I was at the lovely Dewey Beach Festival last weekend and had the pleasure of meeting Madalyn Sklar, the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com and Social Networks For Musicians. As a social media expert and all-round supporter of musicians, Madalyn was kind enough to answer some quick fire questions for me;
1. What do you think are the Top 5 most effective social networking sites that ALL musicians should be on?
MS: My top five would be MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation and GoGirlsMusic.com. Despite all the talk about the “death of Myspace”, Myspace is still a great promotional tool for musicians. Reverbnation, on the other hand, offers a complete fan management solution for musicians. If you are a female musicians then GoGirlsMusic.com is a very personal service providing both online and offline networking opportunities.
2. What are the best tools for managing social networking sites out there today?
MS: My two favorites are Ping.fm and ArtistData. With Ping.fm you can send one status entry to all your social networking sites in one shot, which cuts down on the time you spend updating your social network status one by one. ArtistData, on the other hand, is geared specifically towards musicians and works in a similar way to ping.fm. However it also updates ALL the information in your social networking sites, including tour dates, in one easy step.
3. What is the biggest mistake musicians tend to make with social networking sites?
MS: The biggest mistake is when a musician doesn’t have a plan. Social networking is not just about building your sites, it’s also about maintaining them. You need to have goals and work out what you are trying to achieve. My motto is “work smarter, not harder”.
4. What band do you know that have used social networking sites really effectively?
MS: There’s the GoGirlsMusic.com group 3Kisses, who have managed to effectively maintain a great online presence. They work both MySpace and Reverbnation heavily. For example, they went on tour from Texas to Florida recently, and divided social networking tasks up between each band members. They worked every day to reach out personally to fans in each of the cities they were performing at, having one on one conversations and making personal connections. In the end, they managed to get more people to their shows than any of their local shows and also got signed to an indie label. They just worked it right.
About GoGirlsMusic.com
GoGirlsMusic.com is the oldest and largest community of female indie musicians in all music genres. The organization works tirelessly to help artists through education, networking and events like the GoGirlsMusicFest, Invasion of GoGirls, Songwriter Competition and more. Artists who become involved have the opportunity to perform, have their work reviewed, and get involved with a hardworking group of women who “get things done” in the music scene.
About Social Networks for Musicians
Social Networks For Musicians is a company which helps musicians and music businesses effectively create and manage their social networks with the most innovative web marketing solutions for Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and many more.