A 101 on How Guitarists Can Create a Strong Presence on Facebook

As a guitarist, Facebook remains one of the best social media platforms for the purpose of connecting, networking, engaging and interacting with your fans. You can communicate with your fans directly, send out updates (text-based updates or photos and videos), and create events to let people know about any upcoming performances or gigs.

As a guitarist, your Facebook page provides your fans a snapshot of everything they might need to know about you, and of course, it also gives them a chance to interact with other fans.

It is therefore essential for you, as a guitarist and musician, to have a presence on what is one of the largest communities in the world (1 billion large!).  

Earlier this year, Facebook (forcefully) switched all fan pages to the Timeline format. The timeline does away with many of the old features of Facebook pages (such as custom landing pages) and bring a host of new features to the table (like adding awesome cover photos and the ability to add something at any point in your timeline). Contrary to popular belief, it is still very simple and very effective to market yourself on Facebook. Here’s why every guitarists and musician out there should be on Facebook page, and how to go about creating a strong presence for yourself on Facebook in an effective manner.

Advantages of a Facebook Page Over a Personal Profile

Before we dive in, it is important to know why it’s necessary to have a separate Facebook page for your fans and for the purpose of promoting your music. For starters, it keeps your personal information safe and secure by giving you a Facebook profile that is separate from your personal one. You might not want everyone to have access to your personal photos, info and updates (and other stuff that was probably meant only for family and friends), however with a separate Facebook page, you’re able to control what goes on it, and hence keep it exclusively for updates on your career as a musician.

Secondly, Facebook profiles have a limit of 5000 friends. With a page however, you can have an unlimited number of fans, millions even.

A Facebook page also allows people who might to be your fans, or those who are not even on Facebook, to see your updates and your content. Anyone with an internet connection will be able to follow you on Facebook. The good thing about Facebook pages is that they usually tend to show up on the first page of Google results as well, so if for instance someone looks you up on Google, it is likely that your Facebook pages shows up in the results.

A Facebook page can be personalized with an easy-to-remember URL. After you reach a certain number of fans on your page (25 fans, to be precise), you can get a Facebook.com/YourBandName URL. These make it easy for people to remember your Facebook ID, and be able to access it easily as well. It also means that your Facebook page can function as a website/blog of sorts as well.

Facebook pages come equipped with analytics and insights – information which is probably invaluable to a marketer. It provides you with all information regarding your page, including the number of people talking about you, and the people that you were able to engage. You can look upon the demographics of your page’s traffic.

And finally, you can run an ad campaign on Facebook, for your page, in order to get more fans and followers for it. The purpose of these ads is exposure, and you have more people hear about your music and like your page. When someone likes your page, your content, updates, photos, videos and basically anything that your share will show up on their timelines. Facebook ads are pretty cheap, and quite effective as well.

Creating a Facebook Page

Creating a Facebook page is a 4-step process, and as simple as signing. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to go about creating a Facebook page:

1. Go to Facebook’s ‘Create a Page’ page to get started.

2. Select ‘Artist, Band or Public Figure’.

3. Choose any one of the following options listed under Category: Artist, Entertainer, or Musician/Band. I’d recommend the latter.

4. Enter your name (or your band’s name), click ‘Get Started’ and voila, you’re now the proud owner of your very own Facebook page!

Setting Up a Facebook Page

Once you’re in, begin by setting up  your Facebook page and many of its different elements.

1. Start off by filling out all the relevant information about you or your band. This includes any and all basic information such as about you/the band, link to your website, and the like. The About You section is limited to 150 characters, so be as precise as possible.

2. Put up a cover photo. The cover photo is one of the best aspects about the new-look Facebook pages. Its an 851x315 px place on top of your Facebook page that can be used to personalize it. It is the first thing that people see when they land on your page, similar to a banner on a website. Think of it as a gigantic billboard for your Facebook page. Put up an eye-catching photo here, something from one of your performances, a memorable shot of you performing on stage, or a hi-res version of your band’s latest album cover.

3. Put up a profile pic. This is a 180x180 px space, usually used to put up something like a band logo (or your own, for that matter), or even a mug-shot. This photo appears in the left-side of the page, directly beneath (and slightly overlapping) your cover page.

4. Start adding stud to your timeline – you can add stuff virtually anywhere on your timeline, so begin by putting up a ‘founded on’ update, complete with pictures and images, along with all your album releases and their covers as well as performances, shows, gigs, jams and other milestones. Milestone are major events from the past, like when you got featured on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, or when you signed with your first label. Milestones can be accompanied with 843x403 images.

5. You can add up to a grand total of 12 Apps for Pages as well, straight from the Facebook App Center. Apps are organized by categories, and I suggest you head straight to the Music category in order to find apps relevant to your page. CDBaby’s MusicStore app, for instance, lets you sell your music on your Facebook page. It adds a music player and a store on your page, and your store’s look can be completely customized. You can add 4 apps to your homepage, while the other ones can be accessed through a drop-down menu.

6. Also add any upcoming events to your page, especially gigs, performances or any live appearances that you might be doing (a radio talk-show, for instance). Use the events app to create an event, and share it with your followers. Make sure that the events app is in the top-4 apps/tabs on your page (along with the MusicStore app); this increases their visibility and allows for easy access.

7. Promote: One of the final steps in creating and setting up your Facebook page is to promote it. Get as many people as possible to like it – friends and family initially for instance. Ask for endorsements from your peers and other musicians, have other spread the word. Put the personalized Facebook page URL everywhere – on all your merch your album covers and CDs, posters, tees, caps, your website (add a Facebook social box to your website too!), and on all your social media profiles (ask your Twitter followers to like your page).

8. Remember that creating your Facebook page was the easy part. Keeping it updated is what really matters. Post updates regularly, at least one update-a-day, without spamming your fans. Post band-related updates, updates related to your music or stuff that you might be working on, a video of you jamming in your room, photos of project(s) that you might be working on, pics of a recording session, a video of a jam session with your bandmates... anything! Share tabs and notes on your page. Use your page to share personal photos of you and your family on a vacation, go on a political rant, and watch as those likes come flooding in!

A Checklist of Things to Do Before and After Every Live Performance

If you play live, or intend on doing so, it is important to plan how you’ll go about doing so. Apart from the most important thing – that is the performance itself – there are certain things which you need to do as a performing artist prior to the performance, as well as after it.

Before the Performance

1. Keep in touch with the venue – Make all arrangement and agreements with the venue well before the performance. Sit down with the venue management and sort everything out. Make sure that both parties are on the same page. Now would be a good time to iron out any major and minor details, like how you’ll be paid (by number of seats sold or at a fixed rate). Make sure that you maintain a written copy of all correspondence.

2. Promote relentlessly – Promote the performance as much as you can. The aim here is to draw a big crowd. Venue like when artists, performances or bands promote, but what they really love is when you draw a big crowd. Put an announcement up on your website and Facebook page. Ask bloggers to do a plug or two for you. Get other musicians in the industry to promote the gig. Get the word out as far and wide as you possibly can. Create a hype, a buzz around the event. Get people moving!

 3. Practice, a lot! – Pre-performance practice is important, for obvious reasons. Always do your homework beforehand – doing so (more on that in a bit) will pave the way for you to put in a flawless, nerves-free performance.

4. Do your homework – Who you’re playing with, what other bands are performing with you, what’s their history, what sort of music do they play, where are they from, how big are they? It is important to know about other bands on the night’s roster.

5. Look the part – Look the part by dressing appropriately. If you’re a rock guitarist, wear a black tee, blue jeans, a few wrist bands, accessorize a bit, and you should be good to go. Look at how some of the other musicians, especially some of the bigger names in your genre, and see how they dress for their performances.

6. Get to the performance well on-time – Don’t expect the venue to wait for you to arrive so that they can kick the show off. Be professional, and get to the venue on time. This gives you plenty of time to set yourself up, set your equipment up, and shows a serious and professional attitude on your part. It also allows you to acquaint yourself with the staff, especially the sound engineers at the venue. Speaking of which…

7. Acquaint yourself with the staff – One of the most important people on the night will be the sound engineer(s); trust me, the sound guy is who will ultimately make or break your performance. Make sure that you know everyone’s names, and get off on the right foot with these people. Not only does it leave a good impression, it also tells everyone that they’re all part of the band, which ensures that your performance goes smoothly.

8. Beat the pre-performance nerves – Being nervous before the performance is pretty natural. As an artist/musician, it is important to develop a routine or a mechanism that lets you overcome pre-performance nerves. Pep talks, meditation, a good warm-up, a beer or two… whatever it might be. For me, one of the best ways of delivering a flawless, confident performance is a good night’s sleep, and being well prepared.

9. Hydrate – Drink a lot of water before and during the performance. As you’ll find out once you’re on that stage, keeping yourself hydrated will be one of the most important things!

After the Performance

1. Thank your fans – Thank your fans for coming, right after you’re done with your performance. Thank the sponsors, the venue and the other bands while you’re on the stage. Saying a quick word of thanks can go a long way in building positive relationships with everyone who was involved.

2. Meet with your fans – They paid to see you play, and a lot of them probably travelled a lot in order to do so. Go into the crowd to meet your fans, and sign some autographs (they will absolutely love this!). You could even do a little contest where you invite a few fans to hang with you backstage, or go for a beer or two.

3. Give out some CDs – Keep a few CDs handy, and give a few out to some of your fans, the sound engineers, organizers, the doorman and maybe other people at the venue. Yes, you’d want people to buy your CDs but giving a few out won’t really make a big difference, plus it’s still publicity!

4. Meet people at the merch table – Hang around the merchandise table to meet your fans and get some photos taken. Your fans will love this, and love you even more for doing this! Ask them to pick up a tee, or a mug, and like you Facebook page as well. If you’re in a band, someone from the band should be around the merch table when your performance is over. Make sure that you represent, by wearing one of your own tees!

Starting Your Guitar Teaching Business from the Ground-Up

The idea of teaching the guitar seems to be catching on, as it’s started to become something that a lot of musicians seem to be taking up. And why not: it gives you a chance to practice and play regularly, promote music by teaching it, and of course, make some money while you’re at it.

While starting a music or a guitar-teaching business might seem easy, the fact is that it’s anything but! Whether you decide to take it up as a full-time gig, or something that supports your day job, here is how you can get a guitar-teaching business up and running from the ground-up successfully.

1. Commitment: A commitment to teach, and helping people learn is essential, because that is what you’ll be doing. You need to be at one with the idea that you’ll be a teacher, and be able to call yourself that.

2. Location: Where you decide to teach virtually determines everything that you do from this point on; make no mistake, this will be one of the most important decisions that you make. From your local school/college or community center, to studio apartments, to teaching in a space in your apartment, or giving lessons in your student’s homes – your call. There’s absolutely no harm in trying a combination of all of the above (also throw Skype lessons in the bag!) and ask your students what best fits their needs. For instance you could take an early morning class at the local college, and have a bunch of students come over to your apartment in the evening. Convert a room in your apartment into a studio so that there’s a professional-looking space there for your new business.

3. Key Questions: Identifying and assessing your aims and goals is an important step. Start off with asking yourself a few fundamental questions: what musical styles will you teach on the guitar? What will your selling point be? Who will you teach? What sort of students will you take up initially? How many students will you take up? How many hours will you put in (or be able to put in) initially? How much money do you plan on making? How will you market your business? Write these down (and any other important points that you can think of), and strategize how you’ll tackle each of these. (We’ll look at some of these points in detail in this write-up)

4. Target Market and Competition: As mentioned in the point above, it is vital to know who, and how big your market is – who exactly it is that you’ll be teaching? Are there a lot of schools and colleges in your vicinity, that offer music and guitar courses? Are there any guitar stores that might be looking for guitar teachers? Will someone in your town or city even be interested in guitar lessons? In addition, what does your competition look like? How are they advertising their business? How good is the competition doing, especially in terms of students and their marketing efforts? Do you think you’ll be able to bring in a decent number of students or teach a class that is large enough?

5. Fees: If you’ve been in the business for a while, you’ll probably have a fair bit of an idea on what sort of rates other teachers might be charging. Look at Craigslist to see what others are asking for. This will help you in determining what your rate should probably be as well. Important tip: Avoid overcharging (scare potential students away) or undercharging (underselling yourself) at all costs! Also come up with a payment (and a cancellation) policy at this point. When would students be required to pay you (monthly, weekly, etc.) and what exactly will the mode of payment be? Multiple modes of payment will be the most convenient.

6. Identity: Give your business a name, so that it has an identity that is separate from yours. Identify it has a proper, legal business by giving it a unique name, creating a logo for it (or have one created on Fiverr), determining contact information (call, email and address), and putting its location on Google Maps/Google Places.

7. Marketing and Publicity 1 – Offline: Use the likes of Fiverr or Elance to have designs for flyers and brochures developed. Once done, simply hit your local printing press to have them printed, and then be put up and distributed all across town. Make sure that this is professionally done, as your marketing will ultimately reflect upon your business. Ask people you know personally for endorsements and referrals.The aim is to get the word out.

8. Marketing and Publicity 2 – Online: A website, and a strong social media presence to back that up, is what you need for online marketing. Setting up a Facebook, Twitter, G+, Youtube and MySpace accounts will probably be as simple as going through the process of signing-up for each – make sure that you fill out all information and populate these pages properly. Also sign up for Google Places and have your new business listed on Places.

9. Website: A website will be essential to your business, no questions about it! You’ll need a website most certainly; however it is something that you might have problems setting up, especially if you haven’t done it before. Pay someone to create a professional-looking website for you – either a local company that provides such a service, or someone over Elance. Get a YourBusinessName.com domain for your website. Set up all the different sections of the website, including the Home Page, About, and Contact pages. Your charges, timings, where you teach, as well as an biography along with a professional-looking photo, all this information should be up on the website. You might want to consider outsourcing the maintenance of this website to the developers – especially SEO so that you can be found on Google.

10. Teaching: Meet up with students before you start teaching them. This is very important, as it allows you to know the specific requirements of each student, and what they might be looking to learn. It also helps build trust. If you’re having students come to you for lessons, have them sign a contract, which lists down all your policies in detail.

11. Organization: Once you start teaching – taking a class at the college or getting students to come to you – make sure that you keep note of all lessons and all financial aspects of your new business. There are plenty of PC/Mac and iPhone/tablet-based programs out there which let you maintain extensive schedules easily. Calendar (formerly iCal) for instance is a pretty great piece of software on the Mac for this purpose. It would also be a good idea to put this up on your website, preferably in a members-only part of your website which is accessible only using a login and password, provided to each one of your students.

12. Finances: Speaking of finances, tracking all earnings and expenses is imperative. Payments/fees received, refunds, missed payments, keep a track of them all. Maintain a file of all the receipts (electronically as well), which can be accessed at any point of time easily.

13. Students: Keep notes on each student. It might also be a good idea to video your sessions with the students – with their consent of course – which can then also be shared with them, and used to review their performances and identify areas where they might need to improve. It will also assist you with developing lessons tailored for each student individually. Make sure that you have your students’ consent to video tape the lessons, and also if its allowed by any school/college/institution where you might be teaching.

How to Make Money as a Musician

Trying to take up music as something that you do full time can be pretty tricky.

As a guitarists for instance, if you’re thinking of quitting your 9 to 5 for a fulltime career in the music biz, you’ll need to be able to make some money.  This is something that a large chunk of musicians struggle to do, and it is the number 1 reason why they’re ultimately forced to go back to their day jobs.

Having a career in music, living the dream, requires a solid game plan. As a musician, you’ll need many different income streams and learn the importance of diversification; a single income stream is unlikely to earn you a lot of greens, however multiple streams of income will probably add up to earn you a decent amount of money initially, and with the passage of time, you’ll be able to build upon that using your talents, skills and of course, hard work.

Here are 6 rock-solid ways in which guitarists (and musicians) can make some serious money in 2012:

1. Selling Music

Selling your own music is one of the first (and perhaps one of the most basic) things that you can do to start making some money with your music – even if it’s only a small fraction of money initially.

Make it as easy as you can for your fans to be able to find you, and buy your music. Set up official fan pages on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, MySpace and of course, Youtube. Set up a website. Make sure your fans can get in touch with you (and other fans) on a single platform, and get your updates as well.

CDs are cool, but digital distribution is essential. MySpace works pretty well here. Try getting your music up on the likes of iTunes. Spotify and Amazon as well. This GarageSpin guide is a great starting-point on how to get aggregator services to help you sell your music on the internet. Did you know that some of the biggest names in pop today (I’m talking about the likes of Lady Gaga and a certain Mr. Bieber) started off on the likes of MySpace and Youtube before becoming the multi-platinum artists that they are today!

2. Performing Live

One of the most obvious – and the best – ways of making some dough as a musician!

Playing and performing live in front of an audience can not only be a great way to earn some real cash, it also comes with a myriad of other advantages. For instance performing live is great for exposure, and getting the word out about yourself. Once the word gets out, you can score some great gigs, and you might even go on to open for some of the big names out there.

Playing and performing live is all about making a name for yourself. When you start off, you’re relatively unknown and as a result, might not be able to ask for a large fees. Building a reputation and a name for yourself usually tends to take time. And even if you end up making a few bucks initially, look at each gig as a building block towards increasing your earning potential. Once you are successfully able to make a name for yourself, you’ll be able to command much higher fees.

Market yourself over social media – Facebook, Twitter, Youtube… the works. Tell everyone you know to come see you play – at work, friends, family, even acquaintances. Put up posters and flyers across town, use online forums and your contacts in the music industry to help you spread the work. The aim here is to draw a big crowd. Give free CDs out to people who show up as a way of saying thanks (think of the publicity you’re doing this way!).

3. Partner Up with Local Businesses

When you start off, you won’t be able to do everything on your own. Partnering-up with local business might be a good strategy here.

Get in touch with local music shops, and ask if they can put a few copies of your CD on the counter. Decide how the earnings will be split. Local music shops are usually very supportive of local musicians, and promoting local music.

Ask local businesses, such as coffee shops, restaurants, and other shops and retail outlets to play your CD in their shops. This can be a pretty good for publicity. Leave a few copies behind, and split the earnings.

4. Sell Merchandise

Merchandise sales can account for a major chunk of your earnings (or go on to do so eventually)! Think tees, stickers, wrist bands, guitar picks, and other personalized items. Put your name (or your band’s name) and the logo on each of these thing, along of course with the URL of your website and Facebook page.

Tell people to pick up a tee or two by promoting it during a performance. Merchandise tends to sell very well after a particularly good live show or a performance. Do a contest and give some stuff away for free, it can be a great way of publicity!

As far as merchandise ideas are concerned, you have tees, mugs and bands. But try being unique and thinking outside the box here, get something that will have people talking about it even after the show – posters, personalized USB flash drives with behind the scenes footage, videos of you practicing, pictures of the band, etc. Ask yourself this: what is there that your fans are most likely to associate themselves with? In ACDC concerts, for instance, you can see each and every person in attendance wearing devil’s horns – see if you can do something similar with your band.

5. Affiliate Marketing

Since you’re probably already selling your music on the likes of iTunes and Amazon, among other places, why not dip into a bit of affiliate marketing and make some extra greens in the process?

While most musicians tend to go for sponsorships, affiliate marketing can be  an excellent substitute. And the good news is that if you have a website, it’s an extremely simple and efficient way of making some money. Essentially, you’ll be required to sign up for an affiliate program, and promote their products using a link that will be provided to you by the program. Each time someone buys their product using the link on your website, you earn a percentage of that money! So for instance if you’ve been using a Les Paul Standard for a while now, why not write a small review on why it’s so good, and put a link at the end so that your fans can get the exact same model as well.

The good thing is that this can be done with virtually anything that you use. Amazon has one of the best affiliate programs, since they’re pretty well-stocked, and carry just about everything under the sun.

HowToRunABand has a great guide on how you can start off with an affiliate business as a musician. They make some very good points as well, such as not littering your website with affiliate links, and instead using specific areas on your website to for the affiliate part of your business. For instance a new ‘Gig Gear I Use’ might be a good idea.

6. Start Teaching

If you’re a guitarist, you’ll probably have no problem getting students. Start teaching, taking classes and earning a bit of dough this way. Work your way up slowly; guitar teachers  who have been teaching since a while and have been able to make a name for themselves  are making some serious dough teaching music. This is what you’re aiming for.

Choose your method of teaching. You can take classes at the local college or the community center, rent out a studio space or simply convert a portion of your own place into a studio in order to teach. You could also look into video-chat-based classes (think Skype)! Use your social media profiles, blogs and websites to publicize your new business and spread the word. Give out flyers at the end of performances.

Your reputation as a teacher will grow, particularly if you keep playing live. More and more people will hear you and hear about you, and if you’re good, they’ll definitely want to learn a thing or two from you!

Besides, teaching music can be one of the best ways of actually practicing music!