I’ll try to keep this short as you might not care at all but I felt the need to let our regular readers know what we’ve been up to!

You might have noticed that since the Christmas break we have posted far less on the Make It In Music Daily and have been tweeting less than usual.

That’s because there have been changes in our day to day business that we have been trying to accommodate and now we have a plan to not only keep it up but to expand what we do and are able to offer.

New beginnings

For years we have been a stand alone management and label company and in the last three years we’ve run this site as an add-on to pass on our knowledge and to try and help aspiring musicians.

However, I have now taken up a full time position with a forward thinking management and label company, Three Six Zero Group, whose clients include Deadmau5, Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia as well as a host of independent labels. It’s an amazing place to work and use my industry experience but I also get to apply the digital marketing knowledge that I have gained over the last 5 years or so.

I’ll do my best to report back on the further lessons I learn in music marketing at that level.

Meet Steve

This site is still very much my passion and will continue much as before, but the changes mean that I have passed some of the running of it to an old friend and very experienced musician, Steve Travell.

Steve has been a working musician, producer and DJ for over 30 years and now also works in digital marketing as well as making music and teaching production for one of the leading physical and online music colleges in London.

Steve will be writing some posts for this site and will be dealing with the majority of the daily tip posts. I will be writing feature posts on this site and will continue digging up and adding tips as I have always done, so this should expand our output and maintain the quality that we know you have come to expect. I’ll still be monitoring our Twitter and Facebook profiles so, generally, it’ll be me your talking to. You’ll just see more photos of me in interesting places!

Amanda has been working remotely for some time and will continue to be on board and using her knowledge in the background.

I’ve also spoken to some other members of the musician blogging community who you’d already know and they will be writing some material for us as well in due course.

DTF-Base

The final piece of the puzzle will be revealed in more detail as and when Steve can build a new site for it – DTF-Base.

We’ve been asked on numerous occasions in the last year to take on specific projects for clients from both the DIY musician world and from indie or major labels. This might be a website build, Topspin integration or a whole digital marketing campaign.

We have just completed the first few of these projects and Steve will be adding to this in the next few months – and building a dedicated website! The services that DTF-Base can offer will not generally be necessary, appropriate or affordable for artists in the earliest stages of their careers (that’s what this site is for in many ways) but we can take on pretty much anything of any scope from basic online music marketing advice to a full digital marketing campaign for a release including building websites and social media presences from scratch. If you’re interested, just contact us.

So, as you were. Lots of helpful and informative posts to come and more options for how we can help you. Just say ‘hello’ to Steve if you are so inclined.

Thanks for your support so far.

I’m very short of tech skills!

That’s an issue today as I need to make sure that I don’t fall foul of the overnight Facebook Fan Page SSL changes.

If I do, come tomorrow, parts of our Fan Page will be disabled.

Maybe yours will too?

It made me think that it’s worth bearing in mind that it doesn’t matter if you’re lacking in the geek department. I so often hear from artists that they can’t get a website built or maintain it as they don’t know HTML or WordPress.

That’s bollocks.

I don’t know much about either but I manage to run several websites and give advice on the tech side of music marketing as well as the creative side!

Why and how?

Well, I know what I want to achieve on a site and I know what the technology can do – then I have a bunch of people that I can turn to who have the skills. Some help me out for free now and then and some are paid website designers or coders. You can find these people everywhere online – places like Fiverr, Elance, oDesk.

So, don’t use that as an excuse – find people to help you and get a website launched!

But, back to today’s issue – this problem has raised it’s head as there is a VERY BIG change occurring at Facebook overnight tonight.

And, I don’t know how to make the necessary changes myself – I have to get the help of my ‘helpers’!

What is SSL / HTTPS?

SSL stands for ‘Secure Sockets Layer’ which is a system that allows the secure transmission of private or sensitive data on the web. That’s as much as I know!

From tomorrow (October 1st), all Facebook applications need to use a secure SSL connection. This is part of the new roll-out of features on Facebook and is being brought in to beef up security on the site.

At the moment users can surf on Facebook as a secure (‘https’) or non-secure site (‘http’). I don’t know if it’s been announced or not but it seems clear that the reason Facebook are forcing this change on Fan Page owners is that eventually Facebook will be secure only.

So, if you’re a musician who has built a clever Welcome page or what people call a ‘Like’ page (or ‘Fan gate’), where there’s a custom tab on your Fan Page that people have to like to reveal free music, then you may well have an issue to resolve. If you haven’t got a clue what I’m on about go and read this post about using ‘Reveal tabs’ by Michael Brandvold)

What your fans might see if your Fan Page isn't SSL!

In fact, any tab or part of your Fan Page that is using an application that has content hosted off Facebook in it (such as images in your Welcome tab) won’t be displayed as from tomorrow or users might see a message like the one on the left.

It’s actually unclear how Facebook is going to deal with the Fan Pages that it won’t show (because they aren’t SSL secure) but if a casual fan comes to your Fan Page and sees that security warning, most of them will just leave and that’s going to directly effect your success!

For most musicians who are deep into Facebook, you’ll probably be using an iFrame app on your tabs (such as Static HTML for iFrame) and it’s only the image and video elements that are embedded in that and hosted off Facebook that you need to worry about.

As far as we’re aware, all the dedicated Music Page apps, like RootMusic’s BandPage and FanBridge’s damntheradio are already compliant.

How does this effect me?

So, what do you have to do to make sure that your Fan Page and all its tabs keep working properly come tomorrow?

Well, most developers of applications have taken this on board and have made the necessary changes to their apps so that they are SSL compliant. And Facebook itself has obviously done what is necessary.

But you need to check:

• Log into your Facebook profile & click on ‘Account Settings’.
• Go to the ‘Security’ tab on the left and ‘Edit’ that setting to enable secure browsing.
• Log out and then log back in again.
• You should now see that the URL in your browser reads ‘https://www.facebook.com….’ – the all important ‘s’ meaning that you’re browsing the secure version of Facebook.
• Go to your Fan Page and view any of your tabs that have outside hosted content.
• If you can see them, all is well, if not, read on.

Setting your own profile to use Facebook's secure browsing setting

What do I do now?

So, this is where it gets tricky.

The short answer is that if anything on your Fan Page doesn’t display properly as of tomorrow then this SSL issue is almost certainly going to be the culprit.

Here’s a few pointers that may help:

• If you use the Static HTML for iFrame app, they are upgrading their app to be secure and to host images within it. See their Facebook thread about that here.

• If all you have hosted off Facebook that you need to deal with is video and images then check out Free VPS, move your images there and rework any relevant code in your app using the new image URL.

• If you have your site hosted by the lovely people that we recommend – Hostgator – read this post and see how you can create a secure SSL connection for free.

If you can’t deal with fixing it, then you need to get hold of your friendly geek and get them on the case asap.

We’ll look at using iFrame apps and building your own tabs on Facebook very soon on the blog for those that found this all way too confusing.

In the meantime, if you lose bits of your Fan Page tomorrow, hopefully this will help you work out why and what you need to do to make your Facebook Fan Page SSL secure.

Good luck!

You know that we think that the hub of all your online activity should be your own band website.

We talked about the key steps you need to take in this post on how to build your fanbase.

Step One is buying a domain name and hosting for your site, followed by our preference for a WordPress based site (and, in our opinion, running the Thesis theme).

We have always recommended Hostgator for hosting your band website. It’s simple to use, reliable, cheap and their support is fantastic.

Whenever you’re reading this, they’d be our recommendation. But this post is really meant for those off you quick off the mark as they are running an awesome price reduction offer today.

But, if you’re reading this on so-called ‘Black Friday’, and you need to buy hosting, go to Hostgator and buy it today as they have a 50% sale on all day, and if you’re quick enough…80% off. That means you can host your band website for as little as $34.95 for three years.

Then, install WordPress (simple with their ‘Fantastico Deluxe’ button) and get at it.

More tips on what to do with your band website to come, but you need to buy your hosting first!

Don’t hang about as the 80% off deal is on now and will sell out asap.

Heads Up!

You may or may not be aware of this already, and you might agree with the policy change or not – opinion seems divided. But, whichever side of the fence you’re on, this is a critical opportunity for all facebook users, which will apply particularly to bands and artists.

This Saturday at 12.01 Eastern Daylight Time (That’s 5.01 PM for Brits), you will be able to register for a user name on facebook for your existing account – for the first time ever – and they will be dished out on a first come first served basis!

Some people hate the idea as too much like MySpace, but whether you like it or not, you want to be ready to get there and get your band name. I’m not quite sure how much SEO benefit there might be to it, but I know it’ll look better and be easier to remember and therefore direct people to.

You will have the option of all alphanumeric characters and a full stop (period for the US readers!) but that’s about it. So mine will read, if I get it, www.facebook.com/ianclifford. You could also just use your band name followed by’.com’ if that’s your usual web address.

There is obviously going to be a major rush to get names and facebook will have a disputes process, but the best advice is get there and get your name bagged.

Everything you need to know is covered here at facebook – http://www.facebook.com/username/

Just a quick post to point you to this competition if you are a UK unsigned band.

I don’t know anything about the people behind this but I do know some of the people involved on the panel, and thought you should get a heads up. In essence, it’s a credible ‘Battle of the Bands’ / talent show for real acts rather than your usual TV only fodder (No more please, Mr Cowell!).

You need to be unsigned, free to travel to the US and able to sell 50 tickets for your round of the knockout gigs.

You also need to sign an agreement that states that you won’t appoint any other management until after the series of knockout gigs. I haven’t seen this agreement, and would always advise that you be careful what you sign and be sure that it doesn’t commit you to anything that you don’t understand. I have asked the organisers to send it to me, and if they do, I’ll update this post with my comments.

If you win you get a paid trip (inc. flights and hotel) to New York, you get to play a gig there and do a photoshoot. You also get to be on a CD of bands that performed in the competition which will get promoted and released.

I like this sort of thing on two levels – obviously all levels of exposure and networking chances depending on how far you get (who knows who might see and hear you), but also just doing it is great experience to learn from how you do and from seeing what the winners do better than you.

If you think this is something that you should try out for, go and check all the details here – New York Gig Competition

Leave us a comment to let us know if you’ve entered. Best of luck if you do.

UPDATE: I spoke to the guys running the competition and looked at the agreements. They’ve dropped the requirement to have an agreement with them about not taking on management during the competition, which I think is a great thing.

Also, the competition will be filmed and broadcast on Propeller TV – Sky 195, so you need to grant them some rights for them to film you play and be allowed to broadcast. That agreement should be limited to just that TV show, but it’s all OK.