I use Topspin and RootMusic BandPage for my clients.
When Topspin announced this yesterday, I added a New BandPage (from scratch) to a client's Facebook Fan Page and had it installed and with a Topspin store selling 10 different records / CD's / downloads within 10 minutes!
Sure it needs tweaking and more doing to it, but, that, my dears, is the future!
Read the post on Topspin's blog or watch the video below. In short, this shows why Topspin are at the leading edge of Direct To Fan - sharing API and looking to offer the best functionality for promoting, marketing and selling your music.
I know I sound like their salesman - I promise I'm not! - but it works for me.
Someone asked me yesterday if I didn't think it was too expensive. No, I don't. I come from an old school background where my artists were paid maybe 15% of record sales. So paying $9.99 per month and 15% to the distributor and keeping 85% feels pretty good to me!
RootMusic added some new features to their BandPage app last week.
See the video below.
We are just working on a post that looks at all the options for this kind of 'Music Page' for your Facebook profile but this is seen by many as the market leader.
Certainly, it works very well as a page on which to host your music, video, images and more and the latest upgrade promises clever 'gating' options - that being where a fan has to 'Like' your page or give up their email to get some kind of freebie - generally tracks.
But, in this post on Hypebot it seems that some users think that some of the functionality is a little convoluted - mainly because to make the tracks downloadable after gating you will need to make them publicly available on SoundCloud and because of the Facebook permission pop-ups that are displayed when people offer their email address.
Some of these may be legitimate concerns, but it is still a very slick offering and one that I'd urge every band to consider. I'd also look at ReverbNation's Band Profile and DamntheRadio.
Here's the list of the update's features from the BandPage blog.
Lite Customization Options – We thought your BandPage could use some spice, so we’ve added a banner option as well as limited colorization features to our free package.
Mailing Lists – Yup! You can start collecting email addresses straight from your BandPage and export the contacts to a CSV.
Like to Listen or Download – Want to build your fans? Easy! Use the like to listen or download feature – non fans will have to like your page to gain access to your music.
Banner Link- Simple but effective. Provide a click-through link on your banner to point to your store, webpage, or other promo materials. Don’t forget to tell your fans to click!
And for our BandPage Plus subscribers, along with the full advanced customization editor, we have added some powerful tools!
Gated Content – Content is locked until the user likes the page, joins the mailing List, or tweets. Want to do a fan only download campaign? Tweet to download? Email address to listen? You got it!
Fan Only Banner – Build a different message for non fans and fans. Create a call to action in your banner space and tell non fans to like your page for access to exclusive streams and downloads.
Banner Video – Give your fans an engaging welcome with a custom YouTube video right in the banner space. It works great for featured music videos or calls to action for the fan. Flexible and powerful – you have full control over the size and positioning!
