First up we have The Unsettlers, who came to our attention during their recent performance at Osheaga 2010. Though Osheaga featured such luminaries as The Arcade Fire, Metric, Weezer and other favourites of the Pitchfork crowd, The Unsettlers couldn’t be further away from the slick hipster rock of those acts. Occupying the Trees Stage while The Arcade Fire set up on the main stage, The Unsetters’ act was unjustly ignored at Osheaga. Well, we can’t turn back time, but we can turn up the volume on this awesome band. They deserve it.

According to the Unsettlers’ blurb on their MySpace, the 11-piece ensemble “specialize in funeral dirges for the living, dark polkas, menacing waltzes and horse-drawn lullabies, all filtered through the creaking floorboards of a whiskey soaked saloon.” Sounds good, right?

In practice, the band crosses genres at a whim, and their sound can’t be easily pegged — a fascination for early 20th century music is in evidence, mixing everything from Appalachian mountain folk to Weimar cabaret to the Depression-era dust bowl countryside. While it might sound gimmicky on paper, The Unsettlers bring genuine pathos and atmosphere to their lurching, Vaudeville-broke-down sound. The gruff vocals of B.W. Brandes, channeling Tom Waits, barks and howls while pretty female voices warble in the background (in shades of Decemberists). Clattering ragtime pianos, clarinets, trumpets, glockenspeils… all festive yet melancholy, like a square-dance at a funeral.

The Unsettlers are becoming known for their live shows, which feature sword-swallowers and other carnival-esque antics. It’s only a matter of time before these guys blow up big — better enjoy their small, local club concerts while you can!

Check out the Unsettlers’ Myspace, enjoy their twisted tunes, and be sure to scout out their debut album, available in certain forward-thinking record shops.

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.

Despite being confined to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California, Lindsay Lohan continues her career of crime. Our music industry gossip mill sources tell us that on Sunday morning, Lohan assaulted a fellow inmate in a dispute. Eyewitnesses say that Lohan and the unnamed victim were seen arguing over the possession of a bottle of Evian in the prison’s exercise yard shortly before Lohan attacked the other with a sharpened toothbrush. The victim is currently in critical condition at Lynwood’s St. Francis Medical Center.

“We all scoffed when we heard Lindsay was coming in, but she’s more hardcore than we thought she’d be,” said an inmate witness who declined to be named. “I used to run drugs through Mexico and I’ve seen a few things, but nothing like her. She looks like something that fell off the back of a Harley doing a deuce down Route 66, and that voice… dear god, that voice. How old is she, anyway?”

Lohan's dealer, Vinnie 'The Squid' Carpenzo, smuggles a kilo of Tenochtitlan Gold heroin in his colon during his visit with Ms. Lohan on Saturday.

Luckily for Lohan, her team of lawyers, led by Frederick Weinberg, is working around the clock to have Lohan released early. “We’re aiming for at least a sanitarium transfer until we can appeal the charges formally,” Weinberg said in a statement today. “But Ms. Lohan has to be released soon… before anyone else gets hurt.”

Today’s conflict marks the third such altercation since Lohan’s prison stint began on July 20th, following a Friday incident in which she viciously attacked a warden during a cell transfer. Sources say that attack was in response to off-hand criticism of Lohan’s most recent album, 2005’s “A Little More Personal (Raw)”, which was lambasted both critically and commercially. “I don’t think that guy’s ever going to walk again,” a witness said. “She’s raw, all right. She’s a mean girl.”

Share it!

When publishing social media, we must make sure that there are no errors in the text, that the text is not too shocking or irrelevant to your customers and that this piece of information is engaging. Posting about your crazy Vegas week-end or that you bought a new pen is not what your customers want to hear… Social media friends and followers wants micro-news, funny shares, tips, the inside story… think about what makes you say “hmm, this I SHOULD FORWARD”.

Step 1 to publishing social media -Don’t over clone!

As convenient as it is, to link up all your vehicles (facebook, Twitter, MySpace, youtube) this makes a very boring newsfeed for your database. Try not to connect more than 2 of these accounts which will have a duplicate status. (Myspace and Twitter we feel are most compatible as youtube tends to be more video-centric and Facebook allows you to post heavier content than Twitter.

Step 2 to publishing social media content – Track it!

Now that you have all your vehicles in mind and your news, you want to make sure if possible – you can track it. SocialTalk, Bit.ly and others social trackers permit you to track your every post and the success of it’s distribution. You don’t need to track each one, but it’s good to do a weekly track to see how the click-through is doing.

Let’s say you are trying to promote a video. You would paste the video link in your Facebook profile, page and group. Ideally, you would use a thumbnail choice from YouTube and post a little title before the video so people know what they are watching. We will use one of our client’s videos to demonstrate: the video in question is titled “Sexy Girl Undressing” clearly a catchy title  We wouldn’t link our official website because one is better of doing this inside the YouTube description of the video itself. This is more discreet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8uo7V6W3aU This is what the complete link will look like. As you can see it’s pretty long – so for Twitter you may want to shorten it with Bit.ly a shorten-and-track app to: http://bit.ly/bQeO8x which will take up less room. This is also a good way to get people to click on a surprise if you only want them to see the content, once clicked like “Click here to get a sneak peak at our…”

(the actual video embed, should look similar… with title and thumbnail or in a hyperlink for emails)

Sexy Girl Undressing <—hyperlink and embed right below

You would post the video link or the shortened link in your MySpace status and your MySpace bulletin too (assuming those are active profiles). If you have any social bookmarking accounts like DIGG or de.licious, you would post there too. Really you will post anywhere you can. In your actual Youtube account, simply showcasing it in your channel, updating your subscribers with a little bulletin and favorite-ting (and thumbs up) in your account will drive organic traffic within your community outward.  As for comments, only allow yourself 1 comment about your own video and it can’t be the first you can make as many replies as you want though by using @ just like in Twitter…

Step 4 to publishing social media content – A small reminder is not spamming

Then you will post to your members directly the next time you have a larger piece of news or a monthly newsletter. This post should be no more than a week away, more of a reminder post like “Hey, don’t forget we have our annual BBQ this Thursday and for those who haven’t see our latest video: “Sexy Girl Undressing...” here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8uo7V6W3aU

Step 5 to publishing social media content – The personal touch

This is key. Pick 1 very small number of friends like a dozen and email them directly in a small CC or BCC the link. Explain that you produced this video and how proud you are of it and that you thought they would find it interesting. You may think sending the email to you mom goes nowhere but what if she was in the mood to share it with a friend that day who shared it to her son, who has a crazy popular blog and will blog about it that day? You never know how far word of mouth can go so don’t be shy to share Sharing btw is not WALLING 100 0 people’s MySpace comments saying “Watch my video NOW” this is obviously not personal… the only spam you should be, if any, to your own news-feed… Picking out a few FB friends and putting on their wall “Hey Jenn, this is the vid I was telling you about is fine, if those friends don’t mind to be used a promo vehicle, because believe me, when you are in marketing everyone feels they are a vehicle to you.

Step 6  to publishing social media content - knowing when to post

Here’s a trick our buddy Marco shared with us. For Facebook, check to see when lots of people are on-line in your chat window (you can do this for MySpace too) this is a good indication of a popular on-line time. Do your posts then. It’s really not rocket science, just put yourself in your target market’s mind and try to think of how they want to be delivered content.

Step 7  to publishing social media content – when in doubt, do not SHOUT

this is out little motto at BandMark. If you are wondering weather re-posting is too soon or if your communication might be too aggressive, turn it down a notch. It is always better to quietly promote than scream.

Step 8  to publishing social media content -Sneak it in!

If you wish to make a third posting in 1 week and it is not a reminder post, your only choice is to sneak it into an engagement or existing thread. Adding inside a string of relevant comments, a forum post, blog reply can be the way to do that but do this sparingly and please don’t duplicate the content!

Step 9  to publishing social media content – YOUR company isn’t the only interesting thing out there!

There is brand awareness and there is brand overkill. Do not drown people in constant updates about your brand or band.  1/3 of your updates should be about non-work related stuff, current news, other people’s news, small talk. AGAIN, this doesn’t mean “Boy are we hung over from that VEGAS bender and woooo those strippers were fine” It means “Company name, had a blast at the Vegas conference, the mirror titled horse at the BELLAGIO hotel is pretty cool…”  If you don’t have a creative bone in your body but you are nevertheless in charge of managing social media brand awareness, check out what is trending on Twitter, viralling on YouTube, MSN news highlights, Associated Press… Sign-up to some cool blog feeds in your industry and let other news inspire you.

Step 9  to publishing social media content – Pay it forward, 100% selfless promo for someone else

That’s right, share other people’s news, promotions, causes for no reason other than helping someone else out or showing appreciation for their little micro topics. First of all this kind of kindness can only make you friends, who may in turn re-post but even if they don’t – consider it good virtual karma What are the kind of things you can post?

• Other people’s tweets in the form of a RT (Re-tweet) this helps you also on days where you are having a writer’s block…
• A good cause you like. If you believe tax payers should force their government to be part of a public audit, post-it
• Someone’s birthday like a good friend. That friend who sees you as a marketing shark sees a sweeter side today n’est-ce-pas?
• Some really nice art you saw on-line and feel the artist could use some eye shots
• An event you feel is worth everyone attending, even if it isn’t your event like “turn off your power for an hour day”

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

Like!

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.

You have to place yourself in the mind or technical prowess of the YouTube search engine. Like any search engine, the YouTube search engine does not care how well produced your video is or how many friends of yours liked it. It’s only job is to populate search results with the most relevant content PERIOD. This is why you need to title your video after your song AND band name to allow fans who are searching for either, to find it.

Here is a video we are promoting and the artist is VENUS VIRUS, her video is Indecence. In the description, notice how there is a quick link to both where to buy the album and to her website.  If you do not have a link in the first line of description, your audience will likely not go to your YouTube channel to find it. In the event that your label or video company has produced the video, simply ask them if they can adjust this for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q50DVZs2YUg notice how her title contains her album and song with her quick links in description there too.

Promoting your band videos on YouTube Tip #2 – Tag tag tagging!

These are very important. Your ability to get high rankings in the search display, greatly depends on how well you tag your YouTube video. If at all possible, the tags, video title and video description should have some repeat words. In a band’s case, the name of the band and song should be in all 3. You are aloud to put quite a few tags in YouTube, so only laziness stops you from really pimping up the keyword section Below is an example of  one of our BandMark  Ad spots and how we have tagged the video.  If you want to see how well the tags work, type “social media for bands” in the YouTube search box and see who comes up 1st…It is possible we are not #1 at the time of this blog read but we are now (May 9th 2010 and have been since launch mid April)

http://www.youtube.com/user/foxyleemac#p/a/u/0/2qf11wBsH_A

Promoting your band videos on YouTube Tip #3 – Understanding how a video goes viral

A video goes viral in the same way anything gets popular FAST. A person’s sudden rise into the lime lite or at a tipping point, like a virus gone mad happens in pretty much the same way. One or many connections created a ripple or snowball effect which compounded the initial exposure. For this example, we will talk about music videos only. There are 2 things that really have to happen for your video to go viral (assuming you already took care of properly naming and tagging it etc.) and when we are talking about YouTube, if you get asked to be a revenue sharing partner – it’s because your video has gone viral, this is a good indicator. Generally YouTube will ask you this if you have at least 10,000 views and a steady daily organic growth. What makes this happen?

1. Lots of early activity – this means views, comments, ratings and thumbs or flags up. This is why many unknown bands will pay a social media marketing company (like us) to help them spike up their videos early because the higher ranked you get, the less chance there is of you dropping down the ranks later. It is much harder to fight for tags late in the race, so it is important to get as many views as you can early. What most people do is they let their vid viral on it’s own and then when they see the numbers slowing down they start a campaign. It is possible that your video goes viral early and you never need to do anything but watch the views rise substantially. However, this is rare unless you are already famous.
2. It has to be good enough for people to want to share it. There are millions of music videos out there which are well produced, funny, clever, filled with sexy people, great music etc… why is yours worth sharing? Even the best marketing company can only give you a push – the YouTube community and even YouTube content managers, (in this case YouTube music video managers) need to actually believe your video is worth showcasing. Short of having a friend at YouTube, getting a lot of views on a quality video is often enough to get their attention.

The band OWL CITY got famous making this video in his basement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4

First off, we went down to NYC for a TOPSPIN training. (Topspin for those who don’t know is the coolest Direct-2-fan platform in the universe! It is the most complete technology platform for bands who wish to create their own retail channel, effectively promote their music and connect directly with their fans.)  That went super well. The training was in DUMBO Brooklyn, a really cool part of town! It felt like we never left home cause our loft is on the industrial side of Old Montreal and the resemblance was uncanny. Lots of big old factory syle lofts, water and quaint little cafes lined the old – somewhat run down neighborhood.  Adam Bates, was our pilot for the day and flew us threw the many things that the TOPSPIN platform has to offer from management to metrics and of course METRIC! They took us out to lunch at rebar and I have a photo just so you can see how neat this place is. Really old school brick loft with a  lot of nice varnished wood and amazing sandwiches! We launched our TOPSPIN section and are eager to get started with our first lucky band here.

The rest of the week-end was spent with stuffy types at the infamous Bowery hotel, good old Canal street shopping and walks through the times square. When we got back, piles and piles of work to be done! Speaking of work – one campaign we are working on is for a really great cause.  It is the Butmob campaign from the Colo-rectal Cancer Association of Canada. Due to the somewhat embarassing nature of the screening process (Basically a tiny camera up your backside!) a lot of people don’t get screened which is a shame because this type of cancer is 90% totally curable when detected early.  In order to spread awareness for the screening, a funny campaign of buts all over the city was implemented (posters, the back of busses into bums etc) and this really funny social site:

http://www.getyourbuttseen.ca/ where one can pick a but for their face book!

Here is the FB page too: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103611856344452&ref=mf