Monitor the Web for Your Brand

 1 Response »
Jan 292012
 

Rather you are looking for new quotes and Reviews to add to your EPK. Or needing to monitor the web for possible copyright violations. Keeping track of who is saying what keeps you in control as your own gatekeeper. How do you do this though? A few basics is to set up a Twitter Search RSS and Google Alerts RSS. To really get into it you could look into reputation management providers.

Before moving onto the meat and bones of this article if you don’t know what RSS is watch the following video. “RSS in Plain English. Once you have watched the video it is time to set-up your RSS Reader, I suggest Google Reader.

Lets get started with Google alerts for your band name.

  1. Enter your name in quotation marks (e.g., “Minstrel Villa”) as the search term.
  2. Choose the type of alert you would like. I strongly suggest comprehensive.
  3. Decide how often you want alerts. If you go the E-Mail route I suggest daily, however with the RSS route you should get it as it goes.
  4. Do you want all results or just the best? At 1st I would go with all results, though once it gets out of hand change to just the best.
  5. Click “Create an Alert”

Used to be with Twitter you could easily subscribe to the RSS feed of your searches. However while updating this article I found that Twitter would prefer if you saved your searches on their site and returned. So a bit of research later (after all 98% of the time when someone like Twitter breaks the web someone else fixes it) I found a browser plugin for twitter search that creates a RSS feed you can subscribe to.

Obviously 1st you need to download Twitter (as RSS) from Mosdev.org.

  1. Check that your browser configured and added plugin correctly
  2. Enter your name in quotation marks (e.g., “Minstrel Villa”) as the search term.
  3. Subscribe to RSS feed

There you have it you now will know 90% of the time when you are mentioned online. The other 10%, or less, are those things that sneak pass your new cyber spiders. Keep in mind is that we are living in a day of lightening fast messages that can have an impact rather you are aware of them or not.

What should you use this technique for?

  1. Finding new quotes for EPK
  2. Finding new reviews for EPK
  3. Monitoring band and song mentions online
  4. Knowing where to leave comments to show you are aware
  5. Number 4 also shows your fans you are active and moving your career forward.
  6. Monitor when individual band members are mentioned
  7. Google Alerts only check for incoming links to your site (Syntax: link:URL)
  8. Answers to any question you may have
  9. Reading news on subjects of interest to you

Be creative as I am sure there are ideas out there I haven’t listed. For that matter if you have an idea not listed leave a comment below and I may add it. Be sure to not get overwhelmed and if you are finding a lot of unwanted information think about refining your cyber alerts.

Continously Gather New Photos

 2 Responses »
Jan 282012
 

“A picture is worth a 1000 words” they say. But a good photo shoot will set you back $500+. I don’t think that is too much for your success. However just starting out you may not have that. So the EPK (and anything else you need photos for) must wait, right? WRONG! You don’t need professional photos right away, hopefully you’ll get them by the time you need them.

Get your hands on a camera, a friend/family member and start shooting. Take one of each band member and a group photo. Maybe multiples and chose the best. This will allow you to have something for that 1st review or interview you’ll be getting any day. Get your fans involved by asking for photo submissions at every show. Tons of photos coming in? Maybe you will be able to skip that photo shoot? Or not?

You should have your 3 photos for that pesky EPK, so time for me to contradict myself. If you are just embedding all the photos into your EPK then yes only maximum of 3. However this is a digital, digital world as such we can do sooooo much more.

Head over to photobucket (most any photo hosting site will do) and load up all your photos. Create a photo folder and label it EPK 2012 (or something else to denote which EPK folder). Move your best photos, keep it under 12, that you have right now to this folder. Now you can either view this folder as slide show (will have script for using the direct link and embed on site soon) or check out tools and create your own. Keep copies on your computer (or disk) and stay organized.

You might think the slide show linking back to your photos is enough. However as with everything else in your EPK you need a download link. This will make it easier for print articles to be written about you. Also if your fans go into overdrive wanting to build entire fan sites around you or your music. Having these on their computer will help.

Gathering together new photos should be an ongoing process. On a regular basis ask for submissions from fans. Watch for anything new in your brand monitoring forays. Update annually or bi-annually your EPK photos. Always keep the older folder for posterity thus the reason I mentioned unique labeling for it. Of course keeping the older folder is a good idea for any articles that were written online linking to them.

Much of the above is valid for your graphics section too. So rather then write a new article repeating myself I’ll add in a couple of things here. Album covers and show flier graphics should be in their own folder. You could of course have new folders for each album or space of time such as yearly.

Final remark: All of these can be used for promotional materials and or merchandise creation.

What are You Telling Journalists?

 2 Responses »
Jan 282012
 

It was a great night, you rocked that new hip (do they still use the word HIP?) coffee house. End of the night one of your fans told you about a journalist from the local weekly being there. Apparently they enjoyed the show. Your spirits are high and you are looking forward to reading the review. That Thursday (or when ever your local weekly goes out) you get up early and grab a copy of the weekly. You read it 3 times and no review what happened???

Well lets read a quote from Donna of Nightmare Creative posted as a comment to EPK post.

“As a music journalist i cant tell you how many times I need info and photos etc from a band’s EPK and cant find it! It shocks me how many bands don’t have even the basics like a decent band photo with them all in it, or an album cover – i figure if I have to use Google images to find your album cover from fringe and fans, perhaps your band isn’t serious enough about your music for me to waste my time writing about you! “

Back to our journalist from the local weekly. Morning after the show busy transforming notes into an outline and rough draft for the review. This photo taken via camera phone is a bit blurry. So off to the bands web-site maybe get lucky and a photo will be there from that great show. NO WEB SITE!!!

So what do we find (Insert into fictional story Broadway Killers)? Closest thing is a wordpress site, then we check Myspace. We find a couple of possible photos but suddenly lose interest due to the lack of anything else. Did enjoy the show so our Journalist listens to the music on Myspace, maybe attempts to write the review. But with no reference point it is a lost cause.

Now I hope my readers never find themselves in this situation. Using wordpress.com for your primary site is fine but have your own domain name for it. Beyond that is having the basics of reference material. So many artists build this reference material as they go no real game plan in mind. Without a game plan tons of material becomes available but gets lost with everything else. With over a million (and hundreds every day) artists to write about why should they write about you??? Easiest way to answer that question is by asking yourself, How easy do you make it for them to write about you?

Having great shows, and the best music in 22 galaxies is not enough. Setting up a trail of digital breadcrumbs won’t get the job done. However being organized, with an EPK (electronic press kit), schedule of upcoming shows (including live streams online) can put you so far ahead of the vast competition who don’t have these. If you don’t believe me then reread the above fictional story and quoted comment. Think for yourself “What are you doing to show how serious you are to succeed?”

 Older Entries