Inside a MySpace Success Story with artist Ingrid Michaelson

My interview with artist Ingrid Michaelson in Electronic Musician is now on newsstands and can be found online at the EM site!

Inside a MySpace Success Story:
Q&A with artist Ingrid Michaelson.

Her music has been featured on Grey's Anatomy and recently the Old Navy "sweater" commercial. She tells Fran Vincent how Myspace.com helped her find success.

Check it out and leave me a comment!

DETROIT ARTISTS: Music Promotion Workshop starts TUESDAY 1/15!

Hey all,

The Promoting Your Music Online workshop starts TUESDAY and we have room for a few more hot Detroit artists!

Learn how to get the word out about your music; how to market your music online by building your brand, identifying your market, exploring possibilities for your Web site, maximizing MySpace, getting onto Internet radio, benefitting from podcasts and blogs; and learning how you get paid.
Bring a USB Flash or Jump Drive to the first session. Students must be proficient in computers and the internet, and must have a working web-accessible email account (such as yahoo.com or hotmail.com, etc.)

Promoting Your Music Online MUZK-8018A (49828) ($179)
Tuesdays 1/15-2/19/08
6-9 PM
Center Campus at Garfield and Hall Roads
Building H, Room 213
Clinton Township, MI

TO REGISTER, PLEASE CALL 586-498-4000, OR VISIT MACOMB.EDU/CCE

Private Phone is NO More

Well, my favorite free product is officially dead. In the book, and in real life, I use Private Phone by NetZero as a great example of protecting your identity and staving off weirdoes and stalkers. The concept was fantastic... you sign up for a free remote voicemail box, get a number in your desired area code, and you can give that number to anyone and everyone without worrying they'll figure out where you live. The number never rang anywhere, and wouldn't appear in directories. Your voicemails were emailed to you in .wav. Did I mention it was free? Well, apparently giving away a great service for nothing didn't work out for NetZero (hmmm... I wonder why).

So kids, no more Private Phone. It's going away as of Dec. 31, 2007. I haven't located another service that is totally free and offered the same level of features. There ARE disposable numbers out there, but they mostly last for a short period of time, then expire, making them ideal for classified ads, but not for inclusion in a MySpace page.

I tried Jangl, which lets you place a little widget on your profile. People enter their email address, then are given a special phone number and passcode to call you. They never see your real number. I found it too cumbersome and when I tested it out by entering one of my email addresses, it signed up that email address for service as well. Not cool.

OneBox.com is a business option that also offers faxes. It's not free, but at $12.95 a month, it won't break the bank either. The nice thing is you get a toll free number that people can call and when they leave a voicemail, you get a notification on any phone you specify (such as your cell). Or you can get the voicemails emailed to you. And you can send and receive faxes.

For all you VOIPers out there, check if your provider offers virtual numbers. Vonage allows subscribers to add a virtual phone number for an additional $4.99 a month. I love this idea because you can create that "giveaway" number, post it everywhere, give it to drunk guys at the bar. Your virtual number rings your main Vonage number and no one will be the wiser. If you want to get rid of it, just tell Vonage to cancel the virtual line and that's that. To keep your number concealed, be sure to employ *67 when you call back said drunk guys and stalker fans.

Post any other recommendations for a "concealable" phone number that you can use on your profile or Web page in comments. =)

New Orleans Loves MySpace for Musicians

LA and NY readers have emailed me to tell me they've seen the book prominently in Barnes and Noble stores. But it was great to receive a pic from a reader in Marrero, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. Thanks to Greg Hart for sending it in!

How many Bulletin Posts are too many?

MySpace musicians, in all their gleeful enthusiasm, are sometimes so eager to get the word out that they'll post bulletin after bulletin, hoping someone will take notice. Sometimes they use their bulletin posts not for promoting themselves, but for other causes they believe in.

This does indeed get them noticed, but for all the wrong reasons. Every MySpacer has a short bulletin window that appears in their home control panel. When any one "friend" sucks up all or most of that real estate with incessant posting, it becomes irritating. More than 3 posts a day and you are officially obnoxious. Even if you're posting about world peace.

Being a pushy poster is one of the fastest ways to get yourself kicked off your friends' lists. Too many posts coupled with posts-about-nothing and/or misleading headlines, and you become irrelvant. People just start ignoring you. They figure you've tricked them too many times into clicking on your bulletin headlines, only to find you posted something lame.

So, make your bulletin posts count. Use them for news and interesting tidbits, as a way to communicate with fans and find out what's happening with them. Otherwise, you may find you are turning "off" your fans instead of turning them on to your music.

"Cooler Online" Best New MySpace-Related Music Video!

The award for Best Music Video Depicting Spot-On Online Behavior goes to Brad Paisley's "Cooler Online." How many people have you met in person from MySpace, online dating, Craigslist, the list goes on and on, that are NOTHING like they described on their profile?! Luckily, bands are pretty accurate cuz it's mostly about the music (and maybe some hot imaging/styling too).

How many celebrities can you pick out?

MySpace for Musicians Featured in Advisor/Source Newspapers

The newest issue of The Advisor and Source Newspapers, which covers Macomb County, just outside of Detroit, has featured MySpace for Musicians and local author Fran Vincent (me ) on the front page! You can check out the story here.

I'm really happy with the story and placement. I do want to correct a few things though.... Although the article incorrectly says I didn't have to do much research on MySpace, I can tell you I spent months uncovering aspect of MS and putting together this comprehensive guide to all things MySpace and music marketing! Also want to make sure locals know I don't teach music courses at Macomb Community College (which means music performance/instruction on the academic side). I teach music industry classes in MCC's Center for Continuing Education (CCE). Music industry courses are unique to CCE in the Macomb College community and are non-credit, non-academic courses. You can sign up for the next one, "Promoting Your Music Online," which starts July 17 by visiting www.macomb.edu/cce.

Thanks again for all your support!