Review of Reverbnation

One of the things that bands have to do in the 21^st century if they want to actually be working bands is maintain an online presence. Label bands have someone to manage all that for them, but those of us responsible for driving our own bus (or van or hatchback), have to tackle the Interwebs ourselves.

Our band has chosen a few different platforms to spin our web from the tons that are out there. This blog is hosted on Blogger, and we have a Facebook page, but the real anchor for our virtual presence is Reverbnation. We’ve been on the site for a while now, so I thought I would post a review of our experience so far.

Reverbnation.com is a website that functions as a music artist’s online home. It hosts everything you need to promote your band: music, videos, photos, a store for merch, a calendar of your events/gigs, a bio and more. You can post widgets to link to your other web platforms, such as a blog, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc., so you don’t have to rebuild all of that content within RN or lose it, and it shows stats for your band, such as how many fans you have and how many song and video plays you have.

RN will even push some of your RN content to your other platforms. For example, you can post a gig on RN, and if you connect it to your Facebook page, it will automatically send a post to your Facebook news feed when the show is coming up.

RN provides interactive tools as well. People can fan you or leave comments or even contact you directly. It’s truly a one-stop shot for all of your content and for your fans.

It’s free to sign up and build a page. They use a modular process to help guide you as fill out your page. There are a ton of free tools and options to choose from, and some artists find the myriad choices a little overwhelming, but if you start slowly, filling out one module at a time, you’ll have a nice page in no time.

As you grow, you can take advantage of some of the pay services. For instance, for a small fee, you can apply for gig opportunities through RN (fees vary by event – some events may charge $3 to apply, while others may charge $30). We’ve gotten a couple of cool gigs that way, such as a gig playing for a nationwide Gap promotion. They selected bands to play in Gap stores all over the country at the same time, and we were selected to play a store in Waco. Not only did we get to be part of a national promotion, but we got some free jeans, which was sweet.

As you branch out into selling CDs, merch, etc., you can sell directly from your page, too, though you’ll want to familiarize yourself with Reverbnation’s fees. Like any distributor, they take a cut, so read up on each service before you implement it.

Bottom line: we love Reverbnation. It’s been a great resource for us, and we’re always trying to make sure we’re getting the most from it. We feel confident that it’s a platform that will be around and useful for a long time. If someone else ever drives our bus for us, though, they can use whatever platform they want!