Most effective social net. site for writers?

[Penz2nz]

I was going through my various sites keeping things current and got to wondering which one is the most effective for us songwriters.

I began my "social networking" at the urging of my friend John Lott who convinced me to put up a MySpace music page in April of "08" and I was rewarded with a call from Jerry Corbitt a few weeks later asking for the OK to cut one of my songs. That was an obvious fluke of timing.

Since then I have set up a SoundClick page (unlimited free song uploads) used as an extra layer of copyright protection. I have also added a ReverbNation, FaceBook, and Twitter page, but I wonder at times if all the time spent keeping things current is worth the time spent away from writing and recording.

Your thoughts and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Wayne R

[mojobone]

Well, the most effective social networking site for song/music writers is the Taxi forum. Of the ones you didn't mention, I'd say ReverbNation is among the most useful; once you have your ducks in a row, LinkedIn is useful, too. Facebook and twitter are also worth your time. There are others, but those'll do for a start.

[Kolstad]

Effective for what? Allthough it's kinda buggy, I know MySpace is still a staple in the business, and I've connected with many great people through that. For me MySpace works like a good accessible directory.

These forums are also great, but frankly most social networking sites are at best connecting you with cowriters and fellow musicians, not publishers, artists or people in the industry.

So, it depends on what your expectations are, and how you make use of those sites.

I don't think you should trade creative time to indulge in social networking sites, unless you do it for a purpose.

[shellsings]

Has anyone tried Music Xray or Hello Music? These sites claim similar services to TAXI, don't know how reliable they are. I am on Ilike.com which allows you to put up a site and it updates to Facebook (creating a music tab on your page) and uploads updates to Myspace, Twitter and youtube if you set it up that way. Not all features are updated on all of those sites, but it is one site that will update others so you are not bouncing around to sites. I still do it though

[Hookjaw Brown]

When I signed up for BMI I was given a one year membership with SonicBids. They have a whole slew of submission topics, from gigs like coffee shops and festivals to NACA plus TV,movie and labels and radio stations.

They make submissions a little easier by using an Electronic Press Kit that you fill out and can modify a little for each submission. You can also e-mail the EPK to club owners directly.

Songs that I can't find a request for on Taxi, I sometimes can find on SonicBids...and visa versa. Cost is about the same. SonicBids does not use screeners and will not do a custom critique, so Taxi gets that type of submission. I actually had a song critiqued on Taxi and then rewritten and placed with a library on Sonicbids......go figure.

I like Reverbnation mainly for its gig finder. I check out where other groups that are similar to ours are playing, within a certain radius (100 miles) and hit all the same clubs. Makes it easier to find venues. Reverbnation also makes you play the internet game better by encouraging you to make all the links, gather fans, and tend to them.

Myspace is cool because of its stats and notifications of gigs and new music.

Jango Radio is something I have just started to try. One song, one month, 1250 plays ($30). Awesome stats, fans by state, country, world. Sonicbids members get 20% discount.

CDBaby are just plain nice folks, very helpful with getting the CD packaging together and your music out there for sale on all the online stores. They do all the WAV to whatever conversions.

There are a bunch more out there, but they have not been helpful to me. I will have to submit to iLike since it is a Google thing.

[Kolstad]

Hook, what's the verdict on Jango Radio?

[Hookjaw Brown]

Hmmm....Jango Radio. I got 11 weeks of free spins from being in the top 2% of the 50,000 songwriters using their service , worked up to around 700 "fans", but got no opens on e-mails that I sent as follow up that offered a free download of the song that the "fan" liked. I used it for year and had 27,000 spins on various songs and it was a very good test bed for new songs as to genre, age, "likeability" etc., but useless for building a fan base.

I just cancelled my monthly account with them, I am rebuilding my studio and am not producing anything till it is finished, so one less expense. I will use Jango again in the future as a site to test new songs, but for now I am in that terriblel place of spend and download and sync and, and, and without any production.

[T&V Marino]

Hi Wayne,

We go to a lot of music conferences and the one thing we've heard -- unanimously -- over and over from the top Music Supervisors on the panels is "We hate MySpace. We love YouTube." They claim they find a lot of indie artists on YouTube.

In addition, they also mention Twitter, LinkedIn, and the hands-down most preferred, Facebook. A friend of ours recently got a really cool placement on "CSI:Miami" because of following a big-time Music Supervisor on Twitter.

Just sayin'...

~ Tracey & Vance Marino

[mazz]

I think the place to be is where the people you want to meet are. How many music supervisors or producers frequent SoundClick vs FaceBook or Twitter? I think you know the answer. Sites like SoundClick are OK for providing links to someone to hear your music, but I suggest you listen to folks like Tracey and Vance who are up to the second on this kind of stuff and use the social networks that are where the action is today!!

And link all your accounts together so if you update one, the others are updated. You can do that with SoundCloud and Reverbnation, not sure if SoundClick has that capability.

Don't go to the bar down the street, go to where the party is!