We’ve talked about the importance of using social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, but without a reliable website, which is where your career magic begins, successful exposure may be dealt the back space card should a fan have to wait for slow page loading, or reach an error message when landing at your site.

We’ve experienced firsthand unreliable web hosting – from our artists websites being down for days at a time and being unable to access their site, to not reaching our hosting providers for explanation and resolutions. After much research and through our own valuable experience, we have taken the appropriate measures to insure our current web hosting service provides a strong Network Uptime Guarantee.

We offer a solution for all our artists that uses Rackspace technology, for the best hosting in the world. Absolute reliability, redundant server backups, fanatical 24/7 support, and a leader in the global community, Rackspace technology’s “Company” is socially aware and offers “A Greener Way of Doing Business”. From cost-effective green servers to company-wide conservation programs, they are dedicated to doing business in an eco-friendly way.

Pro Soul is constantly aware of the things that artists need to take care of. The last thing an artist needs to worry about is their hosted web site, the hub of their music career.

We recently blogged about the importance of Twitter for artists, and connecting Twitter to your other social networking profiles. But if you don’t use Twitter effectively, it doesnt do much good…

In addition to tweeting at least a couple times a day, we wanted to share our top pick for the most important feature to be using on Twitter: @replies or ‘mentions’ as they are now called.

Using @replies is simple: always @ People you like!
This is a public message that everyone in your network, or who search Twitter, will see.
To comment back at things you would like to react to or to connect directly with someone just tweet: @ and then their username. So if you want to say something directly to prosoul (our Twitter ID) type @prosoul – this will turn up in the @ Mentions in our Twitter dashboard and we will see your comment, and here is the key, so will everyone in your network!

Here is some detail on how @replies/mentions work:
http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/how-replies-work-on-twitter-and-how.html

Create relevant and interesting tweets, and people will reply, thereby creating curiosity about your original message, and revealing your Twitter ID to their whole network, which is great exposure, especially when some of your followers have thousands of followers!

Many of our artists have had great success using @ replies/mentions, getting a few thousand people listening to their music within a few days of Tweeting!

We also highly recommend sending an @reply to all the cool people that follow you after you follow them back to show your appreciation, but NOT to those MLM and Internet marketing people! (direct messaging is not the best way to do this as too many people using automated direct messages now)

Use Twitter incorrectly and your announcing ‘I’m a clueless rookie’ to the world! Contact us if you want assistance using Twitter to promote your music more effectively.

We talked about posting your Twitter feeds to Facebook, which can also be done for many other music social networking sites now, such as reverbnation.

We encourage most artists to have a blog for reasons best described in Andrew Dubbers post about it. So how can you get people to read your blog? Import the blog RSS ‘feed’ to other popular sites such as facebook!

Without launching into geek overload, an RSS feed allows you to put something anywhere that supports RSS technology. Facebook supports RSS and so does Twitter, so that’s how you can text from your mobile phone, and have it update your facebook status. A feed is a special url or web address. Usually you can get it for your blog site by just adding /feed to the end of the address, for example: http://prosoul.com/feed/ gives you an RSS compatible version of this blog, kind of like the ‘print view’ button websites have for your printer.

To automatically publish your new blog posts to facebook:

- copy your blog RSS feed address as mentioned above.
- login to your Facebook account
- Go to bottom of page, Applications Menu and click on Notes icon, or click here:
www.facebook.com/notes.php
- Click On ‘Edit Import Settings’ on the Right of Notes page
- Paste in your blog feed here
- Have more than one facebook profile, or in a band? Use the most popular, most active one

Now when you post a blog, Facebook will create a new note, and publish a news item about it on your profile and in your friends news feeds. If your blog settings are set to partial feed, readers will have to go to your website to read the full post which is a good thing, because then maybe they’ll listen to your music, subscribe to your mailing list, or who knows, maybe even buy something, and that is ultimately what you want with social networking – to drive people back to your professional ‘www,yourname.com’ website (Hint: a myspace.com page doesn’t count and screams ‘rookie’!!).

This kind of feed publishing can be done in many other social networking sites such as myspace as well. Check out the settings and applications supporting RSS feeds for them to find out more, or get assistance from Pro Soul Alliance.

There’s no mistaking now that micro blogging app Twitter is here to stay, and is an essential social networking tool, not only for musicians but for all business.

How artists can effectively utilize it is another matter, and although that is covered by many great blogs, we wanted to go over some of the most important steps in connecting it with popular social networking sites like Facebook. This allows tweets to also update your facebook status, a great way to keep in touch with people on Facebook even when you don’t have time to login there and accidentally kill an hour or two. This is important because putting yourself and what your doing in front of as many people as possible can help connect you with potential new fans, and when your Facebook status is updated, it appears in your friends news feed, getting you much needed attention.

Although it’s always changing, at the moment,
Here’s how to make sure tweets end up on facebook:

- Add the Twitter application on Facebook, bottom Left of the page, ‘Find More’, search for ‘Twitter’, then click ‘Go To Application’ adding to your profile, allowing it to access your info.
- After logging into Twitter, Click “Allow Twitter to update Facebook Status”, or:
- Go to bottom left applications, then top right> Edit
- Click Edit Settings on the Twitter application
- Make sure under Additional Permissions ‘update status’ is checked
- Have more than one facebook profile, or in a band? Use the most popular, most active one

NOTE: This will not post your @Replies from Twitter, desirably so!

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Here’s how to add your contacts to Twitter from your webmail:

-Click ‘Find on other networks’ on Twitter.com:

http://twitter.com/invitations/find_on_other_networks

- Click on your webmail icon on the left and enter login name and password (don’t be paranoid about entering your pass…)
- Select the people you want to follow (people with no icon are often not actually active on Twitter)
- you can also do this if you use other email programs, but it is a bit more work to import contacts.

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Here’s how to use your mobile phone to update Twitter remotely:

- Go to settings>Devices after logging into Twitter.com: http://twitter.com/devices
- Enter in your phone number and follow instructions to verify your phone.
- Bookmark the 5 digit number for your country/region into text messaging on your mobile, and send tweets to this number when you want to update.
Now what excuse do you have for not making updates at least twice a day? Mmmm, Technology!

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Here’s how to add your contacts to Facebook from your webmail:

- Go to top middle Friends link and select ‘Find Friends’
- enter your full email address and password (don’t be paranoid about entering your pass…)
- click Find Friends and choose the ones you want to connect with on Facebook.
- Do this for ALL facebook accounts you or band members have!
- Make sure to import all your webmail accounts if you or your band members have more than one!

We recommend doing this every month or so as new people you may know are constantly joining these networks!

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Use Twitter incorrectly and you can cause more harm that good to your music career. Get assistance from Pro Soul to avoid embarrasing mistakes and to maximize the neworking potential of these resources!

TIP: If you really want to do twitter properly, use the computer application Tweetdeck, and create a group with all the people you don’t want to miss updates from. This is especially essential when you start getting a few hundred or more followers

Next: How to automatically post your blog feeds to Facebook and other social neworking sites

Connecting with Your Fans- The Trent Reznor Case Study

Michael Masnick talked at MIDEM about Trent Reznor and his business ideas, saying that Reznor and Nine Inch Nails represent the future of the Music Business. Apparently Reznor has found the “secret” of a successful Business Model.  It all starts with CwF, which stands for Connect with Fans. Once you have connected with these fans you create what is called the RtB, which stands for Reason to Buy. Thus, these two things together and you have the business model. Which seems simple, however it has been amazingly difficult for other mainstream artists to do what Reznor has done.  Reznor was even using this Business Model when he was signed with a Major Record Label.

In 2007, Just before Trent Reznor released his album Year Zero. Before the album was launched, Reznor set up a scavenger hunt, which started with the back of a t-shirt from the concert tour that started in 2007. On the back of this t-shirt some of the letters in some of the cities were highlighted. They spelled “I am Trying to Believe”. Some people managed to put it together and added .com to the end.  This then got these people sucked into an alternative reality game. Which was intensely fun. This was a new way to connect with the fans beyond the music. It create interest in the fans and new listeners, however it upset his record label. Another thing Reznor did to upset his record label is he would take USB drives, upload his unheard new music onto them and ‘accidentally’ leave them in the bathrooms of various concert locations he was playing at. This again excited fans! However, RIAA enforced laws and demanded Reznor stop distributing these songs. So basically what Reznor did, was continually give people a reason to connect with him which led to new fans and music sales. Even when it came to the release of the album, Reznor made it so that when the disk player heated up the CD, the CD itself changed colors. A reason to buy their CD when downloading was rampant. Innovation, creativity, experimentation.

Once Reznor was no longer signed with the Major Record Label, he went out on his own. This wasn’t a problem, because he had a business model. He gave fans options, and reasons to support him.

The price of an album is definitely not the issue. Fans will still be willing to buy, but an artist definitely has to earn it. As long as you can connect with fans, they have a reason to buy and there is money to be made in this industry!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njuo1puB1lg

Google China has finally decided to make some noise (translated story) about their free MP3 search service.
They’ve been giving away mp3 downloads paid for legitimately by advertising.

When this went into beta almost a year ago Ed Peto predicted that it would be game-changing news, but somehow it has remained under the radar. At their press conference last week, however, Google China announced that all four major labels are on board, as well as all the major publishers and some 140+ indie labels, through their partner in the project, Top100. This amounts to some 1.1 million songs being given away for free.

Check out more translated details and links on Ed Peto’s music industry in China blog:

http://outdustry.com/2009/03/30/google-china-mp3-search-finally/