“Reputation Management for Musicians Online”

By Konstantinos VarsisGreat Online Reputation Ltd

www.greatonlinereputation.com

What is your online reputation (in practical terms)

• Whatever shows up in the search results• What people say about you on Facebook, Twitter

and other social media sites• Any reviews of your brand, band, music work, albums, track, business• Anything published on mainstream press• Any photos or videos tagged with your name• Public records connected to you or your business

Statistics

Google results

For any given search term in Google:- 53% of users do not go past

the first two results- 89% of users do not go past

page 1 of results- 99% of users do not go past

page 2 of resultsYou are judged primarily by the first page of the results

What is on the first page

• 1 out of 4 people who appear online have no positive content at all on their first page

• 15% have at least one negative result on the first page that damages their reputation

First steps (1)

• Have a strategy and decide who you want to be online• Be prepared to do a lot of work• Have a professional written resume that looks impressive• Have professional recorded samples of your work and

professionally edited show reel• Have some very good quality pictures• Make sure your music is ready for the world• Discover your brand• Know your target audience

First Steps (2)• Interact with other artists and arrange joint

gigs or events with them• Get reviews of your work• Have a great press kit with band’s bio, fact

sheet, brochure, positive press, song demos and contact info

• Protect your copyright by registering it

How to promote yourself online (1)• Get your own domain and own website (online central

hub, quality depends on budget)• Stream your music across different online channels• Distribute your presence• Allow fans to download free music from your website• Build good relationship with your audience – engage

them in more than one way• Find blogs related to your niche (Hypermachine etc)• Give promotional tools to your fans• Encourage fan contributions

How to promote yourself online (2)• Create videos (17% of users will spend less than four

seconds on any given website, but will spend an average of 2.7 minutes watching a video on the internet)

• Prefer quality over quantity• Buy limited vanity metrics exchange tracks for likes• Create a relevant blog with genuine useful content• Convince other webmasters to place a link to your website• Place your most important news to all your online

resources and link between your online profiles

How to promote yourself online (3)• Take advantage of Wikipedia• Try localised results for more chances of inclusion• Engage your audience and encourage your brand defenders• Do not respond to negative criticism or defamation without

thinking much first• Multi task with Hoot Suite• Take a look at specialist music distributors who will take a set fee

to encode your music and place it on major digital music storesi.e. Ditto where you keep all royalties

• Monitor mentions to your name and brand (i.e. Google alerts)• Ask moderators to remove unfair or defamatory content on their

websites for you.

Why your Music Self – Promotion is not working (1)

• You are waiting in lineSending your music to industry professionals, festivals, magazines and radio promoters like Music X-ray is good but chances to get a fair listen are limited and you have to pay a fee. Be creative in your song writing and outsource duties by getting freelancers or companies on your side. Utilise blogs, micro-job sites.

• Only promoting on social mediaThey are a good means of promotion but most music marketing publications tend to focus on the exclusively. Not everyone is involved with social media, communicate by email, make phone calls. Music industry companies (record labels, artist managers, booking agents, etc.) are far more interested in the popularity of YOUR website

• You use automated servicesBeatwire and Musicsubmit look attractive as you get your music is sent to journalists, radio hosts, industry pros and charge a flat rate which is less than publicists charges. But how much attention do these communications get? Do you get respect with the easy way out?

Why your Music Self-Promotion is not working (2)

• Not showing valueWhen you send a submission to magazine or blog most of them will be quick to forward you their rates for online or print advertising. Sales and editorial consideration are separate. There may be freelancers interested.

• The do not know you and do not careMany music blogs featured in directories encourage submission to increase the visibility, popularity but never consider any submission apart from their personal favourites.

• You did not appeal to their egoSome want personal messages while others would blacklist you for attempting to do so.

• No time and no differentiationIn an attempt to be heard by the masses you become part of a generic package

• Neglect Reciprocation• Focusing on increasing the 'quantity' of fans instead of the 'intensity' of your

fans• Not investing enough time into building your music career• Having merely mediocre live performing skills. Do not put off developing your

live performing and stage presence skills

Where to publish and promote your music (1)

• Spotify• Bandcamp (good for independent artists, allows selling)• Reddit Music (community for content sharing)• LastFM (knows how to match your music to the audience tastes – receive

targeted audience – royalty programme)• Earbits (high quality – encourages through social media currency users to listen –

not too crowded yet• Soundcloud (very big, 200 million listeners)• Twitter mobile (relatively new, works with other players Spotify, iTunes …)• The new MySpace (rebranded)• Instagram videos (15 sec to show your talent)• iLike (leading social media music service, 45 million users, Universal Artist

Dashboard can be used to reach fans and spread their music virally while managing their presence across multiple channels)

Where to publish and promote your music (2)

• Ourstage (popularity contest , win prizes)• Mp3.com (very good traffic)• iTunes (not for emerging musicians, takes a while to

approve, high commission)• Pure Volume (free profile downloading, interactive)• Facebook (reach wider audience, dedicated page)• Garageband (have tracks reviewed by fans, climb the

charts)• Ourwave (alternates promotion of different musicians

over time)

Where else to get involved• Professional : LinkedIn , Plaxo• Personal : Facebook, Twitter, Google+• Education :Classmates, Reunion• Review :Yelp, Amazon• Media sites :Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo• Resume sites :Emurse , Rezume• Bookmarking :Stumble Upon, Reddit,

Digg, • Industry specific blogs, forums, groups

and social networks• Local social networks, forums and groups• Special interest or lifestyle social

networks, forums and groups

Questions?

• Great Online Reputation Ltd 14 Basil Street, London, SW3 1AJ 020 3714 5238 www.greatonlinereputation.com contact@greatonlinereputation.com