VIDEO: Getting Started with Plugola
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under site news
I’ve been working on some tutorial videos for Plugola and I finally have our “Getting Started” video completed. I’m realizing that this is something I should have done long ago, but better late than never, I guess. It’s my first attempt at this sort of video, so I chose an easy topic to work through the learning curve. This is fairly basic information, such as; creating your profile and using our sharing features to notify current and would-be fans.
Of course, I’m working on more tutorial videos that really get down to the nitty-gritty of our features and how to get the most out of Plugola. If you notice that I didn’t cover a particular area you have questions about, please be sure to leave me/us some feedback. That will also be helpful for any future tutorials.
100 Resources for DIY Musicians
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under marketing
The following is an excerpt from the press release for the “100 Resources for DIY Musicians” brought to us by Gen Y Rockstars and Label 2.0.
2009 was a year of change for the music industry. From sliding CD sales to increased digital efforts to the changing face of music distribution and direct to fan sales systems.
Due to these extreme changes in music marketing and discovery, Gen-Y Rock Stars, a leading music marketing and social media blog for musicians and music industry professionals, has updated their premiere resource, “100 Resources For DIY Musicians.”
The original report was called “100 Social Media Resources For Musicians,” and has been downloaded over 5,000 times. It was created after leaving a music conference where Greg Rollett spoke on music marketing and was amazed at how little musicians were doing to take advantage of social media and the power of technology.
This updated resource includes every tool a musician needs to be successful online from blogging platforms to email service providers to essential social networks, industry bloggers, shopping cart solutions, musician tools, video cameras and so much more.
Writer of the resource Greg Rollett says, “Musicians have the power to build not only a career, but a business at an astonishing speed with all the tools that are available to them. The problem, they are only tools. Each musician needs to learn to use them and use them in the right situations in order to be successful.”
Download your free copy of the 100 Resources for DIY Musicians
If you would like to read more about it, our friends over at Creative Deconstruction goes a bit more in-depth and even picks a few of their favorites!
The Low Down
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under marketing, musicians, technology
I’ve been noticing for a while that some people are confused, or not sure, about exactly what Plugola is. I have heard some people think we are a blog or band. It’s really my fault. I have failed to make that clear to you. I will be doing some rearranging, and adding some videos and tutorials in order to make Plugola obvious, as well as, helping both musicians and fans get started using our service. In the meantime, here’s the low down on what Plugola is, and why you may want to use us. Please keep in mind that we are still officially in ‘Beta’ mode and the current version of Plugola is not complete, however it is live, 100% functional and open to all.
We are…
First, you should know that we are strictly independent music only. We have no plans, nor desire to eventually bring in major acts or record labels. I know that’s the direction a lot of similar indie music services go, but Plugola was conceived on the idea that indie artists needed a home online. So we will NOT desert you when bigger things begin to happen. Of course, we have nothing against these major artists/labels, but they already have many homes.
A Digital Marketplace
The original concept behind Plugola was to provide a digital music store for indie music only. At the time it was still fairly tough to find good, non-commercial music on the web; especially located all in one place. Downloading that music legally was a whole other story. Plus, there is a whole culture of independent music fans that usually have to really search to find the music they like. Once they find that music, the only real option in sharing it with friends was to do it illegally. We are changing that.
A Social Network
We thought that Plugola needed more of a reason for music fans to visit, other than only music. Although helping artist distribute and sell their music is the main goal, we also wanted fans to be able to communicate with the musicians, discuss the music, vote on it and share it with their friends.
Music Discovery
We took a bit of a different approach for fans to discover new music. First, when music fans register with the site, they choose their favorite genre. So when they login, artists in their chosen genre are presented, rather than having to search through all the other genres. Second, all rankings and featured artists are put there by our members. We’re not suggesting to fans other artists they may like, but the community is. All music and videos can be streamed completely free, as well as the ability to share/embed them on any web site.
Why you may want to use Plugola:
We are fully aware there are a lot of options, for both indie musicians and music fans out there. We are not saying we are better than any of these service, but we ARE different. Here is why…
Sell Music & Videos
Artists can sell their own digital music (mp3) and/or music videos however they see fit. There are no upfront or service fees, but the artist is paid a flat rate of 82% of the sale price. However, this 82% includes all processing and transaction fees. A lot of services claim artists get 100%, but the fine print usually states that it’s 100% AFTER all fees are paid. Plugola handles all the payments and commission distribution, so artists don’t have yet another task they must worry about. We accept payments in credit card or Paypal, and pay-out via ACH or Paypal.
Artist Control
All artists keep ownership of all their music and rights. We want to make clear that, they are not giving up any control of any kind; and they can discontinue using our service at any time without any cancellation fees. In other words, Artists have absolutely nothing to loose. Also, our features allow artists to set their own prices, control their ‘plug’(or affiliate) commissions, approve or disapprove plugging and set their own copyrights or download terms.
Marketing Tools
One major feature we noticed was missing among other DIY music stores was their lack of marketing tools. Yes, everyone has widgets (including us!), for the most part, these days. Where Plugola differs is, we have also included some built-in options for artists to create incentives and/or campaigns in order to sell and distribute more music.
Plugging (affiliates)
This is probably our coolest feature. Not only can fans purchase and download music, but they have the option to ‘plug’ it, as well. Plugging a song allows the fan(s) to resell their favorite tunes to their friends, and even earn a commission! Essentially, fans can get all their music free and the artist still gets paid. We are aiming to keep the tradition of sharing music alive, but in a bit more controlled environment; and with incentives. Our thoughts are, would a fan rather earn a few bucks or just put that music up on a p2p network? Everyone wins using this feature.
One-Click Purchasing
For music fans who choose to use a credit card, we offer one-click purchasing. This will allow members to add their credit card information only once and can freely add or remove songs to their shopping cart at any time, until they are ready for checkout. No extra steps or leaving the web site. Paypal users must checkout for songs from each individual album.
Profiles
Profiles are loosely set-up to include all the info an artist’s press kit would include. Design/theme is completely customizable using our WYSIWYG editor and we even left some open areas where more creative members can include their own HTML. We also have a cool little feature for the events calendar where musicians can upload their concert posters/fliers.
Fan Interaction
Since we are also a social network, artists and fans have a chance to interact on a more personal level. There are not many music store where fans can communicate directly with their favorite artists.
Statistics
We have general stats that include sales, downloads, plays, affiliate sales and arists’ sales rank among their peers. However, I’ll be the first to admit that we do not have robust stats or metrics; such as a service like, Bandmetrics. Though I can tell you that this is a feature that is definitely coming in future.
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Hopefully, this will clear-up any confusion about Plugola temporarily, until I can lay it out in a much more obvious fashion. It’s completely free to sign-up and get started for both artists and fans! Please let us know if you have any questions, feedback or issues with the site. We are also available if you need any help getting started or with your marketing campaign(s). You may contact us HERE.
Latest Press on Plugola
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under business, site news
I know it’s been a while since our last blog update, but we’re trying to get back on track. Believe it or not, we actually have a lot going on with Plugola behind the scenes right now; all lending a hand to the growth of our music community. There hasn’t been a lot of visible upgrades lately, but rest assured we are always working on it.
You may, or may not, have noticed that Plugola has been getting some attention lately among music industry bloggers. We do have a press page located on Plugola, where I try to keep you updated, but I wanted to bring some of the chatter into the spotlight so you can see what’s going on with us, in case you have missed it.
About.com: Music Carreers: The ‘Music Carreers’ section of About.com interviews Plugola founder, Erik Peterson, about Plugola and the new music business.
Independent Music StartUp: Part One of Interview with PLUGOLA founder, Erik Peterson about the music community and what indie artists should be doing to market themselves online. Part 2 of Interview
Creative Deconstruction: DIY music-marketing blog, Creative deconstruction, blurbs us in their article on musicians targeting their fans.
Indie Guide: The Indie Band Survival Guide recommends Plugola for their ‘Useful Link of the Day’ section.
GigHive: The Buzz: From ‘The Buzz’ section, a write-up of Plugola by fellow indie music social network, GigHive.
Gen-Y Rock Stars: Rock star chat with Plugola founder/president, Erik Peterson & Greg Rollett, of GenYRockStars blog.
HypeBot: Independent music industry blog, HypeBot, blurbs Plugola.
GigDoggy: Canadian Gig-startup, GigDoggy, likes Plugola’s “plugging”(or affliate) feature.
Killer Startups: A killer nod from the startup review kings.
SEO Basics for Musicians
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under marketing
This is a repost from the old Plugola Inc blog. Part 2 was supposed to come after this, but when I switch our blog to it’s own domain I forgot all about it. So, here’s Part 1 and I will add Part 2 shortly.
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I’ve been through literally thousands and thousands of band profiles and musician websites and I’ve noticed a lot of things that could make their presence better. However, most of them are not SE (search engine) friendly, making it harder for fans of the genre to discover the artist(s).
First, if you’re not doing so already, consider targeting your music to directly to the people who are fans of the genre; your ‘niche’. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but for a lot of us it seems natural to present our music to as many people as possible. Don’t let this fool you, though. Niche marketing/targeting is MUCH more effective. Instead of putting your music out on all the p2p networks hoping someone will discover you, try focusing on a much smaller group of hardcore fans of your genre. If anyone is going to care about your music, it will be the fans from this group. Obviously, you can’t track down ever single fan, so it’s best to optimize your site and profile pages for the search engines, so they can easily find you.
Now, there are many intricacies when optimizing a web page for the search engines, but here I’m going to give you the basics. Just following these simple suggestions will help your site/page rank higher in most search algorithms, as they change quite frequently. This is aimed at musicians, but really anyone can follow these tips.
Since these tips turned out to be WAY longer than I anticipated, I decided to break up these SEO tips into a couple posts.
Header Meta Data
If you have your own web site already, you or your webmaster should be able to control the header meta data. This is the most important part of SEO for any web page/site and probably the easiest, yet so many designers and developers leave this out or do it incorrectly.
Above, is a screen shot of the meta data area within your page’s code. When a search engine spider crawls your site, this is more-or-less the first bit of information it will read. Based on this info, the SE spider will begin to categorize your site. Your title is considered most important, so it should be to the point and worded carefully. If your delta blues band was called, “Jimmy James & the Blue Flames”; you may word your title like, “Jimmy James & the Blue Flames - Down Home Delta Blues” It’s pretty much a no-brainer, but definitely important.
Next in line is, the meta description (not keywords. they will be last). Again, it’s fairly obvious what you should include here. However, you don’t want to go crazy. Stick to one or two sentences describing your band and/or music. When writing your description, try to use as many of your keywords as possible while keeping it sensible. Also, be sure to include your act’s name and genre. This will help the spiders compare to your title, so you want to keep the same topic.
Finally, your meta keywords. Why would keywords be last, you ask? It’s of the least importance to SE spiders, but it’s still needed. When a spider crawls the rest of your site, it will be able to understand the keywords just by the text, but we will cover that later. In your meta keywords, again you want to be sure to include your act’s name and genres, as well as, anything else that’s important to recognize your presence, but do NOT keyword ’stuff’. This means to repeat your keywords over and over, trying to gain advantage over other relevant web sites. The spiders WILL recognize this and penalize you, usually by dropping your rank, but sometimes a complete ban.
Unfortunately, on most profile pages you will not have control over this data. So you must make the best with what you do have control over. For the record, PLUGOLA has some built-in features that will automatically create some key meta data for you, upon profile creation.
Categories/Tags
One of the biggest mistakes I notice musicians making is not categorizing themselves by the correct genre. I know it’s funny for a death metal band to classify themselves as “Chinese Pop”, or vice-versa, but from a search/discovery standpoint, you’re really doing yourself an injustice. When you’re targeting a specialized fan base, you want to make it easy for them to find you. When the SE spider crawls your page, you want it to rank you in the search results for your genre, preferable on top. If you’re in the wrong category, obviously genre fans will not be able to find you. I suggest you include your general genre (ie: rock, r&B, etc.) and your sub-genre (ie: crunk, nu-jazz, etc.). Be sure to include these same genres as keywords in your header meta info.
I’m sure you’ve been noticing more sites these days, using a ‘tagging’ feature for bookmarks, videos, photos, etc. I’ve always considered tags a sort of a cross between a ‘category’ and ‘keyword’; an extra tool to note myself (and/or others) in a couple words what will be found upon clicking. Tagging your pages and content correctly is also essential in higher SE rankings.
Although these are only beginning steps to optimizing your profile page(s) and site, by following them you will already be ahead of most. They’re also stepping stones to more SEO tips that will have you ranking higher no time, such as; revalency and link popularity. But I’ll get to that in the next post.
For more information about this you may want to also check out Gen-Y Rockstars article:
Learn to Describe the Crap Out of Your Music
UPDATE: Here’s another great article from Musician Wages blog:
Getting the Most from Tags & Descriptions
