How To Create An Ultra Low Cost Net Presence

Thanks to a plethora of ad-supported music sites creating a custom presence across the web does not have to be expensive.  In this guest post, rising indie band manager Jeremy Mix of Mix Management shares his less than under $10 a year d.i.y. internet recipe.

GUEST POST: I like to recommend that my young bands "stick it to the man" by not paying for a custom website with monthly fees.  Try this instead:

• Open a generic Google mail account named bandname@gmail.com and use this account for all your account registrations.
• Buy your optimum domain name (pick a .com if at all possible) at Godaddy.com or another domain service for roughly $10/yr.
• Go to gmail.com, and at the bottom of the page, click on "gmail for organizations". Follow the easy instructions and open a free email "server" for your band business. You’ll then be able to have up to 50 email addresses for your band,  things like booking@bandname.com, or fred@bandname.com… except they’re all really gmail accounts with your "bandname" mask.  Does this mean you have to check all those accounts individually?  No…set them up to automatically forward to the one account you do check!
• Go to virb.com and open an account there…

• What we have here is the same concept as MySpace, only
  fully and easily customizable with an intuitive back end page, and
  minus all the pop-up and banner ad crap.  The downside is it doesn’t
  have the huge built-in following…yet. I think time will change this.
  Think about it though… if you opened your own custom website; no one
  would be there yet either.  It’s your job to bring people in with your
  music.
• Next, in your domain account and set your domain name to automatically forward to your virb.com account….(your new "website").
• 
  Set up your MySpace blog to RSS feed your new Virb page
  or visa versa. Set up your virb page to feed your shows calendar to
  MySpace and every other site. Add things like Fanbridge or Twitter for
  the extra free tools a band needs to utilize. (Editor: I’d add the use of  ReverbNation, OurStage, imeem, Last.fm and ArtistData).
• Every band should have an account at the site where people of
  their
  supposed target demographic most congregate, whether that’s Myspace,
  Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, Friendster, OldPeopleRus…. whatever.
  However, it is still the
  job of the band to earn their fans one by one. Through the miracle of RSS and a little entry-level programming, you
  can use one site to disseminate your pertinent info to all the sites
  you and your fans subscribe to without having to replicate the data. 
  Enter it once…goes everywhere else automatically.

There you have it.  A pre-built web presence easily customizable to
your tastes, with professional email hosting for all, and with NO
MONTHLY SERVICE CHARGES. A match made in indie heaven!

The above suggested sites are simply the ones that I’ve found to work the best for my artists.  I don’t work for them or endorse them, and in fact, some of those sites might be mortal enemies for all I know. If you’re able to find sites that do the same thing; use them!  There are just far too many free web services out there for any band to be wasting money paying for a custom website, when they really should be focused on music.

Here are two examples from my own management roster:

• 
  www.jaredmahone.com
• 
  www.marioabney.com

WHAT SITES AND SERVICES DO YOU USE?