artists.MTV + Topspin Go Direct – Claim Your Artist Page and Grow Your Audience

Did you know that millions of fans use MTV every day to learn about artists? Topspin GoDirect is the way you control your MTV page. Now you can update the basic info, BIO, photos, songs and videos displayed on the page. You can also set an artist banner on top of the page (free promotional tool for you!) that links where ever you’d like.

Today Topspin Media announced a new product called Go Direct. (Still technically in beta.) The service is a new platform with a hook into the new artists.MTV site. The Topspin Go Direct platform allows artists to manage the artists.MTV. Topspin has always focused on a 3 point approach for artists to go “direct-to-fan”.

  1. Grow your fan base
  2. Communicate with your fans
  3. Sell your music and merch

To gain control of your page and set it up to help promote your music, your page must be claimed, your Topspin Go Direct account activated and set-up, then your artists.MTV page configured to take full advantage of this exciting new music discovery/consumption destination site.

Not sure how to do all this? No problem. Music Geek Services is an expert Topspin ecosystem partner (heck, we even teach the Berklee College of Music course on Topspin!). We can help you figure this all out and set-up the page to properly promote your music. Just get in touch with us using the form below…

Need Help with Your artists.MTV / Topspin Go Direct Page?

TOPSPIN LABS: “Bleach” – An HTML Email For Media Widget

Topspin Creative Services just launched a new labs tool called “Bleach,” which is an HTML Email For Media Widget.

What you need:
1) A Topspin account
2) An Email For Media widget already created
3) An image for the widget that contains a call to action (i.e. “Click Here To Download”)

The tool provides an iFrame for you to embed on your site.

Read the rest of the article via the Topspin Blog.

Check out the new “Bleach” widget:

Here’s how I did it:

Topspin Labs: iFrame Anywhere – Holy Crap!

Before you continue reading, click this link and watch what happens. When done, come back here to read what I did to make it happen.

Attended a mini Topspin ecosystem partner bootcamp last week with the awesome and amazing Topspin Creative Services team members Chris Carlson and Parker Todd Brooks. They walked the Music Geek Services team through all the current and future Topspin Labs tools. MGS had been using Download Anywhere for about a year and dabbled with Link Builder, but had not yet used iFrame Anywhere. As Chris and Parker talked about it and walked us through a use-case example, the wheels in my head started turning.

The next day as I was reviewing my emails, one of them was from Rhett Miller‘s label manager. She mentioned that American Songwriter magazine had just posted a great video of Rhett performing an acoustic version of one of the songs off his upcoming album in their offices. She wanted it posted on his site so they could link to it from Twitter, Facebook, etc. Hoping that the video would provide some buzz about the upcoming album.

After I posted the video to the site I realized this situation was perfect for iFrame Anywhere. Why should we be linking to YouTube, the magazine, or to some news post deep inside Rhett’s web site. Why not send the user to a page that would have the video “hover” over the current pre-order offer page. So the user would instantly see the video, be given an opportunity to socially share it on Twitter and Facebook, and then when done watching the video would be delivered directly to Rhett’s home page which current features the pre-order campaign and tour date listing.

We could then tweet out this link, post it to Facebook, and share it via emails. This would drive traffic to an awesome video but also to the pre-order page.

When the user socially shares it via Twitter, here’s the default tweet:

Here’s what it looks like when the user shares it via Facebook:

Then when one of their followers/friends clicks on the link, they end up on a page that looks like this with the video hovering in a modal window over Rhett’s home page which contains his pre-order offers:

When the user is finished watching the video they can either trigger one of the shares or click the “x” and they end up on Rhett’s offer page:

This tool could be used for a video launch, an email-for-stream (e4s) campaign, or anything that you can whip up that will work inside an iFrame when you want to feature content, but also drive traffic, on your website.

Need Help with Topspin?

Do you need help getting started with Topspin? Need help troubleshooting a specific problem you are having with your set-up?


Are you new to the Topspin platform and need some expert assistance on how to get started? Having a problem figuring out on how to integrate Topspin into your website or Facebook page? Music Geek Services is available for hire and can assist you remotely via email, screen share, or over the phone.

Artist of the Day: Riverboat Gamblers’ Share-2-Unlock | Topspin Media

For the Riverboat Gamblers new album “The Wolf You Feed” we (Volcom Entertainment, the band’s record label) were faced with a shorter than normal pre-release set up window. So we decided since we couldn’t do a more traditional trickling out of new songs and tidbits from the album over a 3 month period prior to release, we would accelerate that whole process by kicking off the entire pre-release album promo only 3 weeks before the album’s release.

via Artist of the Day: Riverboat Gamblers’ Share-2-Unlock | Topspin Media.

Learn Online Music Marketing with Topspin – Direct to Fan Marketing via BerkleeMusic.Com

Want to dig in deep to learn the Topspin platform? I’ll be teaching the Berklee Music course Online Music Marketing with Topspin – Direct to Fan Marketing during the next session which starts Monday April 2. Enrollment is still open and spots are still available.

For more information on the course click here

Trick: Social Gifting to Get Your Music Heard

Topspin has a gifting feature as a part of its purchase flow. This was originally created to allow music and merchandise to be purchased as a gift for someone. However, I have seen a few campaigns lately that add a social sharing element to the gifting feature. By setting a price of $0.00 for a track or digital package like an EP, an artist can allow existing fans to easily share the artist’s music in a more personal way than a tweet or Facebook status update.

Incubus recently used the feature on a campaign for their live EP in combination with the Valentine’s Day holiday. They had a button under their e4m widget that encouraged fans to “Send To A Friend or Lover”.

If you are interested in help in setting up a similar campaign, feel free to contact us and find out how Music Geek Services can help you.

YouTube + Email For Media | Topspin Media

As you probably know by now, Topspin entered into an exciting partnership with YouTube and now offers that sold through Topspin can appear on the artist’s YouTube Channel in a Store section. (Read all about it here.) The YouTube announcement got the Creative Services team (me, Parker & Chris) thinking…what else could we do on YouTube? Can we still collect email addresses?

Hell jes.

via YouTube + Email For Media | Topspin Media.

Topspin Download Anywhere + PledgeMusic = Delivering Fans to Artists' Projects

At Music Geek Services we have been loving the new-ish Download Anywhere functionality from Topspin. It allows one to customize the confirmation page for the email4media widget and place it, literally, anywhere on the web. A few weeks ago we saw a creative use of it mentioned in a blog post by Topspin’s Chris Carlson. This inspired us to come up with a creative implementation of our own.

One of Music Geek Services’ newest clients is Rhett Miller (of the Old ’97′s). We just signed Rhett up to Topspin as he launched a PledgeMusic campaign for his next studio solo album project to be released on his own label. We wanted to make sure that during the pledge campaign we were taking advantage of all opportunities to drive traffic to the PledgeMusic project page.

So, when you use the email4media widget to sign-up for Rhett’s mailing list on his web site:

…and you confirm your sign-up, we use the Download Anywhere customization features to display a message from Rhett about his PledgeMusic campaign and deliver the fan to the actual project page on the PledgeMusic web site. You can also choose to share the news on your Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Thanks,
Chandler
Music Geek Services

Custom Development Trick: Email For Stream

We are starting to see a lot of “email4stream” campaigns.  Were artists are having listening parties over a short period of time (2-3 days) which requires the fan to enter their email to access the streaming player.  It is not a standard feature of the Topspin Media platform.  But Topspin has a few articles and resources that describe how to accomplish this implementation.

via Custom Dev: Email For Stream | Blog Post

via How to Create a Page Gate | Knowledge Base Article