Reclaiming Your Online Identity: Which Sites Matter to You?

By Chris R. at CD Baby
June 9, 2011{ 26 Comments }

iStock 000010031937XSmall 300x300 Reclaiming Your Online Identity: Which Sites Matter to You?A tip from Captain Obvious: YOU should be in charge of your online identity.

Who else would be? Well,… Amazon, Facebook, Wikipedia, All Music Guide, Gracenote, etc.

We want to help you take back ownership of your online identity. We want to hear from you (in the comments section below) which sites are most important? Most confusing? Most frustrating?

No, I’m not suggesting that you’re the victim of some identity theft scam. But the internet is a complicated web where things can easily get lost, grow stale, or fall through the cracks. Actually, do webs have cracks? I think I’m mixing metaphors.

Anyway, with so many different pages, profiles, blogs, music stores, databases, and fan sites pointing to YOU, it can be difficult to keep everything consistent, accurate, fresh, and funky. When your online presence starts to feel scattered, you end up spending valuable energy re-herding the digital cats when you could be practicing, networking, recording, or performing.

Which sites matter to you? We want to help.

One of the keys to your promotion is your musical persona, your musical identity. Part of that is your online identity, which should present a unified front whenever possible. Instead of feeling like your online presence is spreading ever outwards until you’re stretched infinitely thin, think of ways to make the many disparate sites converge on the central truth of “you.” And yes, I know that sounds pretty hippie-ish.

For the rest of the month, we want to help you get organized, get unified, and get cracking! We’re going to do the homework for you and then let you cheat off of our paper during the exam. A few of the ideas we’ve already got planned are:

1. How to set up an Amazon Artist Central page.

2. How to submit your music, bio, and discography to All Music Guide.

3. How to make sure your album info appears correctly in Gracenote.

But there are plenty more places online where your music, your biographical information, your writings, your concert calendars, your videos and your photos appear. Which sites matter to you? Let us know in the comments section below and we’ll do some research.

-Chris R. at CD Baby

(Since initially posting this, we’ve already added some information about All Music Guide, Amazon Artist Central, and Wikipedia. Check ‘em out!)

Sell your music on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, Rhapsody, Napster, Spotify, and more!

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    - How to get control of your music on Last.fm (or get it on there in the first place)

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    - How to get control of your music on Last.fm (or get it on there in the first place)

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Thanks. That is a great question. I’ve written a piece before about how to initially submit bio and music to All Music Guide, but I’ll look into how to change stuff there once you’ve got your foot in the door. Thanks for the suggestion. Hopefully I’ll have something to report later this month.

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Hey Rafe, check back later in the month for more details on Gracenote and All Music Guide. They’re definitely worth your time.

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Hey Rafe, check back later in the month for more details on Gracenote and All Music Guide. They’re definitely worth your time.

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Cool. Thanks! We’ll get an article on Last.fm posted in the next couple weeks.

  • AERIA Entertainment L.L.C.

    BRAVO! Great ideas here :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TNA2TKKEUOGAIKQXCSUB4EREMU Don

    I look forward to this and will be watching/reading. One thing I have found is you can sure waste a lot of time on the internet thinking you are doing something good with your time.

  • Jchris3227

    I really had a bad experience with All Music Guide where they ignored what was sent to them and listed the information on my CD incorrectly. I repeatedly tried to get them to correct the information, to which they replied “the information is correct.” Idiots!

  • Mnash3

    I was happy to hear that I was listed in the All Music Guide. I’ll take what I can get… As for which sites matter to me… Definitely CDBaby for the physical cd sales and tracking digital sales. Also, I like the new widget. I was so unhappy when Snocap went away as I needed a widget for my website. The other key sites are Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, and iTunes. These are all industry leaders and have ways for fans to purchase either via download, stream, per song, or the entire album whether digital or ordering the physical. When communicating with fans, I always recommend Facebook if you are really talkative like me. I think they could have done better with the features for the musicians page. I typically just use the personal although I have the musicians page setup. If you are always on the go, you can use Twitter, but I am personally boycotting Twitter. LOL… By the way, the boycott is not because Twitter is a bad company. It’s actually because I always felt I was one step behind. I finally got all of the myspace site setup, then the myspace music page, then had to follow everyone to facebook, and I was then like that’s the last draw. I am not going to Twitter. LOL… FB has more than enough features. The next important site is Youtube. Once again, industry leader and there are a bazillion users. The item I like most is really the web statistics reporting feature. I also use Livestream which is the same as Youtube, but your videos stream 24 hours a day. I use the free service as everything else was too pricey. Livestream also has an on- demand feature. I do also have my own website, but these days I have mixed feelings on if I would recommend artists to have their own page. These days, I still do updates, but I keep mine primarily because I run an internet radio station and needed a user-friendly way for everyone to listen to my music and other independent artists that I support. Sending them to online radio stations and how to do a search for my station was too much work for them; so now I just have them to surf on to my primary website and the music is already playing. The summary of the sites that are important to me are: 1) cdbaby.com; 2) Facebook; 3) Youtube; 4) Livestream; 5) iTunes; 6) Rhapsody; 7) Napster, and my personal website. Anything beyond those are icing on the cake. I think Gracenote is still important for my music be listed in the music database such that when listeners do eventually buy my cd, my cd with the track listing is recognized, but I am not destroyed if I am not listed primarily with so many screaming about how cd sales are down. I still would say that it is a good move for all artists to make sure they update their music in Gracenote. As for the personal website, to each his own. The purpose of having a website is for fans to learn about you and your projects which can be completely accomplished with FB. Not only that the purpose of this type of social media advertising is to interact with folk; so no need to reinvent the wheel. My badd…. I’m starting to ramble. I just wanted to provide feedback to the sites that I use and why. By the way, I am a one man shop; so my sites and reasons for those sites are based on if you are a one man operation and you need to do everything yourself and not be dependent on other folks or if the price is not within your budget to hire people to manage all of the sites for you. By the way, the upfront time is signicant, but the maintaining is not that bad and there is still plenty of time to work on music and even video projects.

  • http://www.musicforaardvarks.com David Weinstone

    One thing that has always bugged me is the wrong track list and listening samples on one of my CDs on Amazon. I have tried to correct this to no avail. Who do you call-Track Busters?
    Great postings!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503417342 Andrew Neesley

    All Music Guide is crucial, but very difficult for an independent act to get through to.

  • Dallas Dorrall

    Nice CDBABY… I was just in the beginning stages of researching this very thing myself. I’m just getting ready to start a main web site for Johnny Collier (musician) and was wondering where and how to post a basic profile or bio on ALL the social media sites and get traffic rolling to our main web site. I’ll be watching and learning from You!! Right on!

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Where is the space junk living now? What web sites?

  • Denisfarfone

    My favorite sites are Facebook and MySpace. You have ample room to write as much info, photos, and videos as you want.

  • Nick Hempton Band

    Great post. I’ve had the same trouble with AMG- unable to change incorrect info. Also, Reverbnation is just baffling.

  • http://makeitinmusic.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/claim-control-these-essential-online-profiles/ Claim & control these essential online profiles « Make It In Music Daily

    [...] This is something that you should do when your online profile reaches a sufficient level that makes it worthwhile and it’s well set out in this post on DIY Musician. [...]

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Hey T,
    I’d be curious to hear how you’ve used Facebook if you feel like it has played a big part in making your tours successful. Any tips to share?

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Great advice! Thanks for sharing.

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Thanks, Adam. I’ll check it out. Haven’t visited their site in a few months. Time for a checkup.

  • http://www.delonelyman.com Ricardo González

    i use Facebook ,Twitter, Reverbnation, Myspace, Last.FM, BandCamp, my Official website and write blog`s through Tumblr. Also i uploaded my songs on Grooveshark. Very soon i`ll join CdBaby as well!! Great Post, Thanks for all the advices!!

  • Anonymous

    What about Soundcloud?

  • http://members.cdbaby.com CD Baby Admin

    Wow. You’re off to a heck of a start with all those.

  • http://twitter.com/ThaGataNegrra TRUEORIGINAL GATA 黒猫

    I have my own site (which I’m planning on overhauling), Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (still), Last.fm, iLike (which I hate), Bandcamp, Sonicbids, ReverbNation, Jango, iheartradio, OurStage, some random social sites on the ning platform, Black Planet, Migente, some off-the-beaten-track sites like Whotune and Indie-Music, and I will be on CD Baby very soon. I update what I can, and some update automatically because I updated other sites. I try to stay on top of it all just to keep everything consistent.

  • http://twitter.com/ThaGataNegrra TRUEORIGINAL GATA 黒猫

    It certainly is helpful.

  • Juan Johnson

    I so agree with this. I think that it might seem like you’re doing a lot by having tons of followers, friends, but if its not making you money then it wasts a ton of time.