Reverbnation - Finding our feet and creating a cunning plan!

You know how it is, you find a new game on the internet and everybody who has been there before you, knows what to do and kicks your butt time after time. Some people will help you a little bit, but they are not going to tell a newbie their trade secrets about how they got where they are in the game until they either get to know you better or you join a guild or a clan. And, even then most people will hold back on what sets them apart from the rest.

Now imagine a new game called, 'How to get to local Number One on Reverbnation'. This time there is no clan or guild to help you. Other artists may be friendly but they are out for themselves too and really want you to buy their music or get noticed by Simon Cowell and not have to bother with all this online marketing ever again, nothing more and nothing less. How wrong they are, but never mind, thats another story for another time.
However, there is a trade to be made here, such as 'become a fan of mine, and I will become a fan of yours' and this is how most people start to find their feet. The downside is, it takes a long time to create contacts and make these reciprocal arrangments stand. Also, if you post this to your profile, it looks like you are begging for help! You're going to get nowhere. People like to associate with success, so you have to boost your own ego and sell yourself hard, nobody else is going to do it for you. With over 830,000 musicians trying to force their way to the top of the pile, or perhaps I should say mountain; little old me begging for a fan here and there is not going anwhere.

Every single artist on Reverbnation has the same tools to climb this virtual mountain, some of them are already mainstream global artists and the majority of these are not sitting pretty at the summit of this online music community. The secret dear reader, is in the numbers!

How many song plays? How many fans? How many profile visits? How many other artists are reccomending you? The list of numbers this site generates is endless. Everything is recorded and counts towards your BES (Band Equity Score) and Reverbnation are not going to tell you how they calculate this, so you have to guess.

I just hope that I have guessed correctly, more next time!