The following is a guide to maximizing your Audiolife account so you can begin selling your music and merch directly to your fans in no time!

Fill Your Store with Exclusive Products

Before you can even begin promoting your store or selling, you need products to sell. Given the fact that there are no upfront costs, you can fill your store with as many products as you’d like.  It goes without saying though that quality is better than quantity.  In addition to selling physical/digital albums, downloads and ringtones, you’re going to want to develop some cool designs for merch products.

Since you don’t need to have money in order to create products with Audiolife, why not just create as many as you can? Fully maximize the on-demand production capabilities that Audiolife offers and create custom products for your fans, such as:

•    Recording live sets and immediately uploading the same day to sell through your store.

•    If you have a catalog of unreleased music, just upload into your store and sell as exclusive downloads.

•    Create merch related to a tour, roll out a themed series of merch items over time, or hold a merch design contest with your fans!

And the list goes on! Providing exclusive content for your fans is key and you can do that with Audiolife without any upfront costs and in little to no time!

Customize Your Web Store & Viral Store

With your Audiolife account, you get a Viral Store that you can embed onto any site, social network or blog along with a Web Store with your own dedicated URL to display on marketing materials or link to in emails.

Each of these stores are customizable so you can change the colors and add your own banner or logo so the stores fit your brand and image and fans know that they are buying directly from you.

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Category: Audiolife | No Comments »

Tags: guide to Audiolife, musicians best practices, promoting music online

Artwork Credit: www.budikwan.com

This is a list in the making …

Derek Sivers’ Blog
Alexa Traffic Rank: 42,736
As the founder of CD Baby, Derek has definitely made some noise in the industry so you know he has a thing or two to say about it. An entrepreneur and former musician himself, Derek shares his vast knowledge of the music business and doesn’t hold back.

Category: Marketing, Music 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Tags: best music blogs, Derek Sivers, Hypebot, music industry blogs, music industry resources, Paul Resnikoff, promoting music online

Everyone seems to have a music blog these days. Nearly every time I log onto Twitter I find headlines from blogs that I didn’t know existed the day before. It can be exhausting to keep up with! Nevertheless, as music blogs gain popularity they are also becoming a key taste-making voice within the industry and among listeners.

Music blogs are becoming such a prominent source of online promotion that many artists are eating up any information they can find that might help them get their own name in a headline. Many helpful articles have been posted recently that offer all sorts of tips and advice. Some deal more with protocol – don’t spam, don’t beg, do your homework, etc. Others deal with tactics, such as including an mp3 or two for the blogger to offer as free downloads for their readers. All good advice. However, I noticed recently that there was one very important tool being neglected in the majority of these articles – relationships.

I recently posted an article on Creative Deconstruction that dealt with this idea of relationships. I’m not going to rehash that post here, but the primary point that I want to get across is that if artists want bloggers to pay attention to them, they have to take the time to build a rapport. Building relationships and making connections are the most effective ways to rise above the din – online or off.

The Power of Networking

Networking is an important skill to master regardless of your industry. Even in white collar corporate world the most successful salesmen are the ones who know how to talk about more than just their product.

Musicians are not exempt from this. In fact, I would argue that the opposite is true. Artists need to develop the ability to make connections on two different fronts – fans and media. Most of the focus has been on the artist-fan relationship, but unless your band can afford a professional PR campaign it is going to be up to you to get your name out there in the media.

Thankfully, social media has made this much more attainable. Just about anybody can be found these days through social networking, including (or perhaps especially) bloggers. Twitter is particularly useful in this regard, because there are no barriers between users. Anyone can follow anyone. I’ve seen countless relationships – even partnerships – form over time on Twitter. It is simply too useful to be ignored.

DIY public relations through social networking is an effective, free tool that is available to every artist. Take advantage of it. PR people can be very helpful in getting a promotion off the ground. But at the end of the day PR people can’t build relationships for you. Most bloggers won’t even open a press release if they don’t know the person who sent it. Relationship is what sets one particular communication apart from the rest.

So the next time you consider sending a mass-mailed press release, or tweeting “Check out my new EP!” into the ether, remember that your words will have much more impact if the connection you have with your recipients goes beyond impersonal self-promotion.

Category: Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Tags: music PR, promoting music online, Social Networking

It’s almost impossible to stay current with social networks. It feels like there’s a new one everyday.  Luckily they’re not all relevant or of significant use.  Occassionally though a new one comes along that grabs our attention.  As time consuming as it can be, the more relevant social networks you’re on the better. And by relevant I mean that its users and members meet your target audience.

Earlier today I was reading about thesixtyone on the Music Think Tank blog and thought it was worthy of mention.  Not only does it look like a lot of fun (you get points for listening to music!), but it seems like its another venue for artists to promote their music. Continue reading after the jump for a full review of thesixtyone and how to use it by Brian Hazard:

» Continue Reading

Category: Reviews, Social Networking | No Comments »

Tags: music social networks, promoting music online, Social Networking, social networking for musicians, thesixtyone

So let’s just say that you’ve been reading this blog and have been diligently following our advice.  In other words, you’ve been building artist fan relationships online through various social networks and it seems like you’ve been getting a pretty positive response.  But in reality, you’re not really sure.  Never fear! RockDex is here.  Now you can find out just how much you do (or don’t) rock just by typing in your band name and MySpace address.

Once you submit your information, RockDex searches dozens of social networks, blogs, micro-blogs & music sites and provides you with a relative score.  This score essentially tells you how much buzz you’re generating online.  But be sure to check back often because your score is always based on fresh information/data.  So what are you waiting for? Find out your score and be sure to check back here often for more ways on how you can improve it!

Category: Marketing, Reviews | Comments Off

Tags: promoting music online, RockDex, social networking for musicians

In case you didn’t believe us when we told you (several times) that social networking is a great tool to promote your music, eMarketer recently reported that social nets and blogs are actually more popular than email.  They even have the numbers to prove it! Check out the article below:

Aside from searching for information, e-mail has long been the most popular activity online. But no more.

According to Nielsen Online, more people in the US and other leading digital countries worldwide are using social networks and blogs than e-mail.

While search and destination sites remain the most popular online activities, social network and blog use exceeded that of e-mail, increasing their reach by 5.4 percentage points.

In addition, time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth.

Regardless, marketers should use caution before abandoning simpler media such as e-mail or search for social network advertising.

A 2008 study performed by IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, and only 11% of those who did actually purchased anything. Compare that to nonusers, 80% of whom clicked on ads at least once per year; 23% of those who did click bought something.

Online retailers surveyed in an Econsultancy and R.O.EYE study found e-mail marketing to be very cost-effective in terms of customer acquisition, with affiliate marketing and paid search not far behind.

There is a lot of untapped potential in the social media space. But in a recession, when expenditures are shrinking, e-mail budgets are relatively safe. Shrewd marketers will not stop doing the things that are proven to make their clients money.

Category: Marketing, Social Networking | 2 Comments »

Tags: blogs, email, eMarketer, promoting music online, Social Networking