June 10, 2011 The Musician's Arsenal: Killer Apps, Tools and Sites Featuring BandsinTown
We test a lot of Apps and tools and look at a lot of websites. On behalf of our artists and me and the Cyber PR team are going to start featuring them here at MTT.
I’m thrilled to introduce you to Jason Loomis. Jason has worked at Ariel Publicity for a year this week, first as an intern, then as my assistant and now as our Director of New Media Maker Relations.
Enjoy this first installment of The Musician’s Arsenal: Killer Apps, Tools and Sites
Love, Ariel
Greetings, Jason here with a new series that will hopefully shed some much needed light on which social media apps, tools and other sites are fantastic and awesome, and which ones, well, kinda suck.
For the first edition I’d like to talk about a very cool app I was recently turned on to called Bandsintown.
The basic concept of Bandsintown is pretty simple; let your fans know when and where you are playing. How it does this is one of the hippest aspects of Bandsintown. Before it was a killin’ app, Bandsintown was a resource used by fans to find out when and where their favorite bands were playing. Having this background, Bandsintown has the ability to find the shows your band has booked and create events for those shows.
You heard me right, install the app and Bandsintown can create all of those events for you!
(If the events you are playing are not in the Bandsintown database, first of all, let them know, they want every last event in their database. Second, creating the events manually is easier than creating a regular Facebook event. Ok, it’s pretty much the same, but work with me here.)
Once the events are created, you have the ability to promote each individual show through Facebook (and whatever social network you have Facebook connected to). Taking this a step further, these posts are built with tags geared towards touring artists, so the artist can stipulate whether the show is pre-sale, on sale, sold out, etc.
But Bandsintown has gone even deeper, and that’s what makes this app killin’. Bandsintown gives you Javascript Embed Code so you can post your tour dates on your website or blog. And then it updates in real time! Even the notes you add about each show are ported over. Pretty sweet Bandsintown.
This app will also sync with Twitter, MySpace and Wordpress (via a wordpress plugin). On top of all this syncing brilliance, for an extra fee, Bandsintown has a deal with MobBase to help you get your own iPhone/Android App preconfigured with your tour dates, tickets, and Facebook events from Bandsintown.
Considering all of the user friendly and surprisingly powerful features Bandsintown includes and it just becomes silly not to get the app.
So everybody run out right now and spend the zero dollars it costs to get Bandsintown and install it on your Facebook fan page, and then come back here and give me some feedback. What do you all think? Do you like this app as much as I do? Or am I way off in left field here? Give me your thoughts and come back next time for my next edition of The Musician’s Arsenal!
Follow Jason Loomis on Twitter @JLoom718
Hang with him on Facebook Facebook.com/CyberPR
Reader Comments (3)
Since this is, after all, on the intartoobs and links are what it's all about, seems you could have put one in your article for the focus of your article. No, it wasn't hard to look up BandsInTown, but still.
I digitally tsk at you.
I've been working with BIT for over 2 years now and they are making leaps and strides over Songkick and the other show listing sites with regards to artist services. There is a tremendous amount of control over when your shows are published, notifications, promoting shows, etc. Features targeted updates (so you don't annoy fans across the country) for promoting shows. The simple fact that you're connecting your facebook event, likes, comments across your blog, website, facebook page, myspace page, etc all in one fell swoop is AMAZING.
My current list of clients using BIT: Slightly Stoopid, Fishbone, The Expendables, Rebelution, Dumpstaphunk, Iration, Mat McHugh, The Beautiful Girls, The Aggrolites, The Expanders, Yeti Beats
Too bad Bandsintown.com steals copyrighted photographs from photographers and refuse to compensate them for the illegal usage.