By Heather McDonald, About.com






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Ah, the internet. There's no denying it has turned the music industry upside down. File sharing and the increased popularity of MP3s have both left labels scrambling to update their business models, and musicians have discovered that they suddenly have a lot of tools at their fingertips to take advantage of their own careers. Sure, that's a good thing for musicians - when it's managed properly. The downside of the musician's life online is that the internet is a minefield of scams and opportunities to make some really bad decisions. Here's a rundown of the top mistakes musicians make on the internet


Musicians' Top Mistakes Online


Can MySpace, Twitter, blogging, etc, be very important for your music career? Sure they can. But way too many musicians and music related businesses let these social networking tools become their jobs instead of the music. If you're devoting hours a day to making MySpace friend requests or adding people on Twitter, you're going about this all wrong and have gotten off track a little bit.

The bottom line is that you're not going to win many new fans by being their virtual friend. You're going to win new fans by writing some good music. Social networking is a promotional tool that you can use to let people know about the things you're working on to keep them interested and engaged, and an important part of managing it well is exercising some restraint when it comes to how much time you spend on it versus other things you need to do for your music career.

If you're still unsure, take a good listen to some of the musicians on social networking sites that have tens of thousands of friends/followers - you'll see pretty quickly there's no real correlation between number of friends and musical prowess. Remember why you're online in the first place - to promote your music. Make your offline work the priority.

Paying People To Do What You Could Do For Free

Someday, when you're selling millions of records, you'll be able to pay someone to tie your shoes, pour your coffee, carry your water bottle and any other activity you find downright objectionable. When you're trying to get your music career off the ground, however, you have to spend your money wisely. You can find plenty of people on the internet who are making a tidy little living selling musicians information they could easily find themselves for free if only they devoted an afternoon to the Google. Don't encourage these people (who I find downright objectionable) by using their services. You have better things to spend your money on. A turkey sandwich would be a better investment for your music career than paying someone to copy a label's address off their website and send it to you.


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Musicians' Top Mistakes Online

The internet gives a platform to, well, anyone with an internet connection. When it comes to the music industry, there are A LOT of people weighing in on the discussion. That means you have to become a smart consumer. You're bound to encounter conflicting advice about your music career online. That's not intrinsically a bad thing - there's no one way to do something, and even people with plenty of music business experience disagree on the best approach to getting the job done. Further, different websites are geared towards different audiences, so the advice is different. You can use this disparity in advice to your advantage. Take it all in, weigh it all up, take a little from column A, a little from column B and come up with your own best plan.

That's the good side of the democracy of music industry advice on the internet. There are a few downsides. Here are just a few things to watch out for:

*The All Business, No Music Approch: Sometimes, people with a business background, but no MUSIC business background offer advice on the industry. Musicians can almost always benefit from listening to words of wisdom from someone with some business management know-how, but many people who have not worked in a creative industry don't appreciate the differences between the arts and "regular" businesses. As a musician, you ignore these differences at your peril.
*The Philosophical Approach: Brainstorming strategies is one thing, but don't get so wrapped up in convoluted conversations packed with business buzz words that you don't actually do anything. It's easy to run down this road, but look for solid, clear, actionable advice and try not to get distracted by lofty musings. It's fun to puzzle over aspects of the music industry, but just make sure you strike a balance between staying part of the conversation and accomplishing something concrete.


Paying for Questionable Advice

Even worse than getting bogged down in questionable advice is paying for it. There are A LOT of people out there who have enough understanding of the music industry to recognize that there is a knowledge gap and to know that there are many people who would pay just about any price for a shot at making their music business dreams come true. And so, they charge you an arm and leg (in some cases, two legs) to give you vaguely inspirational, business buzz word filled advice that either has little real world MUSIC BUSINESS application or is just plain wrong.

Please, please, PLEASE don't pay people hundreds and hundreds of dollars to tell you things you probably already know yourself. There are plenty of places online where you can get good, free advice. If you want some real insight into making it in the music industry, check out some interviews with people who have gone down the same road that you're on. Soak up their stories and learn from their successes and failures. It's free, and it's worth way more than most of the advice these people who charge you tons of money to tell you to set up a MySpace page can give you.

Now, I'm not saying here that people shouldn't be compensated for working for you, and if someone comes on board and helps you out with your career, then sure, they should be paid. How can you tell the difference between legitimate opportunities and people who are trying to sell you common sense? The less than legitimate people will tell you that anyone who disagrees with them doesn't know what they're talking about and that anyone who doesn't sign up for their program lacks vision or isn't really committed to making in music. Come on now, you know better than that. The music biz is risky, and a lot of people lose money in it. That's a fact. Just don't lose it to these people.

Not Considering The Source

If you were buying a car and the salesperson proclaimed to you that the future of automotives rests with the car they happen to be selling, you'd take that with a grain of salt, wouldn't you? Well, if there's one thing the internet is not short of it is proclamations about the future of the music industry. Many of the most forceful ones are made by people with a vested financial interest in seeing the future turn out just the way they're saying.

Back to the notion of being a smart consumer online: consider where you're getting your information. If you read a blog that argues passionately that music platform X is the wave of the future, that happens to have been penned by the owner of music platform X, you have a little more research to do before you make up your own mind.