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Independent Music Marketing Resources at MaxLowe.net

Taking the Mystery out of Music Marketing in a Web 2.0 World

Ariel Hyatt’s Cyber PR for Indie ArtistsNovember 7

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing some research on Ariel Hyatt and her PR prowess when it comes to independent music. I was planning to do a feature in the next week or so about how much of an undiscovered gem she and her service could be for a struggling act or artist. I mentioned her (hopefully) influential article about Twitter from musicthinktank.com on the blog yesterday.

Unfortunately, Ariel just launched a new marketing program for herself that will probably guarantee her and her team will be so busy they’ll be turning away loads of work for months. If you’re lucky enough to get a spot in one of her publicity programs, take advantage of it as soon as you can. If you’re truly certain your act is ready to compete on a worldwide stage, Ariel will be able to help you take it to the next level as far as online media is concerned. Just make sure to give your project plenty of lead time - your album promotion should start at least 3 months in advance of your release date!

Learn more about Ariel Hyatt’s Cyber PR Magic

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Twitter is a powerful tool for promoting your music onlineNovember 6

I was cruising through some of Jimmy Shelter’s posts this morning. If you haven’t been to Jimmy’s blog recently, you should check it out. He has a great collection of resources for do-it-yourself indie music marketing.

In his Band Promotion Links IV post, Jimmy links to a really important article by Ariel Hyatt posted at musicthinktank.com (check it out). Ariel talks about Twitter, and how it’s a great tool to use for reaching new fans and making industry contacts.

Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter. If you happened to be watching Twitter’s election pages after Obama’s big win, you would have been amazed at the volume of ‘tweets’ that were rolling down the page, and the stories that were being told with just a few characters of text.

This is what you want to achieve with Twitter. No, I’m not talking about thousands of messages, but messages that help you tell a story about your act - to build a relationship with people who are following you and create a unique and interest

How to get help promoting your music onlineNovember 6

What You Need:

Music social networking isn’t easy. Anyone who tells you it is just doesn’t understand the time and effort involved in creating and maintaining a quality profile on even just the most effective of the many music social networks online today.

Whether it’s Myspace, Purevolume, Last FM, Virb, Eventful, Jambase, Showclix, or one of the many other music industry focused tools you can use to promote your music and your live show, you’ll need to provide your fans and potential customers with consistent and concise information about your act and your sound to catch their eyes and ears before they move on to the next profile.

What You Get:

I’m tired of seeing artists struggling to figure out which music social networks to sign up for, how to update their profiles at each one, and just wishing they could spend more time focusing on their music instead of wasting time updating profiles that no one ever visits. Every time I start working with a new artist, these are some of the basic tasks they just can’t wrap their head around… and they’re the biggest thing standing between their talent and getting exposure to millions of new listeners worldwide.

That’s why I promised myself I would dedicate a few hours of my time each week to helping the bands and independent artists that need it the most get their profiles up to date on the most influential music social networks and promotion tools.

If you’re looking f

What People Want to Read About Your BandOctober 13

Sitting down to write those first mind-racking band descriptions and introductions on your profile can be very hard. It involves a great deal of thinking, planning, and usually a lot of collaboration with the rest of the band, your friends and family members for ideas and the “right” thing to say. But, rather than worry excessively about what you want to say, you should consider what people want to read about your band.

New Fans and Innate Curiosity

When a new fan visits your site, they likely have three questions in mind:

• What kind of music do you play?
• What are you and the other band-members like?
• How does this affect me?

MySpace provides plenty of space and prompts for you to provide information about what kind of music you play and what kind of band you are. You can upload tracks for them to listen to, list your major influences, and create a series of mini-profiles with information about your band’s members. However, the third question is one of the most important and must be addressed carefully in the descriptions you write.

You might notice that many bands write a very long, involved profile discussing who they are, where they came from and what they see in their music. Other bands simply post a concert calendar and a short bio of 200 words. While a profile that is too long will simply bore readers, one that is too short does not address the question of “how it affects them.”

To addr

MySpace vs. a ‘Real’ Website: Why You Still Need to Have a Website at yourbandname.comOctober 6

Too often, people tend to think of MySpace as the only marketing tool they need to have in place when they utilize the Internet for their music marketing. They post as many of their songs and their preferences as possible and invite a few hundred new friends to the fold and hope that this will be enough to get them into the upper rankings of bands with Internet presences.

But, it takes more than just a MySpace profile to create a solid online presence. You must have a well built, creatively constructed website at “yourbandname.com”. In today’s online economy, everything that has any prospect of selling must be placed on a website with the product name as the domain name and that includes your music.

There are three very simple reasons why:

1. Exposure - You gain more exposure with a domain name through search engines and directory listings. Anyone searching for your band name would be better off finding a dedicated domain than a MySpace profile because you can even further cater your image to your website and give them something to remember.

2. Marketing - A MySpace profile is easy to market to fellow MySpace members, but wide spread marketing tactics are best served with a domain name that can be submitted to directories, used in blogs and posted on other social networks.

3. Customization - MySpace is highly customizable, sure, but only for a social network. To truly get the creative and artistic freedom you need