The first one we did was in Brooklyn with Duncan and Ants and we were all totally exhausted from no sleep and got lost on the way! Although it was a great training, we retained very little and came back wanting to get rockin’ with the platform but didn’t know where to begin. Months went by and the Topspin newsletter was just getting more and more exciting! New features, goodies out of beta and amazing new partnerships with music industry marketing intelligence, fulfillment partners and technology.

We decided, it’s time to go back and this time go close to their roots: sweet home California (a lot of the training has very confidential info like the accounting of well known artists, so you wont be seeing those pics) but we have a nice one of the cool new WordPress ready store front they have up and running. The example we looked at is 72musicians (Left to right, a cool retro bike by the ping pong table and neat posters like pop/rock geneology!)

Founded by Peter Gotcher,Shamal Ranasinghe and helmed by Ian Rogers, the Topspin team is a collective of technology and marketing professionals. “We’re passionate about the business of music, we’re musicians and DJs and we’re laser focused on building marketing tools for artists and their partners – tools we use ourselves.”

So what did I learn? Well a lot actually. I learned that the real value in any direct-to-fan campaign is in the number of fans and how you market to them. Grouping different fans by very specific marketing data is crucial. Why send the updates of your Chicago tour to everyone or market your most expensive limited edition double vinyl with signed poster to the new fan who just gave their email for 1 track a day ago… Knowing how to market and who to market to all while being time sensitive is key. Never talk to your fans more than monthly. I remember Peter mentioning that twice. Peter Brambl, by the way, was our awesome teacher for the day. He was not only really sharp and took time to answers questions, he directed us to the free pizza, coffee and fruits in the kitchen

We took a look to see what METRIC, BEASTIE BOYS, TRENT REZNOR… had done for some of their album and tour launches. Stuff like hiding USB keys in various places like the venue’s washroom with secret content to unlock for the most die-hard fans. We also looked a little at DENGUE FEVER’S marketing because the singer’s wife was in the class, really nice woman – wish I remembered her name…

My favorite part was the social media integration of the widgets because at BandMark we do a lot of that. MySpace headers, Facebook tabs and micro sites. The fact that we can quickly make store ready micro sites for bands with a plug-and-play WordPress template is awesome! We’re too cool for school but considering the Berkeley training for the gang – seems like this platform isn’t going anywhere anytime soon – all aboard! Other cool cats we met at the training was this dude from Stereogum (blog) a nice local band member from The DollyRots, (who by the way rock.) Really poppy punchy punk. This guy from RED BULL studios, I think?

Best of all, looks like we are about to sign an amazingly talented band who is ready to spin on this crazy digital marketing machine…. cross your fingers and stay tuned!

For the first time in almost a decade, it’s almost better to be starting your database now because of all the ground-up social tools in place to track web identities and social engagement.

The cost of turning an existing database into social friendly data for large fortune 500 companies can cost in the hundreds of thousands – no joke because of the amount of bandwidth and processing needed to extract this data from years of emails. Typically what these companies do is they go social as of now, meaning they don’t bother tracking their old mailers but they do so in their new ones, or they just bite the bullet and pay for the data mine only to learn in a few months, there is even better and nore accurate tools to do so for less!

This is the problem. Social data and engagement software is on the rise and there is so much new stuff no one knows what to use and for how long. Thankfully, review sites and experts in the field have narrowed down a few of them and I have found my faves (at least for a few months!)

Introducing MailChimp’s Social Pro – My favorite web monkey has gone social yey! Social Pro is sick sick awesome. It allows you to do the following:

• View your subscribers in a visual way with little Avatar pics
• Allow you to see who is on what (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) and most importantly who is most connected
• Create campaigns based on communicating, up-selling or rewarding the social ambassadors (those with many connections)

O.k so that’s great for someone using MailChimp or for those who haven’t built a newsletter yet but what about those who have mailers from other Newsletter providers like Constant Contact, Worldcast, In-house software? What if all you have is the list? No problem, introducing: Flotown

What is flotown asside from a cool web 3.0 name? Dylan Boyd, Vice President of  eRoi  said it best “If social and email had a baby, it would be called Flotown”  Flowtown allows you to within minutes, import your existing mailer and extract social data from it. The more people you have, the more your wallet will suffer but the cost of not doing this in the long run is what will hurt your company the most.  A lot of businesses who have not subscribed yet to the true power of social media and interactive marketing, do not know why this would be such a valuable thing to do.

For example, we have many clients who often say “So what if I know that most of my mailer has a Twitter?”  Then we explain that this means a few things… there is a huge correlation between Twitter usage and mobile technology, just seems to be the same types. That person you know who refuses to get a cel phone and so you have to make sure to always be on time to meet their damn ass, likely is not super  webby and doesn’t use Twitter. This makes mobile advertising an option for you if you see that your mailer is very tweety. Another thing we can extract from Twitter statistics is Time spent on-line, demographics like location, psychographics like user behavior. So that’s just from finding out a lot of people on your mailer use Twitter. Imagine the power of knowing that there are also a lot of people on Linked in, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, Yelp, Dailybooth… and which people are on most of the networks and have a lot of firends? Imagine the real life equivalent. It would be like knowing that someone in your mailer hangs out at various places in the world and has a lot of friends in those places, almost like a jetset status. Valuable to advertisers and incredibly valuable to you.

Another thing this tells us is how much money to spend on our own on-line vehicles. For example, if everyone in your mailer is on Facebook but not so much on Twitter, well then you should be spending a directly relational amounts of time marketing your Facebook to your fans and also working on getting your existing fans from other networks to know that they CAN follow you on Twitter by making sure to stick Twitter icons on your site, Tweeter feeds in your blogs etc…

Social media is like Lite Brite. (and I’m determined to one day soon make a really cool animation with Lite Brite) to show you. You have many different colors (networks) and you generally need a few pegs and colors to really make a difference.  There are the kids who tend to use a few green ones to make the tree template that came in the box (typical web marketer) and there are those who are able to create incredibly intricate multi-colored worlds (web marketer who thinks outside the box).

Without further ado…

1. LAST.FM

Going in, I was already a big fan of last.fm, and that’s because I scrobble. No, it’s not as filthy as it sounds. To scrobble means that you let the last.fm service track the music you play on your computer or portable device, linking you to others who do the same, with comparisons of your tastes and suggested artists to check out. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

There are even (unofficial) ways to scrobble data to last.fm from other services like Slacker and Pandora, should you care to. Well-played, last.fm. Well-played.

While revealing of your true self in the same way a Facebook drunk picture can be (Do I really listen to Corey Hart that much? you’ll ask yourself), it’s the scrobbles that give last.fm its power. No other site can match last.fm’s ability to unite fans of the most obscure possible acts from all over the globe. It’s a treasure trove of the underground, the underrated, the undiscovered and the antiquated.

I’ve been a last.fm user for almost three years, in which time I’ve scrobbled about 50,000 tracks from about 2,000 different artists, many discovered through the site itself. But I never touched their subscription radio feature even once, until so recently. I suppose the prospect of making a decision based on thirty entire tracks just wasn’t worth the bother. Thirty tracks on last.fm represents a couple hours of listening, at best. Costco booths give you bigger free samples than that!

But for purposes of this article, I listened. And I was exposed to roughly thirty awesome artists I’d never heard of before. Impressive, but not surprising considering what I know of last.fm Unlike the ‘listen to related artists’ features of other sites — dictated from the top down, by genre marketeers — last.fm’s choices of related artists are generated by the scrobbles of other users. And other users aren’t DJs. They don’t care about flow. They can be eccentric and eclectic. And they can surprise you in the best way.

And… now I’m out of tracks. Luckily, last.fm’s subscription service is very cheap (as advertised, it’s only $3.00 a month). Of all the pay services listed here, last.fm’s is the one I’m most likely to embrace. Call it brand loyalty, but the price is right, the interface is a breeze, and the musical selection is so far off the scale that they’ll have to start measuring in parsecs.

A related note: Where clunky old Myspace claims to be the arbiter of undiscovered basement bands and quirky DIY auteurs, last.fm actually provides, and then some. Take note, unsigned musicians — if you’re not on Last.fm, you’re nowhere. Perhaps literally. Get your tracks up there and join the party.

• BEST FEATURE: Every band you can think of. And more. Much more.
• WORST FEATURE: If you don’t at least have an open mind about listening to dudes playing theremins in their basements, you may as well not bother.
• IDEAL FOR: People so indie that their favourite bands only play clubs in New Crobuzon.

2. GROOVESHARK

I’m new to Grooveshark and have yet to plumb its depths, but let me tell you — this thing packs a punch. Once you get past an initially off-putting interface — it’s iTunes, but yellow — you’ll find yourself in a deep delicious ocean of sound.

One thing I like about Grooveshark? Make that a few things: No signups or registrations to deal with. No limited number of track skips. No mid-song buffering. Freedom of interaction is a big positive: You can skip tracks forward and back, scan back and forth in a song if you want to hear a certain refrain again (just as you could on your own mp3 player) and treat the place like a big musical sandbox.

I’m not sure what Grooveshark’s subscription-based VIP service entails. How can you get better than Grooveshark’s free service? At this rate, I’m figuring it involves swimming in a pool of Cristal and then a trip to the mile-high club aboard a private space shuttle made of diamonds.

To save favourites, save tracklists and access the custom radio stations, you’ll have to register. This is entirely optional, and you can get to the music without it. Playlist creation is a little finicky at first — it’s easy to delete or scramble a listing by accident — but it’s also very powerful, with the ability, much like iTunes, to select multiple tracks in the conventional way, with a shift-click. I didn’t expect such a high level of interaction and navigability from a Flash interface, and I must say I’m impressed.

Grooveshark is a new discovery for me, but I anticipate going back to it very soon. Actually, I’m already there. And how sweet it is.

• BEST FEATURE: Depth, selection, interactivity, speed, etc.
• WORST FEATURE: Design cribs from iTunes, and iTunes isn’t that great to begin with.
• IDEAL FOR: People with functioning ears.

3. SLACKER RADIO

Oookay. Slacker. Slacker doesn’t let you navigate inside of a song. It gives you a limited number of song skips. It requires registration that expires after thirty days, and there are loud and obnoxious pre-recorded DJs in between songs. It requires you to disable any script-blocking software just so their interface will work and the songs will load.

Yeah.

Okay, for the two of you still reading this section… I hope you like Top 40. Because that’s what you’re gonna get.

Seriously. Unlike the other services mentioned in this article, Slacker is heavily biased towards the mainstream. If you let Slacker do the work for you in constructing a playlist, it’ll load you up with all kinds of major-label crap that you’ve heard hundreds of times before on the radio, and probably didn’t enjoy much then, either. Their ‘related artists’ system is a bit of a joke in this regard. In Slacker’s nightmarish, dystopian world, all roads lead to Godsmack. Even roads that started at ambient electronic. Internet research tells me that Slacker is owned and programmed by former satellite radio operators. In terms of musical selection, this may be its chief problem. They should rename themselves ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Clear Channel’.

There is an upside. Potentially a fantastic upside. If you have the time and patience to program your own playlists (a bit of a daunting affair, full of micromanagement) you may end up building a real work of art — a playlist crafted by both human and algorithmic hands to feed you new and awesome music every track. Your range of options in this regard is actually quite powerful and easy to administrate, with the ability to choose or ban songs, artists or genres at will.

But Slacker — paradoxically, considering its name — assumes you have the patience and willpower to do this. Not everyone will. Slacker advertises having over 2 million songs at their disposal, but if they’re just going to heap steaming piles of Nickelback upon you anyway, what’s the point?

Slacker’s subscription service apparently features ABC News bites and unlimited song skip ability. Well, sound the vuvuzelas, it’s party time. Or not. In the end, Slacker is for less discerning, more mainstream listeners, and it serves them very well. But I’m not one of them. And those pre-recorded DJs can suck a donkey.

• BEST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• WORST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• IDEAL FOR: People whose radios have just broken and it’s too late at night to hit up Wal-Mart in their H2s while chugging Smirnoff Ice.

4. PANDORA

Most Internet music goons will tell you that Pandora is the greatest overall choice for a personalized ‘Net radio stream with depth and breadth. I hear raves from friends, from blogs, from a lot of corners. Yet I’m unable to decide for myself, because of the blurb that glares at me with cold legal contempt every time I visit the site:

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. “

• BEST FEATURE: They are deeply, deeply sorry. And sad.
• WORST FEATURE: Due to licensing constraints, they can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
• IDEAL FOR: Presumably, people inside of the U.S. But I can’t be sure.

Well, that’s a fine to-hell-with-you. But, ‘no alternatives’? I don’t think so. For instance, I think I hear Grooveshark singing to me in soft, ethereal tones. Time to go listen closer.

Miror Miror!

Remember the craze of vanity urls where everyone was able to reserve their own name instead of a long string of id numbers! Well a lot of people didn’t realize you can add a custom url (vanity) name to your facebook pages too.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/the-original-name-you-chose-for-your-page/the-id-facebook-gave-you

wouldn’t it be better to have

http://www.facebook.com/onepagename

3 easy steps and you will be able to get this name for your Face book pages!

Set-up Vanity url for fb page Step 1

Go here: http://www.facebook.com/username/ (You need to be admin of the page you want to set up, you need a verified account and also you need to make sure you pick the right name cause u get 1 chance only, no going back to edit!)

Set-up Vanity url for fb page Step 2

You will see: Set a username for your Pages with a hyperlink – click the Set a username link. Should send you to:

Each Page can have a username

Easily direct someone to your Page by setting a username for it. You will not be able to edit or transfer this username once you set it.

Set-up Vanity url for fb page Step 3

Pick your name and make sure it is available  (Avoid using symbols and too many alphanumeric combos or many words. The best names for pages are 1 word or acronyms. If your band is Jody and Joodles, JAJ would be ideal. Make it easy for people to remember because Jodyandthejoodles will looks messy. JodyAndTheJoodles is only slightly better… don’t even think of Jody.And…

So now that you have picked your custom url for your facebook fan page, all you need to do is use that new url in all your promos

Here is ours: http://www.facebook.com/bandmark feel free to like us

So now that you have a  Facebook fan page you want it to be popular. You want MORE fans and you want MORE  likes. Well, there are many ways to grow this database but before we get into that, let’s first make sure you aren’t doing anything to scare your potential fans away with these top 3 no nos.

Tip #1 in Blocking facebook fans: Inviting people multiple times, especially via multiple admins who share common friends. Generally speaking, Facebook watermarks these people OFF the invite page but it doesn’t stop idiots from creating duplicate friend lists, double wall-ling etc…

Tip #2 in Blocking facebook fans:
Inviting people who are in a totally wrong target market. (don’t invite Young men to a page about anti-aging face cream…) Imagine you are invited to something you are totally not into…

Tip #3 in Blocking facebook fans:
Spamming your own newsfeed with too much “please join my page” info or posting on the walls of barely acquaintance people.

O.k so now that we got that straight let’s get to the good stuff. How are we going to get fans and likes?
Well there 5 ways and they all work, if done properly.

Tip #1 in how to get more facebook fans and likes: Invite your Facebook and non-FB friends, tell your neighbors, mention it at parties. Invite people in a personal way, don’t just spam the link around. Word of mouth works if you are sincere and non invasive. Include your facebook profile vanity URL to your business cards along with your Twitter and LinkedIn. All 3 are standard now for business cards!

Tip #1 in how to get more facebook fans and likes: Post on your profile weekly, not more. Your network will see and if they are interested they will join. You can post it on some key friends but don’t overdo it, especially in a small city or entourage. It looks tacky and shameless to wall every single mutual friend in a group. Nothing special about getting invited to a mass invitation.

Tip #3 in how to get more facebook fans and likes: Ask a few key friends or marketing partners to comment your posts, this draws more attention to them in newsfeeds. Enough likes and comments and they end up in the favored HIGHLIGHTS newsfeed section which is more effective than a Facebook AD! You can also ask friendly promoters to swap a promo with you. You can post up their page and they can post up yours. This actually works even better than posting up your own links. Compare both of these:

“Hey check out my new band page, it really rocks!

“Hey my good friend Jenny is the guitarist of this band, check them out they are really tight!” <— this one will get more attention, a friend referring a friend is more effective than you sending yourself flowers.

Tip #4 in how to get more facebook fans and likes: Add the like Widget and Facebook fan page badges on your other sites like MySpace, blogs, Official sites… to bridge back facebook traffic which has travelled to other parts of the web!

Tip #5 in how to get more facebook fans and likes: Create an Ad on Facebook and see if your click are turning into fans (a good ratio is 1 fan per 10 clicks or slightly less) You only get billed for clicks so if your Ad doesn’t pick up after a day or so – change the image or text, it’s not working. Also, people get bored easily and have a high capacity to ignore FB ads so switch them up a lot, make 4 ads but vary the images and text so people see them as new

While you are trying to get more friends and likes on your facebook pages, give us a like BandMark fan page

Hits and visits and views? Oh my…Start talking about web traffic and people’s eye glaze over.  Everyone knows traffic is important, but why exactly? And who wants to do the nerdy work of understanding it?

“It’s all a numbers game,” says Lisa Mac, Social Media Strategist for BandMark. “The more visitors you have, the more fans you will get, the more concert and merch revenue per visitor.  It really is that simple.”

So…(drumroll, please) BandMark is proud to share our handy guide to web traffic – the words and the whys.

Analytics

Web analytics is studying all numbers related to your site –  where people are coming from, which pages they are viewing, how long they are staying.  Google Analytics provides a full set of online tools, simply by paste their code into your web pages and watch the traffic go by.

Bounce Rate

This is what percent of people just… leave.  They look at one page but don’t explore any more.   Maybe the page takes too long to load, or the site is confusing (or ugly). If your bounce rate is greater than 60%, you should take a good look at optimizing your site.

Hits

When someone visits your web page, each different element (audio, video, graphic) gets requested from your web site.  Each of these downloads is considered a hit.  Since one page can have many pieces, your number of hits can be much higher than actual views or visitors.

Page views

One of the most important measurements is page views.  Each time a page loads, it generates many hits but just one page view.  Sites such as Alexa rank hot pages based on pages views. Check your page views to see which parts of your site are popular, and which are getting overlooked.

Referrals

How do people find your site? Check your referrals to see where your visitors are coming from. Are your facebook friends showing you love, or is it a music blogger sending people your way? Pay attention to where people *aren’t* coming from – for example, a low number of referrals from Twitter could be an incentive to tweet more!

Unique visitors

This is not quite as “unique” as it sounds.  Users surfing the web from the same home network, library or school may be grouped together as a single unique visitor.  Still, this number gives you a sense of how many different people are visiting your site  - and which countries they are surfing from.  You can also see popular times, important for contests and promotions!

Visits

A visit is generally considered up 30 minutes spent exploring your site.  One unique visitor can have many visits – and that is a great compliment: your site was so cool and so interesting that they came back for more! “Repeat visitors are known as ‘sticky’ traffic,” says Lisa Mac. “These are your real fans.  They are the people interested in seeing what’s new.”

*****

Feeling smarter? Paying attention to your traffic is a great way to learn where people come from, what they look at,  and how often they return.  Understand your traffic to tweak your site design, so people want to connect and return.  Pay attention to your referrals to learn how to promote your site.  Make the most of your web investment by understanding traffic!

Forget all the rumors about Myspace being dead: until we find a real replacement, Myspace is still the go-to site for fans and bands to connect. Unfortunately we have all seen our share of ugly myspace pages…you know, the ones where people try to cram EVERYTHING into a single page – AND make it flash, ouch!

http://www.myspace.com/beautifulsqaurdon Not only was this Myspace showcased on a popular Zefrank post called “I know me, some ugly Myspace“ but it was pretty easy to locate in most social bookmarking sites as well! It is so unbelievably ugly that one can consider that this was the intent, but really – why is having a very ugly Myspace an important goal for you?!

BandMark recommends Myspace to our clients – it’s a powerful tool for sharing your music and your tour dates with potential fans. Just take a moment to look at your Myspace and ask yourself these TOUGH questions:

Is my Myspace hard to read?

Glitter text and flashing gifs make your text difficult to decipher. Too much stuff on the page can overwhelm your fans. If they can’t find your tour dates they won’t show up at your club show! Decide what you want to showcase and keep it simple. Make sure your font (style and color) is readable against your background image.

Is  my Myspace slow to load?

Animations and movies take longer to load – and some of those crazy backgrounds can take FOREVER! Your fans may have slower access than you do (some people still have dialup, right?). If a page takes too long to load, impatient fans will not wait. Swap out that crazy background for something simpler. If you have a lot of video content try showcasing different videos every month.

Is my Myspace cross-browser compatible?

You don’t need to get super technical to insure your site works for most of your fans. IE and Firefox are the most popular browsers, but Google Chrome and Safari are close behind. Ask your friends and family what browser they use, and get some volunteers to check your page. Try logging in from public libraries and internet cafes to see how your site works.

Is my Myspace ugly?

Ok, so, this is more of a judgement call, but seriously: after spending so much time on your site layout, it is probably tough for you to see it critically. Send your link to some friends whose style you like, and ask for their (honest) feedback. You don’t necessarily need to make all the changes they recommend, but if more than one person mentions a particular issue, you should really consider making a change.

Myspace is a great way to get the word out about your band, your shows, your latest EP and your videos. Answering these questions will help you keep your MESSAGE on top of the all the noise.

The bad news first… So you’re freaking out cause you went to your handy TWITTER mass unfollow API TRS (twitter related site) and found out that in 2010, Twitter banned automatic mass Unfollow and mass following in an attempt to slow down the Spam complaints and junk in Twitter accounts (Porn, Gambling, Affiliate programs…)

Not only will they ban you if they catch you mass following or un-following but they will ban you if you send out too many messages with automatic software, aps, sites… So forget those for managing your account. YES even sending out auto-replies that thx people for following are now against their TOS (those messages were never a good idea anyways, they just annoy people)

The Good news is that there are tools out there which you can use in order to data-mine your Twitter followers and then manually follow and unfollow people, target followers, dump un-reciprocal followers and so forth.  A new breed of TWITTER management tools called semi-automatic social bots! (At least I am naming them that for now). They carefully fall into the grey area of black-hat marketing, a social marketer’s safe haven where happy clients are able to build accounts quickly without the fear of  suspended or deleted accounts.  Best one out there?  TWEEPI by a long shot… You’ll check it out for yourself, but TWEEPI is amazing. It organizes your Twitter followers faster than a secretary on crystal. With: Geeky follow, Flush, Reciprocate and Cleanup, you can spring clean your account within minutes.

10 Ways to get your account banned on Twitter:

1. Mass follow or un-follow which is automatic (Select all- a block at a time)
2. Mass message, auto-replies too
3. Sending out more than 1 link in a row! (spacing suggested is 16 minutes from an insider)
4. Having too many links in your tweets – TWITTER wants to see your characters getting filled with text.
5. Having a very un-equal ratio between followers and following like 1,500 following but just 82 followers
6. Being annoying – posting tweets every minute, too many @, too many re-tweets will get Tweeple to report you
7. Having an Adult account xxx
8. Having an on-line gambling themed profile or talking about on-line gambling too much
9. Having a hate group
10. Trying to sell stuff directly from your tweets, keywords like: BUY this! $$$, SAVE%

That’s it folks, happy tweeting

Some day soon I hope the Social media communities will realize that if everyone wants to use management software it’s because THEY didn’t build any good enough database communication functionality…

While we were not working on our client’s campaigns and hitting the winter music fests we had a peak into some of the things that are really making Japan’s music industry a fruitful avenue for North American bands trying to get a slice of the Yen. In particular, their trendy mobile technology is starting to pick up elsewhere in the world and as the worldwide web brings foreign industries closer and closer together, we think 2010 will be the year that getting distribution deals, bookings and press from our Japanese friends will be easier than you can imagine…

How to get BIG IN JAPAN? I think we’ve cracked it here:

With websites like TOPMUSICJAPAN allowing one to quickly get a .jp music page and promo package, bands can try their luck at selling both music and merch to the Japanese music fan market place.

Japan is enormous, with over 127,704,000 people living there, and a huge entertainment industry, you can imagine how many music fans there are.  It seems like they have really mastered interactive advertising as well and if you think Facebook is the web’s biggest playground think again! In Japan – MIXI is their virtual hang-out and home to over 25 million users and if their steady growth continues we’ll have reached 31 million users by 2011.

Music magazines! This is a great way to get your band out there. In Japan, they are genre obsessed and instead of having a few magazine that cover mostly pop music, they have hundreds of magazines for many many genres of music and styles. The easiest way to find some reliable agencies is asking the new media buyer of a popular major like SONY JAPAN. If you are are fluent in Japanese, go ahead and call the magazines yourself!  Some genres do particularely well in Japan like :Metal, Visual Kei and electronica.  If you have a glam-rock style band SHOXX would be a good mag to advertise in.

Poster downloads and concert promo! if you are touring in Japan you will not be able to resist this service. It enables the mobile population to literally get free downloads and concert info off of a poster via bar codes, augmented reality symbols and what is known as air tagging! (visuals that are linked to your GPS allowing users to seek wireless hot spots, cool new restos, clothing specials and of course concerts!

Before creating your plan of action, study the country and the culture, read some blogs, Google is your friend! Below are some of my favorite Japanese videos that will hopefully help you get a feel for this bustling stylish & entertaining Metropolis and how bands can make it BIG IN JAPAN!

“Japan” from Felix Urbauer on Vimeo.

10 BandMark  Music Industry predictions for 2010:

``I see... me and David Bowie having sushi! but more importantly...``

1. Venture capitalists and big named brands will further finance musicians

As record labels merge and swallow up partners, (Warner+EMI? Like when Polygram merged with Universal in the 80`s) marketing budgets will be slashed once again so the once 100k budget which got cut int0 50k last year, will likely be cut again to 25k. This wont be as tragic as it seems because big named brands and the film industry will gladly spot these artists with some nice budgets for appearances and brand vanity and  smaller artists will opt for their own investors. This will force bands to be doing a lot of hands on marketing to stand out in what has become a huge sea of new music and very tough competition.

2. Fan clubs and street teams will come together as direct-to-fan platforms evolve

As a music fan, you can sign up to newsletters, fan-clubs, VIP offers, the record label store, Street teams, mobile alerts and the list goes on. Well with more and more artists selling directly to their fans, it is inevitable that a solution emerges that handles everything. Fan logs into the ultimate Direct-to-Fan club and specifies purchasing habits, street team activities, news alert delivery options etc… and everything after than is one cleverly marketed click away where fans interacts with band offerings, demand new versions and get rewarded with prime goodies like shout outs on stage for sharing content. I see the monthly and yearly subscription fee model popularize itself in these clubs as well as in on-line music stores.

3. Artists will make more music on demand

With more and more bonds being built via web 2.0 technologies, the artist and fan relationship will continue to grow and I predict that fans will start to create their own mini EPs by directing the artist to get re-mixed by producers they like, release acoustic and live versions and even integrate raw studio cuts and include tracks from talented fans  as well. A sort of Choose-Your-Own-Audio venture with all the emerging remix and interactive technologies at the forefront.  I`d like to see these mini EPs come in a digital bundle, return of the 45 vinyl and have basically 3 songs: fan made re-mix, fan demanded acoustic version and raw studio cut.

4. Music will be seen less on a CD rack and more in the clouds…

CD sales will continue their steady decline and the music population will turn into digital and vinyl heads for the most part.  Watch as vinyl reach out to the hardcore fans who want the immediacy of digital AND the physical fix. Subscription based streaming music stores like Grooveshark and Spotify will become a serious business model for labels to consider. Grooveshark`s traffic has a really healthy up-and-to-the-right metric line and really if you think about it – it`s the perfect compromise for the majority of the digital music community.  Faster than utorrent, cheaper than Itunes and trendier than Twilight, these subscription based stream stores are clearly making their mark in the music market place.

5. An artist`s database will turn into a fairly measurable currency with social metrics

The more time we spend on-line, the more valuable a musician`s database will become (users are expected to be spending EVEN more time in 2010).  All artists will experience an increase of virtual fans simply by putting themselves out there but also the clever musician, management and label will be harvesting and analyzing fan data with the new social metrics coming out.  The simple: enter email, tweet, share this for a track models will only amplify this virtual currency.

6. Interactive touch screens will start showing up at concerts

I don’t mean the kind you see at music festivals with SMS streams and the next band info with sponsors and ads. I mean a truly interactive experience where one can sign up to fan clubs,  shop,  join a contest request shout outs (I know I’m obsessed with shout outs and honestly think it’s the best way to reward and keep a fan loyal). In my perfect vision of the future, one that my inner geek truly adores, the interactive touch screens are so paper thin and huge and now after having seen AVATAR they are probably 3D as well!

7. MySpace will offer musicians a lot more options and will not go away

I was honestly laughing when respectable journalists were writing about “The Death of MySpace”  ”Facebook will take over MySpace”. Look, no matter how much you have a hate on for Tom and no matter how fk* irritating that damn CSS is to code around – MySpace is still the #1 place online that music fans go to check out an artist’s music. If you don’t care about all that and you are just looking at the numbers, well their actual traffic has been pretty stable for the past 3 months (Oct-o9 to Dec-09). So although things look promising, we`ll have to check the numbers again in the next 3 months…

“Indie musicians now have a new way to make money online by adding their songs directly to MySpace Music in exchange for sharing in the ad revenue with the service.” Original post by Elliot Van Buskirk @ Wired.com click MORE for further information.

8. Facebook will release a highly customizable new version

I have to say that I am not impressed with the rate in which Face book releases new versions or fixes bugs… the only reason why I use Facebook (and I likely speak for most)  is that everyone is on it and I really have little choice.  At least MySpace has an excuse for it’s bugginess - it was built in the dinosaur era with some lame programming language.  I am hoping that with a huge fan page community, Facebook steps up to the plate and actually pimps up the code a bit so that one can customize way more and turn their fan page into highly interactive music fan playgrounds of stuff to do, purchase and without error messages with apps not working. Recently, either the ilike app had a bug in it or the steps to add it to your fan page were totally convoluted cause almost every music client of mine was calling me about it!  So Crackbook, I’m unliking you a bit until you impress me with a new version…

9. More street stars like G-Funk RED will be discovered

I think after over a decade of really wimpy commercial rap, hip hop and urban beats it’s time to get back to the simple stories and sounds of the untrained street songs BEFORE the musician has someone else writing their rhymes and picking their outfits. Who says teenagers need cheesy synthesized effects and big studio sound to make them happy? O.K well they sort of do BUT unlike our grandparents, kids are growing up on decades of classical, blues, rock, electronic and are totally into experiencing new stuff – although there will always be at the perfect age for pop. I was lucky, I had an older brother making sure between Madonna and Wham I had Led Belly, Chet Baker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop…  well tell u what, these kids have a realllly big brother called the internet allowing them to discover more music than ever before subjecting people like G-funk RED and others to get international exposure from sites like YouTube.

10. America will have a full year of discovering more oddities like Susan Boyle

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after Susan Boyle, America’s Got Talent is going to experience both an increase in unusual auditions from older and oddball performers but will also be prioritizing them especially after seeing Susan`s popularity skyrocket and set new standards for discovery.