Social Networks You Can Use To Promote Your Music

Posted on November 26, 2007 by Eric Hebert
Filed Under Social Media Marketing |

So hopefully you’ve got your MySpace and Facebook profiles up, and have heard of Pure Volume and Reverb Nation. We figured we’d discuss some other networks and some of the features that make them a little different.

Mog is a really cool social network that’s based more for fans of music then the artists themselves, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a profile there. As a matter of fact, as in any music network, it’s also smart to create a personal profile to share your musical interests as well. Nothing will tie you closer to your fans then for them to have access to your favorite music. Mog keeps track similar to Last.fm where a software application listens to your playlist (and offers you widgets to share this info all over the web.) Press the “magic button” and Mog will generate music recommendations based upon your listening habits (similar to Pandora).

Discrevolt is a really neat concept – bands create profiles and upload their music, and then can purchase Discrevolt download cards – they look like credit cards and feature pre-loaded credits which then can be sold to fans (or given away). The cards are then used to redeem your tracks over the website. A good way to get your music out there without having to front the cost of CDs.

Squidoo is a social network that let’s its users become “experts” on any subject they want to be. Users create “lenses” regarding a specific subject and can add all kinds of features to the page using other well known data from other sources on the web (ebay & Amazon, for example). Create a lens for your band and collect things from all over the web that reflect your image and sound.

Trig is another straight up music social network. The usual profile creation will be required here. It must be noted that there are a zillion music related social networks out there that might seem like they all pretty much do the same thing. I like to compare these networks to radio stations – they all might do they same thing, but each has a community of users that is different. It’s wise to make sure you get yourself on as many of these profiles as you possibly can. One cool thing that Trig has is your ability to “trigger”, a Digg-style voting mechanism that you can use to share your favorites within the community.

iSound asks us to “live life loud”. It’s network is similar in fashion to other networks, allowing you to upload music and create profiles, but also has a Snocap-like feature of selling your downloads directly to your fans. iSound also features portable players and the ability to sell your songs as ringtones, something every band needs to utilize in their arsenal.

MusicHawk is a social “hub” for musicians to share information with their fans, including the usual pics, bios, songs, etc. The more friends you acquire on MusicHawk, the higher up “the charts” you’ll go. Manage multiple bands if you run a label or give each band member their own login. At MusicHawk, the power is in the hands of the community, and “has the features of the larger social networks but 100% music”.

These are just a few on the many networks out there – get started with these now, because a new ones pop up every day!

• Alternative Progression – Free websites for bands and musicians. The sites are set up by the user online using a simple interface.
• Altsounds.com – Featuring MP3 streams and downloads, music samples, artist information, download charts, and sponsored record labels.
• A and R Online – Live showcasing, negotiation, representation and marketing resources for the independent artist.
• Artistopia – Provides marketing and productivity tools and advice on approaching the music industry professionally.
• Audiri – Music promotion service featuring audio and video uploads, artist mini-sites, charts, search facility, and photo uploads.
• The Concert Channel – Site to promote musicians, comedians, writers and other artists.
• Coolfire – Provide new artists and bands with an alternative route to being heard.
• Current Music Dynamics – Music promotion and label representation for original artists. Browse artist profiles, concert reviews and listen to audio.
• DeepDig.com – Service helping artists get discovered. Listen to new music, upload and download songs, and browse categories.
• eMusicBlast – Offers its members online music sales and record label artists and repertoire networking and promotion services to aid in obtaining a record deal.
• ExtraPlay.com – Offers services allowing unsigned bands to promote and broadcast their music worldwide.
• Fair Play Music – Fair Play Music is aimed at unsigned bands ad artists in the UK.
• Fronder.com – Offers unsigned bands and solo musicians a place to promote their music. Services include MP3 hosting, CD sales, and a musicians forum.
• Full in Bloom Music – Features interviews with musicians, resources to help facilitate music sale, and a music store.
• Future Music – A free airtime and promotional service for unsigned artists, and a directory for DJ mixes.
• Get Signed – Tips from professionals in the music industry describing promotion methods and “foot in the door” techniques.
• Get Your Band On – Provides promotional services for rock bands in the United Kingdom. Web site design, graphic design and printing services are available.
• GigMasters – Specialises in finding local musicians for events such as weddings, parties etc.
• Gigsmart – Irish unsigned music collective. Involved in the promotion of unsigned music in Ireland practically with releases, distribution, tours and promotion.
• Gigzter.com – Features profiles of independent bands and artists. Fans can listen to streaming audio, browse artist profiles, vote, write reviews, and view the charts.
• GoGirlsMusic.com – A site aimed to promote women in the indie music scene.
• GreatLakesIndie.us – Links to indiependent rock bands in the US.
• HitQuarters – HitQuarters offers an extensive directory of people in the music industry.
• Hollywood Music – Offers a facility to submit your profile, and promote your band with industry professionals.
• Home Grown Mp3 – Free online promotion for independent artists.
• HR Muzic – Offers free promotion for Southern California bands, concerts, and events.
• iFanz.com – Online marketing and fan management system for unsigned bands and artists.
• Increase Your Fanbase – Free e-book about music marketing for musicians, artists and groups.
• India Bands – Servicing upcoming music bands from India. Artists can submit their profile for visitors to view.
• Indie 360 – A music promotion project where independent Bands and Artists can gain exposure on compilation CDs. All music styles welcome.
• Indie911.com – An online directory for independent musicians to submit their music. Includes audio downloads and searchable profile pages.
• The Indiehour – Promotion of indie music: information, pictures, updates, news, links, and lyrics.
• Indiesoundz – Independent music resource hosting artist and band profiles. Includes new artist reviews, articles and streaming audio.
• Kings of A&R – Kings of artists and repertoire (KOAR) offers daily music press releases, new CD reviews, and reviews unsigned artists.
• Lets Talk Music – Create an online profile to promote your music.
• MacIdol – A site for Mac musicians to share their music.
• Music Forte – Provides promotion for unsigned artists through radio podcasts, streaming audio and customized band pages.
• Music.com – Portal for new bands and artists, with links to audio downloads and shopping.
• MusicScape – Promotional service for artists and labels. Musical categories include: Dance, Hip Hop, Rock and World.
• National Gig Guide – Features artist show listings for musicians in the United Kingdom.
• New Bands on the Net – Free resource for bands, musicians, venues and promoters.
• New York Music – Promotional site for indie music and unsigned recording artists. Resources include Internet radio, interviews and show listings.
• Overplay – Promotional service to assist with the development and exposure of unsigned bands and artists. Includes CD sales, artist reviews and audio.
• PowerShot Radio – Internet radio station for unsigned bands and artists.
• Radio-Active-Music.com – Promotional center for up-and-coming glam, goth, industrial, synth, techno rock artists – including artist pages, mp3s, interviews, reviews, news, album and tour dates, and fan interaction.
• RecordDeal.com – A networking site designed to provide a way for unsigned artists to get deals with record labels.
• Rent My Band – Connects free-lance and contract entertainers with people seeking live entertainment for events.
• Reptor Productions – Offering unsigned bands and artists a resource to assist with the promotion of their music to fans over the Internet.
• Second Encore – Portal to assist unsigned and independent musicians. Artist profiles and an interactive voting system to encourage fan participation are available.
• SignHere Online – Resource for unsigned artists to promote their music. Subscription services, message forums and audio downloads available.
• Suite101.com: Music Promotion – Hints and tips on releasing and promoting independent music recordings.
• Talent Duniya – Free showcase for new asian unsigned musicians and bands.
• TheBuzzFactor.com – Music marketing and promotion tips for indie musicians, songwriters, and bands on a budget.
• Thumped – Information on gigging, recording and touring in Ireland.
• uEmcee: Underground Rap Music – Resource for independent rap and hiphop artists. Stream audio, browse artist profiles and post in the online forum.
• United Bands – Band networking site. Providing MP3 uploading, Internet radio and contests.
• Unsigned Band Promotion – Offering resources and services to assist with online promotion for musicians, including tips and articles.
• Unsigned Band Web – Music portal hosting bands of many genres and locations. Features online radio stations.
• UnsignedMusic.Com – Web marketing solutions, band listings and other resources for musicians.
• Vancity Bands – Showcasing unsigned Vancouver indie music
• Virtually Records Popup Interview System – Generates an html based interview on the fly.
• Webcds – Independent music directory offers free submissions.
• White Eagle Music Promotions – Service offering music promotion to artists worldwide. Specializing in artist development.
• Wonghan Productions – Platform for music and artwork by independent artists.

Rock On: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks

June 22, 2007 — 04:40 AM PDT — by Livia Iacolare — Internet radio may be facing uncertain times, but many musical social networks continue to thrive. If you’re in a band, these sites are essential for promoting your music: take note, and sign up for as many as possible to maximize your reach. For fans, meanwhile, we’ve included some great places to just listen to music. We won’t mention the obvious one, of course: MySpace remains the hub for music on the web.

Flotones

Flotones is a monetized social network for artists and their fans. The most interesting feature is the possibility to promote and distribute artist’s content via mobile phones (such as ringtones and mobile wallpapers). After you register and add your content, you’ll be able to promote your mobile content at your shows, on your website and on your MySpace profile. You’ll be asked to sign a contract before getting paid.

Mercora Radio 2.0

Radio 2.0 from Mercora is a social network with an integrated free music listening service (that sustains itself through contextual music-centered ads), as well as a personal-webcasting platform. Mercora Radio 2.0 will search your hard disk for all the music tracks you have legally acquired and then you are ready to broadcast your own music library to the world. Each radio station has multiple channels and each DJ can also create his own playlists.

MOG

MOG is a social network that helps you “discover people through music and discover music through people”. Basically MOG makes it easy for you to find new music to listen to by using custom filters and personalized suggestions. The site also provides users with news, reviews and streaming audio. MOG also features a music TV that continuously broadcasts videos taken from YouTube.

Last.fm

Last.fm, which you’ve no doubt used already, is a service that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then helps you discover new music based on your preferences. You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, get in touch with other people with similar music taste, discover gigs in your local area, as well as create charts that you can publish on your personal site. Last.fm also allows artists and labels to upload their own music and videos and promote them for free.

iLike

iLike, another familiar one, is a service to help you organize your music, share your music tastes, and discover new artists through your friends. iLike basically helps you discover new music based on what you’re already listening to. It lets you share music libraries with your friends, browse and sample their most played songs, and compare your compatibility scores. iLike will also send you music recommendations directly in iTunes.

JamNow

JamNow is a social network aimed at musicians that allows them to create audio content online in real-time. JamNow isn’t a site that simply makes you “post and listen” to audio content: its platform enables real-time music collaboration and lets you schedule live jam sessions and listen to musicians that are playing right in that moment.

MusoCity

MusoCity is a music-oriented social network. It provides accounts specifically designed for music fans, artists, musicians, music retailers and music venues. MusoCity is completely free to join and you can start browsing members profiles to make friends, discovering new artists, getting in touch with musicians in your area and finding events and music stores near you.

Haystack

Haystack is a social network centered around people who want to find music through friends and taste makers. You can browse music, pictures, videos and reviews of artists as well as build your own profile and personalize it with images and videos (you can even add them from YouTube). Artists are welcome to sign up directly or through their manager or their label.

Sonific

Sonific is a social network that offers a great way to promote your music, if you are an artist. It lets users put free music widgets with your music on their sites and promote it to their own audiences, for free. In exchange, Sonific users get free music to use and listen to (download is not permitted) and make their site look cooler – while you get free advertising for your music.

Midomi

Midomi is a network that makes it easy to discover new music and people. The cool thing is that you can search for music by singing or humming part of a song. All you need is a microphone and you will be able to connect to your favorite music, and to a community of people that share your musical interests. You can listen to other member’s voices, see pictures, rate singers, send messages and also buy music.

iJigg

iJigg is a online community that lets you comment on music and share songs. You can rate music and influence what becomes popular, as well as upload your own music to share it with the community and make new fans. You will need to decide whether to open a “listener” or “artist” account, which will give you access to different features (e.g. listeners can download free mp3 of their favorite music, while artists can upload their own music).

Sellaband

Sellaband is a music social network that turns the fans and listeners of bands into their producers, asking them to invest in a band or artist they support so that they will be able to get a recording opportunity. Every single investor that supports a successful band will take home a small cut of the profits made by them. Artists not only get financial support but also share 50% of the ad revenue coming from the free downloads of their music.

Last.fm exercises OpenSocial options, launches Ning app

Last.fm is now launching an application within Ning, a network of niche social networking destinations. The Last.fm application allows users to create a display of their favourite artists, and launch customised and interactive radio stations.

That represents a miniature version of the Last.fm service, a favourite among many music fans. In total, the Ning network traverses 122,000 social networks, all of which cater to super-targeted tastes and lifestyles.
Ning is actually platform for creating social networks, and an early adopter of the OpenSocial initiative being spearheaded by Google. The OpenSocial platform is now being rolled across a broad number of social networking destinations, including MySpace.

“Teaming with Ning to embrace the new OpenSocial standard is a first step towards an easy solution for our users to share and build their music tastes virtually wherever they are,” explained Last.fm cofounder Martin Stiksel. Last.fm first announced the platform on Thursday.

Find a Drummer, Find a Band

Filed in archive Soc Network Sites by Linda Roeder on February 04, 2008

FIG. 1: Basil Ganglia mapped 128 MIDI notes to the visible color spectrum and programmed the synesthizer to respond to notes by generating signals that mimic the brain’s EM patterns when perceiving the corresponding colors. Synesthis is a big hit with the heads at Callosum Corp. U.S.

One fundamental approach to predictive music recommendation is to have human experts identify certain attributes of songs, albums, and artists, and enter that information into a database, where it is compared with subsequent user purchases. This can provide good results, but it’s labor-intensive, and there are hundreds of thousands of recorded artists.

Another approach is called collaborative filtering, a statistical method used by Amazon. Collaborative filtering assumes that people naturally fall into “taste clusters”; if you bought album A, you might like album B, because many other people have bought both. This technique can identify connections between recordings that don’t necessarily sound much alike. On the downside, you need a huge number of data points (lots of titles and users) to get good results. Amazon’s database is certainly big enough to do a good job, especially with popular material, but artists who aren’t top-tier may get short shrift in the recommendation department because fewer people buy their stuff.

Gracenote (www.gracenote.com) is working on an interesting answer to these problems. The company supplies music-database tools to various music-service providers, who package these tools for their customers. For example, Gracenote’s long-standing CDDB database helps consumers catalog their CD collections by recognizing a CD and sending back its metadata (title, artist, label, and so on). Recently, the CDDB service evolved into MusicID, which adds the ability to extract and identify unique “fingerprints” of individual recordings by “listening” to the audio data.

This year, Gracenote expects to release its Discover music-recommendation service, which combines human analysis and collaborative filtering with a new approach that uses DSP algorithms to extract descriptive attributes from audio files. The algorithms used by Gracenote are derived from those found in unrelated fields, such as gene sequencing and radar, which also rely on finding patterns in large, multidimensional data spaces.

The easiest attributes to identify are low-level features, such as the spectrum envelope and zero-crossings. They provide some idea of the song’s timbral structure, but they do not correspond to anything humans would consciously identify. High-level attributes, like tempo, instrumentation, melodic structure, and character of the vocals, are more immediately apparent to human listeners, but they are much more difficult to extract from an audio file using DSP algorithms. The first commercial version of Discover will extract low-level attributes and at least one high-level feature — tempo — but even that basic attribute is not easy to identify consistently across all types of recordings. Other high-level attributes, such as dominant melody and vocal character, are expected to come later, as the algorithms are refined (see Fig. 1).

To enable the Discover service, Gracenote will first run the analysis on millions of recordings and store the resulting attributes in a database. Then, when a music fan requests a recommendation, it will be generated based on any “seed” song, album, or artist in the music service’s catalog or the user’s personal library. Furthermore, new songs can be added as users rip CDs that are not already in the database. Initially, the service will not be available for already-encoded files because the algorithms work best on uncompressed audio.

This technology is meant to fill the gaps in what can be done with human analysis and collaborative filtering. It can also be used to recommend items without much data, especially new artists and recordings, which is good news for aspiring musicians seeking an audience.

Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Scott Wilkinson

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Mobile music players such as the Apple iPod have changed the face of our industry for good or ill, depending on who you talk to. But one thing’s for sure — people love to listen to these devices during almost every activity, from exercising to relaxing and everything in between.

For users with rudimentary computer skills, the process of acquiring, encoding, and selecting a seemingly endless stream of content can be daunting. To simplify some of those issues, a team at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (www.umbc.edu), is working on an interesting project called XPod that automates some of the interaction between the player and its user.

A key component in the system is a physiological sensor called the SenseWear from BodyMedia (www.bodymedia.com; see Fig. 1). This armband is designed to monitor a variety of parameters, such as skin temperature, heart rate, and galvanic skin response. Previous experiments have demonstrated that such data can be used to determine emotional states (such as sadness, anger, surprise, fear, frustration, and amusement) with a high degree of accuracy — typically in the 70 to 90 percent range.

The SenseWear armband also has an accelerometer, which, as you might guess from the name, measures acceleration. That information is used to determine the user’s level of activity: sitting, walking, running, and so on.

The XPod system “learns” the user’s preferences, activities, and emotions and selects the most appropriate music to accompany any given situation. Using a client-server configuration, the server processes the incoming data from the SenseWear, combines that with the information entered by the user about what music they prefer under which conditions, and selects the tunes that would best fit the current situation.

The experimental setup includes a Windows laptop, which wirelessly receives the data from the SenseWear, executes all processing, stores all song data, and sends the selected songs to a PDA client that plays the music and provides the user interface. The laptop and PDA communicate via Wi-Fi, which also lets the user rate the music, skip to the next song, and otherwise control playback.

When the user presses Play, the server begins examining the data from the SenseWear. Using a series of algorithms, it determines the average and standard deviation of the incoming values and compares the results with predetermined ranges that correspond to active, passive, and resting states. Once the user’s state is known, that information is passed to a neural-network engine, which compares the user’s current state to states for which song preferences have been specified. Finally, it makes a musical selection and sends the data to the PDA.

Users can continually update the system by indicating their satisfaction with a given selection. That preference can be applied to the song being played as well as to the artist and genre as indicated by the song’s metadata. The neural network learns the user’s preferences by monitoring which songs are skipped under what conditions, eventually leading the system to skip songs it believes the user would skip anyway.

Initial experiments included monitoring several test subjects of different genders, ethnicities, and athletic abilities while the subjects were lying down, sitting at a desk, walking, and running. The values obtained during those trials allowed the UMBC team to develop algorithms that accurately determine any user’s activity level.

This research is in its infancy, and the XPod currently selects music based on activity rather than emotion. Future versions could expand the selection criteria and become more sensitive to the user’s state, automatically supplying just the right music for any situation. In addition, advances in miniaturization, such as those often featured in “Tech Page,” will eventually allow the server to be incorporated into the player. Soon, mobile music players could truly provide the soundtrack for our lives.

Nov 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Scott Wilkinson

WASHINGTON (AP) — Musicians who add the guitar riff or bass groove to “bring a song to life” should be paid when their work is played on the radio, four-time Grammy winner Lyle Lovett told a Senate panel on Tuesday.

Lovett, testifying the morning after a local gig, urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider legislation requiring commercial radio to pay royalties to performers when they play their songs. Songwriters already receive such payments.

“This issue is not about me. It’s about the thousands of performers across the country who work so hard to earn livings that are so modest in relation to their talent,” Lovett said.

Lovett said the musicians often are critical to the songs. “Those are people who are usually not credited as writers of a song, but are extremely influential in bringing a song to life and are very much a part of the creative process,” he said.

Lovett appeared on behalf of the musicFirst Coalition. He was joined at the witness table by singer-songwriter Alice Peacock, who performed a portion of her hit song Bliss as part of her testimony. Ray Benson, who leads the Texas swing band Asleep at the Wheel, also attended. He planned to lobby lawmakers later.

Internet, cable and satellite radio already pay fees to performers and musicians, along with songwriter royalties. But commercial AM and FM radio stations do not, the witnesses said.

The National Association of Broadcasters opposes the fee for performers, and local radio stations consider it a performance tax, said Steven Newberry, president and CEO of Commonwealth Broadcasting Corp.

“The existing model works for one very simple and significant reason: The promotional value of what the record labels and performers receive from free airplay on local radio stations drives consumers to purchase music,” said Newberry, who operates 23 radio stations in rural Kentucky.

Senators questioned what effect the payments might have on the radio business and musicians, as well as whether fees should be based on revenue or profit and whether fees should be based on size of the station’s audience.

The musicians found sympathy among the committee members. Among them was Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who has received royalties from songs he has written and recorded. “You ought to find some way to do it,” Hatch told the radio representatives.

But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was more skeptical.

“The problem is once Congress starts mandating things, it never seems to stop,” Cornyn said.

Sen. Pat Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the committee, questioned whether it is right for the U.S. to not pay performers while other countries do.

“When we turn on the radio, I want to know that the voices I hear belong to artists who are being treated fairly,” he said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tunesquare has popped up to offer indie music flavor for the social music network scene.With a hip look similar to that of Trig and MOG (dark background and rounded, edgy graphic edges, among other attributes), Tunesquare offers a way to find new music by category. They advertise that their site is for unsigned bands only, something that so far sets them apart as the emusic of the social music network scene.

Tunesquare offers a forums section where artists and listeners can talk to each other, an events calendar where artists can list upcoming shows and self produced or independent label album drops, and other promotional events. When you sign up for Tunesquare, you sign up as either a listener or an artist.Tunesquare offers artists the opportunity to generate money from their listing on Tunesquare. Listening to songs and downloading them is completely free for listeners. Artists make money from unobtrusive ads found on the site in various places. Tunesquare is able to use the ads to offset the cost of supporting new and unsigned music.