really stinks when you hear a radio personality struggle with pronouncing your name on the air.
Be wary of names that use uncommon words. "Potempkin Square" (named for a famous location in Moscow) quickly became known in the local scene as "Pumpkin Square" because it was much easier to remember, to spell, and was way more amusing.
Avoid the trend of using inappropriate business words like “...Records,” “Management,” or “Inc.” This does not make people think you are more serious about the music business. This tells people that you don't know the difference between your band/act and a management company or a record label. We’re not saying you shouldn’t have your own label, we just think the group should have a unique name, different than your label, management company or whatever else you have going on.
If you use the words “jazz,” “funk,” or “blues” (or any other genre) in your band name, you better play that kind of music. “Buckner Funken Jazz” plays mostly funk, but they miss out on some gigs because people who want to hire a funk band think they are a jazz band and people who want to hire a jazz band don’t like the word “funken” (which is commonly mis-pronounced). Likewise, if you use the word "theater" in your band name, be theatrical.
In the end, if a band is good enough, they can overcome a lousy band name. "The Fabulous Boogienauts" rose to the top of their local scene, but for the first six months nobody got "Boogienauts" spelled correctly. If you're really stuck, try the old trick of naming the band after the street where you practice, live, or like a lot: Examples: Ben Park Drive, Battery Park, and Rose Hill Drive. Pet names work pretty good too. "Rosco" is a good example. There are also ample online resources for naming your band. Just type "band names" into Google and you'll find a variety of sites from band name suggestions and automatic name generators to lists of cool names already taken and online registries to make sure nobody steals yours.
If you’re in a band, you already know how important it is to promote your act. You need to get your fans to your shows, win over new fans, and sell your music and other merchandise. Traditional methods still work fine and should not be ignored. Postering, flyering, and publicity are tried and true ways to get the job done, but new technology provides new tools. You don’t need to be a techie or computer wizard to use these tools. Even a music geek can do it. All it takes is time and effort. Like everything else about the music business, it’s not rocket science, it‘s just hard work. Oh, and who you know is still more important than what you sound like. The difference is that, now, there are more “tastemakers” who can be impressed and pass along how great your band is to even more people who follow them.
Tastemakers have always been around, the new part is that they are no longer only in the news media and at record labels. Now anyone with a blog can be a tastemaker. If a bunch of people read their blog, their tweets, their facebook postings, or whatever, they have influence. When one of these people says “Hey, check out Neddy & the Losers. They’re the best band I ever heard!” People do what they say. This means that by using social media your band can now become a big successful hit without ever being mentioned in the newspapers, magazines or even getting a song played on the radio. Of course, the traditional media and labels are also watching the social media now, so if you become that successful, they will approach you and help you become that much bigger.
So, how do you make this happen?
First, you make sure your band is pretty darn good. If your band sucks, no amount of promotion or social networking can overcome it. In most major markets there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of bands. All of them are constantly clamoring for attention. If most of them are better than yours, it’s gonna be hard to stand out from the pack. The better your act is, musically and otherwise, the easier everything will be.
By Social Networking we mean the obvious sites out there that everyone is talking about. At the time of this writing Facebook is the biggest one and Twitter also important. By the time you read this, all that could be different. In ten years we expect something else to come along and replace social networking completely. Who knows what that will be like, but chances are, the principles will be the same, no matter what site(s) you’re using. On the most basic level, you want to use Social Networking in much the same way you do face to face networking.
As a band, each fan you gain is important. Those fans will hopefully tell their friends how cool your band is and how much they love your music. Each one of them is also a potential buyer for your music. Yes. We know. You’re not a sellout. You’re not in this for the money. It’s all about the music. But wouldn’t it be nice to make a living from playing your music instead of flipping burgers? Of course it would! (Note: If you’d rather not make any money, you can still achieve a certain level of notoriety/fame and earn almost nothing. The music industry is very flexible like that. In either case, these tips can still help you.)
So, here’s a few steps to get you started and keep you rolling. First you want to make accounts/profiles for your band everywhere.
(Note to bands that will probably break up in a couple months: If you band has a clear leader he/she should keep track of all the passwords, preferably written down and easily accessible. He/she will need them when the other band members get fired. If your band has no clear leader and decisions are made by voting or consensus, then, Good luck! You’re all gonna be screwed when the band falls apart. The best way to handle this is for each member to have all the passwords or they can be kept someplace where everyone can get to them. This, of course, is dangerously stupid. At some point, probably when your crackhead drummer gets fired out of the band, she/he will hijack all the social networking profiles and tell all your fans that he fired the rest of you. When you fire the bass player’s girlfriend from being the band manager she will pour out every detail of every embarrassing thing you ever did onto your public profiles. So the point here is to carefully control who has access to your profiles because it’s a pain in the ass to build new ones and almost impossible to undo damage to reputations that have been thoroughly trashed online.)
Make profiles on all the big social networks you have heard of and any others that maybe aren’t so big, but people seem to be talking about them anyway. Make these Band Profiles, not personal ones. It can be a pain in the ass to change a personal one into a band one, and it’s also nice to have your own separate profile for your real friends/family/solo projects. On Facebook, make it a “Page” that people can “Like.” On Twitter, just make a new profile. All you need is a different email address. Myspace is really only good as an electronic promo kit (EPK) anymore, since real adult people seem to avoid it like the plague, but make sure you build a band profile there anyway. Band profiles on Myspace allow for music that can be played online and videos as well, personal profiles aren’t as easy to use like that. Reverbnation is also a great place to have your band. They have very nice tools for emailing your fans and widgets that can make your social networking much easier.
Which sites should you use? All of them! The easier you make it for people to find you online, the better. You could probably spend thousands of hours putting your band out there all over the Internet, but since you’ll also need a little time for playing music, practice and writing new songs, we recommend that you assign one or more band members to spend at least one hour each week on social networking. If nobody in the band can be bothered with this task, then recruit a family member or fan to do it for you (and change the password as soon as they flake on you). If you’ve got money, it’s really easy to hire people to do this for you.
Here’s a list of the currently most important Social Networking sites for bands: Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LastFM, SoundCloud, Purevolume, iLike, ReverbNation, Vimeo, Jamlegend, Ourstage, and Wikipedia. Recently, companies have popped up that track your plays, fans, views and comments across all these sites (and probably new ones that will be added on a regular basis). They make those numbers available, by subscription, to recording label A&R people, radio Program Directors, band managers and anyone else who wants it. It might help your band to sign up for this information, too, so you know what they are reporting and to make sure you aren’t missing out on some important social platform. One such company is Next Big Sound.
What will you need for your profiles? You will need, at minimum, a photo or logo of your act, 3-5 songs in MP3 format, a band biography, individual bios of each band member, and contact info. for whoever does the booking for your band as well as someone who will answer questions, etc. from fans. Additionally, you will need to know what genre(s) your music fits into [Read: Know Your Genre]. You will need photos of your merchandise, if you hope to sell it online. Of course that also means you will need a band bank account and a band paypal account or something similar to accept credit card payments online. You will also need to be able to adjust the size of your photos/digital images, because each site has different requirements.
You don’t need to spend a ton of time/money making each of these profiles look super cool. Just use the default look or add a simple background image so things look nice. Save that time/money for your real website. Yes. You should have one of those, too.
If you have videos, start a Youtube channel and post your videos there whenever you have new ones to share. One of the great things about Youtube is the easy way you can post that same video on your website, your other social networking sites and even include a link in your mass emailings.
All these sites are pretty easy to use, but sometimes there’s a few tricky parts. If you run into trouble or can’t figure out how to make or use your profile in some way, just go to google and type in your question. It’s unlikely that you are the first one to have this problem and there is likely a step by step guide for anything you will ever want to do online.
Once you have profiles built on as many sites as you can, you need to make friends/fans/followers. Start with your email list. All your friends, family and co-workers. Invite everyone and don’t get upset if some people aren’t interested. Some people just aren’t gonna cooperate and you should not hold that against them. Go through your phone and the phones of your bandmates and invite everyone you and they know. You should always try to get more people on this list at your gigs by putting out an email list signup sheet.
If anyone in the band complains about all the hard work this will be, remind them that in the 1990s (and before) bands had to collect snail mail addresses and then print out and mail postcards and other promo packs to their fans, the venues, and the news media. Compared to that, social networking is easy and cheap.
Now it’s time to post things on your wall so your friends/fans/followers have something to read. First and foremost you need to post your gigs. On Facebook, you want to make these as events. On other sites it will probably just be a post of some sort. Post each gig a few weeks out and send reminders a week out, a few days out, the day before and the day of the gig. Try so sound positive and excited. It’s just like stage presence. If you are excited, people will pick up on that and get excited as well. A good practice is to post a thank you to all your fans that came out to your gig, the next day. This gives them an opportunity to post things about how great your show was, hopefully encouraging their friends to check your band out, too. It is vital your social networking success to respond to each and every wall post, email, and message. Hopefully you’ve got someone in the band who loves to chat with people. If not, find a friend, relative or fan who can do this for you. Just like in real life, networking requires interaction. It has to be a two way street with the band, or it’s rep. responding and having real conversations with people. Post anything remotely newsworthy that the band does or gets involved in. For example: “We just wrote a really cool song in rehearsal tonight! Can’t wait to share it with everyone at our next gig!” or “Check out the new songs we just uploaded to our profile today. We just finished editing the tracks last night and they sound great!”
As the fan base grows, there will probably be a few stalkers/weirdos/creeps who want attention from the band. Just draw a line at some point and if they cross it, unfriend/block them. But try not to do that. You need every fan you can get. Be very careful not to post negative things about venues, other bands or obnoxious fans. If you feel you must do that, then post those things on your personal profile, so it doesn’t taint the reputation of the entire band.
Make life easier. If you use a tool like Tweetdeck, you can post to Facebook, Twitter and Myspace all at once. Tweetdeck will even allow you to time your post for a later date. There are many other tools of the same sort, just do a quick search and see what’s available. ReverbNation has handy dandy widgets so that when you post your gigs on ReverbNation, they will automatically show up on your website and possibly also on other sites that can accept the widget or use an RSS feed. Facebook will let you hook up an RSS feed, so things will automatically post to your wall when they’ve been posted somewhere else. Tools like these are a great way to save you time and effort while still being on top of all your social profiles.
Just use the info we’ve outlined above and you will have yourself a big fat Social Network in no time at all. With some effort this will boost your other efforts and help you bring big crowds to your shows who buy up all your merch and make you a successful band.
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