ReverbNation's New Makeover

ReverbNation is a really interesting marketing tool that both musicians, venue owners, managers and fans alike can use to both promote and discover new music. The site is getting a "makeover." The development team said they are adding upgrades, including "greater customization of artist pages and more social network synching features, a new Reverb Store that follows the Zazzle and Audiolife model of print on demand merchandise, and a tour dates section that detects a visitor’s location and highlights an artists' upcoming shows within 50 miles of the fan." This, including working out some of the bumps in reverbNation's operation as well as its initial layout, hopes to bring in more indie artists as well as others in the industry to the site.

The site itself is a hub of marketing techniques. It is trying to become the go-to place for, say, a venue owner looking to bring in the right bands. It offers ways to distribute music for less, easy set up of press kits, detailed description of their fans' demographics, the ability to automatically find any press source that has mentioned your band, and a ton of interesting, easy, and helpful tools.

Does this mean that artists don't necessarily need any help from a manager or label or other professional to truly market themselves and build a following? I think this shows that independent artists can do a lot themselves these days. That might mean that music industry professionals might have to adapt and offer some other advantage to the artist who can now do everything by themselves.

--Ashley Snider

Source:

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/02/bandcamp.html

http://www.reverbnation.com/