If you are unsigned and not on the brink of getting a label deal, my answer is NO. What you need is a consultant. No, this is not a shameless plug for my services, but a genuine examination of the state of the music business. Here is my reasoning:

In the past the most important thing for a band to do was make music and play gigs. Not so anymore. Now your job also includes managing your Online presence. But where do you begin and how do you do it effectively? A New Media consultant can guide and advise you - without taking 20% of everything you make. They can also help you understand digital distribution, eTeam marketing, how to design your profiles and blogs, how to attract fans to your sites and increase comments. They can teach you how to do it yourself. Yes, it’s a lot more work. But it is also YOUR career and for the first time - it is in YOUR HANDS.

Record labels are suffering and the last thing they are going to do is invest in a band that hasn’t invested in themselves. It will be a very rare case that a band, on talent alone, is signed to a major deal. If you can’t sell records or merchandise and collect lots of genuine fans on your own, then you won’t be able to do it with their help either. It is also a good point of leverage for you to have all of this - under your ownership. Once you’ve sold records, built your profiles up and your fans are rabid for new material - then hire a manager to help you with the details. Until then, hire someone to teach and advise you that isn’t attached to the project. Learn to do it yourself and you will own more of yourself in the end.

Web Communities

Web Communities are places for you to create profiles, connect with people based on specific niches, share content, submit content to the community at large and market yourself all over the world for FREE.

All web communities are social sites. But some cater more to the experience of sharing yourself while others focus on your interests or what you have to sell. Here, Social Sites are ones based on interaction between the artist and other artists or fans. Music sites are sites where the community can find your profile with links to your information but not interact with you directly. Some are retails sites. Internet Radio Stations are sites to submit your music for addition in their rotation. Some require you to send the information to the station directly while others you add your music to the site or you build your own station. Today’s post lists the social sites that have a strong focus on music.

Social Sites

• Amie Street – Where music is free and referrals are rewarded
• Buzznet – Social site for musicians and music fans. They provide some cool technology. They have a MoBlog – a blog that can be updated with video and photos from your cell phone.
• Face Book – Started as a site for college students to connect but now has profiles open to everyone.
• Haystack - To help you collect your life on the web. Built for musicians and music fans.
• iLike – Recommendation and networking site owned by Ticketmaster.
• Indie 911 - By combining a social networking approach with an emerging artist network, indie911 takes the online music and film experience to a new level, where artists can interact directly with their audiences.
• iSound – Focuses on allowing all unsigned artists to easily create their own websites with every feature they could possibly want.
• Imeem - An online community where people and groups can upload, share, tag, and playlist the media they care about.
• Mog - Automatically builds you a web page that displays your music collection and real-time listening stats without you having to type it in. Built for music snobs.
• Mozes – Site similar to Buzznet. Allows band to choose a keyword and once that word is entered and sent to Mozes it will send photos and video updates to the cell phone.
• Myspace – Need I say more?
• Project Opus – Canadian company. Online music community designed to support artists, fans and local music. It is a single point of contact for discovery of new music.
• Pure Volume – A site for your profile and your songs.
• Ruckus – Site for college students that revolves around sharing music.
• Tag World – Built mainly for people connecting but music sharing is a part of the community.
• Uber – Funded by Universal Music Group, this site caters to the artist, journalist and musician by making their portfolios and music available for sharing and networking.
• Virb - A community website that combines social interaction with music and entertainment exploration.