Noah Dinkin, co-Founder of FanBridge, one of the foremost fan relationship management platforms out there and one that’s free for most artists, is back with more wisdom. FanBridge manages tens of millions of fans for artists worldwide, so they’re able to see what works, what doesn’t, and here to share more tips with the Sonicbids community.

1. Make your emails relevant to your audience

When you collect fan information online or at a show, be sure to find out where your fans are based. If the info is from a show, you can pretty much assume the fan lives nearby. If they signup online, then include a place where they can enter their city/state or zip code. Once you have this information, sort your fan list into group, so you only message people about shows and news that is relevant to them. For example, put people who signup at your show in Buffalo in a group called “Buffalo.” Put people who signup at your show in Boston in a group called “Boston.” Then, when you announce new shows, you can message the groups in those areas. This is key because fans don’t really care if you are playing Phoenix and they live in Boston. After a few times of emailing them about every possible show (most of which won’t be near them), they won’t pay as much attention to your emails. (more…)

As an independent musician there is a lot for you to figure out on your own. Where do you start? Breaking it down into 3 major categories to focus on is a start. First you need to Produce your Music, second you need to Sell your Music and third you need to Support your Music. These are the 3 categories that MusicNomad uses to organize thousands or resources to help independent musicians.

In the first major category (Produce Your Music) MusicNomad helps you explore key resources you need in categories such as finding Gear, Rehearsal Studios, Recording Studios, Record Labels, and Getting a Website and Social Network.

In the second major category (Sell Your Music) MusicNomad breaks it into 10 sub categories to help you make money in areas such as Selling your Music Online, Selling your Music in Retail Stores, Touring, Licensing your Music, and Selling your Band Merch.

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This article was written by Ira Greenfield at the USA Songwriting Competition, currently in its 14th year.

Many songwriters have asked me what makes a winning song. As VP of development of USA Songwriting Competition for the past 14 years, I have heard winning songs years through the years, and I think a winning song should be creative in both music composition as well as the lyric composition. A good example is the top winning song of 2008 competition “Home” written by Jordan Zevon, Jordan Summers and Morty Coyle. Musically, it displays surprises in Chord changes and the lyrics about coming home are not the clichés of what you hear on radio. It didn’t hurt the song that chorus was catchy.

Another example is the winning song of the country category in 2007 “I Can Live Without You,” written by Mary Danna and Troy Verges. One would think the song is about someone who doesn’t want to live with another. However, there is a twist at the end of the sentence in the chorus “But I just don’t want to.” They have taken a love and heartache song and given a “surprising twist” in the end. Also, the bridge was short, surprising and also emotionally high (with the melody hitting a high note at the end) and yet sad. That song still remains a favorite at the USA Songwriting Competition. (more…)

We caught up with Noah Dinkin, co-Founder of FanBridge, one of the foremost fan relationship management platforms out there and one that’s free for most artists.  FanBridge manages tens of millions of fans for artists worldwide, so they’re able to see what works, what doesn’t, and were willing to share some tips with the Sonicbids community.  Following are four valuable tips from Noah, who’ll be posting a few more articles in weeks to come to expand on what’s below.

#1. Own YOUR List!
I can’t say this enough to musicians. Having MySpace or Facebook friends is not a real fan list. Same with Twitter. They are all great services and each has a different purpose, but how much of the actual real info do you have of your ‘fans/friends/followers’ on those places? Can you easily view a list of everyone’s real name, email address, location, phone number, etc? The answer is no, yet many musicians forget this because the service is the hot internet site of the moment and everyone says “oh, you need to be on [insert site here].”

You should have a presence on these social networks (more on that in a later post), but you need to use these services to feed people to YOUR fan list. Fan Relationship Management services like FanBridge give clients html code that let them put a signup form on their MySpace, Facebook, website, etc, so their fans can sign up direct to the band’s own list.

Once you have built your own list, you can do amazing things with it that you couldn’t do otherwise…things like: (more…)

In case you are looking at the gig listing pages and not sure what to do. This is a handy little tour that should give you a much clearer idea about what your are submitting too, and making use of all the research tools provided.  Enjoy the soothing sounds of Lou’s Voice.

Also note the incredibly funky background music by the Chicago based Spare Parts with their song “Disco”. Which you can check out here : http://www.sonicbids.com/SpareParts

This tour will give you a rundown of how the EPK Inbox functions when reviewing submissions. If you have a promoter account this should give you the know how of all the features we include that are at your disposal for reviewing submissions.

Also note the incredibly funky background music by the Chicago based Spare Parts with their song “The Junction”. Which you can check out here : http://www.sonicbids.com/SpareParts