What people are saying
Every week we like to put the spotlight on bands who have had success using Headliner.fm in the past 7 days. Here are the Top Headliners this week.
1) New Kingdom Reached Over 700K Fans
2) The Love Shots Reached Over 597K Fans
3) Planet Child and Zguby Reached 579K Fans
4) Jackson Harris Reach over 564K Fans
5) Assassin Reached Over 414K Fans
Headliner.fm is teaming up with ArtistHQ and Universal recording artists One Republic to bring you the Artist of the Month Sweepstakes. One lucky band or artist will win a promotion on Headliner.fm with One Republic and get their message sent to out to over 1 million fans on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The winning band or artist will also be featured on Headliner.fm as a spotlight artist. To be eligible artists must sign up for Headliner.fm and upgrade to the new Myspace music profile.
More info here.
Breaking a new artist with a music video is tough. Hundreds of new videos pop up daily and it’s hard to stand out amongst the clutter of well shot multimedia. Despite the competitive landscape, S. Curve and artist Andy Grammer are hoping that their innovative new clip will find a place in the hearts and ears of the online music fans. The music video, which is Grammer’s first, is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style romp through a hotel. Viewers can seamlessly redirect Grammer with a click on the screen creating scores of unique outcomes. S. Curve and CEO Steve Greenberg always seem to have a creative new trick up their sleeves and this video is a cool way repeated viewings. You can watch the video on Vevo.
Every week we like to put the spotlight on bands who have had success using Headliner.fm in the past 7 days. Here are the Top Headliners this week.
1) Seven Story Fall Reached Over 594,000 Fans
2) Maroon 5 Reached Over 528,000 Fans
3) Jackson Harris Reached Over 480,000 Fans
4)fun Reached Over 348,000 Fans
5) One Republic Reached Over 400,000 Fans
If you have a show coming up in Brooklyn it doesn’t make sense to tell people in Central Iowa about it. That’s why Headliner has Geo Targeting, a Pro feature that lets you connect with fans in specific areas to promote your music. The next time you are creating a promotion give it a try. Just select an area in the right side of the “Artist Discovery” window and Headliner will filter out all the artists outside of that region.
This article is a repost from Myspace Artist HQ
Email lists and status updates are two of the most useful tools for online promotion available to artists. Artists who are serious about promoting their music should be acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of both mediums. Here’s what you need to know:
Email Lists
Strengths/ Weaknesses: Email lists give you high click through rates. Everyone on your email list is there for a reason: they have a genuine interest in your music. Because of their interest, they will be receptive to your emails. However, email lists are not a perfect tool. People don’t like receiving too many emails from anyone; this means you are limited to creating a couple emails a month at most. Email lists also have limited reach. They are a great way to communicate with your fans but can’t be used to reach new fans.
How to: Grow your email list by passing around a sign-up sheet at live shows and by giving fans free music online in exchange for their emails. Don’t create overly elaborate emails. Instead, limit your text to a single call to action. Want to promote a show, your new music video, a new song and your new website redesign all at the same time? Don’t! Instead, make one goals the focal point of your email and save the rest for later.
Status Updates
Strengths and Weaknesses: Status updates have amazing potential reach. By having fans and artists recommend you to their fans on social networks, you can reach thousands of fans outside of your current base. Status updates also allow you to post many times everyday without annoying your fans.
How To:
Consistency and creativity are the keys to using status updates. Unlike emails, fans won’t be turned off by a band that posts multiple status updates everyday, so make sure to post early and often. Keep your status updates clever and fun to read. Let your fans help you reach new audiences by offering free songs to anyone who retweets specific messages. Expand you reach exponentially by trading recommendations with other artists via Headliner.fm. Status updates are great way to engage with fans, but ultimately you want your fans checking out your content on other sites as well, so make sure to include relevant links whenever possible.
Conclusions: Email lists and status updates are both invaluable tools for emerging artists. Email lists are great for communicating with your existing fan base about special offers, but must be used sparingly to avoid turning your fans off with a barrage of messages. In contrast, status updates allow you to communicate with fans in real time in a non-intrusive, organic, manner. Both email lists and Status updates have their place in the toolbox of online promotion, but both must be used intelligently to be effective.
Ping, Apple’s foray into musical social networking, launched to much fanfare in September. Since then, not a lot has happened on the iTunes-connected application. Why hasn’t Ping’s launch triggered a mass band exodus from Myspace? The answer is simple: artists can’t just sign up for artist pages, at least not yet anyway. When Ping launched, only a small contingent of mostly major label bands and artists were deemed worthy beneficiaries of band pages created under Apple’s supervision. Now, Apple is allowing users to create band pages via third party sites including TuneCore. Apple also just released a User Guide for Ping. Will letting more artists join the platform provide Ping with the catalyst it needs? More info on Ping here.
There are several ways to gain Band Bucks on Headliner.fm: by accepting promotions, by successfully inviting other bands to join Headliner and by subscribing to a Pro account. In addition to the conventional ways to earn Band Bucks you also earn a sizable bonus after every 10th promotion you accept. The bonus ranges from 1,000 Band Bucks to 10,000 Band Bucks depending on the size of your band. We built this feature for small bands. The bonus allows small bands, who accept promotions, to reach larger groups of new fans than they would ordinarily be able to by giving them more Band Bucks than they could otherwise earn.
You can keep track of the number of additional promotions you need to accept to earn a bonus in the “Get Band Bucks” tab.
this is a repost from Artist HQ
Knowing how to write a good status update is a must-have skill for every musician who wants to spread their music online. Using status updates removes middlemen and connects you to your fans 140 characters at a time. What are the most important things to keep in mind when writing status updates? Follow our tips and you’ll be all over the internet in no time.
1) Be Consistent: Status updates aren’t emails. If you email your fans fifty times during a month you risk alienating them and being labeled a spammer. If you post fifty status updates during a month you aren’t posting enough. Consistency is extremely important. In order to keep your fans engaged make sure to tweet multiple times every day.
2) Connect with Other Bands: Other bands shouldn’t be your competition; they should be your allies. Try to find bands in your area who would like your music. Engage those bands through the use of status updates, direct messages, the @ symbol on twitter and sites like Headliner.fm, then team up to promote each others’ music.
3) Let Your Fans Spread the Word: Status updates are a great platform for talking to your fans, but status updates are also a great platform for your fans to spread the word about your music. Want to get your fans involved? Offer free downloads to anyone who retweets one of your messages.
4) Be Creative: You wouldn’t release a poorly written song, so why write a poorly written status update? Although the ultimate goal of your status updates is to promote your music your status updates shouldn’t sound like ads. Did you just enjoy a mind blowing meal or have an idea for an awesome TV show? Share it with you fans, even if it’s not directly related to your music. Try to display the same creativity in your status updates that you display when you make music.
5) Don’t Forget the Links: Twitter and Facebook are great places to engage with fans, but ultimately you want your fans checking out your content on other sites as well. Have a show coming up? Don’t forget to post a link to the event’s page on your Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Make sure to include relevant links whenever possible.
6) Make People Want to Know More: Your status updates should leave something to the imagination, inciting fans to click on your links and find out more. If you say too much you risk giving away the whole story too early. Try to write status updates that tantalize the reader and leave them with unanswered questions with status updates like: “Could this be the best show ever? (link)”. Sometimes leaving your fans a little puzzled can drive them to click on your links.
7) Listen To Your Fans: Fan engagement is a two way street. It’s important to craft your status updates intelligently, but it is also important to be receptive to your fans. Make sure to search for all mentions of your name and interact with everyone mentioning you.
8 ) Let Other Artists Recommend You to Their Fans: After you connect with artists who like your music see you if you can get them to recommend you to their fans. Use direct messages on Twitter, Facebook or Myspace or promotion requests on Headliner.fm to trade recommendations.
9) Use Pictures: A picture is worth a thousand tweets. Did you just play a show? Share pictures with your fans by posting them as status updates.
10) Track Your Results: It’s very important to include links in your tweets. At the same time it’s also important to track how many people click on those links. You can learn how many people clicked on your the links you tweet and post to facebook by using sites like bit.ly or Headliner.fm’s pro analytics. Then, use that data to figure out which messages make people want to click on your links.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/music/artisthq/2010/9/21/top-10-ways-to-get-more-fans-with-status-updates#ixzz12BPpqZS7
Here at Headliner we are constantly tweaking things to give users the best experience possible. A big part of our job is helping bands send promotion requests to artists who are a good fit for them, but no matter how many changes we make to the site some requests will always go to artists who aren’t interested in accepting them. You can help everyone to have a better experience by declining promotions instead of ignoring them.
To decline a promotion hover your cursor over a promotion and click the X that appears in the upper right corner.
Starting tomorrow, you can help us by giving feedback on why you have chosen to decline promotions. When you decline a promotion and give us a reason we can use that data to help match you with the right artists in the future.
Check out the picture of the Decline Feedback menu below:
