"How Many Profiles Do You Need?"

That is the question a good friend of mine asked me as we discussed the bloated online music environment.

In order to keep all of the profiles current you definitely need to schedule blocks of time during the week. This time should be spent doing nothing but updating each of your online profiles. We both agreed that that is the only way to realistically keep up with the 5 to 7 different network profiles that most artists have.

Another thing I thought would help this situation is to limit the number of networks you are on. Now this idea is the polar opposite of what many "Online Strategists" suggest but given the saturation within the environment, I believe this is a crucial step in staying on top of your individual "business" plan (as it were).

I have started to narrow my choices down to the following sites:

Last FM, iMeem, Amie Street, Myspace, and Facebook

The plan is to get those five sites in stable, current running order and then just maybe park something on Tune Core, Pandora or the plethora of other music network sites.

Currently the only site I could claim to have stable is my dreaded Myspace page (it is also the one I have been on the longest so far) and of course this blog.

I mentioned in a comment on New Music Strategies, that I only have a few hundred dollars per year to put towards my music making and marketing. That is a very small amount of money and that is why these music networks are so advantageous to me.

If I don't have enough money to market myself then I have even less time! Time is not something a husband, father of two with a full time day job has to spare. My time is very limited and I would much rather spend it creating music than marketing it.

Again this is where these music networks are a great advantage to me. They are very useful.

Over the course of the next few weekends I plan to have my Last FM page sorted out very proper. They have begun using a new beta version and this new version allows anyone with free songs available on Last FM to have them podcast on iTunes.

That is a very good thing...as long as I can drive people to my sites.

Lets see what happens next!

Cheers,

m e e k