QUESTION: "Arie, is it really effective/ important for indie artists to blog?" - Jeff
ANSWER: Hell yes! Blogging is very important and is the easiest way to keep your fans & potential followers up to date. Truth be told the public has a short online attention span, clicking from point A to point B and so on. Every link clicked leads to a million different sites, leaving artists lost in the mix. By creating a space that integrates all of your social media (Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Four Square etc.), videos, photos and latest media coverage you are keeping the attention on you where it belongs. The power of "The blog".Tips for effective blogging:
- Stay consistent! Your blog should be updated as much as possible; a bare minimum of once a week. If an artist or band is truly working on reaching mainstream acclaim there should always be something to update.
- Be entertaining as well as informative. You can be very talented, but if your blog is drab or boring people will loose interest and keep it moving; totally defeating the purpose of having the blog in the first place.
- No one expects you to be a walking dictionary. However, I can't express the IMPORTANCE of proof reading and spell checking your work. Don't assume everyone knows what you "mean" or knows your tone/ demeanor. These two steps are very important, especially if you want to be taken seriously. The appearance of any level of ignorance can and will hinder that.
- If done the right way your blog can bring your independent ass some much needed revenue (dinero,doe, money, cold hard cash). For real, if your blog builds up enough traffic with people interested in what you having going on, that can open lanes for you to charge local and even national companies to advertise on your blog - just a thought.
The reality is, no one's going to give your talent the full coverage it deserves like YOU. So get up, get proactive and get blogging! Plus it's free, how's it get better then that?! Check out these sites for great FREE blog templates: Blogger, Tumblr and WordPress. Good luck!
Do you have a question for me or something you'd like to know? I'm here every week answering your emails on industry how-to's and important Do's and Don'ts.
Send me an email: contactsaidarie@gmail.com and follow me on twitter at: www.twitter.com/leirapr_ceo