Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Website?
This week I choose to list the items and explain how you can adequately use new technologies
and improve your use of the older ones such as chatrooms to get the most out of your site. I also
am going to name the essentials that I believe all good artist websites have included in them, here
we go:
Blogs: Blogging has become the best way to keep everyone up to date in a quick and easy
manner for the artists and their fans. This also gives you the chance to form a sort of intimate
bond with your fans by allowing them to hear things about your personal day to day thoughts,
ideas and grumbles, which in turn can equate to your gaining a bigger truer following.
Podcast: Podcasts are this year’s and last year’s big thing. It allows you to again express
yourself in a more personal way which can only lead to a better sense of connection between you
and your fans. It also allows you to demo songs to your fans and give a personal plead for them
to respond with their feeling about your songs. Plus the ability for others to use your songs as
well will only help you promote in a much bigger and better way, maybe you could make deals
with other musicians that you’ll play theirs one week so long as they play yours. That way you
all make out good.
Chats: A newer twist that I have seen in chatrooms has been focused chats or seminars. In the
seminars one person is designated the teacher and proceeds to offer their specialized knowledge
to the group as well as personally answer questions, but the catch is only a select few individuals
are invited. What music related area are you specialized in? Or do you know of a friend that is a
marketing or promotions expert or entertainment lawyer that you can get to commit to maybe a
hour or so of there time and only allow other indie musicians that have signed up for your
newsletter or bought a cd can join in for free consultation and advice. This also can be a way of
rewarding your street team and fan club members for a job well done after a cd push, it’s free and
will be something they’ll never forget and even make them that much more devoted to your
cause.
Broadcasting/Streaming: Without a doubt this area is sure to be the next big thing online. So
you as a musician must be ready to capitalize on it. You can of course have an area where you
stream your videos, but what about adding promotional commercials, concerts (maybe even livestreamed),
or creating your own show where you’re the host revolving around something about
your type of music or even a behind the scenes type of “reality show” of your band’s going ons.
Or maybe you could add interviews or even have fans submit questions and on a weekly or
biweekly time frame offer them the answers. Things like this will have people coming to your
site more frequently and thus giving you more chances to get them to make a purchase.
Newsletters/Ezines: A newsletter is the old standby as far as creating a relationship with
customers and fans. At shows you can very easily get people to agree to give their emails out just
by simply asking, let alone offering some sort of free gift or contest prizes. This way your
listings grow and you can stay in contact with individuals that wouldn’t normally be reoccurring
customers and wouldn’t even think about going to your site except once every few months, or
when you have a new cd to push. Just make sure your newsletters are full of good content and
most of all that they express your personality the best, after all, you’re selling you more so than
your product here.
[Speaking of newsletters you have joined mine right, The IndieMusicLounge.Com Newsletter,
which each month offers you great articles like this by myself and other industry insiders to help
you along the way, moving your career into farther success. Shameless plug I know, but it really
does have great material in it including articles that I don’t post up here.]
These are just a few of the many ways you can update and get the most out of your artist
websites. I have many more, but after last week’s long article about business plans I thought I
ought to give you time to digest these first. Rest assured though, I have many more ways you can
beef-up your sites, so stay tuned!
Until then, Get out there and Manifest Your Career Success!
Tags: articles for musicians, music business articles, music tips, musician websites, website tips