Music Insider: Why Every Band Needs a Blog

Every musician wants to make money with their music. Word-of-mouth marketing, paper fliers, and seedy managers are so last century. To make it today, every musician needs to become net-savvy and start a blog.

First off, what is a band blog?
Think of a blog as an online journal, where your band can connect with music fans and chat about your latest gig, upcoming albums, last night's recording session, or where the band will be playing next week. Post band pics, free music downloads, and links to your latest albums. The key to blogging is to write new posts regularly (a few times a week) and to get fans to subscribe to your music blog. Subscribers will get alerted every time your band posts something new.

Setting up a music blog is pretty easy. You can use Wordpress, Blogger, or any number of other free blogging sites. I have been using Blogger for a few years now, and I am pretty impressed with its traffic even though the templates are old. Besides being able to blog quickly, Blogger provides you with preset widgets that allow you to add important links, music videos, Google Ads, and other interesting online gadgets.

Be Visual
You will need several good images of the band members in jpg format, as well as a cool banner which will serve as an eye-catching logo for fans. Get free HTML code from sites like Reverbnation or YouTube to add music videos and online radio station of your music. Remember, the internet is all about presentation. Add images of your album, latest recording session, any band merchandise, and maybe even the lyrics of your most popular song.

When you set up a music blog, you may want to have several pages besides your primary music post. For example, the band Home page can have the latest band post, basic images of band members, and an internet radio station playing your music. Other pages can include titles like "Music Merch", "Our Latest Album", "Photos", "Song Lyrics", "Concert Dates", "Fan Page", and "About the Band".

Use the band blog for basic marketing. Add contact information under a phrase like, "Book [Band Name] Today!" Add a calendar of upcoming events and link the calendar and posts to social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reverbnation, or Fandalism. Offer a free download to subscribers, or even host "Meet the Band" online contents. Add in music videos (as well as the making of the music video). Let your blog become your face to the global music scene.

Other great online options include hosting live-streaming jam sessions, podcasting, photo galleries, and animations. E-mail fans, hand out business cards, and add the blog URL to every signature, e-mail, and forum post that you write. Imprint it on band merch, and use the features to launch your band's career.

Finally, BE PERSONAL
You don't want the blog to be nothing but info about your merch or where to buy your next album. You want to make sure that you connect to your fans. Offer useful advice, freebies, contests. Reply to individual posts from fans, and ask them for what they want. Post up pics of fans at your latest gig, and ask them to share it on their social media sites. Interact and connect.

---

Sabrina Pena Young

Award-winning composer, author, and media artist. Sabrina Pena Young's music and media works have been heard throughout Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Young has authored over a dozen books covering topics as diverse as music, poverty, and cooking. The New Music Box, SAI Panpipes, Percussive Notes, SEAMUS Music Journal, IAWM Music Journal, and Kapralova Society Journal are only some of the notable publications that have published Young's intriguing articles on music and technology.

Young's latest work Libertaria: The Virtual Opera is a groundbreaking animated opera created entirely through Internet Collaboration.

EDGY New Film : Special Needs Revolt! A man with Down syndrome is on a mission to save America from a racist dictatorship

Special Needs Revolt! Is an action-horror-comedy film. The film's hero, Billy Bates, who will be played by up-and-coming actor Samuel Dyer, is a young man with Down syndrome. Billy wakes up from a two-year coma and discovers that the United States has been turned into a brutal dictatorship thanks to President Kruger, to be played by award-winning veteran actor Bill Weeden ( Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. ). Kruger has put all people with disabilities into institutions. Billy becomes the leader of a diverse group of resistance fighters committed to ending Kruger's reign of terror. "Special Needs Revolt!" is also a satire on our current political situation, done in the style of Troma Entertainment. Lloyd Kaufman of Troma will appear in the film. CHECK OUT THE INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/special-needs-revolt#/ Adrian’s latest work Special Needs Revolt! may seem edgy and even shocking to some. However, it demonstrates that he is grow

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide Don't have any time to balance rehearsals, exams, and a social life? Then read on! So you find that between playing in orchestra, the school musical, a solo recital or two, joining Sigma Alpha Iota or Phi Mu Alpha , playing in the alternative band at night, pep band, and marching band that you can't keep your eyes open, let alone study for the music history midterm next week or even begin to write your term paper on Debussy? Then read on and learn to balance life in Music School. 1) Musicians DO need to Sleep Yes, you need to sleep, even if it is only five hours a night plus catnaps. Your brain cannot function if you do not sleep. So sleep, even if that means that you can't play in that awesome alternative band that jams every other night till 5am at the local bar. 2) Eat right and exercise Okay, so I sound like your parents, or Oprah, but I am serious. My biggest mistake as an undergrad (well, one of my bigges

Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle

PHOTO"wikimedia.org Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle There are literally hundreds of concert percussion instruments in use every day throughout the world. Whether you are playing percussion in a drum circle in Ghana , a jazz band in New Orleans , or a symphony orchestra in Sweden, you are playing an instrument that has traveled and mutated throughout the globe. The percussion instrument the triangle , is a metal rod bent into the shape of a two dimensional geometric triangle with one of the bottom corners disconnected to allow sound waves to escape. The concert triangle often has a slight difference, in that it may have a hole in one corner to loop a piece of nylon to hang the concert triangle. If it is an Alan Abel triangle, it will have a slight difference in the open end. That angle will end in a different thickness, supposedly to help the triangle sound to escape better acoustically. The triangle may be struck near one of the closed an

Search This Blog