1. Ability to share high quality files, fast and cheap.

Trying to share those newly mastered tracks usually requires uploading them to file sharing services like Rapidshare, which can at times be a pain in the ass to wait to download. And unless you actually know how to set-up a torrent (not every musician is a techno-wiz), you have few other options. Upload your tracks to Reverb and copy/paste the download links for quick track sharing (and every download is tracked!)

Download Azeem “Don’t Quote Me”

2. Best Music Players. Period.

What do most bands do as soon as they have something for the world to listen to? They set up a MySpace page, because, that’s like the only place to stream music for free right? Wrong – ReverbNation has a ton of cool widget players that let you stream songs from anywhere on the ‘Net. And unlike MySpace’s crappy, bulky player, Reverb’s player streams in some of the highest quality sound found in a music player anywhere online.

3. Fan Contact Management

Are you still using the ole’ notebook to gather email addresses at shows, and firing off emails through Hotmail with a ridiculous looking copy and paste system? Get with the times if you really want to get the message across about that upcoming show – get an email solutions provider. And while the thought of that might seem daunting, ReverbNation let’s you set one up rather quickly and will have you sending out quality-looking emails that rival a major label’s efforts.

4. Widgets!

Yeah, we already mentioned the gnarly music players that you can copy and paste, but there’s a whole toolbox of different widgets you can paste into your website or MySpace page that offers all sorts of different content to your fans – touring schedule (complete with Yahoo Maps), Video widget, press widget, retail store links – pretty much anything you want to get across to someone stumbling over to your website.

5. Robust Stats

When an artist thinks of promotion, they’re used to thinking about making some cool posters and hanging them up all over town, getting their loser friends to come fill up space, and maybe getting a shout out on the local college radio station. Things is, you can’t track any of those things to see which worked better. With ReverbNation, all your actions using their different tools and services are tracked using big-boy web analytics that show you your progress, all in pretty charts and graphs that would get your hard-nosed businessman dad excited.

6. Be your own booking agent

With the ReverbNation GigFinder and RPK service, there’s no reason why you should have to play the same crappy bar night in and night out. Their database of thousands of venues across the land provide you with the ability to search within your area for places that book musical acts on a regular basis. Send them your RPK and let the venues check out your Reverb stats to decide if you’re the right fit or not.

7. Digital Distribution

Everyone and their mom uses iTunes and Rhapsody these days to discover and purchase new music, so how do you go about getting your own tunes on those services? If you don’t feel like filling out all the boring paperwork yourself, then you’re in luck – ReverbNation will do all the work for you for an annual fee, and provide you with stats much faster then some of the rival submission services.

8. Sell merch direct to fans

In addition to selling digital downloads directly from your ReverbNation account (through your profile or a Reverb Store widget), you can also set up an on-demand merch store through their partnership with Audiolife. Upload your custom art and images, set up pricing, and bam!, instant merch store with no overhead. You can even buy merch in bulk so you have some on hand to hawk at shows.

9. Artist resources

Need help setting up your Reverb profile? Looking for industry professionals to push your latest album release? Need health insurance? Reverb is constantly providing their members with information and guidance for all facets of a musicians career, holding their hands along the way to make sure they get the best opportunities available to boost their career.

10. Facebook Application

Whoa – what? Don’t I need to hire a $90 an hour programmer to build a Facebook app? Nah, son, ReverbNation has you covered. I know it seems I’m kissing their ass here a little, but when you factor in that their “My Band” app has over a million users (and it gets your tracks in front of your Facebook friend’s faces), it’s hard to not see how much that kicks ass.

11. Twitter integration

Being a musician is rough these days. Not only do you have the entire industry being turned upside down on its head with file sharing, labels dishing out less money to sign new talent, and a rush of so-called “musicians” to compete with, but you also have to keep in touch with your fans through new web fads like Twitter. Luckily, you can update your Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook status’ all at the same time through the ReverbNation control panel.

12. Hosted Banners

Most bands operate their Street Teams like this: email a bunch of friends some banners and ask them to post them to their MySpace pages. Who has the time to find a hosting service and to code that in their page? Cut out all the dirty work and provide you Street Team with the code already, and they’ll be much more inclined to just copy and paste it (plus it’s all tracked through the stats!)

13. Street Team Management

Speaking of street teams, actually MOTIVATING those supposed street teamers is a lot harder than you think it is. Why not try motivating them with a contest? Give away an autographed guitar to your top promoters, and track them all using the ReverbNation street team leaderboard. The one who does the most work will be noticed and given the top prize for his or her dedication.

14. Advertising Sharing and Opportunities

So yes, as most people believe, ReverbNation is also a social network with millions viewing their artists profiles every month. And yes, Reverb also runs ads on these pages just like any other network. What separates them from the competition? They split this ad revenue in HALF with each artist. Consider it extra beer money every month. Plus, they’ve been hooking artists up with some big advertisers for cross-promotions and plan on doing more in the near future.

15. Build your website for you

No need to understand HTML, use one of their hundreds of professional templates, and even get your own .com web address, all for a nominal monthly fee. Let’s be real, not every band is gonna be able to build their own site (even if I tell them how to a million times over). Dump the expensive flash site and update your site in a jiffy with their easy to use site builder tool.

16. Most of the shit is FREE!

That’s right – FREE! While some of the tools and services (site builder and RPK) do cost money, most are out of the box free to use. Some of the services (email and song storage) and free for new users who don’t need a ton of capabilities and can be upgraded at a later date to receive their full features. Their simply is no body else in the digital music space that offers as much value in their Free tools as ReverbNation does. If you’re not an artist using them, you’re probably a fool doing all the wrong things. And even if you’re not a musician, you should be visiting the site daily to discover new music (a lot of which is also FREE!)

Post from: Evolvor Media

If you’ve never heard of Dan or read his blog, I must tell you you’re missing out – Dan is one of the finest social media consultants I’ve had the pleasure of befriending and his research in social media is fantastic.

If you’re unfamiliar with “ReTweeting”, here it is in a nutshell:

You post a message on Twitter. Then, someone else on Twitter re-posts the same message giving you credit (using @yourusername) to share with their Twitter followers.

In this presentation, Dan explains the power of ReTweets and provides some very in-depth analytics in how to increase the number of ReTweets you get using Twitter.

Post from: Evolvor Media

Actually, there’s an overwhelming number of free marketing tools online that enable artists to connect with fans. Once you break through the wall of no-brainers like MySpace and Facebook, it can be kind of intimidating with all the other networks and tools out there, especially when you run into someone like me and I geek out on you about things like Twitter.

But are these things really going to help you out? Is using Twitter going to sell you albums or increase your fan base?

I say yes. Others may disagree. It’s your job to look at these new technologies and ask yourself if you think your fans use them too. Or if the people you want to hear your music use them.

First, let’s clear some things up for those who are unfamiliar with Twitter. Twitter is a free “micro-bloggging” social network that let’s it’s users update their followers with short sentences regarding their “status”. You login to Twitter and type a quick blurb about what you are doing, and those people who have joined your network can read.

Now, the service is HUGE and has millions of people using it. Some use it to update their friends on worthless activities; others use it in a conversational method; others to provide resources to their community.

Their are different ways you can make your Twitter profile interesting and resourceful enough that people will want to follow you and communicate with you through the service.

People follow me on Twitter because I use the service to reinforce my “brand” and what it is that I do for a living – teaching others about the Web and how to use it to your advantage in your career. Check out my list of “tweets” and you can see that my focus is on music and marketing.

Now, not every tweet is about music and marketing, and this is where you must understand that Twitter is casual conversation at the same time. It’s like sitting at the bar with your tie pulled out after a long day of work, but you’re shooting the shit with the bartender about the work you actually did accomplish.

Every marketer and their mom is trying to use Twitter to get the word out about their products and services, and some are using the service in a smart way. Many are not and are just using it to spam us with links to some web page hawking some product, or even worse just updating us with random, pointless information about their day that no one cares about.

You see this happening a lot with entertainers, especially musicians. Their marketing team tells them to get on Twitter and update everyday. I know, because I’m one of them.

Unfortunately they’re not teaching them how to really use the service properly, and what you have is a whole mess of musicians updating us with meaningless talk about what they had to eat today and the shit they just took afterwards.

What they are not understanding is that yes, while every once in a while it’s the random “in the moment” tweets that we might find funny or interesting, it’s all the resources and information that you provide most of the time that people listen and react to.

It’s no different than your blog – people want to read good, fresh content that they can walk away from with something that will help them or get their mind asking questions – stuff like news, informative commentary and resources.

The same needs to happen if you’re a musician and are going to be using Twitter to help “promote” yourself; you’re not using it to directly promote a song or album, but rather to bring people into the processes behind it.

A good use of Twitter for a musician would be to Tweet about all the things involved when you’re writing a song – what is inspiring you (and why)? what distortion pedal did you use to create a sound?

Maybe you’re on tour and you figured out a great place to grab a taco near the club; it’s a random comment, but another band playing that club might stop by there and try one for themselves.

I was reading a recent post from Lefsetz that discusses Twitter, and technology in general, and whether or not you need to to succeed. Here’s a quote worth really thinking about:

That’s your marketing. Your fan base. It isn’t about hiring a PR firm or using Twitter. Actually, Marty pooh-poohs most technology. He says you’ve got be wary that the technology doesn’t get ahead of, doesn’t overwhelm the act. He doesn’t use Google Analytics to find out where each and every fan is. Marty goes on feel. He, and his uber agent Cass Scripps just go into a new territory, and although the first gig might be soft, the one after that never is. Because Corey delivers.

He has a great point – ultimately it’s not the MySpace’s and Twitter’s that are going to make or break you – it’s the fans that will.

And my only argument is using these tools properly is a means to interact with those fans, to get them involved. There are a million ways to communicate with people to bring them into your world; it’s not the tools themselves, but HOW you use them that will dictate whether or not they will help you succeed.

You can have a million MySpace friends, but it doesn’t mean squat if none of those “people” actually checked out your profile or read your updates or leave you comments. You can Use Twitter all day long, but if the conversation you’re having isn’t interesting, then no one is going to give a shit.

Learn how to use technology to engage people, and learn what kinds of technologies are being used by what kinds of people.

Twitter is being used by a lot of business professionals, marketers, and industry insiders – use this information as a basis for your decision to use Twitter as a conversational tool.

Not all technologies are going to be used for all kinds of people – know and understand the different demographics of people are using a specific tool, and mold your conversation accordingly.

http://twitter.com/evolvor

Post from: Evolvor Media

The integration allows Artists to import and display their Twitter ‘posts’, keeping their fans informed about the Band’s daily activities. Artists can also create new Twitter posts directly from their ReverbNation account, saving them from having to login at both sites.

Artists don’t always have a new album or tour to talk about,” said Lou Plaia, V.P. of Artist Services at ReverbNation.com. “Twitter gives them a way to keep the fans engaged in between the big stuff – maintaining the share of mind that they have painstakingly acquired, and keeping the fans warmed up for when the album finally drops.”

Ulf Oesterle, owner of Indie Label Aux Records, concurs, “ReverbNation is progressive in how they approach the tools that they provide for Artists and Labels. Integrating Twitter is a huge boost for engaging bands with their fans.”

A similar integration with the popular ‘Status’ feature at Facebook is coming soon, which will provide the 350,000+ Artists that have installed ReverbNation’s ‘My Band’ application at Facebook with a similar function.

Post from: Evolvor Media