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         HIT CLICK interview with Arkade Co-Founder Stephen Miller

 

HIT CLICK: One of the services your company offers is website building for the artist. Why should they come to Arkade for this when they can build a page on Facebook or Myspace Music?

STEPHEN MILLER: A Facebook page does not replace a Website. Facebook is an essential tool for self-marketing; but should be used with a real, hosted website. Only a dedicated site can offer these essential advantages:

Control of your website look - Artists have no control over how Facebook looks and works and social networks can make wholesale changes to Artists’ pages without their consent. With your own website, you can create and control a web presence that looks the way you want it to; and no one but you can change it!

Control your Fans Experience - What do you want your fans to see and do? Social networks give you a single page on a site full of buttons, links, ads and info that are irrelevant to you and your fans. Do you really want users to click on ads for autos, tickets to other bands gigs, dating services & lotteries? On your own website, you are in control.

Control the Relationships with your Fans - MySpace, Facebook, Friends Reunited (remember them?); Social Network sites come and go but your own website is yours; you own the relationship with your fans.

You are in control - You are in control of important fan information such as email addresses and postcodes, when your fans join your mailing list, comment on your tracks or blog and buy your music or merchandise.
With your own site you can always keep in contact with your fans – even when they move on from Facebook to the next hip thing.

Control your own online business - Artists get an unbeatable
100% of the price they set their sales. Artists set the price for their products in their preferred currency & fans can buy tracks in their own preferred currency; Arkade provides a truly global platform and does all the hard work for the Artist including Artist’s sales reporting and Artist site statistics.

Legally sell your cover versions - Arkade will deduct & pay the statutory Mechanical Royalty due to the publisher/songwriter(s) on Artists’ behalf. Arkade also issues ISRCs for all tracks uploaded.

Control your Content – Post a new track, remove a track, change the mix, set & change the price, change the bio, post the latest news, sell merchandise; Artists have immediate control at their fingertips with full history log of changes.

HIT CLICK: How else can an artist promote themselves on Arkade?

STEPHEN: Arkade provides a number of powerful tools for Artists to market themselves including:
  • Mailing List management to send out News Letters, etc.
  • Blog management (picked up by search engines)
  • Share buttons link and share content with the prominent Social Network sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc.
  • Gigs posted to Artist sites are forwarded to Ents24 for inclusion in listings in many magazines & other media.
  • Artist Widgets can be placed on any website so that Artists’ music can be streamed anywhere. If fans want to download tracks, the transactions are handled by Arkade (where Artists get 100% of the price they have set for their tracks).
  • Links - Arkade provides a selection of link buttons to Artist’s site pages and individual tracks or merchandise. Post links on forums, blogs, email messages or other websites and draw traffic to your Arkade site. As we say at Arkade: “You’ve got to be Seen to Be Heard”
HIT CLICK: Which artists have found success through Arkade?

STEPHEN: Arkade has spawned a number of Artists who have gone on to sign record deals. However, due to the exclusive nature of these deals they are no longer free to operate sites on Arkade. The list is long, but here are a few:
  • MY LUMINARIES signed to V2 record label.
  • PUGGY signed to Mercury and Universal is now dealing with their music online.
  • The REBUS track 'Work Song' featured in the recent Vodafone 3G advertisement.
  • The CARLA VALLET track 'Streets of Tomorrow' used as the theme for the Audi Q7 SUV in its advertising.
  • The TRANSLUZENT track “Blame” used as the title track for the film “Stormbreaker”

HIT CLICK: What is the feedback from Artists using Arkade?

STEPHEN: Feedback has been very positive. Here are some examples:
  • “Overall very impressive – very sleek design which is simple to understand, and focuses very well on the artist. Think the Preview Editor particularly is excellent” – Gavin Richardson / Colvex
  • “Absolutely Great!” – Bob Fries
  • “Good site – nice look to it – good feel about it. Ease of use is good.” – Jamie Malam / Floorboy
  • “Nice look and feel to the site and it’s very easy to find what you want – well done” – Tim Eyles / The Random
  • “I thought generally it is a really good, useful site that gives great opportunity to bands to get their songs on the web. We will definitely be plugging arkade on our site and to lots of other bands” – James Montague / Simple Reason
  • “Top stuff! Great to work with, great to look at, actually very inspiring from a creative point of view. And of course the business aspect of it is cutting edge” – Alex Kaupa / Red Antennae

HIT CLICK EDITORIAL COMMENT: In Chapter 7, Marketing Your Music Online and Building A Super Fanbase, the emphasis was using the social websites to market your music directly to your fans. Stephen Miller’s comments about the advantages of building your own website brings a healthy balance to the emphasis of chapter 7. 

Marketing through the social media sites is still a must, but I would agree with Arkade that having your own website that you control is vital as well. Fortunately, it is not a choice of one or the other - own website or your music pages on the social media sites - the answer is both. 


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