ReverbNation – Metaverse Musician

becoming a Fan of your favorite band on ReverbNation

In addition to hosting Bands, ReverbNation also has Fan profiles. By becoming a Fan of a given Band on ReverbNation creates a new link between your profile and the band’s. This Two Minute Tutorial demonstrates how to create the link between you and your favorite band.

OK, so you’ve joined ReverbNation as a fan. As it so happens, you want to become a Fan of a particular band that is a member of ReverbNation as well. This will allow you to have expedited access to that band’s RN profile, and build a closer relationship with that band. Here’s how to go about doing so.

First, open a browser and navigate to ReverbNation.

Then enter your ReverbNation profile name and pasword, and click the ‘login’ button:

This should take you directly to your profile page. This is where you enter what others would see when they look you up by name. We’ll cover some of that in a future installment. It’ll look something like the following – though the fan profile used for this example is ltb-rn-example – not you.

ReverbNation Fan Profile

Now we need to find the band of which you are interested in becoming a fan. Enter the band name in the ‘search’ box, and click the ‘GO’ button:

You should be taken to a list of likely matches for your search:

Hmm… there’s a likely match. I wonder if it is the band I’m interested in? The photo looks like it could be them. Hey – there’s one of their songs. I’ll click on the ‘play’ button and see if it sounds like them. (Go ahead – click on it). A new window opens with the ReverbNation song player, playing the sample song:

Cool! It certainly sounds like them! And now you have something to listen to while you complete your registration.

Click on the band name, and you will be whisked to their profile page:

ReverbNation band profile

Hey look – up near the top – they have another song available! Click the play arrow next to it, and this second song will cue itself up in the song player. Now when the first song ends, this second one will start.

OK – now to do the deed. Below the band’s photo is a set of buttons:

Click ‘become a fan’. This creates the link between you and your band in the ReverbNation servers:

Awww – we love you too!

Note that in this example, both the ‘become a fan’ and ‘join the street team’ buttons have been clicked. This also gives you a quick way of checking if you are a fan or street team member of a given band. Note that you may be a Fan without being on the mail list, or on the mail list without being a Fan. Likewise, Street Team and Fan are separate relations.

Well, that completes that. However, maybe you need something to do while the songs are still playing. How about leaving a comment on the band’s profile? Click the ‘comments’ tab, then click the ‘add comment’ button:

This will open a new window for you to enter a comment. Fill out the form, enter the captcha, and click OK:

You’ll get a confirmation:

Your comment will be put in a queue for review by The Moderator (the band’s RN page maintainer). Upon approval, it’ll be posted on the band’s profile for the entire world to see!

Well, that’s about it! I hope this brings you and your band to a new level of intimacy. I am most certain that they are grateful for your support. And both your act of registering as a fan and your playing of their tunes contribute to their rankings! You are helping your band achieve international fame and fortune! Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

singing up on ReverbNation as a fan

ReverbNation is a wonderful site for discovering new music, and helping to promote bands in which you are interested. This is a Two Minute Tutorial explaining how to sign up to the service as a fan.

First, make your way to the ReverbNation website (you can click on the image below to navigate there):

Click the ‘signup’ on the upper right:

This will navigate to a new page where you will specify what type of signup you wish to do:

Assuming you select ‘fan’, you are met with a form into which you can enter your data:

Note that the form provides a shortcut if you are a member of Facebook or MySpace. Essentially, this will use your profile info on these sites to fill out this form. This is merely a minor convenience. In order to keep this general, we will ignore these shortcuts. The long form process works whether or not you are a member of one of these social networking sites.

It appears that much of this information is optional. However, it would be encouraged that you fill in as much information as you are comfortable in yielding. In this manner, it is unlikely you will receive a concert announcement for a Nome gig when you live in Sarasota. Also, ReverbNation implies that the Birthdate is required – likely in order to ensure the signee is at least 13 years of age. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that singup works just fine without this information.

After filling in the form, click the ‘sign up’ button. You will be directed to a confirmation screen:

Within moments, a confirmation email should arrive at the inbox corresponding to the email address you entered in the signup form. It should resemble the following:

From: reverbnation@reverbnation.com
[mailto:reverbnation@reverbnation.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:38 PM
To: ltb-rn-example@LeeThomasBand.com
Subject: Welcome to ReverbNation.com

ltb-rn-example,

Welcome to ReverbNation.com!

Here is your log-in info:
    LOGIN: ltb-rn-example@leethomasband.com
    PASSWORD: ******

Please click on the following link to confirm your registration:
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

If you didn't sign up, please click the following link to deactivate this account
 http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Sincerely,
Your Friends at http://www.reverbnation.com

________________________________________________
You can view our privacy policy at http://www.reverbnation.com/c./cms/PrivacyPolicy.  Physical inquiries can be sent to: 501 Washington St. Suite J, Durham, NC, 27701, USA.

Click on the confirmation link to complete the process. This will send you back to ReverbNation. You will be prompted with the optional step of entering a profile photo:

ReverbNation profile photo prompt

All done! Enjoy your ReverbNation membership!

using a ReverbNation Fan Collector widget to sign up for a band mailing list

One of the features ReverbNation provides is an integrated mailing list, with widgets that allow interested parties to opt themselves in. This Two Minute Tutorial explains how easy it is for a fan to sign up for a band;s email list, using the Fan Collector widget.

OK! You’ve run across a Fan Collector widget for a band you really like. You would like to join their mailing list, such that you can stay informed as to their doings. Here’s how easy it is to sign yourself up.

First, an example of a webpage, with the widget embedded within. The widget is the item outlined in red:

To sign up for the mailing list, simply enter your email address…

…and click the ‘submit’ button. After a few moments, you should receive a confirmation:

If, rather than simply receive the postings from the band, you would also like to help to promote the band, then you probably would want to join the Street Team while signing up for the mail list. This can be accomplished by clicking the ‘join the Street Team’ checkbox after entering your email address and before clicking ‘submit’:

Again, this should lead to a confirmation after a few moments:

Whether signing up for the mail list, or both the Street Team and the mail list, your enrollment is not active util you acknowledge an opt-in email. Within moments, you should receive such an opt-in in the inbox corresponding to the email address you entered on the form. Here’s what to expect in that email:

From: Lee Thomas Band [mailto:joe@LeeThomasBand.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:23 PM
To: ltb-ml-example@LeeThomasBand.com
Subject: Verify your email to join the Lee Thomas Band mailing list

ltb-ml-example@LeeThomasBand.com,

Thanks for joining the mailing list!  To complete the signup process, click on the link below
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>&action_code=opt_in

If you didn't request to join the mailing list, please click the link below and we won't bother you again.
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Thanks again for joining the mailing list!

Lee Thomas Band
Longmont, CO

Privacy Policy: http://www.reverbnation.com/c./cms/PrivacyPolicy
More Information: http://www.reverbnation.com/fanreach.
Physical inquiries can be sent to: 501 Washington St. Suite J, Durham, NC, 27701, USA
Unsubscribe: http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>
Report Abuse/Spam: http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Click on the link in order to complete the signup process. If you are already logged into ReverbNation, that’s all there is to the process. Yay! You’re done!

If you are not logged into ReverbNation, your browser will be opened, and it will navigate to an information entry screen:

It appears that all this information is optional. However, it would be encouraged that you fill in as much information as you are comfortable in yielding. In this manner, the band is unlikely to spam you with a concert announcement for a Nome gig when you live in Sarasota. Also, ReverbNation implies that the Birthdate is required – likely in order to ensure the signee is at least 13 years of age. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that singup works just fine without this information.

Note that this is another opportunity to sign up for the Street Team.

That is all there is to it! The next time your favorite band sends a notice to their mail list, you will receive a copy!

add a wordpress blog to a ReverbNation profile

Social media tools provide a platform for musicians and bands to expand their fan base. Wordpress is a widespread blogging platform, and ReverbNation provides a comprehensive toolset to market musical endeavors. But who has time to duplicate their blog posts to both platforms? You don’t have to! You can set these tools up to synchronize with each other!

This article explains how to add a wordpress blog to a ReverbNation profile.

ReverbNation profiles have a blog tab on them. This blog tab can reflect content from RN’s internal blogging system. Better yet, it can accept an RSS feed from a wordpress blog — such as this one. Here’s how to set up RN to accept an external blog.

Go to the Profile page within which you wish to embedded the blog.
Slightly down the page is a row of approximately ten tabs. Select the one entitled ‘BLOG/BUZZ’.
On the upper right of the BLOG/BUZZ tab is a button entitled ‘Blog Preferences’. Click it!
Select the Blog radio button for Default View.
In the Blog section, select the radio button entitled “I would like to show a blog I maintain on another site.”
In the text box entitled “The URL for the blog RSS feed is “, enter the URL of the blog RSS feed*!
Click the ‘Save’ button.
Watch your RN blog populate itself with the source blog’s contents! Cool!

*Bonus section – what is the URL of the RSS feed of the blog in which I am interested?

There are several correct answers to this question. Perhaps an example would help to illustrate. In my case, I just wanted to use the entire blog contents, and I did not care in which specific format it was published. My blog is located at http://www.joebear.net/blog/. In this case, the proper feed to be typed into the text box for Blog Preferences was http://www.joebear.net/blog/feed . Simple, hunh?

To see how it looks, compare this blog with its RN representation at this link.

Note: this post was copied from joebear.net. You’re reading this at metaversemusician.com. Conseqently, these blogs are likely to be out of sync. Compare the RN Profile with this other blog.

intro to ReverbNation — social aggregator for musicians and bands

ReverbNation provides tools for musicians to market their music. It prompts the user through logical marketing activities in order to build brand equity in the band or performer’s name. Further, it pushes out info to other social media sites, allowing the user to update the info in one place, and have other sites instantly and automatically updated.

intro for me, anyway.

There are just so many social media outlets available that a person could spend their entire life updating them all and getting nowhere fast.

One possible tool for musicians to cut down on the duplication is ReverbNation (RN). This tool provides a handy control panel that tracks and even guides all aspects of marketing for a musician or band. At least it seems to guide the marketing activities — I do not have a background in marketing, and RN seems to prompt me as to what I should do as a next step, based upon what I already have in place.

As such a marketing control panel, RN is useful in and of itself. However, it also contains hooks to MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. As a consequence, one can enter (e.g.) a new scheduled show on RN, and have their (e.g.) MySpace page instantly updated with the new info. Or so it appears to me at this moment.

I’m still stumbling about in the interface, but I think I am getting a handle on the tools available therein. So far, I have just been expanding one of my bands’ presence there. This would be the Lee Thomas Band. Here is the Lee Thomas Band RN Profile.

As an example of the tools available, I’ll talk about the mailing lists. RN provides a mailing list utility, which maintains a database of contacts for the band. This is linked to an editor and mass mailer, for distribution of newsletters and such. This is similar to the functionality one would find at Aweber or Constant Contact.

Also provided are one-step HTML generators, that create Widgets for posting on any arbitrary site. I used this to embed a signup for the LTB RN mailing list on each page of the Lee Thomas Band website.

Once I figure out how to modify this blog’s layout, I should be able to embed that widget (and others) right here. Further, there is a Widget Widget, which allows anyone to generate and embed a Lee Thomas Band mailing list widget in any site of their own. This is intended for the use of fans in viral marketing campaigns.

More to come…