I mentioned 101 Distribution in my digital distribution round-up here:

101 Distribution – (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) – Not sure what warrants the high costs here. But there’s a massive $599 sign up fee, then $49.95 a month. 100% payout of all sales. You’re gonna need it with those kind of upfronts! You can Twitter questions why, here: @101Distribution

from my post earlier in the week.

Anyway, I did get a few Tweets from the guys at 101 explaining that their Pro setup is only $599, there is no monthly charge on top. The $49.95 monthly charge is actually a ‘payment plan’ for artists who can’t stump up the 600 big ones up front.

I did promise 101 I’d clear that up for them, so here you go!

I remember trying to design one of those flash pro-looking Twitter backgrounds where you list all your social media profiles in a box in the top left hand corner. You know, like all those MLM ‘gurus’ have. I gave up.

But it did bring attention to a couple of things for me. I noticed that not all my social media profiles are blessed with URLs that fit in with my ‘social profile’ (or, branding if you like) and my Facebook URL is particularly unruly. (As is everyone elses!)

So I took five minutes to login to my website management software and using the sub domain feature added a couple of new subdomains under buzzsonic.com. Then I pointed them to my social profiles. So……

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=528551668 becomes www.facebook.buzzsonic.com and my Linkedin profile goes from www.linkedin.com/in/fusiarski to: www.linkedin.buzzsonic.com  And so on. Typing in the shorter name takes you directly to the long one.

What you need. 1.Your own domain name 2. A webhosting account 3. A few minutes.

Its all done using a simple trick using sub-domains and URL re-directs.

When you get a webhosting account you’ll get an online control panel that goes along with it to admin things like file uploads, email accounts, database stuff, installs and other geeky stuff. I think the two most popular web control panels are probably Plesk and CPanel. If you use Plesk you probably hate CPanel and visa versa. Its kinda like the Mac vs PC thing but even more nerdy!

But anyway. CPanel is my weapon of choice. There are several other control panels you may use but they all kind of do the same thing. So these steps should be similar on any software.

To set-up a sub domain login to your control panel (and there’s a live demo of CPanel here if you want to check it out) and head for the subdomain area.  First thing to do is to head for the sub-domain admin area. Its a simple task of adding your subdomain of choice.

So for example I added facebook.buzzsonic.com. Then added my lengthy default Facebook URL. So. What happens is simply that you (or anyone from now on!) types in your new shiny short Facebook and off it goes to the crappy URL that Facebook gives you!

Just follow the process for any URL you want to point to. I’ve actually seen people use one of those URL shortening services to hide their long Facebook URL. This looks way better.

Related Reading

URL Redirection (Wikipedia)
A Bloggers Guide to Branding With Social Media (ProBlogger)
100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media (ChrisBrogan.com)

In a climate where many artists are struggling to find income streams every avenue helps and one area worth exploring is music placement in film and TV.

The ‘gatekeepers’ to these type of gigs are the music supervisors. The music supervisor is a person who coordinates the work of the composer, the editor, and sound mixers. Alternately, a person who researches, obtains rights to, and supplies songs for a production (namely films and television programs).

TV viewers (particularly those who are geeky about music) tend to notice what songs get used on shows, and those touches can be credited to the music supervisor.

If you want to find out who the music supervisor is on any given movie or TV show you might not have earmarked the Amazon owned Internet Movie Database as a go-to  music industry resource but the site is packed with info on cast and crew members, including music supervisors.

Look up movies that have really great soundtracks then scroll through the credits and you’ll find out the names of the person responsible for music supervision.

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This was supposed to be one of those short snappy posts that was concise and to the point. Instead, and this happens all the time, I continued to research as I was writing and the post grew into another lengthy monster. Hey, I’m the editor so I guess its OK.

Anyway I was looking around for radio resources and stations that play independent music and associated resources and as usual the post kept expanding.

I write using Live Writer (which plugs into my WordPress install), pulling notes in from Google Notebook at the same time as having a bunch of web pages open with my RSS reader running in the system tray. Input crazy.

I’ve concentrated mainly on terrestrial radio but I’ve also included a bunch of streaming resources. I came to the conclusion that anyone with a little time on their hands could put together a respectable mailing list for a radio ‘campaign’ with a little creativity.

I’ve also focused on the USA (where I live now) and the UK (where I’m from). I’ll probably extend things to Asia, Europe and the ROTW in a later post.

Where To Start?

Some tips from UK recording artist and radio DJ Tom Robinson first who has one of the best articles I’ve seen for a while on getting radio play. How To Send CDs To Radio. Its written from a UK perspective but the basics apply anywhere.

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