After the post about Tiago Della Vega (aka the fastest guitar player in the world, right?), I have looked some more on YouTube to find more videos about him or similar performances. Well, I did find a few, but I have decided to write about something else today and that is branding in online presence.

The fact is that I am not a marketing professional, I have not studied marketing in school but I have become more and more aware of it’s importance over the last years, no matter what’s your field.

I had this post about why marketing a band is so much like blogging, I suggest you read it if you haven’t done it already, and today I have found appropriate to cover this subject from a more “practical” point of view, being motivated by a new discovery on YT.

The idea is simple: make yourself seen, come with a particular something that will help people identify you. There are many good musicians out there, most of them playing very good, but not always become known. Why is that? Because they don’t have an unique presence that help people identify them. Maybe it freaks you out when you see Marilyn Manson or other artists like him, but that guy has an unique presence and that helped him position himself well on this crowded market.

The fact is that a little something can make the difference, and this is where I come to the reason that started of this post: a lot of people promote themselves on YouTube these days. A camera and a computer and you have just about everything you need, right? But there are so many (not-famous)people that play or sing on YouTube, how many do you actually remember once you close the browser’s window?

Fretkillr rules!

Let’s see, from my point of view: fretkillr. I love this guy’s music and channel, I subscribed to it. But why do I come back? How did I manage to remember him the first time? OK, he has a lovely acoustic guitar music, but did you notice the fact that all the time he films himself from a particular position where only the guitar is seen but not him?

Did you notice that nobody knows his real identity, who this guy is, what’s his name, etc. This created a particular cloud of mystery around him, causing interest and people speaking about him and coming back to him.

We have here in Romania an example of a band that started as a project/experiment, nobody knowing who these guys were, nobody knowing they were even from Romania, and this caused a wave of interest. The guys made their identity public only about 6-7 months after the project started to work. And what do you know? By coincidence, they guy is from my city and we used to know each other 10 years ago from recording in the same studio here. That’s marketing.

The kitchen concerts

Also, an other example, not that successful, but interesting from the point of view of creating a name/identity: concerts from the kitchen! Right! This guy films himself singing and playing the guitar from his kitchen, creating a series of clips gathered under the name “concerts from the kitchen”. I think he changes angles and environment a bit too much on his videos, but if he would keep his “thing” he may be easily remembered as “the guy who sings in the kitchen”. Not much, but it creates him an identity!

Here’s the guy:

Sandi Thom, the girl that lived her dream

And as a 3rd and final example, a girl that made it big, Sandi Thom, if I am not mistaken, started having daily concerts from her basement, streaming these shows live on her website. An unique point of view and the strange location and the internet made her big. That’s marketing, right?

Do you know any more artists with unique presence on YouTube?

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Well, what can I say more than this month has been very quiet. I had other things to do and I kind of lost my enthusiasm regarding my dare, even if I should never ever lose it if I want to reach that target.

Not much happened, I had around 10.000 visitors but constant traffic, I had only 1 small spike, on 15, of 507 visitors which is not much.

This month I focused more on monetizing the traffic, and this is not an easy task for a blog, since the traffic for a blog is so much different compared to search engine traffic.

I have managed to make the fabulous amount of $133.5 using various sources, like AdSense, affiliates and direct sold advertising space. I can say I made this money from music, isn’t it?

So, to make a long story short, statistics go like this:

• 9805 visitors
• 10.804 visits
• 15.233 page views
• 1.41 Pages/Visitor
• 143 RSS subscribers
• $133.5

Also, in case you are new here and want to find out the story from day 1, here’s the 4th report which will lead you to the rest of the story.

Ah, and yes, again, if you are new here, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feeds! Thanks!

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Today is that day again. The day when I look back to what I have done this month and publish here my stats.

As you probably already know, I am on a quest to get 5000 visitors per day. While it is not an easy thing to do and to be honest, my efforts were a bit slower in the last period of time, I experience new things each and every day and I find a great joy in everything that happens with this site.

To make a long story short, here’s what happened:

A very good StumbleUpon activity

Yes, this is one of the parts that made me very happy: out of those 30 days of a month, I had 10 days with good traffic caused by SU. I am not speaking about 3-4000 visits per day, but something like 500-700 visits per day from SU, which is great. Also I had 2 days with 1100 ans 1200 visits. So, if you have the pleasure of stumbling me, be my guest, you’ll make my day!!

Growing traffic, day by day

Beside SU I can say that this site grows in traffic with each passing day. Or week, to try to look for an average. If I speak about the first 2 weeks of this month, I can say 250 visits per day as an average. If I speak about week 3, I have around 300-350 visits per day while in the last week I had around 400 visits per day.

Where is this growth coming from?

Search engine traffic is growing day by day and it is normal, if you write every day, but also being stumbled a lot means you get a lot of recursive, residual traffic from SU. StumbleUpon is good from this point of view, if you have something on SU, you will receive traffic long after the spike has gone.

New layout for my blog and experimenting with ways to make some money from this blog

This month I have also redesigned my blog to have 3 columns. This is because I have started to think of a way to monetize it, to make some money from my blog, because it needs to earn it’s living. It pays rent, you know, hosting, traffic, and I want to have it pay for it. That is why I have set an advertising page that I invite you to read.

New plugins

I have installed and tested a few new plugins, some of them were OK, others were not OK so I removed them. One of the thing I intend to use is the plugin for having some posts only for RSS readers. I intend to publish the results of my dare to also monetize this traffic, to let you know how it goes, what I do and how much I make with this blog, because it could be interesting for everybody running such a guitar blog. You all write out of your love for guitars, but why not make some money out of it so you can pay your hosting expenses easily?

So, I will tell you how it goes, every step of the path, just that I will only publish money stats on RSS so subscribe to my RSS feeds to get these stats.

And now the numbers for this month:

• 14200 visits
• 19600 pageviews
• 1.38 pages per visit
• 10 StumbleUpon spikes
• highest SU spike: 1200 visitors in one day, the article that caused this spike, and at the same time the article that has the most page views is the one about why I love my guitar.
• RSS readers: 129 and grows day by day

Also, for the previous reports, see them below:

• First stats report on my 5000 visitors per day dare
• Second report
• Third report

And remember: starting today I am going to also publish stats on the money I earn from this blog, but they will only be available to my RSS readers, so subscribe now and get my experience on how I try to monetize a difficult traffic: social media blog traffic!

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Today it’s 19 again, so it’s one of those days when I share my past month statistics for my dare of 5000 visitors per day. I haven’t had the time to do it properly yesterday or today until now, because I keep on cleaning windows and furniture since yesterday evening. Easter is coming and my wife launched the operation “spring cleaning reloaded” and in such situation there is no much room for negotiations, computer or playing the guitar. Damn!

So, shortly, here is what happened:

I’ve got ’stumbled upon” again!

Via Guitar Mx, I found about a top of “the greatest” guitar riffs of all time, put together by Telegraph.co.uk. I didn’t want to publish again the same top, but I have observed a few songs that didn’t make it on the list, even if they have famous guitar riffs. Among these, Satisfaction (of Rolling Stones). So I shared my thoughts about that top and you know what? It made it on StumbleUpon and that particular post had 1459 page views that day, and 2580 page views by today. It was again one of those days when my traffic was again nice

I had 1350 visitors the first day , then 860 then 460. The most interesting thing is that the traffic after that spike seemed to settle at an average around 250-300 visitors per day, which I consider good. I know I am still far away from my target, but it’s a good step forward, in my opinion.

On 16 I started again to receive visitors and the first moment I thought I am on StumbleUpon again but that was not the (only) reason. That day I had 815 visitors, half of them coming from the fact that an article of mine about Sungha Jung reached the first page of MetaFilter.com and that brought me 400 visitors one day and 566 visits by today which is again good because I wasn’t even aware of the existence of that site. That is if I don’t count the PR7 link from the first page, even if I don’t think it counts because I was there only 2 days.

I had 100 diggs but I was not on Digg’s first page!!!

This was one of the most amazing experiences I had this month. Really, I’m not joking! I found this guy, Rick Renstrom, which was born, I guess, with physical disabilities, which would have stopped anybody from even trying to think about playing an instrument! Well, not him! Rick Renstrom became a great guitar player! I was just amazed about his performance, so I had this article about him that suddenly started to get dugg! And it kept on receiving diggs! When I woke up the next morning after I posted the article, the article had 53 diggs, it was first on the upcoming list in music category on Digg, so far away from the next article, and I was on the upcoming list in Entertainment, in the middle.

I was sure I will get on the first page! 53 diggs in the morning and counting? I have even spoken to the guys hosting my blog, warning them about sudden traffic! By the end of the day I reached 100 diggs, I can tell you my adrenaline was high, I was very nervous, waiting for that big rush of people on my site and…nothing!?!! Nothing at all?! The article has got 100 diggs and didn’t make it on the first page?

Damn! So if I do the math, I can tell you that 100 diggs in 24 hours brought me 98 visitors from Digg. If I also count the 97 visitors from StumbleUpon, I can say that the article could have done much better, I was waiting for the big wave, the 20.000 visitors or more!! That’s what I was waiting for! Well…

If I draw the line and count, I can tell you that this month meant:

• 9993 visits
• 14500 page views
• 1 SU spike of 1350 visitors and about 2 smaller ones that I don’t count
• 100 diggs on one single article (but no front page)
• 9% direct traffic
• 36% search engines
• 55% referrals
• an apparently steady traffic of a 250-300 average per day, traffic observed in the last 10 days.

I have started to work on adapting my blog layout, so in a few days I will change a bit the way my blog looks, so stay close for the upcoming change!

Anyway, just a reminder, if you don’t know already: subscribe to RSS to get the news every day and never miss a post! It’s that easy, you know?!

Anyway, you should also see the first report and the second report of my monthly statistics.

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This is a fast one: I have reached 100 diggs for the article here and I was waiting for the main event: getting on Digg’s first page. Well, it didn’t happen! I am somehow frustrated and I can tell you that waiting for it to happen generated a lot of adrenaline. You can imagine the disappointment in the next morning when I saw it didn’t happen.

100 diggs in a bit more than 24 hours and no front page?

Man, I wanted to say it here since I needed to let it go! Damn!

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Today is 19 so it is again one of those days when I publish here the stats for the previous month, what I did and what I intend to do in the next month.

This month I can tell you it was full of surprises and things to learn. I am not a big blogger, even if I work in this business, I am an IT person, but as much as I love the domain, blogging was not quite a hobby for me so far and I discover a lot of things while blogging here. I can tell you that blogging is a special kind of “art”, not like a regular site, where you would offer a particular service. In blogging you need to have that “special something” to catch public attention day by day. Blogging, is based on social awareness, I think that the main source of traffic for blogs is direct traffic. When direct traffic becomes your main source of traffic, I think you can call yourself a successful blogger. I learn this day by day and I still have a long way to reach that point. So, coming back to my stats…

This month was kind of a crazy one for me. One of my articles, funny top 10 rules for a power metal band was stumbled hard and I suddenly received 1525 visits in one single day! This was until that moment the highest peak for this blog. I was a bit curious why this happened since this article was on Digg and did quite nothing and was on SU since 1 month and again, did almost nothing. Well, it generated about 400 page views when it was submitted and then I thought it was over.

Boy, I was wrong! Suddenly, it received 1525 visits over night! I was thrilled! But wait! The second day I received 3587 visits for the same article! I couldn’t believe my eyes! And then 2429 in the next day! The traffic went a bit down after the first days, but still went on for 10 days with a media of 1200-1300 hits per day for this article! I was just thrilled seeing my stats like this for more than 10 days!

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Well, my dear friends, let me start by telling you that this morning when I opened the computer I had a shock.

Really! Last night I had a traffic of 1525 visits which is the best I had so far!

Most of my traffic came from SU so I want to say “thank you!” to all those happy stumblers around that payed me a visit yesterday and last night.

Well, what can I say more than this? Is there anything else to say? Well, IT IS!!!

I have checked again my traffic for this morning (my morning) and I can tell you that I have little over 2300 visits SO FAR AND COUNTING! 1525 yesterday and 2300 3600 today, so far! Way to go, people!!

I can only say that I’ve made a good step to my “5000 visitors per day” target and the article that brought me this overnight traffic is the Funny top 10 list for a successful power metal band, that I posted some time ago and got unobserved at that time.

So, don’t forget to stay tuned to my RSS feed to get every little detail about this site and also make me know you will be reading me on long term! Trust me, I will do my best to not let you down!

And an other thing: this morning I have just received a lovely Google PR 4 for my blog! Isn’t that great or what?!

So, in order to make something out of this traffic, please:

1. Remember the name GuitarFlame.com
2. Subscribe to my RSS feed
3. …come back for more!

Thanks!

PS: by the way, do I really need to say that my consumed bandwidth was twice the maximum given to me by my hosting company so I had to ask for an upgrade and pay more? Well, anything to reach my goal!

I am trying to not put up advertising on this blog at this moment, however, I don’t know how long I will keep it that way if the traffic will continue to grow like this since I will not be able to maintain the site. Traffic equals money is true in both ways, earning but also spending money.

Anyway, remember, GuitarFlame.com, 5000 visitors per day!

And subscribe to my RSS feed to see how I’ll do it!

And somebody Stuuuuumble me!

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Hi!

This is my second post in the series of my 6 months target of reaching 5000 visitors per day. The first one is here. Pretty bold, I know, but you need to aim high to reach high!

So, since yesterday it was February 18th, this is the big day of sharing my thoughts on how the first month has been and in the end of this post, the real stats. I must confess it was a fire and ice month, because I had ups and downs, I had days where my heart jumped with joy and boring days when nothing happened.

I have thought a bit about sharing the stats here, since if you are big and brave and share your stats, people will go wow!! But if you are small and just starting to grow and publish your stats, well, people may just find that they have higher traffic than you and may say, well, he’s not worth looking to, I have nothing to learn, he’s too small! Well, I will take my chances, I believe in being open and sharing information.

So…

What I have done this month

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This post is again about blogging in this crowded world of music and guitars. It is crowded, you know…I think that one of the most popular things a teenager wants to do is to become a music star. Now, think about it, among all those teenagers in your life or around you, how many have no dream about this? Well? Not many, I presume.

Also, one of the most crowded places I know is that of blogging. Of course, the new trend is to have a blog, everybody’s got to have one! Even if you don’t know what to write on it, just have one!

Most of the people blogging write about themselves and what they do. And most of all, they write whatever they feel like writing. Well, this is not always a good thing to do, it may give a feeling of spamming your user with meaningless content (meaningless to them, not to you)

I know this because I am also in danger to do it when I don’t have inspiration . That is why I have thought of a small but effective filter of things to blog about. Each time I want to post something on my blog, I ask myself if the post I am going to make can be described as (at least) one of the following:

1) Useful to my readers

Is what I am going to write useful to my readers? Are they going to feel they have earned something after reading the post? Because if they don’t, there is a big possibility to not come back to my blog again so all that great information I have about how to play the guitar will be wasted cause nobody will be reading it.

So, next time you are going to write a post, ask yourself “is that going to help my readers or not“? If the answer is no, move on…

2) Funny

An other reason for which your audience is coming back to read your blog is that your posts are funny and make them laugh or at least funny!

I know this because I have 2 friends telling me they have subscribed to my RSS cause they found some articles on my blog funny! Well, of course, remember that your post should be in the limits of the subjects specific to your blog, don’t post a funny thing just because you know it and you can post it. So, if the post you are going to make is not useful, IS IT FUNNY?!

3) Personal

Well, this criteria is kind of…personal, because I blog about my experience as guitar player, I also have posts about what experiences I had while in the studio, on stage, etc. This kind of posts, even if they are not funny or useful to my readers, may help understanding me better. This way I hope to create a better and closer relationship with you, people reading my blog.

These 3 criteria make that little filter I told you about.

Now, honestly speaking, I hope that THIS VERY POST to be added in the category “Useful to my readers” but I also hope you enjoyed reading it (even if it is not necessarily funny), because it is part of what I do and part of my experience.

Well?! Is that so?

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“I could say that this post is not about guitars since what I am going to write further is more about blogging than about playing the guitar”

This is how I intended to start this post, but after a few seconds I realized that I would be wrong in more ways than one. This post IS about blogging AS MUCH AS IS about playing the guitar and being part of a band. And I will tell you why.

As you probably know, I have started a dare with myself a few days ago, to reach 5000 unique visitors per day in the next 6 months on this blog. Due to that dare, I have started to think what would make me reach my target. I have plenty of ideas,to be honest, I only wish to have the time to put this in practice since this blog is not the only thing I do, as you probably imagine. So, beside social networking, which may be a double edge knife, crushing your server and leaving no real value behind, I asked myself what would make a blog stand out of the crowd?

1) First thing I could think of is to FIND A VOICE

As you probably imagine, it is not THAT voice everybody thinks he/she possess when singing in the bathroom. No. It is about the voice you blog with. Such a voice gives you personality, is part of your branding process, makes your readers know you better and builds a place for you in your reader’s consciousness.

You may be the angry guy over the music store, picking on every band ever appeared. Of course, you hate Metallica, you don’t like Clapton, Bon Jovi is a sissy, while the last album of Sting sucks! (Sorry, man, I really don’t think so!)

Or you may be the tech guy, giving information about everything, you may be the reviewer that just uses a colder and objective position when reviewing.

Some speak using the third person (a bit strange, IMO, but it works) some plural form of the first person. It is nothing but a way of finding your own voice in this already crowded blogging world.

2) Find your OWN POSITION

Or niche, or point of view, that specific something that identify you, just don’t follow masses. It may be cool to speak about something popular, but if everybody speaks about it you will be just a drop in an ocean. Not easy to get noticed, right? Instead, find your position, find that special something that you can give to the public and give it in the best possible way. You may want to speak about how to buy an electric guitar and offer tips to support this.

Or maybe you review electric guitars. Good one! A stronger one? Review very expensive, rare guitars. That’s even better!

Now think about it. It may be cool to play metal the way Skid Row used to do it. It may be cool to jam with your friends over some Megadeth songs. Rock on! But don’t ever try to make it big this way cause you won’t! They made it big, the song is already played! Instead, find that special something that identify you as a band and stick to it.

Did you see Bon Jovi play about politics? Well, I haven’t, if he did, I don’t know about it. He sings about loooove!!! Remember? Never say goodbye, never say godbyeyeyeeee!! Do you like Gamma Ray?! Politics! Politics and…social politics. Whatever that means! Manowar?! Brothers of true metal!! Hail, hail, hail and kill! We are not afraid to die!! (I am a big fan of Manowar, but, man, if I am going to hear this one more time I am going to hail, hail, hail and kill!!!) By the way, did you know that Joey DeMaio, the bass player and main man of Manowar worked as a pyro-tech for Black Sabbath during their “Heaven and Hell” tour? He liked that music, but do you see him playing it? No, he found his own place!

All these bands stick to their theme and rolls it over and over again because this is what keeps their audience in place. Do it when blogging and you will see the results!

3) Branding!!

Now, that’s a bit more complex. I am not marketing educated, I am engineer (yep!) by education, programmer by profession and web developer/marketer only by hobby, but if I know something about blogging is to brand yourself!

Remember? Brand yourself! Make your blog and your name a brand. And here I would count a good domain name, well designed, unique logo, a motto! (You find it, I wasn’t yet able to find one for myself!), colors that are consistent through all your site, THAT VOICE I was speaking about early, your blog theme, a CUSTOM SKIN! Yes, that is a must. Don’t try to impose yourself on the market with that default skin cause you won’t make it too far! Instead have a custom blog skin that make a big impression on your readers!

You know, it is like with women! I know she is smart, but God, couldn’t you make it a bit more beautiful to make me come closer and see how smart she really is?!! That’s true with blogging too. A custom skin will make your visitors pay more attention to your blog and get to read what you actually have to say.

Of course, this goes the same way with a band. Branding for a band includes a custom logo (I don’t know about the motto), theme of the music and lyrics, the image the band imposes to the public (think KISS, think ACDC, think Manowar), a particular way of behaving on the stage, this is also part of the brand, the sound, the musical style, etc. Think about it!

4) Start a BUZZ

That is something that goes a bit further, it is something that we all desire but not everybody succeeds in doing this. In order for your blog to make it big, you need to start a buzz, to make some waves, to have people notice you. It is in close relationship with No 1. If you go with the wind, you won’t be noticed. Instead, also as part of your voice, you may just be the NO guy! If everybody speaks in a good way about a trend, YOU start screaming and buzzing and making a big fuss about it. Somebody big will finally notice you and argue with you, probably he will point to you, others will join to kick your ass and all of a sudden you are somebody in this crowded world.

You are that particular SOMEBODY that EVERYBODY would like to beat up! But you’ve got noticed!

If you don’t believe me, think of actors that built a whole career from being the bad ass everybody hates. Think soap opera. Well, of course, I know YOU don’t watch it, you probably are the dominant male around, ok, I see, but your girlfriends, mothers, wives watch them so there is a big chance YOU know what I am speaking about. I know I do…

5) Create SOCIAL PROOF

This is like when you get in touch with famous bloggers and they start speaking about you. If they speak about you, you must be good, right? Even if you bought a review on some famous site or on some famous blog.

How is this similar with being in a band? Well, very easy! Didn’t you ask why unknown bands get together to play with big bands on the same show? How do they come to the same TV shows? Exposure in well known places, in the company of a famous somebody! You must be also somebody! I will buy your CD!!!

6) Build an audience

Well, this is one of the most important things to do and I let it as a last resort! Build an audience! When blogging, you use RSS, email, fan base. When playing, your fans are the most important assets of yours. That is why I hate bands not treating fans right. They are there because WE put them there. THEY live as a band because of US! Damn, I got a bit too passionate about it, I think! Whatever!

That is about all for the moment. It is very late in the night and I think I need some sleep, this was a long post and I find it already difficult to focus.

Also, please keep in mind I am aware of everything I have written here. However, if you will see that I missed implementing some of these things on my blog, well, remember that you should do what the preacher says, not what the preacher does…Or how you put it in English…

Now, Stumble that!

This article has got a quite big push on StumbleUpon (thanks, guys!!), so if you are here, why don’t you also give it a push on Digg?

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