As some of you may know, Facebook recently released a guide called “The Musicians playbook“. This has become essential reading for bands and artists who want to build and develop a presence on Facebook.

Facebook is a powerful tool in the independents arsenal and a basic knowledge of how to run, maintain and connect your Facebook page with your other online channels is important for any digital strategy.

This guide will cover all of the above, plus a lot more.

We often get questions about how the “Related artists” feature on Spotify actually works. A post on the Spotify blog gives a clear explanation if this feature - we will summarize it here.

Whereas Spotify first used tagging and genre matching from the All Music Guide they a while ago moved over to a more dynamic solution to power the related artists feature.  The current solution incorporates user listening data to power the feature. In practice, if there is data showing that people listening to your music are also listening to “Foster The People” then this band will be one of those in the list of the related artists.

For you as indie artist, knowing what other artists your fans are listening can be valuable information. One example would be when trying to introduce your music to new listeners - if you know your fans are listening to “Foster The People” then there is a high chance that other fans of “Foster The People” will also like your music.

You can then direct marketing efforts towards these fans - such as via music forums/blogs they frequent and other online hangouts. Now, this is pretty grass routes promotion but it is just one illustration how how this knowledge can be used to your advantage. Remember, one new fan who shares music with friends can mean many more.

Amazon have recently launched a new service called Artist Central which is designed to help artists and labels promote their music on the Amazon store. As an artist or label you are now able to add extra content to your artist page(s), such as a biography, pictures and even upload MP3s to offer as free downloads and full length streaming. Other cool features include customizable store banners, a twitter feed and a space to embed your videos. Check the profile for Band of Horses for to see these in action.

Getting set up is pretty straightforward. It just a matter of claiming your profile, which you can do by signing in to Artist Central with your Amazon account. If you don’t already have an Amazon account, you can go ahead and create one for free. Claims are usually approved within a matter of days. Once the claim has gone through you can go ahead and use these new features to jazz up your profile. All in all, we think Amazon have provided a valuable set of tools which help you connect to listeners in a more dimensional way, ultimately helping you increase your sales and exposure via the Amazon Store. We wish you the best of luck.

Promoting your own music through playlists can be very effective - it is also quite fun. The trick is to create a top notch playlist featuring other (perhaps more established) artists/bands and then to whack a few of your own tunes in there. The other artists/bands featured in the playlist may be the primary draw, but your own songs will also be introduced to listeners. You don’t of course need to limit your playlist to music of a similar genre, you can be creative with the theme and name of your playlist.

There are many platforms to then share and spread them. If we are talking Spotify playlists then there is Sharemyplaylist.com, Spotify Playlists, Spotylist.com, Spotifyfriends.com to name just a few. Deezer, Lala and other on demand streaming services have their own communities built up around this. Beyond specific websites, playlist can be readily transferred over social networking mediums. Share the link with your friends and if it cuts the cream, your playlist should be passed around the social media bubble. To be honest, you can post the link to your playlist on pretty much any online medium, such as blogs, forums etc.

For extra exposure, why not enter your playlist in a competition? This, as artist/DJ Dr.Sounds (a.k.a Bodysurf) will no doubt tell you can be very effective. Dr Sounds entered his playlist in the Spread the joy competition and came second place, not only generating exposure for his own music but also winning a rather cool new smart phone. Nice work.

We are happy to feature playlists here on the blog, so if you have one you are particularly fond of, shoot it over to us and we will post it.

Did you know that quite a few of our partners offer widgets to help you sell and share your music? Well, they do! Today we though we would mention one of these widgets, created by 7Digital.

Summary: 7Digital offer an easy to use widget with 1 minute preview and buy functionality. Great if you want to give potential buyers a taster of your music while putting them within easy reach of that magic buy button.

Using it: To use this widget, just locate your single/album/EP on the 7Digital store and navigate to the very bottom of the page. You will then see a section named “Free Music Player” - click here and you will be taken to a page which provides you with an HTML code to embed on your MySpace/Blog/website.

Here is one we made earlier:

Name optimization has become more and more important in this digital age. Back in the days when the man in the record shop was responsible for finding you music, the phrase ”Err…It’s some kind of punkrock, eh, Tars… something” could well be enough for him to know what you where talking about. In the digital age ”Tars… something” will lead you nowhere. Since you don’t have the full and accurate name, no search engine can understand what the man in the record shop knows. For this reason, making your band/artist name and music easy to search for is key to a successful presence on the Internet.

A good first step is to make sure that the titles of your tracks and albums are easy to remember. Ideally, this should also be the same for your band or artist name  (so if you are starting a new band then this is something to think about). It is difficult to know for sure what will stick in the mind of a listener, it’s individual, after all. Name a band “Torsten” and I will remember it because of my late grandfather. Name the band “The Save” and I will forget it. I always forget to save. The key is to be creative and come up with something everyone will remember - something which sticks out.

Another thing you should think about is this how common the names you are using are. In search engines “Torsten” is pretty uncommon and might be a word which makes you come out near the top of the search results . “The Save”, on the other hand, may be bad as since it’s a name at least 36 artist use in combination with something else. Then there is the aspect of radio- or random party play. If you have a rather bizarre chorus line where the lyrics goes ”I love dogs while they sleep” or “Purple elephants are better than pink ones” over and over again then its silly to name the song something else. I am sure we have all heard a song somewhere which we really like but all we can remember is the chorus line - wouldn’t it be a shame if someone searched for this chorus line and then didn’t find it?

One can also be a little militant in how one names songs and albums, and play search engines at their own game. Naming your song “Madonna slept with U2 and Coldplay” or something like this will guarantee that you get lots of search hits from people searching for Madonna, U2 and Coldplay. Its a little cheeky, but hey, if people check out your music, its worth it, no?

If you name your song ”Michael Jackson sleeps With Madonna” you may hit the Jackpot.

- P.

Peoples Music Store offer a unique way for listeners to purchase and explore music, and because of this provides some great promotion opportunities for artists. Today we will have a look at a few of them.

Unlike other stores, everyone can become a shopkeeper on Peoples Music Store - it is truly democratic. As a label, promoter, manager or just plain old music enthusiast you can (free of charge) create and design your own storefront and stock music existing on the service. If you have distributed music with Record Union, your music will be available in the stockroom. When people buy music from your store, you earn points which you can use towards buying more music.

As an artist, the trick is to find storekeepers who would be interested in stocking and even promoting your music. This shouldn’t be too difficult, as the store search function enables you to sort stores by genre and the diversity of stores is impressive. Most members of the storekeeper community are also passionate about music and generally open to listening to and adding new music to their store. Once you have contacted the store owner and introduced yourself, they may even write a review of your music or list it as a featured release. Like with bloggers, podcasts etc. its all about building relationships.

If you run your own label, you have the opportunity to build your own storefront and attract buyers to check out artists you are releasing. Directing fans from individual artists to your store is a good tactic, because there is every chance they will check music from other artists you have in your stockroom.

The truly wonderful thing about Peoples Music Store is that one quickly notices that it has a strong community behind it and really is effective in introducing listeners to new music, while also providing music enthusiasts an output for their passion. Listeners flock to stores they trust to find new sounds, and the storekeepers are eager to list the best music within their genre which may just as well be from indie/unsigned artists.

If Peoples Music Store is new to you then you should have a closer look. Whether an artist or label, we think it is definitely a channel you should consider utilizing in your promotion campaign. Peoples Music Store also have a number of social networking tools to increase the viral effectiveness of your efforts.

The era of the mega hit is gone - niche is the new mainstream. Find your niche and rule it - or better, create one and own it. In this interesting discussion with Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR, Derek Sivers talks about an important feature of the online music environment vital to understand if one is to make headway marketing music online.

Performing live is one of the great joys of being a musician. However, it is important to think of a gig not just as a way of entertaining an audience for a little while and having fun, but as an opportunity to market yourself and reach out to new fans. Handing out a simple flyer is one important step for getting the most out of your live performances.

The Point
Promotion is all about developing relationships with listeners. During and after a successful live performance you are in a good position to move from a superficial and temporary relationship with potential fans, to a deeper long term one. This is up to you. Providing they can even remember your name, only a small percentage of the audience will take it upon themselves to find you online and listen more to your music. Make it easy for them. Hand out flyers.

What to communicate
A flyer can contain a single piece of information, or lots of information. It can be elaborately designed, or just a simple piece of paper with a bit of text on it. The key is that it gives the recipient more info about you and a way to access your music. Depending on your existing marketing strategy, here are a few things you might consider putting on your flyer:

•    Online locations: Your link to MySpace, Facebook, Imeem etc. or just your website
•    Where to access your music: Communicating that your music is available for free streaming on services such as Spotify or Deezer is a great way to increase the appreciation for your music. Before people buy your music, its best they can listen to it over and over and make it part of their music repertoire. Streaming services have the added bonus if sharability and peer recommendation.
•    Mailing list: “Keep updated! Sign up to our mailing list and receive a free track” is a good way to incentivize people to sign up to your mailing list. Once on your list, they are in the loop and you can further develop your relationship with them.

Tips

•    Maximize the effect of your flyers by thinking about when you hand them out. One method is to announce before the last song that flyers are being handed out, and getting some friends to hand them out in the crowd.
•    Alternatively, do it yourself. Straight after a gig, move around the crowd and hand out the flyers. This gives you the opportunity to converse with listeners, receive compliments and answer questions.
•    Be creative on what you put on your flyer. Hosting a merch give away or another kind of competition? Advertise in on your flyers and you may find more participants.

A few members of the Record Union team were recently discussing some of the gigs they had been to the last few weeks, and an important marketing point came up which will serve as the basis of today’s advice. The point is that if you are playing live in front of an audience, make sure they leave knowing who they saw!

Here is the story. There was an open mic at one of the local rock bars here in Stockholm and a band were playing who were seriously good. The crowd was engaged, the lead singer was doing all the right moves and they were quite honestly tearing the place apart. They played a great set, said their thanks and left the stage. However, at no point did they give their name. When they arrived, they said hello, began their opening song - when they closed they left with not so much as a hint at what they were called -let alone where people could find them online. Not only is this a real shame, but quite frankly, it is bad marketing. In desperation fellow gig goers were consulted, and yet again, a dead end - they didn’t know their name either.

So, please, if you are playing live do not make this mistake yourself - introduce the name of your band clearly, as many times as possible. Make it stick. A band who is good at this is Allout (pictured above) whose members include Record Union´s head designer. During gigs, Peter will scream variants of “Allout, Allout, we are Allout, dont forget it, Allout, no spaces, just Allout” before the opening song, in between songs, and even during songs - amusing the crowd but also providing a few memorable moments. People  wont forget their name in a hurry.

Furthermore, if you are getting a good vibes from the audience, why not drop some more information? A MySpace address, a quick note that people can find you on certain popular streaming services. If you are feeling ambitious, you can even print some cheap flyers to hand out at the end of the gig.

People love to talk about “this amazing band they say the other night” but how can they market you if they don´t know your name?