Posted on - March 20, 2007 [at] 9:39 pm by Brad
Tagged in -
Not into albums?
Email Signup
Get the latest Brad Sucks updates:
Blog
Jason from Insomnia Radio sent me word of an interesting service they’re partnering with called Magnet Media. Something I’ve been wondering about for a while now is how an independent artist (or band) is supposed to keep up with all the online services that allegedly promote a band.
For $50 a month Magnet Media hooks you up with a “Personal Promoter” who according to the promotional services list does the following:
They’ll manage your email lists, post to blogs and music sites, send out MySpace â„¢ bulletins, and communicate with you directly to find out where you’re playing next. In addition they will:
Add to Garageband.com
Add to Zuzula.com
Add to Podsafe Music Network
Add to Purevolume
Add to music.download.com
Add to Podsafe Audio Network
Add to Sonicbids EPK (pending artist approval)
Add to Last.FM (under artist name AND Magnet Media group)
Add to SonicGarden
Add to YouTube (music videos)
Add to Google Video (music videos)
Add to iSound.com
Add to Muze
Add to SnoCap-sell music directly from Myspace
Submission to select Live 365 DJ’s
Registration for ”Global Battle of the Bands” (artist approval)
NACA (National Assoc. of Campus Activities) Entry for Conventions/Showcases (artist approval)
Add discography to www.discogs.com
Add band wikipedia entry
Add information to www.musicbrainz.org which Last.FM pulls data from.
Submission to Association of Music Podcasting (over 85 music podcasters)
And more…
It’s an interesting service idea, though many of the services listed I’ve never heard of or consider to be fairly worthless from a promotion aspect. I’m also not sure why you would pay $50 a month for this as about 98% of the items on that list are one-time submission services.
They also offer an artist website (domain name included) and fan email lists. Who owns the domain? Is hosting included? If you quit Magnet Media do you keep all your accounts and email lists?
They also list press releases. Are those free? They list “distribution opportunities” but don’t say if they’re included or you have to pay extra. “Opportunities” sure sound extra to me.
I think there’s a fair amount of money out there for this kind of service, much like what’s going with the smaller advertising services like FM Publishing and The Deck.
Lately I’m into the idea that record labels should be services that musicians subscribe to. But I’d have to feel they actually know what they’re doing for me to invest in them and put myself and my email lists into their potentially inept and/or evil hands. Uploading my bio and video places is convenient but not really worth paying for (disclosure: I’m cheap.)
Comments are closed on this post.
6 Comments on this post
scottandrew on Magnet Media
March 20, 2007 at 10:41 pm
While I’m not sure it’s worth $50/month, I think it’s a great idea overall.
Last fall I was talking to an artist management type person, and she told me there was a real need for services that took care of all the online presence stuff (much of what you listed above), especially for older artists who aren’t used to spending so much time in front of a screen.
Jason @ IR on Magnet Media
March 21, 2007 at 12:25 am
Hi Brad!
Thanks for blogging about this – Just like everyone else out there we keep up to date with what’s going on through the Google alerts. When this one popped up I decided it would be a good idea to post a comment as a sort of a follow up to the questions you raised. Bear with me if it gets lengthy!
The secret is not in the services listed. These are what we believe to be the basics every artist trying to promote themselves on the Internet should have. If not, we’d definitely keep them more of a secret :-)
you’re correct that the service wouldn’t be worth $50 a month if that was what Magnet Media was about.
Perhaps we’re spinning it the wrong way?
What we decided to do was create a service that functioned more like AAA’s auto club. We provide a personal promoter who’s job is to get to know the artist and act as part consultant, part guide to promoting online. (Much more than just a work horse, etc…)
As we’re able to negotiate opportunities with sites, services, partners etc. we offer those as choices for the artists via their personal promoter.
If they feel its a good fit, then the promoter will act on it for them. If not, then they at least have someone to bounce off ideas, pros and cons with.
Promotion is time consuming and costs alot more than the money spent on service fees or registration. It makes it hard to focus on things like making music or gearing up for venues.
This is where additional help via the personal promoter comes in by managing email lists, communicating with fans, etc. If that is an area you feel its important for you to stay in control…no problem. You’ll be able to share that with your promoter. It’s about building a relationship and having the benefit of a larger organization looking out for you. And thinking outside the box, even though that’s turned into a huge cliche.
To answer your questions directly…you keep all the ownership. These are your fans, not ours.
We’re here to provide you choices, help you figure it out and get you as much exposure as possible. But we don’t choose for you. Some opportunities may cost a few extra bucks, others won’t. We will try to negotiate a better deal for you, just because of the size of our network.
If I can help clear anything else up, just email me directly, I’d be happy to help. Keep writing those sweet tunes!
Brad on Magnet Media
March 21, 2007 at 8:12 am
Interesting, thanks for the reply, Jason.
Scott: there definitely is. And there’s a fair amount of offline stuff that could be useful as well. There’s a lot of bio writing, form-filling, media-mailing stuff to do.
Mo® on Magnet Media
March 21, 2007 at 11:08 am
Authors who self-publish and somehow find their books popular sort of have this same problem: They spend all their times fulfilling orders and trying to promote instead of, well, writing.
The huge number of services for just a stupid blog are overwhelming (digg, del.icio.whatever, Bloglines, feedburner, etc…) I can’t imagine trying to promote a band.
As far as all this, it kind of sounds like you’re hiring pseudo-manager for Internet promotions (cyber-manager, perhaps?). Not a bad idea, they just need to make sure it doesn’t sound like those spam emails from years ago “SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO 10,000 SEARCH ENGINES”
Jason @ IR on Magnet Media
March 21, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Too true Mo – if you’re out there pimping yourself, you’re not doing what CAUSED you to start pimping yourself in the 1st place :-)
We’re going to start a blog on our Magnet site, I encourage anyone that has questions to shoot us an email and we’ll address it there. (info@magnetmedia.net)
Brad, thanks again for kick-starting these questions…
Will Kriski on Magnet Media
August 28, 2007 at 9:57 am
Thanks for this post Brad. As much as possible we should be marketing ourselves guerrilla-style, but I think it makes sense to hire someone to help with that side of things. I’m thinking of that myself, now that I’m so busy writing music and lessons. I’ve thought about what a label does for artists, and now that we have easy digital distribution and recording, the main useful service they provide is marketing.