FREE 'TuneWidget' from Reverbnation
I get lots of information that relates to the music business. From time to time something really cools pops into my inbox. This is one of them...
Friends of ReverbNation,
I'm writing to tell you about our latest innovation a few days ahead of the official announcement. Its called 'TuneWidget', and it is live and available to our users today. Its our belief that this widget will become an indispensable tool in the music promotion and cross-promotion arsenals for artists, labels, and managers. Play around with a working sample here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/main/tunewidget_overview
What's so cool about it?
1. Its the closest thing to having an entire band website in a portable, sharable, trackable widget. It contains music, video, an interactive tour map, join the mailing list function, and more.... with more to come (including selling music).
2. The artist, label, or manager can customize the background image of the widget and change it whenever they want (thus changing the image in real-time on all outstanding widgets). This is an effective way to make real-time announcements about things like a new CD launch, tour, etc using the image as a communication vehicle.
3. The most unique, and arguably most important feature of Tunewidget is that it allows artists to cross-promote other artists to their fan base. Labels and managers understand the value of cross-promotion as a way of introducing new acts to their established fan bases, and for years artists have used the MySpace Top 8 as an effective way of recommending other artists. TuneWidget makes it easy for anyone to cross promote friends, label-mates, touring partners, etc. across the web as a whole. They can have any number of recommended artists in rotation at any time, and can change who they are recommending in real time. Clicking on the "recommended" artist at the bottom of the widget switches the widget to display the complete mini-site of the recommended artist (including songs, schedule, video, mailing list, etc).
Like everything else we build, the TuneWidget is tracked and comprehensive stats are reported back to the user.
Does it work as a promotion and cross-promotion tool?
Beta test results indicate that TuneWidget is extremely effective for both promotion and cross-promotion:
* Fans played the music at double the rate of other music widgets
* Fans stayed engaged longer with TuneWidget than other music widgets
* Fans switched to view recommended artists almost 50% of the time if they had played the primary artist's music
* Fans tended to listen to a significant portion of the song from the recommended artist when they switched to them
Update on ReverbNation.com
TuneWidget joins our other widgets, the My Band application at Facebook (creates a mini artist profile on your facebook page), the integrated music player at Freewebs, the TunePaks that send music via email and IM, the FanReach email system, and our Street Team module to create a complete online "hub" where artists, labels, and managers can base their promotional efforts and track the results.
Every metric on the website is growing at over 30% month over month, with artists adding over 1,500 songs each day. Growth is good and important, but we continue to focus on our "artist first" philosophy, believing that we can create a company that has real lasting value for the customers we serve.
Please feel free to ask me any questions you have about TuneWidget or anything else at ReverbNation.
Best,
Jed
Jed Carlson
Chief Marketing Officer
ReverbNation
jcarlson@reverbnation.com
501 Washington St.
Suite D
Durham, NC 27701
919-321-2268
Friends of ReverbNation,
I'm writing to tell you about our latest innovation a few days ahead of the official announcement. Its called 'TuneWidget', and it is live and available to our users today. Its our belief that this widget will become an indispensable tool in the music promotion and cross-promotion arsenals for artists, labels, and managers. Play around with a working sample here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/main/tunewidget_overview
What's so cool about it?
1. Its the closest thing to having an entire band website in a portable, sharable, trackable widget. It contains music, video, an interactive tour map, join the mailing list function, and more.... with more to come (including selling music).
2. The artist, label, or manager can customize the background image of the widget and change it whenever they want (thus changing the image in real-time on all outstanding widgets). This is an effective way to make real-time announcements about things like a new CD launch, tour, etc using the image as a communication vehicle.
3. The most unique, and arguably most important feature of Tunewidget is that it allows artists to cross-promote other artists to their fan base. Labels and managers understand the value of cross-promotion as a way of introducing new acts to their established fan bases, and for years artists have used the MySpace Top 8 as an effective way of recommending other artists. TuneWidget makes it easy for anyone to cross promote friends, label-mates, touring partners, etc. across the web as a whole. They can have any number of recommended artists in rotation at any time, and can change who they are recommending in real time. Clicking on the "recommended" artist at the bottom of the widget switches the widget to display the complete mini-site of the recommended artist (including songs, schedule, video, mailing list, etc).
Like everything else we build, the TuneWidget is tracked and comprehensive stats are reported back to the user.
Does it work as a promotion and cross-promotion tool?
Beta test results indicate that TuneWidget is extremely effective for both promotion and cross-promotion:
* Fans played the music at double the rate of other music widgets
* Fans stayed engaged longer with TuneWidget than other music widgets
* Fans switched to view recommended artists almost 50% of the time if they had played the primary artist's music
* Fans tended to listen to a significant portion of the song from the recommended artist when they switched to them
Update on ReverbNation.com
TuneWidget joins our other widgets, the My Band application at Facebook (creates a mini artist profile on your facebook page), the integrated music player at Freewebs, the TunePaks that send music via email and IM, the FanReach email system, and our Street Team module to create a complete online "hub" where artists, labels, and managers can base their promotional efforts and track the results.
Every metric on the website is growing at over 30% month over month, with artists adding over 1,500 songs each day. Growth is good and important, but we continue to focus on our "artist first" philosophy, believing that we can create a company that has real lasting value for the customers we serve.
Please feel free to ask me any questions you have about TuneWidget or anything else at ReverbNation.
Best,
Jed
Jed Carlson
Chief Marketing Officer
ReverbNation
jcarlson@reverbnation.com
501 Washington St.
Suite D
Durham, NC 27701
919-321-2268
Labels: bands, CD, indie, music, ReverbNation, share, tunewidget
Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach & consultant, blogger, social networks expert and author. She has spent over 15 years helping independent musicians and music business professionals achieve greater success. Her motto is: working smarter not harder. She also founded GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest + largest online community of indie women musicians.
"Madalyn not only gives me marketing strategies during our consultations, but she gets me thinking in a whole new direction."
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