Using VIRB to Market Your Music
Posted by Erik Peterson | Filed under marketing, technology
One of the most important parts of DIY music marketing is being sure anyone who likes your music knows where to get it, without having to search the Net. No one is going to purchase your music if they don’t know where to get it. It’s important that you include some sort of link or access to your music wherever it is hosted, if possible. Perhaps surfers will not go to a P2P or Bit Torrent site to find your music if they know where to obtain it directly from the artist. Virb helps musicians do just that.
Plugola has actually had a page at Virb for a while now, but other than the initial profile set-up it has gone untouched. That is, until a few days ago when I discovered that they have made some cool changes for musicians of their community. If you’re unfamiliar with Virb, it is another social network from the company behind PureVolume, however it’s focus seems to be on the arts and music. Bands get the general social networking features, such as: free profile, video/audio sharing, etc. I’m not trying to sell you on Virb, or anything, but I noticed they have added a great, new feature for musicians to market their music.
As in most social networks, bands get their own music player where they can upload their music. In Virb’s media player musicians are also allowed to add a “Buy Link”. If a surfer hears a song they have just got to have, clicking on the “Buy” button next to the track will send them directly to a page where they can purchase and download the song. Of course, musicians can send their fans to any one of the digital stores where their music is available for download, but since this is PLUGOLA, I’m going to show how to send fans directly to tracks available on PLUGOLA.
PLUGOLA musicians will want to locate their single track pages from the “Audio” page. The “More” link leads to a page hosting the single track(s) in question.
Plugola Audio Page
Click on “edit” next to the audio track, in the profile dashboard. Just paste the link to song page where the track is located
Virb's Audio Edit Page
After the buy link is saved to the audio file, it will appear in the media player as a “Buy” button, located next to the song title. Not only can potential fans listen to audio tracks on Virb, but they can share them elsewhere; giving the song an even wider audience.
Virb Audio Player
When the “Buy” button is clicked, the surfer is directed to the song page where the song can be easily purchased and downloaded; or even more options to spread and share the track even further.
Plugola Song Page
Indie/DIY musicians should take advantage of all the tools made available to them online. It doesn’t cost any money to do this and it will only help make your music more accessible to current and potential fans. This is only one way to show your fans how they can purchase and download your music and videos from PLUGOLA, or even other stores. And it’s FREE!
July 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Can you explain how this differs from other embeddable music download commerce platforms? What are the advantages to something like this vs. Bandcamp, etc.?
July 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Well, if you’re speaking about Virb; there is really no e-commerce system in place. Only the ability to link to your preferred store, per track (ie: itunes, bandcamp, plugola, etc.) Other than that, there is not much difference from other social networks where artists can showcase their music. The only real advantage is an extra platform to direct fans to your digital store.
If you’re referring to Plugola; of course I could go on and on, but I would say the main difference is that fans can resell (or ‘plug’) their favorite music (at the artists’ discretion) for a commission, also set by the artist. The advantage here is, the encouragement for fans to share the music with their friends, etc. Plugola’s community is also designed to target specific niches, so hip hop artists are not trying to promote their music to metal fans, or whatever the combination.
My intention with the post above is just to get those marketing juices flowing for musicians, using free tools to tie their free music and paid music together.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:32 am
That looks like an awesome resource for musicians - thanks!
June 9th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Mm, excellent ideas. Do you offer any kind of rating service because I am unable to see it.
Regards
Eric Nolls