We’re excited about EVERY SINGLE one of the following resources. We hope you will be too!
INDIE ON THE MOVE
Yes, we truly love these guys. We wrote about them a while back, but quite alot has changed since our original post in 2009! For one thing, IOTM is still the #1 place to get an artists opinion on a venue they’ve played. Was it worth the trip? Was the venue easy to work with? Or did they blow you off and treat you like trash? Its also the premier place to get booking information, discover venues you’ve never heard of, and find gig opportunities in a city you’re passing through. IOTM is the answer to a touring artist’s empty calendar.
ARTISTDATA
You have no excuse not to be using Artist Data. Its the cleanest looking web calendar there is – giving you html to embed within your website (example), and your own page on their server to host your calendar (example).
NOISETRADE
Honestly, who hasn’t heard of Noisetrade by now. It’s the go-to place for downloading free music from artists you love, and artists you’ve never heard of. Make your music available on NT and get emails in return. It might not seem like a revolutionary idea, but when you collect hundreds or thousands of emails from new fans that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, Noisetrade turns out to be a pretty genius idea. You increase your fanbase exponentially. A few friends and I did with our December Christmas EP and we were able to collect a few thousand emails.
FLAVORS.me
These guys are the answer for every artist who doesn’t yet own a website, doesn’t have the money to invest in one, or hates WordPress. Flavors.me keeps it simple, clean, and fun. Integrate your social networks, upload a background image, choose a layout and colors, and you have a website. If you want to customize and personalize your link, its as simple as buying a domain name and forwarding it to your Flavors account. Check out this example from Grassrootsy reader Michael Natrin.
ROOTMUSIC
It’s the missing piece of your Facebook Band Page. RootMusic is a classy, simple music/video player and show calendar for Facebook (example). Yea, there are tons like it, but these guys do it right. I’ve seen my fair share of audio players and calendars and most are cluttered (bad design) or just straight up ugly. As an extra advantage, RM syncs with ArtistData, so when I plug my shows into AD, they appear on RM. Maaan, I love this stuff!
NEXT BIG SOUND
These guys are like your virtual accountability partner. They help you make sure you’re doing your job. simply type in your name and see how how your fanbase is growing across all of your social networks. NBS will tell you how many fans you made last month and then tell you whether or not if it was an improvement from the prior month (example). Why do we like this site? Because its the perfect way to gauge what social networks are most effective for you and which ones you need to improve on. Give it a try! If you don’t see your information, create an account, plug in your social networks, and start tracking.
STORENVY
Looking for a web store to sell your band’s merchandise? There are so many wonderful sites out there. It was hard to pick one. Actually it was pretty easy. We (I personally) love these guys and have been using them for my swag since 2010 (example). They allow you to sell as many items as you want and don’t require any fee to host your store. They’re layout is super clean and easy to understand for shoppers. We wrote a whole blog on them several months back. You can read it here.
STOCK.XCHNG
As a singer/songwriter, I am continually creating artwork for posters, Facebook Events, flyers…etc. I love stock photo sites that offer royalty-free images that I can incorporate into my artwork. Stock.Xchng is just one of them. Create an account, search for photos and use the ones that you like. You also have the option of paying for certain, “better quality” images. Its a great site that has come in handy many times.
HOOTSUITE
Do you have multiple twitter accounts? Or do you want a place where you can view all of your social networks in the same dashboard? Hootsuite allows you to keep track of everything in one place. Lets say for example that you run your personal twitter account and your bands twitter account. Why not keep track of both via Hootsuite instead of signing out of one account in order to sign into the other. It minimizes the hassle. Hootsuite supports Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linked In, Foursquare, and more.
CRAIGSLIST
Hmmm…does this count? Yes! Craigslist is the answer for all things unanswered. It’s like duct tape. Need to buy a boom stand? Need a photographer or designer to work on the cover for your next album? Need to sell your amp? Don’t underestimate craigslist :)
In the process of writing this blog, we’ve come across many other resources. If you have something you’d like to submit, put it in the comments or shoot us an email at grassrootsyonline@gmail.com. It must be a FREE-to-use resource.
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