moderndaypeasants.com

Social Media for Brand Networking

Are you using social media for brand networking? If not then maybe it’s something you should seriously consider. I am guilty myself of not taking it seriously until recently. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Delicious and a few others can have a huge impact on the marketing of your business. All of the above sites have millions of dedicated users who may be interested in what your site has to offer. The key is learning how to properly use these tools to your advantage.

Let’s take Twitter for example. Twitter is what I would call a micro blogging platform that allows it’s users to send short instant messages known as tweets. The message can not be more than 140 characters at length. When I first learned how long the message could be I thought, well that seems kind of useless, why bother? I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I guess it never dawned on me that in that 140 character message you could send a link to a website or a blog or possibly even an advertisers link that you can make money with. Twitter is an excellent social media source to help your business build it’s brand. Just keep in mind that you can’t sign in and instantly start selling to your followers. Like any other business you have to build solid relationships and trust before you begin to try and sell them anything. You can follow Modern Day Peasants on Twitter here.

Other social media outlets like Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon and Delicious should not be overlooked as well. You should know that these sites have outstanding Google PageRank. Just by signing up and entering your site you are building a high PageRank backlink. In addition, if some of your readers Digg your blog articles or maybe give them a thumbs up on Stumble it could feasibly send your website or blog traffic into a whole new stratosphere. Generally speaking a new website start-up is not going to have the PageRank Power to get to the first page of Google, Bing, Yahoo and Aol. The above social media sites do have that kind of power. Use them to your advantage!

I am still learning new ideas about the world of social media and I am no longer naive enough to think that they won’t help. Build your website or business by networking in as many ways that will help you to be noticed. If necessary build your followers one at a time. Be helpful, be friendly and be genuine and in the end the world will know who you are.

Best Wishes!

Revolutionary New Tool Will Eliminate Business Cards

by: Dan Waggoner

A blogging friend of mine recently sent me some information on a revolutionary new tool called the MingleStick which will most certainly eliminate the business cards that we all have used for years. Some of my social and business minded friends out there are going to go ape over this one and you all know who you are. The MingleStick is a small inexpensive ($19.95) electronic keychain device that allows people to exchange identity information with the click of a button. I’m sure it will be heavily used by business professionals, college students, organizers and such because it’s supported by both Windows and Mac and will hold up to 500 mingles.

The MingleStick exchanges only ID #s but when you log into your account you get all the information the other user has programmed into his or her accounts public profile such as:

• Name
• Photo
• Email Address
• Business Address
• Home Address
• Cell Phone #
• Business Phone #
• Home Phone #
• Social Networking Profiles such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn

All this can be exchanged with the simple press of a button. Below you can see two people connecting their MingleSticks.

Basically, two users point their MingSticks at each other and press the button. When the red flashing light turns solid green it means the connections has been made. It happens within a split second. Then later on when you’re ready you plug your MingleStick into your USB port on your computer where it connects to the MingleStick website and uploads the information. You just login with a secure username and password.

I’m very excited about this product because of what it means to the business and social networking world as we know it. I personally can’t ever find somebody’s business card when I need it anyway so this is a real winner for me. In my opinion it is definitely a revolutionary tool and it will without a doubt eliminate the hassle of purchasing, carrying and exchanging business cards.

Check it out and see what you think!

Best Wishes

How To Get Your Music Heard On A Small Budget

When speaking of getting your music out there and you aren’t independently wealthy, to put it bluntly, you do whatever you have to do! Get your music in front of anybody you possibly can. This includes doing current shows for local fans to help spread the word, cutting a single on CD for submission to local radio markets, building and marketing a look for you as an artist or your band ,  and networking on the computer and anywhere else that the law will allow.

It will take all of the efforts above and then some. Make sure you have quite a bit of stamina and a “I’m going all the way no matter what” attitude. If you want something bad enough there will be nothing big enough to stop you from getting it.

Regardless if you’re trying to become a Super Star or just want to sell a few songs to some movie or television producers, start today by sitting down and planning out a budget. It will take a little money but you know what they always say, “It takes money to make money”. This is a very true statement. Unless you happen to be the friend of a music producer’s son or something along those lines it doesn’t matter if you can sing like Madonna or play the guitar like Eric Clapton, you don’t get in that easy. It will involve some dedication and work but in the end it will be worth it won’t it.

If you have some songs put together and haven’t cut them on CD then do so. Record them to mp3 and whatever other latest music transfer files are available. Why is this important? You need to have a means to display your music to the world easily and quickly! Go to some of the online music submission facilities and start putting your mp3′s out there for them to hear. Get an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) fast. This is a promotional tool used for online promotion. You can pay a professional promoter to set one up for you or you can build one yourself and save money if you are tech savvy. It includes photos, history, a few current songs, listed website for you or your band, any news releases or articles written about you, booked events, labels if you have one, etc. The EPK should be stored on your computer so you can send it out immediately if you need to.

Before you place recorded songs on your EPK, make sure they are of good quality. Think of your EPK as the “modern day demo”. When the person at the other end listening to your music hits “play” then it better be of good quality or they won’t be listening very long. Think about it….how long do you want to listen to a song that has garble and feedback and other noises in it. I’ll bet not very long! So if this means you have to go and get your songs professionally recorded then do so if you can afford it. You could also record your music on your own with a good multi track recorder and burn the songs straight to CD or mp3 by yourself. This will be a less expensive way to go but you will need to learn how to operate your multi track unit well.

Again, once you have your music (the most satisfying to you) on CD and mp3 format start sending it out via the Internet. You can use venue’s such as Sonicbids, Taxi, Myspace, Ourstage, etc. There are plenty of them online just make sure that you do your research before dealing with any company. Also make sure your music is copyrighted before you present it to the whole world. You never know, you just might have some stuff that is so good that people may try to steal it.

——————————————————————————————————–

——————————————————————————————————–

Quartet X2 Music Studio

——————————————————————————————————–