Streaming Music

Bands and solo musicians, promoting your music and visual image are easier than ever using the power of the Internet.

Why not find a free Internet performer directory to post your Internet press material?

If you do not want to mess around with HTML, hosting or the Web assist issues a good Online band directory could save you time and money while still getting you all the exposure you need.

Using an Web free performer hosting directory, your .mp3, images, bios, and show schedules might receive 24-7 exposure.

1st, you’ll need to organize your Internet materials on your PC or laptop. This will be the basis of your Internet press kit.

Images

Start a folder on your PC of images of shows, cd covers and promo shots with band members.

Make sure they are in .jpg or .gif.  Many websites will only assist these two formats so stay away from .png for now or make sure the free directory you upload to will assist.png.

Make sure the images look good at about 400px expansive. The image will again and again be compressed into a thumbnail at about 100px expansive  on the display page. The thumbnail can be slightly compressed looking but you want the larger “clicked on” version to have the optimum resolution, so starting around 400px should ensure pretty good resolution.

likewise make sure the images are less than 1 megabyte, some free directories limit the size of the upload.

Music Files

A safe bet is .mp3.

Limit the size to less than 1 megabyte which comes out to about a 30 second sample.

Choose the portion of the song that has the most impact in a short period – it could get you the gig!

Bio

Write a short (300 -400) word bio about the band or yourself. Include style of music, influences, instrumentation, history of the band as well as members.

Keep this in a word doc on your PC so you might update it as needed.

Shows

Some free performer directories will let you list and update your shows. Take advantage of this! For reference keep a list of all the Venues you play in a word doc. Include the Venue name, address, and phone number.

Summary

All artists and solo musicians should take advantage of free quality On-line promotion. If you’re not technical or just don’t want to mess around with HTML, hosting or building a Internet page a nice free On-line band directory gets you world wide  24-7 coverage.

Downloading music from the Internet is not as hard to do as many people assume. Recently people have been weary to the fact that music websites have been sharing their music illegally. Certain website s, have in fact been downloading, and giving out MP3 songs in the absence of the artists permission. This means that the music performer has not been making resources from their music hits. Instead, they have been losing resources because nobody is buying their music albums, and instead getting illegal free music downloads. Before recently, it has been c hall enging to distinguish which music websites actually have free music downloads that are legal. When it comes to downloading music, there are a number of hints that may reveal whether or not the music website is legal or not.

The first thing to contemplate when looking at different music website s, is whether or not the tunes are downloaded music, or shared music files. occasions are, Assuming that they’re shared, they are illegal.  Many times, a source will download certain music hits into a network, and from there, millions of individuals get connected to that song. One way to immediately know if a song is downloaded illegally is to take note of when the sing is released. If a song is released on the music websites before the release of the music album, it has could been downloaded illegally.

When illegal music is downloaded, it’s frequently flagged. There are certain trackers that find the individuals who are downloading music illegally, and they get in trouble. Depending on how a lot of tunes the user has, will determine how much trouble they get into. Typically, the average individual will have a couple hundred tunes downloaded onto their computer, so the consequences might not be as drastic. Still, in some cases, there have been entire music search engines that have been shut down because of the illegal music downloads.

Another indicator of a legal music download website is to look where the source of the song is coming from. By way of example, when the song source is listed under so and so’s music library, the chances of it being an illegal download are high. On the other hand, many free legal music downloading websites have free music that’s available and might still be stored in the user’s library, but they are not listed as the song’s source.

Finally, finding a legal music downloading website isn’t hard to do, since the majority of the illegal ones have been shut down. There are plenty of music websites that offer free music downloads that are of high quality. It is a matter of a little bit of research, but it’s wonderfully doable. In addition, someone can get thousands of exceptional music downloads whenever they want, and it’s legal.

In Internet music promotion, word of mouth, or more precisely, viral marketing is an extremely persuasive tool. Who wouldn’t want to be one of the lucky few individuals to obtain notoriety, just by creating something individuals think about cool?

You can additionally produce fun digital gifts for your music marketing campaign.

Whether, the materials you create go viral or not does not really matter. What matters is that your listeners have something that makes them benefit you more. The stuff you’re about to learn contains things they could make part of their everyday lives.

Let us do this.

1) Mp3s – the undeniable choice – many artists are very resistant to giving away songs. Nonetheless, if you want your music to spread out you need to give your fans your best, all the time! Don’t forget “garbage in – garbage out”.

If audiences prefer your songs they will put them on their iPods and on their phones. And they will share with their friends.

Plus they will come back for more. That’s when you make your sale.

2) Ringtones – Virtually all phones now help mp3 ring tones. You may simply use the optimum parts of your tunes to make cool ring tones. Make clips about 15 to 30 seconds long and you’ve ring tones ready to go!

You can download Audacity free sound editing software from audacity.sourceforge.net/

3) Wallpapers – These can be made for both your listeners ‘ phones and their PC’s. You might make them using free software prefer Gimp. If you might afford Adobe Photoshop, that is excellent too.

You might additionally visit mytinyphone.com to establish and even upload your wallpaper. Who knows, it might just end up developing into a top download!

This is it for now.

If you have been following my previous articles, you should know that the focus of your Internet music promotion should be two things.

At least in the beginning you want to concentrate on;

• getting visitors to your website ( additionally known as website traffic)

• building your mailing list

As you work on getting people to your web site, you’ll be tempted to use certain techniques that will promise to give you faster results.

Some forms of promotion simply won’t work for you, as a artist. Spamming could work for Viagra marketers and get-rich-quick schemes but believe me; you could only HURT yourself trying it.

Unsolicited emails will only make individuals hate you. And they know who sent it to them!

Traffic ex changes will get you traffic but it is pretty much useless. Virtually all of the people who use them are either trying to get rich quick or doing the same thing as you; getting themselves more traffic.

In other words, the people on traffic ex varys don’t care about you, your website or your music!

You can get things looking nice when it comes to number of your web site’s visitors and Alexa ranking.

But then comes the moment of truth. The numbers you actually care about the most may not be so nice. I’m talking about your sales.

What good is it to have 20 000 individuals on your mailing list if nobody buys or turns up to see your show?

What you should do instead is be patient. Learn how to build a targeted traffic and mailing list. Really master the basics of Web marketing. You’ll see solutions and with time, you’ll see more resources in your bank account.

individuals will love you for what you do and you will feel wonderful about it.

Finally decided to make that move and add video your to website, eh? Exciting! The strategies below ought to advocate you make the most out of your new venture.

1) Embed videos uploaded to other web site s

This is the easiest way to add video to your website. Simply upload to a video hosting website of your choice (eg. YouTube or Vimeo). Then you simply copy and paste the embed code.

This option is really good because

• it’s free

• saves you disk space

• saves you bandwidth

The only disadvantage is the videos will have logo of the hosting web site on top of the video.

2) Sign up for a streaming service

With this option you upload the videos to a dedicated server which stores and streams your videos. This may be considerably useful if you want to maintain a high profile image since no other company logo will be displayed on your videos.

You could want to use this if you have a member only website and want to make sure nobody else watches videos (besides your members, that’s ).

3) Create flash movies and embed them

This solution requires a bit of technical knowledge. If you are comfortable using flash you can;

• Start a flash movie and embed it

• Convert your existing movies into .swf format and download a free flash player. You then place it on your webpage.

You might find nice flash media players by doing a easy Google search.

The problem with this method is it may be time consuming. It is furthermore harder for the user to move the video pointer to a particular location in the clip.

4) Consider a live webcast.

Your visitors will definitely love this! Thanks to the Internet, you could actually wide cast live for the whole world to watch!

There is an amazing service called Mogulus that allows you to host a live show using your webcam. And perfect of all it’s free.

The downside is short commercials every 8 minutes or so. However, you can sign up for a Pro paid service that takes out the commercials.

5) Don’t put many videos on one page

Your safest bet is one video per page. Start a ‘contents’ page with thumbnails to other videos.

hardly anything is scarier to a visitor than a cluttered webpage. You know how simple it is to click away,right?

6) Don’t let the videos auto-play

This is only necessary if you ignore point 5 above. Yes , it is a cool feature but it will might do you more harm than wonderful.

Personally , I find it unusually irritating when I open a webpage and hear sound coming from a video or elsewhere.

Use your judgement. If you feel auto-play works for your visitors go for it!

7) Make transcripts of your videos

If your videos are rich in information make a transcript of it and place it right below the videos.

Your visitors will appreciate it since they may miss some of the things said in the video.

Search Engines will now be able to find your pages more easily, since they now have something they might understand!

You could also offer transcripts from your videos in PDF format in ex vary for signing to your op-in list. Or you could sell them.

This is a pretty much, underused strategy.

Hey, it is nice to see you again! we continue with our series on viral marketing gift for your fans.

4) Screen savers – these are really cool because individuals differ their screensavers a lot. And they really spread fast if individuals prefer them because they’re readily exposed.

You may visit freesaver.com for a range of tools to make them. For Mac users you may try iScreensaver Designer.

Screensaver making software does not cost much ( frequently about $29). Definitely worth every penny.

5) MySpace.com layouts – Why don’t you make MySpace.com layouts for your audiences? This promotes you ample time because anybody who visits their profile sees your band! It’s as cool as an individual wearing your band T-Shirt.

You can not be nice with CSS( that is what is used to make layouts). You can visit make-myspace.com to produce the layouts and make them downloadable from your website.

6) Phone videos – You know how individuals like watching little videos on their cell phones. You may freely establish little concert videos (or your music video if you have one) and make them available to your listeners.

There a lot of exceedingly cheap cell phone video converters out there. Just Google the term and you’ll get a lot of choices.

Maybe your phone came with a disc that has one.

7) Games and widgets – All right, so this one is a bit more complex. You could create a cool game using Flash (or get someone to do it).

people may embed it on their websites and profiles. If you upload it to a website like newgrounds.com you may literally get thousands of visitors to your performer website in a matter of days!

You may even be the central hero of the game. Imagine how cool that would make you!

Selling Your Music Internet is Easier Than You Think.

The Web is loaded with resources to advocate your performer sell music Internet direct to your audiences, with no middleman (a.k.a. record label) to take a big piece of the action.

a lot of of these organizations offer their services for free, others ask for reasonable fees for more elaborate music marketing plans. You’ll find here websites that stimulate you sell your traditional compact disc, as well as ways for you to  encourage  and circulate your MP3 files.

Sites Where You may Sell Your Music Online

CD Baby.com (http://www.cdbaby.com)

CD Baby.com only sells music that comes directly from musicians. They won’t accept music from distributors. All you need to do is send them your CD s. They will warehouse them, sell them to your customers and pay you directly every week.

Garageband.com (http://www.garageband.com)

Garageband Records offers this service in partnership with compact disc Baby.com, allowing you to leverage their branding to sell your music to hundreds of thousands of music buyers world wide. In addition to all of the services offer ed by compact disc Baby, Garageband Records will establish an Album Profile page for your band where you may enter your sleeve notes and choose tracks on your album that are furthermore on garageband.com. You may link to this page from your own web site, so all of your visitors have instant access to purchase your music. Garageband promotes your compact disc  and compact disc Baby mails you a check every week.

Hostbaby.com (http://www.hostbaby.com)

likewise in conjunction with CD Baby, Hostbaby is a full service Web hosting company with tools, services, technology and special features especially geared toward artists and performers. You’ll be able to host a full service music website with all of the bells and whistles for a substantially low monthly fee. Extra services that other hosting businesses charge for are included in this special hosting package for artists and performers.

CD  Street (http://www.cdstreet.com)

This web site will enable you to sell your music and all of your merchandise with their storefront and customizable Internet pages. For a one time  set up fee, your band can sell as a lot of products as you wish and accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card, American Express and JCB. You keep 80  percent of the sale.

MP3.com (http://www.mp3.com)

MP3.com offers tools and services that allow you to  promote  your band while selling your music Online so that you might directly interact with your fan base with targeted messaging to announce upcoming performances or song releases.

They likewise provide perks such as your own Web page with unlimited disk space at no additional cost, featured musicians and music, the ability to create and MP3/ CD  formatted CD  (the net CD ), a rewards program (Payback for Playback), promotional auctions and much more.

Amazon.com’s Advantage for Music Program

Get the power and security of a proven brand with Amazon, the Internet’s number 1 seller with customers in all 50 USA States and over 160 countries around the world. If you want to align your performer with a brand recognized for service, reliability, and security, then Amazon can work for you.

MySpace Music

It may make the the majority sense to sell your music Web where you listeners already know where to find you and where they love you. You put a lot of time into your MySpace.com promotion, so why not go ahead and offer your listeners the chance to purchase your music while they are loving you on MySpace?

MySpace teamed up in a joint venture with several major record labels to bring you MySpace music with the idea that embedding an Internet music seller in their social network would produce a more dynamic connection betwixt you and your audiences. And hopefully what that means for your performer is selling more music and merchandise Internet.

MySpace music is prefer a one prohibit shopping experience for all things music, allowing you to provide more than just music. You may provide music, ringtones, concert tickets, merchandise, and more.

Because MySpace has over 110 million users, and over 30 million visit their music platform, they’re hoping to leverage this traffic and familiarity so that MySpace Music will give Apple iTunes a run for their money.

It certainly makes many sense.

No matter which website you choose to sell your music Web, the fact of the matter is that Web music sales are the wave of the future that is happening now and downloaded music will surpass compact disc  sales in less than 2 years. So if your band isn’t selling your music Web yet, now is the time to get busy. It is easier than you think and only a few clicks away.

The turn of the century brought many new technology to the world and with that it brought the music industry a whole lot of problems. To deal with declining sales and continuous losses, record labels are locating new ways of raising resources by focusing on divergent aspects of their business such as On-line marketing and consumer feedback rather than basing everything on compact disc  sales.

Historically, record labels have based everything on CD  sales. The idea of MySpace.com Music is innovative as they realized that they need to move into a new area of business. The Internet and the ease of illegal file sharing have long broken the business to consumer relationship. Rather than fighting against the trend, the industry has decided to take advantage of the simple accessibility of the Internet to move to the B to B model of marketing. MySpace.com is a very large social networking web site with over 120 million users who go On-line al most everyday to check on friend updates and music. The new MySpace.com Music has already made millionaire deals with McDonald’s and Toyota Motors who want to advertise on the web site since so many users check on artist’s updates constant ly.

As mentioned, the business to consumer relationship broke down several years back when many people began downloading music from the Internet rather than paying for compact disc’s. Record Labels accused these users of theft and many cases have led to trials. In order to create a new relationship, record labels are focusing on consumer feelings to elevate profits. The accessibility to videos, podcasts, music and games via Internet makes it possible for consumers to create a more personal relationship with their preferred artists. Rapper T.I. began sending videos in which he talks to his listeners about what he is currently working on. Other artists let listeners ask them questions, which they will reply to via private or public messages on the web.

Whether these strategies will work or not is uncertain, but at least the industry is innovating. Actually, they’re trying to innovate. It’s a reality that most of these innovations are started from garages and build all the way to multi-billion dollar operations. Now,how is it possible that the record companies with billions of dollars of sources cannot get a handle on innovation?

Innovation has always been directly proportionate with differ. The traditional business model of the music industry and their unwillingness to differ has caused them to lose their competitive edge in the market, thus forfeiting billions of dollars to innovations such as Itunes. Therefore, the music industry has partnered with MySpace to make a better worth proposition for the consumer offer ing them a means of communication, social interaction and alternate forms of music media such as ring tones and pod casts. Itunes have established this worth proposition for the consumer by offer ing them music previews of their favorite performers and purchase of their most favorite tunes instead of the whole album. The music industry is additionally trying to follow in the footsteps of the movie industry by assertively promoting merchandising. These endeavors are too late as the 21st Century market still proves to us that going against a trend is al most always unprofitable for businesses. The music industry must focus on their current operations and allocate their resources to creating new innovations for distributing their music to the masses rather than being followers of past- favorite technologies and trends. Only then, they will be able to succeed competing against rival technology businesses and recover some of the profits they have lost in the past decade.

We can’t deny the truth that Internet Marketing plays a very large role in leveraging innovation. It offers the means of broad casting your message to millions of users and consumers with the click of a button. All you need to know is how to click.

It’s time to conclude our series on viral music marketing. Internet music promotion may be really fun when you use these techniques.

Here are some quick tips to make your viral promotional materials stronger;

Sex sells

This is true but don’t overestimate it. You are selling your music not your body.

Having said that make sure you look attractive in the pictures and videos you use. You can additionally show off your body a little but don’t over do it. It can not give you the results you want.

Be larger than life

Whatever you do, make sure it is something your fans could look up to or aspire to be. If you present yourself as “just another person ” that is how you’ll be perceived. I am sure you could imagine many ideas to make you look even cooler than you already do.

Remember ; in show business perception is reality.

Label your stuff!

Ensure you band name or better still website address can be evident ly seen on all your materials. That way, when audiences like your promotional materials they know where they might get more.

hardly anything would be more annoying to you, than getting many downloads and people forgetting where they got them from.

Put endeavor into it

individuals make the mistake of thinking viral marketing is about doing virtually nothing and getting a lot in return.

Your fans must enjoy whatever it’s you’re giving them.

You also have to make sure you create stuff that truly represents your band image. Yes, it will take some time and effort. If you don’t believe in it don’t do it!

Be original but a bit “generic”

Your promo materials should stand out but in a way that fits you type of. You know perfect what type of things your fans like. Creating images and logos that people naturally drift to in your type of will make your work spread faster.

You may even make screensavers or wallpapers that only contain themes your audiences like and simply put your name or Web URL on them!

In On-line music promotion, word of mouth, or more precisely, viral marketing is an extremely persuasive tool. Who wouldn’t want to be one of the lucky few individuals to gain notoriety, just by creating something individuals consider cool?

You can furthermore create fun digital gifts for your music marketing campaign.

Whether, the materials you produce go viral or not does not really matter. What matters is that your audiences have something that makes them benefit you more. The stuff you are about to learn contains things they could make part of their everyday lives.

Let us do this.

1) Mp3s – the undeniable choice – many artists are uncommonly resistant to giving away tunes. Nonetheless, if you want your music to spread out you need to give your audiences your best, all the time! Don’t forget “garbage in – garbage out”.

If audiences prefer your tunes they will put them on their iPods and on their phones. And they will share with their companions.

Plus they will come back for more. That’s when you make your sale.

2) Ringtones – Many phones now support mp3 ring tones. You can simply use the best parts of your tunes to make cool ring tones. Make clips about 15 to 30 seconds long and you have ring tones ready to go!

You could download Audacity free sound editing software from audacity.sourceforge.net/

3) Wallpapers – These can be made for both your listeners ‘ phones and their Computers. You might make them using free software like Gimp. If you might afford Adobe Photoshop, that’s excellent too.

You can likewise visit mytinyphone.com to establish and even upload your wallpaper. Who knows, it can just end up developing into a top download!

This is it for now. Watch out for the second part where I will show you more ways to establish viral marketing gifts for your Internet music promotion.