Today we start a conversation about what to look for when you see a site that wants you to list your music at their site.

This show orgingates from www.musicianscooler.com

Tales From the Road - Stage Thud

Special tales from the road courtesy of Big Al and Mike at www.projectstudionetwork.com

Strategies for Listing Your Band  at Music Sites

There are so many sites that want you to list your music. They will give you music players, email, etc to just list your music on their site (and of course you'll get "dsicovered"). Well here are some things to look into.

1. Are the "bonus" features a true bonus?

At www.gigleader.com they say you can use their classified website (www.bandmix.com which you can use for free), or their other service that helps you build your site (for $20 a month) which is completely over priced (check out www.marketingmusician.com for a site that shows you how to build your own site).

2. Who is it your dealing with?

At bandstock.com there  no "About Us,"  or contact information, and everything you do you needed to enter your e-mail address first.  Also if there is a forum, go check it out. Often disgruntled customers will go in and launch flaming posts warning potential customers not to join (and if this site leaves them there, you know they are not manning their forums). IF there is contact information, contact them and see what kind of response you get.

3. Get a Spam Email Address

I talk about this in my book, but you should have an email that you put on your business cards (that typically ends in your band's websites).  Then you can get a free email from places like gmail, yahoo, or hotmail (I liek gmail).  This should be your band's name "@ blah blah blah" so if your band was the free toys you should get freetoys@gmail.com. Use this email for any website that you feel may potentially spam you. You still need to check this email (as you may occasionally get a gig from a stie).  Only give out the email from your website to a person. This way if something comes into that email you know its from someone you have personally met.

4. Can You Link Back To Your Website?

Look at the other band's pages and see if you can link back to your band's website.

5. Does the Technology Work?

Click on one of their players and make sure that the technology they are promoting actually works.

6. Can I export the email list?

Some websites will allow you to use a tool to build a mailing list . This is ok (I guess), but as your list is your most important tool, I would make sure you can export these contacts into your mater list (which should be hosted at your site).

7. Are there tons of Google Ads?

Many times these sites are not about discovering your music. Its about you getting your fans to come to the website so they website can earn cash on their advertising.

Music Promotion Websites

Our Stage
A few websites I have heard good things about is Our Stage which is a promotional site and a contest at the same time (and you will see where they have contact information at the bottom of the page). 

Song Cataglog

http://www.songcatalog.com/ is a place where you can list your music if it inTV shows, Movies, etc.