Allison Weiss on Building an Internet Presence

Allison Weiss is one of the hardest working singer/songwriters I know. We met through Lauren Zettler, who I play with regularly, and I’ve been able to watch Allison do her thing online and in person, from the audience and behind the scenes. I can honestly say that what you see is what you get with Allison. It’s her ability to be herself online has attracted a massive but well targeted internet following across several social networking platforms which she weaves together using tools freely available to anybody. In other words, she uses no tricks and doesn’t have a team of web gurus hiding behind a curtain. She really does it all herself.

Allison Weiss, photo by Shervin Lainez

I asked Allison if she’d share her secrets with us, and as I suspected, there are no secrets! She is just a creative and savvy musician that is willing to try out new technology to stay ahead of the curve (something I believe is a key to a successful DIY music career). But don’t take my word for it, read Allison’s responses and see for yourself. There’s a lot to learn for any independent musician trying to get their music in front of the right people.

CM: You’ve built an impressive online audience. How did that start?

AW: I could say YouTube and I could say Tumblr, but I think it all started because of how much I really love the internet. Since I first got online in my early teens, I’ve loved what the internet has done for communication. Social networking is a beautiful thing. You can find someone who loves what you love in a second, even though they may be halfway across the world. When I started playing music professionally it seemed obvious that just being myself online was going to be the best form of promotion (I didn’t know any other way). I’m also an early adopter. When new technology comes along I don’t look at it as another burden to bear, but another tool to utilize. I jump on the bandwagon immediately rather than waiting until someone forces me on it.

Considering how quickly trends change online, do you think somebody doing that today would have the same results?

Absolutely, but nowadays it definitely takes patience. Back in 2005 you could put an acoustic cover up on YouTube and everyone was watching it. Now the market is saturated, so you can’t just complete the task. You have to be good. You can’t start a Twitter account and expect the fans to come pouring in. You have to use it and get good at it and learn how to make the technology work for you.

Did you have a vision of what you were building, or did it just kind of happen?

It definitely just kind of happened. I’ve never had a solid plan. I get excited, I have fun, and I roll with it. It’s hard to tell what’s going to be successful, which is why I do a little bit of everything. I set up my Kickstarter account in a couple of hours and set it in motion with a mentality of “Here goes nothing, let’s see if this works…” and it blew up*. Recently I posted a couple tracks to thesixtyone.com because a fan recommended it, and out of nowhere I was gaining a ton of fans through it. Like I said, sometimes you just never know and you have to figure it out by trial and error.

*Editor’s note: Allison created a Kickstarter project to fund her latest album, Allison Weiss Was Right All Along. She gave herself two months to raise $2,000 and ended up hitting that goal in 10 hours. She raised $4,000 by the end of the week, and ended up with $7,711 total, allowing her to expand the EP she intended to make into a full length album.

I’d say your online following is genuine, not like you used some scheme to get a bunch of MySpace friends or Twitter followers. What’s the key to attracting a real, honest fanbase?

The key to attracting a real, honest fanbase is to be a real, honest person. Most of the time I try and think of things from a fan’s perspective. How would I like my favorite bands to communicate with me? I try my best to be as interesting as possible, and I always stay true to myself. I’m open and inviting, because the bottom line is that I truly believe music is about community. I love being able to interact with fans. I love meeting people in real life who I’ve seen online. I think that if you’re a nice and genuine person, those relationships you form online will last longer than the hottest new site, and people who love you will follow you anywhere.

What do you do to keep your fans engaged online?

I post a lot of stuff. Not just show dates or album announcements. That’s super boring after a while. I update my blog and twitter like people would care about where I am or what I’m doing. I want people to feel like they know me, so I let myself be known. I have contests and give away free stuff, I try and make everything as entertaining and fun as possible. That way when I throw in a show date here and there, people are paying attention because they care.

How often do you try to do these things? How often is too often, and how little is too little, if there are such boundaries?

Tweeting and blogging (on Tumblr.com) have become natural parts of my life. I do it so often that I can’t imagine not. When something interesting in real life happens, I think about whether the internet would like to know about it (usually they would). In fact, I’m trying to stop differentiating between Real Life and The Internet, because the fact is The Internet IS Real Life. Every username is a real person who matters just as much as someone standing in front of you. As far as how often is too often, I think it totally depends. I know celebrity musicians who tweet every two minutes but still have hundreds of thousands of followers. Most of the time I wish people would post more. To me it’s more important to think about quality than quantity. You could tweet a thousand times a day and think every post you make is hilarious and incredible, but this usually isn’t the case. I say pay attention to ‘Likes’ and ‘Reblogs’. Stay entertaining and use your best judgement.

So I’d say we’ve established your web savviness by now. Can you share your 3 favorite online resources that help your career as a musician?

I’m going to give you six, is that okay? Two categories: Tools and Communities, because half of these are technical and save a lot of work, and the other half need to be used frequently and skillfully to really help a music career:

Tools:

• ArtistData.com – I use this website to update information across the net. They’ll sync up to a ton of event-listing websites and post it all over the place when you add a new show. One of the best things is that for about $5/mo, they’ll send your show listings to local press, which means you’ll always be on the physical calendar. Saves me a TON of time.
• FanBridge.com – Mailing list and email marketing tool. I love them. Your mailing list is a hundred times more important than number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. They let you target fans by location and offer free downloads for joining.
• BigCartel.com – I just discovered this site. It’s a simple and easy way to sell physical merch online. Adding a new item is as easy as a few clicks. A basic account is free, and more options are available for a small monthly fee. PLUS it’s all linked up to PayPal so it’s really easy to deal with money. And I think they just added an option to sell downloads.

Communities:

• Tumblr.com – Blog here. It’s the best. Follow and be followed. It’s Twitter’s big bro who’s smarter and has more to say.
• Twitter.com – If you don’t have one yet, you’re only cheating yourself. If you can text, you can twitter. Stop wondering if people want to know about your day-to-day and just accept that they DO.
• TheSixtyOne.com – I haven’t quite figured out this site in it’s entirety, but I know that I uploaded a couple tracks, left it alone, and suddenly found myself swimming in new fans. It’s an incredibly innovative and experimental new music discovery site where fans choose what floats to the top. Explore it.

I could go on and on. Bandcamp.com, Livestream.com, Facebook.com, there are a million.

To conclude, has all the online activity carried over into the real world? Does it all help sell music or bring people out to your shows when you tour?

Definitely. It’s pretty awesome to see it all really working. I think it’s important to note here that you have to remember to ask your fans for support. Make sure you get names on your mailing list, send out Facebook events, and keep people updated on what you’re doing. The unfortunate thing about the internet is that there’s so much of it that will distract people from paying attention to you, so you have to give them a reason to care. Whether that means giving away an album for free in exchange for email addresses, or streaming yourself from your bedroom, or covering Lady Gaga songs on YouTube, that’s up to you. Stay honest, stay entertaining, and be good at what you do. Don’t be afraid of the internet. Embrace new technology. Get creative. Make it happen.

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Learn more about Allison Weiss and see her internet skills in action at www.allisonw.com.