December, 2009


28
Dec 09

Better Than The Van 101

Hey BTTV’ers new and old!

It’s time for a crash course on how to get the most out of BTTV by hosting bands and/or getting out on tour.

Fill Out Your BTTV Profile COMPLETELY!

This is important for both Bands and Hosts. Provide as munch info as you can. Everyone needs to be able to find a little background info on each other by looking at a full profile and checking out your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or your band’s website.

There’s a big trust factor going on with BTTV, so everyone needs to chip in.

Get Local: Ask questions…

Through BTTV you can gather a ton local info that you wouldn’t get without using the site. Use this to your advantage.

Reach out to people in other cities. They may not be able to host you, but they may know a bunch about their city and music scene. Ask questions, see who knows who, find out who books what and you might just end up playing a great show to a large crowd and sell a bunch of merch that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

Grow Your Fanbase Through True Human Interaction

Touring and touring smart is great way to grow a sustainable fan base that will show up the next time you come to town. Hit the road and save money any way you can. Also use tools that are out there (Bandize, Topspin and Band Metrics) to do more with less. BTTV is just one piece in the cheap touring puzzle.

Share BTTV With Your Friends

The more people who are signed up, the better the BTTV is for everyone.

Tell your friends. Tweet about us. Become a Facebook Fan or join our Street Team and get free stuff!


21
Dec 09

Grassroots for the Holidays

ratm

Yes they are a multi-platinum selling band who rep’d Gap and Calvin Klein while also screaming for social justice and political revolution, but Rage Against the Machine only a small part of the story. The bigger chunk is that a Jon and Tracy, a couple from the UK, where sick of Simon Cowell (he made an apperance at our OMGRT party) putting his mits on the Christmas jams and taking over UK radio.

Through a hugely amazing grassroots campaign around RATM’s “Killing In The Name Of”, they managed to knock Mr. Cowell’s subjects off the charts by over 50,000+ downloads. Total downloads for RATM? 500,000! All spawned from a Facebook group. Whoa.

It’s not a fancy group either. It makes it’s case and gives users every possible link for fans to push their influence out on to the web and make things happen. It’s a great example of how a great song and some passionate fans can move mountains.

Here’s the Facebook group.


1
Dec 09

First Top 10 of 2009 and More…

We’re always a fan of the ole’ year end Top Ten lists and today we noticed the first of many to storm out of bloggity-blog-land. Straight from Gorilla vs. Bear, here you go the Top 10 Albums of 2009. It’s a solid list, especially if you’ve been out of the loop for a bit and want to get back on top of the game.

Other cool things are that we are neck deep in re-developing BTTV for maximum-awesome. It’s going to be great and we’ll be putting a call out for beta testers here in the very near future. On top of that, we’re putting together a HUGE competition/drawing/raffle for SXSW. Details are on their way!

Don’t forget…it’s time to start planning your Spring tours.