Artist Services Blog

Remembering Michael Jackson & More

Remembering Michael Jackson

R.I.P. Michael Jackson -- a true innovator, a legend, a complicated musical genius. We honor and remember his musical legacy. You can create and share your own memorial Michael Jackson playlist at: http://ilike.com/playlist or http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/edit_custom_playlist

Premium Artist Stats Available Now

By popular demand, we’ve launched a new Premium Artists Stats service which gives you detailed reports on fan interactions with your content and messages across iLike’s vast syndication network.

With this new service you can:

•    Measure and analyze fan activity.
•    Track how your posts (songs, videos and more) perform.
•    Unlock full historical data for all stats.
•    More effectively plan tours by mapping where your fans are.

To learn more about and subscribe to our new service follow the links to Premium Artist Stats ($99 annually) on your Artist Dashboard.

iLike, YouTube & You

You can now link your YouTube channel to your iLike account. This means that every video you post to iLike will be automatically posted to your YouTube channel and vice versa.

Benefits for artists:

•     Simplifies management of your videos across the Web.

•     You no longer need to post the same video to multiple channels and social networks across the Web.

•     iLike syndicates your YouTube Channel across Facebook, iLike.com, and more.

•     You choose which videos to upload to YouTube, iLike, and your iPhone app (if we’ve built one for you).

•     iLike will provide you with detailed stats on the performance of your videos.

This integration is part of our recently launched suite of new features to make it simple and fast to maintain an active presence on even more of the leading consumer destinations via your existing iLike Artist Dashboard.

Learn more and link your iLike account with your YouTube channel today at: www.iLike.com/manage

iLike Now Syndicates Your Content To Twitter!

Promoting your music on Twitter just got a lot easier.

We’ve recently launched a suite of new features to make it simple and fast to maintain an active presence on even more of the leading consumer destinations -- including Twitter -- via your existing iLike Artist Dashboard.

You can now link your iLike and Twitter accounts, bringing your “tweets” to more fans via the iLike music feed, your iLike profile, and your Facebook Page.  You can even tweet using the iLike Artist Dashboard. Additionally, when you post a new song, video, photo or concert listing on the dashboard, we’ll auto-tweet it to your fans on Twitter (with tiny url support).  We give you full control of what posts get auto-tweeted too.

Our goal is to empower you to reach the most fans with the least effort via your existing iLike Artist Dashboard. Rather than repeat-posting the same content on multiple websites, social networks and online platforms, iLike will now instantly syndicate your content to more than 45 million music fans across the iLike network, including: our dominant music apps on iGoogle, Facebook, hi5, Bebo, and Orkut; our plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player; and now Twitter.

Learn more and link your iLike and Twitter accounts today at: www.iLike.com/manage?r=Twitter.

Create a Facebook Music Tab Today!!!

Would you like to simplify and maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook Page? If so, read on:

Building on the existing iLike widgets for Facebook "Musician Pages", you can now add a "Music" tab to your Page on Facebook. The new tab helps you take advantage of the Facebook redesign enabling you to better control the look and feel of your Facebook Page.

Some of the benefits of adding a Music tab include:

  •  Get your banner photo back on your Facebook Artist Page. Facebook removed these from Pages, we're bringing them back. Your banner photo will be front and center for users who visit your page for the first time. Upload and manage your banner photo via your iLike Artist Dashboard.

  •  Auto-update your Facebook Artist Page from the iLike Artist Dashboard. With iLike's Post Once, Publish Everywhere model, you won't need to bother switching back and forth to other dashboards.

  •  Songs, concerts, videos, and bulletins you post via iLike can spread virally throughout Facebook.

And it’s so easy to do in just 3 easy steps:

  1. If you haven’t already, add iLike’s song widget to your Facebook page.

  2. Add the “Music” tab to your artist page.

  3. Change the setting so the “Music” tab is what potential fans see when they visit your page.

For more detailed information and to get your Facebook music tab today, go to: www.iLike.com/manage

Upgrade Your MySpace Concert Listings

iLike’s new Concert app for MySpace artist pages empowers you to upgrade to a better concert experience in just a few clicks.

As you are painfully aware, MySpace calendar listings don’t offer buy links and they aren’t visually pleasing or socially engaging. With the new iLike Concert app for MySpace, you’ll do the following:

•     Make Money: We prominently display “get tickets” links to help you sell more tickets.

•     Save Time: You can now manage your event calendar listings from the iLike Artist Dashboard and simultaneously reach MySpace users as well your fans across the Web via syndication to Facebook, iGoogle, iTunes, and more. Further, we automatically import data from the Ticketmaster and TicketWeb feeds.

•     Connect With More Fans Online:  Our Concert app provides robust and feature-rich event detail pages. You’ll get powerful social hooks on every event detail page including the ability for fans to see which friends are going or want to go to a show. The event detail pages feature a venue map and suggest nearby restaurants and bars.

•     Create Your Own Look: You can customize the look and feel so that your concert listings fit with the design of your existing MySpace page.

•     Make Informed Business Decisions: Via the iLike Artist Dashboard you’ll get access to meaningful stats designed to help you make business decisions.

Getting started is so simple – it literally takes just a few clicks to add the new iLike Concert App to your MySpace page. Bring your concert listings to life and manage your concert listings across the Web via a single dashboard at: http://www.myspace.com/iLikeconcerts

Heads Up: Facebook Making Changes (AGAIN)

While we’ve got your attention, we want to make sure you know about the changes Facebook has made to their musician page layouts and what these changes mean for you.

With the new Facebook Page layout, users who are not fans will see the "Boxes" sub-tab of your Artist Page when they land on your page. Because the “Boxes” sub-tab will now receive a massive increase in visits from potential fans, you should add all of the iLike widgets (Concerts, Songs, etc) to help turn this traffic into new fans and more money.  If you haven’t, check out the iLike widgets for Facebook at http://www.ilike.com/manage.

These changes emphasize your "Wall" tab which is Facebook’s latest direction.  We recommend you keep your default setting which sends users to your Boxes sub-tab. It gives you the greatest control over the layout of your page, placing your content front and center for fans to see when they visit your page.  This ends up being better for you and for your fans.

And stay tuned because we are working on a "tab" version of iLike that you’ll be able to include on your Facebook page.

Make Your Fans Tour Promoters

Your fans can help guide your future touring decisions with our newest feature, “Come To My Town.”

Recently launched, “Come To My Town” is available on iLike.com and iLike on Facebook. With the press of a button (just as they do currently to “iLike” a band), fans can request that you come to their town to play a concert. They can also post a message for you.

On our Facebook app, once someone has requested a concert, we encourage your fan to invite his or her friends to also vote for you to perform a local concert. We even let fans know which of their friends already like your music. Fans can then invite their friends to vote for you to play their town via an automated message. In this way, your fans become tour promoters, spreading awareness and enthusiasm for your tour dates across the Web.

We have also created a regularly updated “most-requested” chart as well as prominent links encouraging fans to vote for any artist to “Come To My Town.” The most requested artists so far are:

Finally, to help you stay on top of all this viral momentum, we publish a dynamic list of the cities that have accumulated the most votes for you to come play.

We hope you’ll announce this new feature to your fans on your Website or in an email blast. Maybe you’ll even decide to add a tour date based on fan votes . . .

To check out “Come To My Town” and learn more, click here.

Sell Your Music on iTunes, Amazon, and Beyond!!

Whether you’re a major-label star or just getting started, now you can make money easily by selling your music on iTunes via iLike’s distribution partner, TuneCore.  You don’t need a record label, and the best part is this: you keep 100% of the proceeds! Click here to learn more and get started for FREE today!

iLike helps music and musicians get discovered; TuneCore provides worldwide distribution of music and video to online stores where fans go to buy music. Together, iLike and Tunecore help you succeed without a record label.

As a result, you now have a turn-key solution to promote and sell your music to a worldwide audience.

TuneCore empowers independent and established musicians to sell their music in all the major online stores and leading subscription services, including: iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazonmp3, and more.

To learn more and sign up for a FREE account today, visit: www.tunecore.com/ilike

Boost your music sales 25%

Have you ever wondered if uploading full songs rather than 30 second clips really makes a difference? So did we. That’s why we conducted a study. And the findings were definitive:  Full-length song uploads receive, on average, 25 percent more buy clicks than 30 second clips.

It makes sense that fans would prefer to listen to your songs in their entirety rather than settling for just 30 seconds. But with these new findings, we’ve learned that it also makes good business sense to upload full songs. 25 percent more clicks can result in 25 percent more business.

The best part is, uploading full-length songs takes no more effort than uploading 30 second samples. You simply go to your Artist Dashboard and follow the simple instructions to upload a full-length track.

Enhanced Concert and Event Pages

Already a popular and useful feature, we’ve recently redesigned our concert discovery and event pages, adding new functionality that will empower your fans to discover and share information about your concerts more easily – and more socially.

On iLike.com, fans can now browse upcoming concerts featuring their favorite artists, browse all events on a particular date, and see concerts from popular artists. Additionally, fans can set their location as well as how many miles they are willing to travel to see a show.

Once a fan has clicked on an iLike.com event page, they will see who “is going” and who “wants to go” to the show. They can also buy tickets, watch videos and use our new venue map as a resource. Our venue map provides directions to the concert and suggests nearby bars, restaurants and hotels – so your fans can really make a night of it!

On iLike's Facebook app, fans can browse upcoming shows featuring their favorite artists and the shows their friends plan to attend. We even suggest friends who might be interested in a concert a user is going to based on musical preferences or because a particular friend is already a fan of the artist. Additionally, fans can subscribe for personalized concert alerts, which means they will be notified when you post concerts to the iLike Artist Dashboard.

Even cooler, fans can now post comments, photos or videos to an event page whether it be sharing excitement about your upcoming concert or posting photos or videos after a show.  

We encourage you to spread the word about our new event pages to your fans on your official Website or via a blast email.

To learn more, check out: http://www.iLIke.com/concerts and http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/concerts

Promote Your Songs on iLike and Beyond

We’re excited to announce Sponsored Songs, the newest feature to launch within the iLike suite of promotional tools for artists. Sponsored Songs empowers you to promote your songs to targeted fans in contextual locations across iLike.com, our popular Facebook® app and beyond.

Our new, targeted advertising solution is similar to our popular Sponsored Stories concept and was designed to encourage fans to discover, share and consume your music. Via iLike’s Sponsored Songs, you can ignite the viral spread of your music by giving potential fans the opportunity to learn about and listen to your full-length songs from within a contextual, targeted module. Ads you create will show up in strategic placements across iLike. For example, your ads can appear inside iLike search results (think Google’s AdSense).

Here’s how it works: You begin by uploading your songs for free via your iLike Artist Dashboard and follow the instructions to promote your song. The ad creation process is quick and easy; You can set-up a Sponsored Song in just minutes.

Once your ad is live, a user who searches for related artists might be served up a module that will introduce them to your Song (along with other search results). Users can also listen to your full-length song from within your ad. While listening, fans can “iLike This Song,” a powerful endorsement that alerts friends using  newsfeeds on Facebook, iLike, orkut and beyond.

The best part is that you only pay when people click on your ad.  Since other artists are creating Sponsored Songs, you could be out-bid for placement. This means your bid must be competitive in order to be served.

To learn more and get started today: click here.