SONG CONTEST BLOG

Just joined BandCentral, a fan and task management service specifically developed for musicians and industry professionals.  It’s strikingly similar to Bandize, and playing in the same ball park as RockDex and ArtistForce.  The Band Status Updates, a one-click message syndication feature which posts to the band’s Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter profiles simultaneously, appears to be a lite variation of what ArtistData currently offers, along with a number of other dotcoms that aim to ease the pain of managing data across a number of social networks at once (I use Ping.fm to syndicate this blog).  The idea is simple: an affordable client relationship management solution for the music industry or, more simply put, a service for bands who manage their own fans.  How’s that for a strapline?  There’s also a number of key admin features for internal band use.  Watch the video:

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Bandize
ArtistForce
RockDex

ReverbNation, the leading provider of dedicated music commerce and communication tools, have added a simple yet crucial feature to their roster.  The new optional ‘Auto-Tweet’ feature automatically updates ReverbNation members’ Twitter accounts whenever they post a new song (with a link to play the song), post a blog entry (with a link to the blog), recommend another artist (with a link to the artist’s profile page), and/or add a show to their schedule (with a link to their schedule and tickets).  Given ReverbNation’s strong emphasis on fan relationship management, I think ‘Auto-Tweet’ will be very well received by their userbase of more than 375,000 members.  It may also pose a threat to ArtistData who developed an entire suite of tools around the auto-syndication theme.  Given the popularity of services such as Ping.fm, I expect ReverbNation to extend this offering by allowing its users to synchronize and distribute updates to several social networks and bookmarking portals automatically, not just Twitter.

Related Post: Pixelpipe

ReverbNation, the prominent music marketing and promotion resource for over 375,000 artists, labels, managers, and venues, has launched FanReach Pro, a premium version of its successful FanReach email service used by more than 80,000 of its members to manage and communicate with their fanbase.  FanReach Pro boasts a number of distinct upgrades, including ‘One-Click Content’ which pulls the artist’s profile content (i.e. music, videos, gigs, press, links etc.) into any outbound message in a single click, saving much time and effort in the swift deployment of newsletters and promotional emails.  In addition, FanReach Pro includes ‘Fan360’, a semantic search feature that feeds back public data from the web about the individual mailing list subscribers.  This is especially useful when it comes to composing a compelling and targeted message, and provides a means to segment the mailing list based on subscriber characteristics (e.g. location, gender, age, and online presence).  To my knowledge, ‘Fan360′ will be the first real-time subscriber metrics feature incorprated into a web-based email client, perhaps making FanReach Pro the most powerful email/newsletter marketing tool on the market.
 
FanReach Pro is available for a 30-day free trial, and starting from $9.95 per month, which is significantly cheaper than its rivals and, in terms of its feature set, presents some serious competition for FanBridge.

I encourage artists to take their career into their own hands, self-manage and self-promote.  I believe that this is a prerequisite in today’s music industry and taking greater control of your assets will ultimately yield greater results than relying solely on third parties.

Needless to say, I’m not the only one who thinks this way.  Technology has created a gateway to music fans and the entrance through it is cheaper and more accessible than ever before.  As such, there are services available, free and not-so-free, catering to every imaginable aspect of a musician’s career, founded upon the DIY paradigm.  From music-friendly analytics and publishing tools to online collaboration and direct-to-fan distribution solutions, there are countless specialized offerings out there gaming for a stake of the massive independent artist market.

Now, a new service has emerged with the aim to assist artists in personal organization and management.  A one-stop-shop for accounting, task management, scheduling, and almost every other administrative task associated with the music industry, Bandize hopes to help artists clean up their act.

Currently a by-invitation-only service, the company may be over reaching by expecting artists ? essentially a community suffering from attention deficit disorder ? to take to a CRM solution.  Most artists are not facing complex cash flows and a diverse and demanding clientbase to truly take advantage of Bandize’s full suite of organizational features, including “Asset Management” which is bordering on ludicrous.  Those that are can probably justify hiring an intern, assistant, accountant, or personal manager as a business expense, by my estimation.  I did, however, enjoy learning about the company’s one-click data syndication, a simple yet powerful feature which enables users to post just once for all of their online properties.  That makes perfect sense.  It saves time and ensures that marketing messages and general communications remain consistent.

The site looks good and I completely support artists who wish to get organized and disciplined.  I just don’t believe that they will.  It’s like cleaning your room or taking out the trash.  There’s always something better to do.

Further to the Email & Newsletter Marketing Services post, I wanted to add another player in the game: FanBridge.  The service advertises an email and mobile fan list management bundle, something the competition I mentioned earlier does not.  It’s also exclusively tailored for musicians which is a plus.  Their free account is enticing with a 400 messages a month limit and the paid plans are certainly cheaper than their rivals’ at $12 for 10,000 messages a month, with a significant discount to larger plan commitments.  One of FanBridge’s unique selling points is the free branded browser toolbar which allows artists to syndicate their news and content to their fanbase, drive traffic, and communicate directly without the need for an email or mobile client.  Conduit is a pioneer of this technology if you’d like to learn more.

Learn more about email marketing.