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BEYOND MYSPACE MUSIC (Part II)
The Big Picture
InPart I of this Beyond Myspace Music articleI stressed the necessity of enlarging the scope of your career promotion efforts online. DO NOT put all your eggs in one basket by focusing solely onMyspaceto promote your career. That is an ineffective strategy. Instead combine the use of Myspacewith other free networking resources and you’ll drastically expand your online presence.Why should you care about an expanded online presence?Simple: because with it your promotions online become a viable vehicle for directing attention to your  professional career. The more widespread your online presence is, the more attention you could potentially receive from increased traffic to your web pages. Previously unavailable opportunities havea funny way of presenting themselves once you have people’s attention. As long as you display areasonable amount of expertise and knowledge in your particular areas of interest then the informationyou offer will be valuable to people. This puts you in an excellent position to satisfy the needs of today’s media consumers (and the ones of tomorrow).In a consumer-driven digital media environment (which is where the future is certainly headed) youmust provide your audience with easy access to free content and information. Make your contentavailable to people through as many channels as possible and maintain a high level of quality with allthe content you distribute. The quality and availability of your content will boost your reputation andhelp you build a loyal audience, one satisfied follower at a time.This slide (above) from a presentation bymedia futurist Gerd Leonhardillustrates my point: In a worldwhere customers are empowered your role is to supply their demand for great content and top-notchservice.
The Future of the Music Business
Your presence online (otherwise known as your digital footprint) will be crucial to your success in thenew music business. Potentially interested parties should not have to work very hard to find you. Withall the information and entertainment options available to them it is only natural to assume that themore difficult the discovery process is for the user, the more disinterested they will become. You should
 
 be doing everything you can to gain and retain their attention, not lose it.It’s 2009 people! We have a wonderfully diverse array of technological tools available to us—which are mostlyfree!--that we can use to create broader awareness for our careers. As use of these tools continues to grow, moresoftware companies will get into the business of creatingthem and each succession of new tools will be more powerful than the last.If you haven’t started using widgetstovirally promote your musicthen you really need to step up to the plate.You should be leveraging useful marketing platforms such as these to create a level of career awarenessthat’ll enable you to generate new sources of income. If you are diligent at developing your online presence you can expect to establish helpful creative and business connections (often unexpectedly)that lead to the growth of your professional network. You will also gain valuable insight into areas(related to your industry) where you need a stronger base of knowledge to optimize your chances of success.
Obscurity vs. Notoriety
My experience with theresearch and data collection phase of writing my first business planvividlyhighlighted the major flaw in my company’s initial business scheme: a lack of marketing knowledge onmy part and no budget to fund professional services to fill this gaping hole in my company. Without athorough understanding of marketing fundamentals and familiarity with low-cost small business marketing strategies, the creation and implementation of an effective DIY promotional campaign toelevate my professional career was beyond my capabilities. Once I had made this fundamentaldiscovery, from that point on I made marketing a required area of study for myself on a regular basis.What sacrifices and commitments are you willing to make in order to overcome obscurity in your career?Arguably the most frightening prospect of all for artists and musicians is obscurity. It requires anenormous amount of time and effort to avoid this fate because the majority of all musicians fall intothis category. The harsh reality is that the sheer number of musicians there are makes this aninevitability. The good news it that one of the best ways to prevent this from happening to you is with awell-established online presence.
Show up on Their Radar
Imagine you are a music executive whose job function is discovering new talent for your label (this iswhat A&Rs do). Though you might useMyspaceto discover artist prospects for your label, the oddsare low that you have the time to randomly searchMyspace for a mystery artist whose music you have never heard before. Now think for a moment about the flip side to this scenario:Myspaceis one of the first places thatmusic industry professionals and potential fans go to look for you when you’re on their radar. So what
 
does that tell you? That
 first 
you have to draw attention to your music career in some other way if youhope to make the public aware of the existence of your Myspace page. People aren’t going to look for you onMyspaceuntil you show up on their radar.Are you starting to get the picture?
Myspace = Your Digital Resume
In order maximize the crucial role thatMyspaceplays in your career it is best to establish an internet presence across multiplesocial media platforms. Embrace internet marketing because it can help makeup for the substantial ground you lose to musicians who have record label marketing muscle behindthem. Internet marketing can be effective for you even on a $0 marketing budget but you’ll definitelyhave to spend lots of time with it to make it work.To put things into perspective think of your Myspace profile as a digital resume for your music career.Your page on the site will start seeing real traffic once you have built a significant level of interest inyour music. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to regularly update your Myspace anddeliver informative, engaging content so that visitors will leave your site with an accurate snapshot of your unique talents and skills and a good sense of your musical identity. Frequent updating shouldn’t betoo hard for most of you because I’m willing to bet that you’re addicted to social networking anyway (Iam a recoveringFacebook aholic myself).My advice: use this characteristic Gen-Y trait to your advantage and channel your energies into online activitiesthat can make a difference in your professional life.
Maximizing the Use of Social Networks to PromoteYourself Online
There are plenty of great social networks thatartists/musicians/labels can use to upload mp3s, videos, blog posts, etc. but you should not take on more networks thanyou can handle. Your aim is to be a consistent provider of engaging, high-quality content to a group of  people who show interest in you and your music. To achieve this you need to:1) Limit yourself to the networks that are best suited for you and the audience you are trying to reach.This requires some initial demographic research to pinpoint the audience segments who you think will be most interested in your offerings.2) Choose networks that have lots of enthusiastic fans of your style of music. Think about artistssimilar to you and the networks where their fans cluster together. There you’ll find a potential goldmine of fans and exposure.3) Don’t randomly add friends. [Trust me, this approach won’t get you anywhere. I went that route afew years ago and it resulted in an inflated Myspace friends list. As it turned out, many of those“friends” didn’t have the slightest interest in my music.] You have to carefully pick and choose peoplewho you believe (based on their interests and tastes) would enjoy your music. Social networks give you
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