Getting Involved With Causes

A low cost way for Gen-Y Rock Stars to get exposure is through nonprofits. Nonprofits and causes look to leverage musicians, actors and celebrities to promote their cause and often times as the artist you can help promote yourself as the official songs in their videos, supply photos for their campaign or create new material with a message.

More and more nonprofits are looking into Social Media as a means of getting their message across to Gen-Y and younger volunteers and this means your music can be heard in YouTube clips, on Podcasts, with free downloads, on picture sharing sites and more. The exposure can be viral and help you get into the ears and on the playlists of people that truly care about a cause.

A recent campaign with Trojan condoms and MTV, Evolve One, Evolve All, put together work with the Aggrolites, All Time Low, Animo, Charlotte Sometimes, Cobra Starship, Everytime I Die, From First to Last, Gil Mantera, Madina Lake, Protest the Hero, Reel Big Fish, Shwayze, TAT, The Academy Is, The Bronx & The Randles and more to promote their latest campaign. The effects of the campaign were spread wide with the addition of this video playing widget:

Safe Sex | STI | Contraception | STD

This Evolve One, Evolve All campaign has even allowed fans and followers to contribute their own videos and allow for commenting from these advocates. This is a great audience to be seen in front of.

Steps to finding a nonprofit:

• As a band, see what causes would fit with your style of music and your beliefs. Come up with a general list, homlessness, rebuilding communities, the green movement, etc.
• Look for local organizations by looking at sites like Volunteer Match to find contact information, locations and ideas about what the organization.
• Set up Google Alerts for "Your City" + "Your Cause" to get up to the minute information on press releases and news regarding these companies and organization.
• Look to contact a marketing director or go after the executive director himself. Most nonprofits are looking for exposure and the price is right for them.
• Be sure to have a "What's in it for me" (WIIFM) and tell the nonprofit why you are a good partner.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving Rock Stars!

-Greg Rollett

Musicians Looking to Ning for Homebase

I see a new trend amongst artists looking to build a community around their music and have their fans play a major role in their development, and that of their content. The trend includes one of my 100 social media sites for musicians and goes well beyond your standard profile page.

Ning is a powerful platform with which anyone can create a social network about any topic. In your social network you can build it with any components that you think are necessary and that can include:

• Pages - static pages to tell fans bout your band, how to contact you or anything else you feel like sharing
• Videos - these can be uploaded directly into Ning or sent over with a YouTube embed code. If you upload directly, you can count plays and also embed those videos anywhere else on the net
• Photos - again these can be uploaded into the site directly or using the Flickr API (sounds harder than it is) you can import all your photos, tags and descriptions from the photo sharing heavyweight.
• Groups - manage your street teams with individual groups for different cities, regions, etc or have your fans create groups to share stories, pictures and discussions
• Profile pages - just like any other social network you can have your own pages. On these pages you can friend other people, trick out your page and interact with others.
• Blogs - Not that you aren't blogging already, but this is another platform for you to get the word out.
• Forum - get your fans talking about your shows, their fav tunes, other artists and off topic interests to keep them on the page. Be sure to interact with them for maximum efficiency.

On top of the standard features above, you are free to add any 3rd party coding into your pages. This gives you the power to add your Reverbnation Widgets, iLike or iMeem players, videos from Vimeo, Viddler or Kyte or anything else you can manage to fit on the page.

Some examples of musicians using the platform for their homebase include:
Asher Roth - a hip-hopper from PA makig a big name for himself with his latest mixtape The Greenhouse Effect. He is using the Ning platform to post news updates, videos, get messages across to his hardcore fans and keep them interested in his movement through getting to know each other. Check out a sneak peek below or visit the site here.


Buckcherry - the rockers who brought you 'Crazy Bitch' are using Ning to get their fans to interact with them in a big way. Their Ning site has 113 user generated videos from their shows to backstage antics and everything else that goes on in their world. Those videos go along with the over 1,500 pics of the band that fans have posted. Take a look below.

(click image to enlarge)

So what's it cost?
Well, nothing to try out. Essentially it's a free platform. The catch is that a free account slaps a .ning.com to your domain and floods the site with Google Ads that you do not collect on. The fees to upgrade include:

• Custom domain = $4.95 / mo
• Remove the ads = $19.95 / mo
• Remove additional Ning promotional links = $7.95 / mo

My suggestion would be to try out the platform with a custom domain and see how you and your fans interact on the site. You do not need a million fans with profiles for the site to be successful. It may just be a place to organize all of your online content or your street teams into groups. It may be a place to interact with diehard fans and have awesome conversations. Or it can become the platform for you to build an amazing relationship with your fans. The possibilities are endless, but in the end Ning is just a tool, its up to you to promote it, produce great content and hold engaging conversations.

Any people out there have Ning sites for your band? Let us know about your experience.

-Greg Rollett