You are a brand now and you have to start taking the steps to making that brand an important one in the lives of your fans.
With all the changes that are happening in the music industry, performing live is fast becoming the best way to make a living from your music and that of course is a positive thing, but one should not overlook the power of the internet and the importance of an online presence when it comes to making a name for yourself.
Fans all over the world are waiting to connect with you so unless you know how to clone yourself, the world wide web is the best way to achieve this. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and the many other social networks do serve a vital purpose but the most important one should be YOU dot com. You are a brand now and should be treating yourself as such which means securing your domain name.
While social networks do serve their purpose, it is important to have your own online presence which can act as a central hub for all your other profiles… , the sun in your solar system if you will. With more and more services popping up it is becoming increasingly easy and more affordable to get online even as an unsigned artist with limited budget and expertise. First things first, secure your domain which should include a free email account. This means instead of sending emails from Hotmail, Yahoo or Google, you can now send them from YOU.com which, let’s face it, will add a lot more credibility to your message.
Even if you are not yet ready to build a website, it is still worth investing in your domain name now. There are a lot of opportunists out there snapping up .com versions of band names with the hope of selling it back to the artist/band as they get more successful at extortionate rates. Even if you haven’t recorded a song yet or performed at a gig, secure your name now. It’s a small investment for what could become some major online real estate.
You can get a .com domain for around $10 from places like;
Name Cheap
You are ideally looking to get yourartistname.com as a domain but of course this may not be possible given how long the internet has been around and how long people have been purchasing domains. Particularly if your name is a common one it is unlikely that it will be available as is, so you may have to get creative with a variation of the name. You can add words like music, online or world to your name until you find a domain that is available. Alternatively, if you are just starting out and haven’t built much branding around your name, change it! This might seem a bit extreme but if you are serious about success, branding can be that important!
Here’s a video from Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR briefly talking about the importance of managing your online presence.