Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Ben Folds in Second Life
I was SO happy when I got an email this morning from the Ben Folds mailing list. I'm a huge fan, so I was double-geeking out that Ben Folds is having a CD release party in Second Life on Thursday!
It's great to see artists of this caliber embracing channels like Second Life as it lends more legitimacy when you're talking to managers, label folks, bandmates, other artists, etc. about using them as a means for promotion of your own music. "Hey, if Ben Folds, Suzanne Vega, Talib Kweli and even Duran Duran are doing it, why shouldn't we?"
Folds is really working the social media angles with this release. He's also doing what his people are calling the first ever "live by request" webcast on myspace. Not a lot details about this, they say you should stay tuned to the Ben Folds website for more -- I sure will!
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Hey, Jay... I've just found your podcast, it's really helpful. I heard you request personal stories about internet music marketing and figured I'd let you know what's up at my site. TheSundayThursday The idea behind the site is that I write record and post two orginal songs per week (on sunday and thursday) ... I've made it into a podcast and added it to the podsafe music network and I have a myspace page etc. I've been doing it since february and have nearly 80 songs up so far... for free. But my efforts don't seem to be having much luck getting actual traffic to the site. I've been emailing folks every once and a while to get them to chack it out, figuring that the notworthiness alone would inspire interest, but the daily actual hits on the site are like less than 2. Everyone who listens likes it but I've been having a real hard time getting people (other than my friends) to the site. I don't tour or play out, I don't have anything for sale... music is my hobby. I work 40 hours a week at a different job and go to school part time at Pitt. So needless to say it's been real tough keeping up with this prolific recording schedule. Ok sorry to talk your ear off. Let me know what you think. Thanks for the great podcast. PS: I'll link to you.
Hey Brad,
Wow, if I write more than two songs a month I consider it a pretty good month, so what you're doing first of all is amazing to me on that level.
Doing your own podcast is great, as is getting stuff up on the Podsafe Music Network. One thing I noticed is that you have about 20 songs listed on your PMN profile. I've found that less is definitely more on the PMN - if you look at the single most successful artist to date on the PMN, Brother Love, he has 3 tracks up. I think having too many tracks can be intimidating to podcasters who look at your page and see that there are 4 or 5 pages worth to go through and so they just decide to move on. I'd suggest going into your profile, selecting "Update" beside a bunch of tracks, and selecting Yes beside Remove. This actually doesn't delete the song from the website, so you can reactivate it later. Pick your best stuff, obviously you have a lot!
Also on the PMN and podcasting front - try doing an audio promo (under 1 minute) for your show and in it explain the whole Sun-Thurs thing. Put that promo in your artist profile. Also, contact a few of the podcasters you like directly and ask if they'd be interested in playing your songs and promo. Check their site to see how they like to receive submissions -- most have a form or a particular email address they use for that. Since you already have your own podcast, offer to play THEIR promos on your show. Podcasters tend to be pretty a friend bunch and quite approachable, generally the worst they'll do is ignore you.
You've got some friend links on your own page, which is great. Make sure you are always expanding this to include new friends, and be sure to let them know you've linked to them. On myspace, whenever you get an add, make sure to post a comment on the person who added you and a link back to your site explaining what you are about.
The new songs twice a week is a great story! Have you tried getting any press coverage? Perhaps you could do something in conjunction with a show or event, and talk about how much success you've had getting attention with the Sunday Thursday thing... it doesn't matter that you haven't had THAT much success yet, 'cus you have had some and it will grown. Here's an example of a release I wrote when our band launched our podcast:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb378086.htm
If you read through it, you'll see that a lot of this stuff could apply to a lot of different bands, it's just the way I've spun it. Even better, read Bob Baker's post on writing good headlines:
http://www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/2006/10/erections-and-good-headlines.html
Hope that helps a bit. Please let me know if any of these ideas help, or not!
- J.
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Wow, if I write more than two songs a month I consider it a pretty good month, so what you're doing first of all is amazing to me on that level.
Doing your own podcast is great, as is getting stuff up on the Podsafe Music Network. One thing I noticed is that you have about 20 songs listed on your PMN profile. I've found that less is definitely more on the PMN - if you look at the single most successful artist to date on the PMN, Brother Love, he has 3 tracks up. I think having too many tracks can be intimidating to podcasters who look at your page and see that there are 4 or 5 pages worth to go through and so they just decide to move on. I'd suggest going into your profile, selecting "Update" beside a bunch of tracks, and selecting Yes beside Remove. This actually doesn't delete the song from the website, so you can reactivate it later. Pick your best stuff, obviously you have a lot!
Also on the PMN and podcasting front - try doing an audio promo (under 1 minute) for your show and in it explain the whole Sun-Thurs thing. Put that promo in your artist profile. Also, contact a few of the podcasters you like directly and ask if they'd be interested in playing your songs and promo. Check their site to see how they like to receive submissions -- most have a form or a particular email address they use for that. Since you already have your own podcast, offer to play THEIR promos on your show. Podcasters tend to be pretty a friend bunch and quite approachable, generally the worst they'll do is ignore you.
You've got some friend links on your own page, which is great. Make sure you are always expanding this to include new friends, and be sure to let them know you've linked to them. On myspace, whenever you get an add, make sure to post a comment on the person who added you and a link back to your site explaining what you are about.
The new songs twice a week is a great story! Have you tried getting any press coverage? Perhaps you could do something in conjunction with a show or event, and talk about how much success you've had getting attention with the Sunday Thursday thing... it doesn't matter that you haven't had THAT much success yet, 'cus you have had some and it will grown. Here's an example of a release I wrote when our band launched our podcast:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb378086.htm
If you read through it, you'll see that a lot of this stuff could apply to a lot of different bands, it's just the way I've spun it. Even better, read Bob Baker's post on writing good headlines:
http://www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/2006/10/erections-and-good-headlines.html
Hope that helps a bit. Please let me know if any of these ideas help, or not!
- J.
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