Reach 300,000,000 Fans for Free with Headliner.fm

Headliner.fm
Billboard ranks Headliner.fm #4 on Top 10 Music Startups of 2011

An easy premise that works. Of course there’s a paid version – and the free version. I use the free version with great results.

They state 170,585 Artists have been recommended to 3,940,302,708 new fans. You get promoted on your choice of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace – or any combination of the three.

If you want to promote something – my last promotion was “Make a Difference this Holiday Season – Get Country for a Cause”. You pick a member with a lot of followers/fans. I stick with artists in my niche – Country – because even if a Hip Hop artist has 100,000 fans and agrees to promote you, I can’t picture any of his fans running out to get a Country CD.

It costs you “Band Bucks” to run a promotion. The more followers/fans an artist has, the more it costs. But it never costs you REAL money! First, they give you 1000 Band Bucks just to sign up, then you get band bucks for promoting others. If someone wants you to promote them to your followers, I generally earn about 900 band bucks, because that’s how many followers I have on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

What works for me – and you can change this to fit your niche… When you log on to Headliner.fm, there will be a list of artists asking you to promote them.

1. Stick with your niche, for the reasons I explained above.

2. Most of the promotions will say something like “Check out my new song at whatever link”.

3. It will tell you what day the promotion will run – usually tomorrow

4. It will tell you if it will run a FB, Twitter and/or MySpace. The more places it runs, the more Band Bucks you earn.

5. Click the link and LISTEN to the artist! Don’t promote anyone just for the free band bucks. You reputation will be shot quickly. My rule of thumb is, if this is someone I would normally follow on Twitter, then I feel comfortable telling my followers about them.

6. READ the exact promo – which you can’t edit. If someone named Johnny Cash (LOL) has a promo that says “Check out my new song at whatever link”, when it’s tweeted by you, it will sound like you want people to listen to YOUR new song. Even if you love the artist, don’t promote it unless it includes their name.

7. Promote sparsely – you don’t want to spam your followers. If it’s not someone you would tweet about without the free band bucks, don’t accept the promotion.

8. As soon as you have about 2000 in Band Bucks – which should be 15 minutes after signing up – create your own promotion and put it out there for other artists to mention. As I stated earlier, include your name in the promo. You should include your niche (Country), so it’s promoted by people who share a common interest with you.

9. Don’t over hype in your promotion. Every day I decline a promotion that says something like “I recommend the best singer in the world!” If Barbara Streisand joins headliner and asks for that promo, then I’d do it

10. With 300 million fans, in the last few weeks I only got about 50. That’s a low percentage, but they are targeted fans, and it’s free. I’d rather have 5 good fans then 1000 who follow me but don’t know who I am.

I’ll stay with Headliner

As always, feel free to click the subscribe button up on top to stay in the loop

All My Best,
Billy Kay

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Billy Kay had an idea, for all the background go to the Country for a Cause webpage.

For those of you that are new or don’t know, Billy is an affiliate, a merchant, a musician, always speaks his mind, and when he takes on a project it generally works out In this case Billy the musician decided to do something for a woman’s shelter in Las Vegas. Here is the press release about that project. The album is for sale on both iTunes and Amazon, so you can support the cause and make some $$$s for yourself or take a bit of that extra and donate it to Shade Tree or your own favorite charity.

Please feel free to pass this press release around, let’s make this a best seller

Independent Artists Release Charity CD “Country for a Cause”

Palmetto Tree Music

The cost of living is rising, gasoline is over three dollars a gallon, unemployment is at an all time high… and country music artists are giving away the proceeds from their CD sales. Surprising? Not for a group of eleven independent country music artists who are just trying to make a difference. October 21st marked the release of their CD, “Country for a Cause”, the proceeds from which are being donated to The Shade Tree, a shelter for abused women and children in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Billy Kay, an independent country artist who added his single “Ready…Set…Gone” as the first track on the CD, is the mastermind and organizer of the project. While taking a tour of the shelter one day, he took special notice of the one outdated computer and scarcity of other resources. The kicker for him, though, was the kids. “We each consider our own childhood to be the definition of normal”, Billy says, “I didn’t want these kids to think the kid’s room with a donated TV and some donated board games was normal.” Realizing that there was only so much he could do alone, he reached out for help.

“I got a surprise email from Billy one day asking if I would like to be involved,” said C Bret Campbell of the group Stephenson Rd, who added their single “Simple Life” to the project. Citing hard times throughout his own life, Campbell was immediately attracted to the project. “That’s no way for women and children to have to live,” he says.

JTodd Burroughs received a similar e-mail. “I didn’t really even have to think about it,” he said. “He (Billy Kay) said he’d like ‘A Little More With A Little Less’ for the CD, so I told him ‘You’ve got it.” That was even before he saw the list of artists who agreed to provide singles for the CD. “It’s a tremendous group of artists on the CD – like a Who’s Who of independent country artists.” Kay said he decided to reach out to some of the artists he’d met over the last couple of years. “I fully expected to be rejected,” he related, “but each and every one opened their hearts and donated a track to the project.”

The artists chose their songs with the project in mind, as well. With respect to his song “Simple Life”, Bret Campbell stated “I hope the song adds a note of hope to the record.” Kay’s song “Ready…Set…Gone” is about the courage it takes to leave an abusive relationship. Aoede chose her ballad “I Lost, You Win” because she wanted to “contribute a song that pulls at your heart strings.”

Artists weren’t the only ones to jump on board for the project. The Nashville Universe, Team Loxly, and Butterflies Radio, signed on immediately. “Butterflies Radio set their homepage to open to a full page banner of the project as well as putting links on their main page. They’re great,” says Burroughs. “They play our songs, record and broadcast bumpers for the CD, update all of their social media sites – it would really have cost us a fortune to try to buy that kind of advertising, and they’ve done it for free!”

During a time when it seems the news is bad and times are hard, this CD represents what is good and right. Eleven artists – eleven songs – the only obvious connection being a love for country music – come together with a common purpose to try and make a difference. They write songs that tell stories about life, and they have created a CD that is “Country for a Cause”.

The Artists The Songs
Billy Kay : Ready…Set…Gone
Bobby Ray Bittle : Backyard Dancehall
JTodd Burroughs : A Little More With a Little Less
Susie Q : Fallin Star
Bosco and Peck : Lila
Aoede : I Lost You Win
Stephenson Rd : Simple Life
Tiana Star : Farther From Me
Tai Andrews : Fly With Me
Rachel Kays : Butterflies and Nursery Rhymes
Volary : Love and Tragedy

Supporting Cast
ButterfliesRadio.com
TheNashvilleUniverse.com
TeamLoxly.com
Lesruba Designs (lesrubadesigns@gmail.com)

Available on iTunes and Amazon.com.

For more information please visit
http://billykaymusic.com/country-for-a-cause/country-for-a-cause.htm

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While it’s a new phenomenon, there are already experts who have analyzed and reported on this trend. I’ll be writing on what we call “Best Practices” – basically, stuff that has been proven to work.

Since MySpace fell asleep at the wheel two years ago, they’ve become irrelevant.  So you need to have a presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Ideally, you need to join related fan forums or peer forums such as MusicRow.org

I’ll start with the generalities that apply to all social networks across the board, and over time, I’ll post about each one specifically.

First, you need to pick an online persona – a personality – and stick with it. Reba comes across as “bubbly” and caring, and never waivers. That’s what her followers expect – that’s what she delivers. Blake Shelton comes across as an arrogant SOB, and he’s sticking with that persona.

Your profile picture needs to remain consistent. If you remember Pavlov’s Dog from school – same principle. When you log onto Twitter or Facebook, there’s probably 500 new posts on each. But how many do you read? Your eye quickly scans thru the page looking for someone you actually want to follow – and it’s looking for a recognizable one inch square profile pic.

And your profile picture should represent you – or your current song. It’s called Branding. Since I’ve all chosen Country as my niche, my pics need to reflect that. Put another way… in you don’t know me and saw my profile pic on Twitter… would you expect my songs to sound like Van Halen…or Toby Kieth?

Before I tell you the hard part, just a reminder that anything and everything you put on the Internet stays there – forever! Only a court order can have it removed. And by then, someone has already downloaded it and can use it against you 5 years from now. Think before you submit!

The hard part: If you consider Social Networking work – a chore (I do) – you actually need more then one profile on each social network… meaning more work.

In my case, I have three main profiles on each.

I own shopping websites and do online marketing in the real world. My business profile is my “suit and tie” profile. It is just for my customers, clients and business peers. They don’t even know about my songs. But they DO know that our big Seasonal Sale starts Sunday!! Or that I’m speaking at a convention in Chicago. LOL

My “Billy the Individual” profile is for family and friends – and people who I’ve met thru my other profiles who think I lead a fascinating life. I can give my political views – (they all suk). I can post about hookers I met at the bar at The Bellagio last night. Of all the men in a casino, how do they spot me? Is there a sign on my back? LOL Now that my nieces and nephews follow me, I don’t say as much as I used to

And the Music profile. This should be just for your fans, people you think can help your career (radio stations, reps, labels), and your music peers.

Unless you’ve chosen “Activist” as your online persona, you’re music profile shouldn’t post any political or religious views. Hec! You can’t even say you hate McDonalds without the risk of loosing fans – not because they don’t like your music, but because they don’t like your stance on burgers!

Even tho your Twitter remarks sound “off the cuff”, ideally they should be pre-planned and serve a purpose that achieves your desired end result. (More on that in a future post). At a minimum… after you type your tweet, stall 5 minutes before hitting the submit button. Again, once you say something, you can’t un-say it.

I probably made this sound harder then it is. But after a few weeks, it will be second nature. AND, there are free tools that makes it all a lot easier. Basically, you type something in your blog, and it automatically appears on Facebook and Twitter.

Lastly, how cool would it be to have your own billboard on the side of a freeway at the entrance of a major city? Way cool, right???

But… it’s $10,000 a month. And of the million cars that pass by, how many are interested in Country music. Or girl bands. Or whatever it is you do?

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are FREE billboards. And the only cars that pass by have already shown interest in what you do or at least your niche. Used correctly, they can be very beneficial to your career.

All My Best,
Billy

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