From Scratch – Adventures in Independent Music Making

Posts Tagged ‘Blog’

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I have become immersed in the world of blogging. Chapter 5 of Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks does a great job of summarizing a strong rationale for why musicians should blog. It also provides a number of valuable resources for starting a blog and, later, takes you step by step through establishing a protocol for getting the most out of your blogging efforts. This provided some reassurance when I started going into panic mode this week because, let’s face it, blogging is a big commitment and we musician-types still need to have time to write music too.

The overall process, in short, is something like this:

1) start a blog

2) subscribe to some relevent blogs (publications that might review your music)

3) start reading those subscriptions

4) leave some comments (that are related to the actual post, not just a plug for yourself)

5) then ask for a review after you have developed some rapport with the writers

I already had a blog, so I was able to skip step one. I didn’t, however, subscribe to or read any other blogs. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my email, so I’m not sure how this is going to go, but I’m determined to try. Ariel suggests establishing a list of 50 blogs to subscribe to, so that’s what I did and though there are 50 of the list, for now I have decided to just focus on one or two of these blogs for a few weeks and then move on to a few more afterwards. That way I can give adequate attention to any particular blog even when I don’t have a lot of time for reading.

That number 50 was a bit intimidating at first, I must admit. It took a lot of mouse clicking and searching on Technorati and then often times struggling to find the RSS feed links/buttons on a page I liked once I found it. That part was very frustrating. In my head I kept saying, time after time, “I want to follow you, but you’re making it impossible!!!”. Who knew having that little orange icon would make such a difference.

Once I found one good and relevent blog it became easy because their blog roll was also relevant to what I was looking for. I found a lot of great blogs in the blog roll of Einstein Music. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an RSS feed for their own page though, so I had to bookmark them instead. Chances aren’t good that I’ll remember to go back and check on that one when I have 50 others being brought to my Google Reader though.

This “blog roll” thing had me a bit perplexed at first. I understood what it was (a list of links to other blogs and sites that blogger post on their own pages -usually in the right hand column), but I couldn’t figure out where mine was on my page. After some handy Google Mcguivering I learned that it was a multi staged process with WordPress (the program I use) and was able to set up my blog roll after watching a few videos. If you use word press, here are videos on how to add a link to your blog roll and How to make your blog roll visable to readers

Other ways I found blogs to follow: 1) New Twitter followers (a lot of bloggers have Twitter accounts). Here’s one for local Toronto bloggers 2) Indie Charts – you create a profile and submit songs for review by other artists, industry professionals and … yep, writers. 3) Newsletters. In particular, The Digital Media Wire newsletter is where I learned about the MOG Music Network (a network of top music blogs).

Another strategy for finding potential reviewers/bloggers that Ariel recommends is searching your name for existing articles you don’t know about and leaving comments on articles written about artists you know/play with. She suggests starting with a list of ten. This is what I came up with:

Chloe Charles – we share a violinist (Kelly). Chloe is amazing!
Radio Belle – I met Cristina and her brother at the MIAC/PAL 2010 tradeshow and have since gigged together
The Mudmen – a mutual fan connected me with their guitarist
Oliver Pigott – I met through MySpace and wanted to do a cover of his song. He gave me permission and invited me to open a show for him.
The Station Agents – Billy Fong has been playing guitar with me, has been on my webcast, and we gig together often
Beth Moore - she lives across the kitchen from me and has been on my webcast
Hayley Stark – Did a songwriters showcase together and they have also been on my webcast
MIP – I met at The Painted Lady open mic and, coincidentally, my favourite computer repair man is her drummer
Alice Stops Time – I set up a show with them in Halifax on Leg 2 of Dara’s Wedding Tour 2009
First Rate People – we were on Indie Idol (indielove.ca) together and they were one of the first guests on my webcast
Blake Bliss – used to gig together in Hamilton when Purl of Surf was in full swing.
The Skirt Chasers - Hilary and I used to fence together. Now we gig together.
The Danger Bees - played a show with David in Dartmouth during Leg 2 of Dara’s Wedding Tour
Courtesy Blush - Jon and I go to the same vocal school
Axe to Mouth - I’ve been gigging regularly with these guys thanks to The Dishes

… as you can see, I started getting carried away (extending my list past 10). Though there are many more I would like to add to this list, I had to cut myself off and move forward with this week’s challenge (including leaving a comment on each artist’s myspace, since they don’t all have blogs, to let them know I’ve mentioned them in my blog. Sig file -or signature file- will be added at the end, as recommended by Ariel)

Another time saving strategy Ariel recommends is to join MyBlogLog and/or GoogleFriendConnect. That way, if you don’t have time to leave a comment on everyone’s blog, the authors still know you have visited their site. Though not as memorable as a comment, it helps to establish a connection and rapport over time.

Blogging. Some call it a hassle; some call it an addiction. It certainly is an avenue for ranting, raving and sharing news. It is also a networking and marketing tool. My favourite function of a blog: discovery.

Blogs have the ability to tell stories: within an individual post, through a nine week series, or over the writer’s life. It’s not just about connection, but also growth. The writer opens a window for the public to see  into their inner world but can also control how high up they pull the blinds. By reading blogs we discover new things others want to share with us. By writing blogs we reflect and learn more about ourselves. This has certainly been true for me as an artist. While my Dad was up visiting this week, there were a number of times where there was no technology around to distract or interrupt our conversations and as such, I heard tales of his childhood and my own (which I don’t remember) that I had never heard before. With all the blogging I have been doing lately, this experience triggered the thought in my mind that people are more than their thoughts and opinions, they are their stories … and blogs are a great way to tell stories.

My story this week (outside the context of blogging itself) was pretty exciting. The Horsehoe show (my biggest show to date) was a success, we bought a house (home studio and webcasting set here we come!), I finally got caught up with all of my social media sites from last week (the MySpace page was the biggest obstacle) and I found out that Mike the Bee featured one of my songs on his podcast in the UK after I signed up with Music Alley last week. Not too shabby.

I feel more comfortable moving forward with the marketing side of blogging now that the idea of storytelling has returned to my line of sight. I started blogging by telling stories, but lately, with all this reading about business and promotions, I have found myself becoming a bit blinded by the exciting statistics, increasing quality of interactions online, and other new developments.

Now, if Ariel could just teach us how to deal with Blog Comment Spam. I had over 200 comments this week, which made me very excited until I saw that they were mostly either:

1) Utterly vague: “Incredible, that’s definitely what I was scanning for! You just spared me alot of looking around”

2) Self-promoting and irrelevant to the subject matter of the post: “if the cops werent so bad in florida it would be really awesome” has nothing to do with my Week 3 post on website optimization.

3) Template messages being sent from different people from the same agencies. Grrrrrr.

For example, I received such similar posts from a 3 different virastop.net users:

“What a blogpost!! Very informative and also easy to understand. Looking for more such blog posts!! Do you have a myspace? I recommended it on stumbleupon. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of new design. However thank you for this information.”

The other commenters just substituted “twitter” or “facebook” for “myspace” and “digg” for “stumbleupon”. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was more than one comment saying the same thing, I would have thought it was a legitimate comment. So now how do I know which ones are the fakes and which ones are real? I would hate to delete a legitimate comment.

To end on a positive note, my web guru Byron has hooked me up with a translator for my blog so that anyone around the world can read my posts. I just need him to help me install it now haha

Next Week – Challenge Week 6: Newsletters & Surveys

Last Week – Challenge Week 4: Social Media for Musicians

Ariel’s Book: Music Success in Nine Weeks

www.meghanmorrison.com

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Twitter escultura de arena by rosauraochoa Available for use by Creative Commons License 2.0

Original Blog Post Read this Blog in 27 different languages Sitting at my computer Thursday morning, I looked out my window at the vines that have grown up our fence over the summer. Before Oskar left for his European tour with Worldly Savages there was just dirt and a wooden fence (Oskar is the guy who steers this crazy communal and musical ship we live in). I knew he had planted some flower seeds, but a massive collection of green leaved vines grew instead. It looks pretty cool, but that’s not the point. I bet you’re expecting a segue into how social marketing is like a network of vines growing because of their interactions with each other and the environment. It’s true, but I didn’t think about that until I started writing this now. I brought it up because I have spent over a year practically locked indoors to my computer during my days off, missing the seasons and the growth around me, while struggling to construct the backbone of my music marketing skeleton that I know is so crucial to the advancement of my career. That’s right, career. This isn’t a hobby for me anymore. I’m not making a comfortable or stable living from my music … yet, but I gave up too much and jumped too blindly with both feet into this crazy business to not at least have the decency and self-respect to call it my career. I’m tired of careers being defined in my mind by secure employment status and income. Perhaps you can relate to this: Growing up in North American society, the impression I developed was that a job was something you do to make money and a career was a job that is viewed with more respect by yourself and others because you had to have an education or special skills in order to have a ‘career’ and that generally meant you made more money too. But get this: The copy of the New Merriam-Webster Dictionary which has also accompanied me since childhood (and is missing the front cover, so I can’t give you a year of reference) states the definition of “career” as such (I just looked it up now): “1 : a course of action or events: esp : a person’s progress in his or her chosen occupation 2 : an occupation or profession followed as a life’s work” 28 years and only now do I understand a career to be any chosen occupation that I want to pursue as my life’s work. ANY CHOSEN OCCUPATION. Nothing to do with money, or status, or education. I know, it probably sounds very obvious when it’s laid out like that. “Of course, Meghan. That’s what a career is”. My educational background suggests I’m not stupid, but I feel pretty stupid for not having had the sense to be able to lift and see under the veil I had put on and kept on without ever questioning its fabric. That being said, a more current definition of the word has included the element of ‘success’ and ‘special training’ in it. This is unsurprising given today’s increasing pressure to succeed and obtain an expensive education. But I’m choosing not to adopt this modern definition of the word. Not after that glimmering moment of empowerment and hope you just witnessed. In fact, I think I am going to adopt the original, broader, meaning of “career” instead of any of the others. Documented as originating between 1525-35, the literal meaning of the word was “road”. This is the road I want to travel on. It is the one I have enjoyed the most so far. In the end, that’s all I really need… right? Did you know career is also a verb? “to go at top speed esp. in a headlong manner” (My ripped up Merriam, circa 1990s) Sounds like fun to me :) Now … back to the business of Challenge Week 4: Social Media for Musicians. As I am writing this I am currently uploading songs to my new Music Alley account -a great resource for podcasters. It’s basically a database where podcasters can search for tunes to play during their shows and not have to worry about copyright infringement (as a member on the site you give them permission to use your music). Being an artist who has a webcast with different guests every week, I really look forward to having my work appearing in other peoples’ shows. Full circle. This is one of what seems like endless sites I had to put together this week. I knew from the start that it was going to be a handfull: Sooooo many sites to sign up for, design, add media to, and link accounts with. The work isn’t as difficult as designing and optimizing a website, but it’s still very time consuming. If you decide to do this program in 9 weeks, make sure you don’t schedule too much else during this week or it will be difficult to give each site the time and attention it needs in order to catch (and keep) your visitor’s attention. Believe me, I learned the hard way… This week, I had a lot of obligations to attend to outside of my blog challenge (this is my 5th of 6 straight nights working at the computer until at least 3am), so my sites aren’t up to the standards I have for myself, but I’m glad they are at least on their way to being complete and that is the biggest step forward. If I add another song, video, press quote, or show each day I will eventually have them all at 100%. Baby steps, right? Being a bit of a perfectionist I have to remind myself that my career isn’t over because I didn’t get every last song uploaded this week … rather my career is moving forward because I got the site started and I have at least one more song uploaded than I did yesterday, or last week, or … ever. It would be boring to simply take you through the steps of how I put each page together , because the process for each is pretty much the same, the pages just have different purposes. Ariel does a great job of breaking down these sites in her book, so if you’re interested in the nitty gritty, I suggest you buy it. For my blog this week, I’d rather talk about some of the interesting things that came up during the process formerly known as “this week”, so I will list the sites for you to visit at your leisure and then continue on with my new learnings. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Reverbnation, Flickr, Music Alley Social Bookmarking is something new I learned about and am excited to start to using. Having done qualitative research for my grad studies, I appreciate the idea of having websites already coded for themes (aka: bookmarking with tags). It saves a lot of time and makes scanning or skimming very easy (though, as an academic I am obliged to recognize the weaknesses of this method as well: making an interpretation of a pre-coded document means I do not make an interpretation of the original document myself, thus facing the possibility of missing new themes that the first interpreter didn’t catch or see through their philosophical lens …. yayaya I know). Anyway, I signed up for delicious (a social bookmarking program for your web browser). I think it’s funny how when you press ‘replay’ (or just ‘play’ a second time) this Social Bookmarking in Plain English video starts playing in French. This also inspired me to start labeling my emails too. With over 1200 unread messages mixed amongst over 3000 emails (shameful, I know. None of them are spam) I tend to miss things I should be reading. Luckily, Gmail (where all of my different accounts redirect to) has a labeling system, so now after I read an email I go to the top of the message and label it (if I want to keep it) and take the inbox label off so it goes into a folder and is no longer mixed in with my unread messages. Some interesting things about Twitter: I have been using Twitter for about a year now and have it linked to my cell phone (Canadians send a text to 21212 once the account is set up. People in the USA use 40404).  I didn’t know, however, that I could message specific friends on twitter from my phone by simply using a ‘d’. There are a bunch of functions that you can use (all listed under Settings: Mobile). I printed them off to tape into my agenda, because I’ll never remember all of the different codes. When I first opened my account, “meghanmorrison” and “meghan_morrison” were already taken, much to my disappointment. So I chose “megsmorrison”. In the book, Ariel recommends having a personal account that redirects to your main/band page so that people searching for you can find you or your band/main page. I wanted to do this because people won’t think to search for me as megsmorrison, but the dilemma still existed: my name was already taken. Then I had an idea: the underscore AFTER the name : “meghanmorrison_” … I searched and … it was available! So I took it. Now I have a second twitter page which prompts people to follow me on my megsmorrison page where I have already created my twitter foundation. Then I got greedy: underscore before the name too! It was also free, so I set that one up as well. Once again, simply to help people find me in searches and redirect them to my main page. If you hate the idea of joining Twitter and think it’s stupid, you’re not alone; lots of people don’t like it. I didn’t jump on board right away because I didn’t want the hassle of having to keep up with another social media site, especially one I didn’t understand. I joined over a year ago without really fully understanding how it can serve my project. But a lot of people do! If you are a musician and on the fence about whether or not to join, read this Music Think Tank article:  I started adding people Ariel recommends toward the bottom of the article and within an hour 16 new people were following me, after 8 hours: 65! … up until now I would normally only get 1 or 2 per week … and most of them were not people I had added. I had made a couple of posts/replies to a few of these new connections though, so my new followers must have seen my replies to other people we were mutually following. Crazy. Other cool things I learned about: 1) on Twitter: Follow Fridays = masses of people tweeting about people they think you should follow (put a #FF in a post and any user you put in your post becomes exceptionally follow worthy on that day) and here is a good resource for making a twitter background. 2) Selective Tweet = putting a #fb at the end of your tweet so that the system knows which tweets to send to update your facebook profile. If you don’t put it in the tweet, it doesn’t go through. This is great because it’s easy to send out a ton of tweets, especially with replies, but it doesn’t make sense to your facebook friends because they’re not already part of the conversation. You have to set up the application for it to work though. 3) In the Blog Forums on Ariel’s Cyber PR site (you get access to this magical cyber space when you buy the book) a fellow musician made a post about Social Oomph.com (not to be confused with oompa loompas … wow it must be getting late for me to make that connection haha … hmmm) but after giving it a chance, I have decided I’m really in love with TWEET DECK! It’s amazing. If you’re trying to coordinate mutiple social networking sites at the same time (or separately. You can choose at any given moment), get it! It will save you a lot of time. On that note, I had been experiencing some network sync issues, as I had my pages all synced in a weird way. I knew how it was wired together, but my new manager Leandra (who I have as an admin on my facebook fan page) did not … it wasn’t her fault, but a few posts ended up being published in places they weren’t intended to. haha. The old system looked like this: After setting up additional sites and learning about Tweet Deck and Selective Tweets, it was definitely time to reconfigure the set up. Now it looks like this: My Facebook fan page is at the bottom of the posting chain now, so there is no way Leandra can update my entire online world without me knowing. haha. Things that didn’t rub me the right way: Facebook2YouTube was a  big disappointment and I have removed it. I thought it was going to sync with my youtube page, but it didn’t (or at least not in a way that was easy to discern or use). It just created a general you tube page where I could search for my ‘favourite’ videos and share them in a post. I was hoping I’d be able to upload or link my youtube videos into my facebook video tab to speed up the process and avoid having to wait for each one to load. The facebook bookmark function didn’t work either, so fans couldn’t access it anyway. It’s likely that there is somekind of glitch because the Flickr2Facebook script isn’t working right now either (I’m not the only one who found this). I also didn’t have any luck with the FacebookiLikeApp. It kept giving me a message saying the page couldn’t redirect properly and that “This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies”. I can’t figure out how to change the cookies settings in my browser, so this one is also going to have to wait … any suggestions? I hope they fix the bugs with the others soon. I was really looking forward to those apps. Now, how did I start this post? Oh, right: vines and ships. I’m happy to be returning the wheel of this ship back to it’s captain. It was a good experience, but I need more time and psychological space for focusing on the next 5 weeks of this Blog Challenge. Having one less responsibility that isn’t related to my music career is certainly going to help me focus and more foward, so that I can find a pace that allows me to be more successful while also being able to enjoy the seasons again. During the first 4 weeks of this program I have accomplished more than I have in the past year, so I am grateful to Ariel and her team for that. On a side note, Oskar lost his cell phone (it was stolen in Europe). My eye caught sight of my old one and so I thought I’d clear off it’s memory and give it to him. In the process I found these old text messages I had saved because they make me laugh and since I’m giddy with sleep deprivation, I thought I’d leave you this week with them: “My sister is the best sister in the world. I wouldn’t trade her in for anything. Well maybe for super powers, but not for most things” 6:09am Fri Feb 20 2010 My brother bear, Evan “Oh man. I thought I let the words out of my head, but I didn’t”. Quoted and sent from one of my very best friends, Gina. Apparently I said this in my sleep when I crashed at her place during the second leg of Dara’s Wedding Tour. Next Week/Challenge: Blogging Last Week/Challenge: Optimizing Your Website Share