SFLM is about to go under the knife and receive some updates

Hello, It has been long awaited for but SFLM is about to receive a major site update that will increase our effectiveness and attractiveness to New England live music fans. One to do dah to really talk about is our anonymous fan email list sign up. The jest of it is that fans will be able to sign up under a band and still remain anonymous to them. The bands won’t have access to their email unless the music fan releases such information to them. This is great for the bands for attracting those otherwise email list shy fans that usually refrain from the sign up. And it is great for those fans because they can now receive email updates and not have to worry about bands and musicians being to lazy to include their email in the BCC fields. No more copying the other persons email list and farming it out. Fans your safe at last.

So in effect, Musicians and bands will be able to operate their own list as they normally do but for those shy fans they will now have the option. They can say hey look if your not feeling safe about giving your email address out we now have an outside service that protects your email address even from us. We can contact you but we’ll never know your address unless you give it to us directly. How about joining our list through www.Surf ForLocalMusic.com? This is way cool!
Also, it is not just for musicians and bands either! What? Yes, If your interested in any advertiser or website on SFLM you can join their SFLM email list to get updates from them through us. They’ll never know your address unless you give it to them directly or give us permission to.

That is just one of the updates. I have more but their going to be kept in secrecy for now until they’re tested and proven. I have some way cool updates coming soon. So keep on surfing and if your not a member yet then join today. SFLM is a great way to discover new music artists in the New England area and you can promote your own site at the same time while your surfing. Each time you surf you get credits added to your balance so you can promote your music blog, music related fan site, local business, internet business, etc. If your only interested in surfing and being a fan or music pro scouting for bands we have a place for you to.

Click here to sign up if your a music fan only and you have no interest in promoting a site;
Live Music Fan Sign Up Here!

Click here if you want to promote a site while supporting musicians in the New England area; Surf For Local Music

Claim your site, surf the network and refer others!

These are the three things you can do to support everyone, including your own music site, on the Surf For Local Music network.

1. Claim your site! If you've been contacted by me telling you that your site is on SFLM and that you need to log in and claim your spot then don't wait around. Claim it while we are in the pre-launch phase. If so, your site is going to be in the rotation when I take the network to the music fans during on our official public release date. If your new to our network and have not been contacted then simply sign up and enjoy the same benefits. The more you read about how to use the SFLM network the more you'll discover what it can do for you.
2. Surfing the network; It is important to login at least once per week to log in and surf just 13 sites you'll meet your monthly minimum surfing requirement (50). The benefits to surfing are; Acquiring credits for each site you view, Supporting the network and the members that are involved. Just remember to assign those credits to a ad. Surf the network that your ad is placed on to receive credits for that network.
3. Refer others; Go to our "promote" link and use the referral links with your ID# at the end. Participate in a ad exchange and spread the advertising market for all of our users including yourself. Receive credits every time someone clicks on your referral link, or an SFLM related link on the bottom of every exchange place ad.

Another thing I'd like to point out is selecting your "email" options in your SFLM back office area. Go to your "Members Area" link (upper left), 'Your Info" Link (upper left), and then "General" link. Now it's here where you can update your settings. There are two pages related to this; One is near the bottom in the "Preferences / Summary Info" section. Go down to "Emails from Up line" and click onto "Change Preferences Settings". It is here you can decide whether or not to receive e-mails from your up line member. This is the founder, music fan member, musician, band, music professional or business that referred you to SFLM. This is cool because if your favorite band had referred you can receive there updates through SFLM with revealing your email address. Hence our "anonymous fan mail" idea and you can always go directly to their site when you feel comfortable and sign up their e-mail list directly.

Now up a little higher on this page you'll see in the "Account Information" the link "Change Referrer". Click onto this. Here you will find 3 options which are pretty self explanatory. In a few weeks some of this may change but we'll have a lot more flexability as well. It's important that you get a grasp on these basic functions now so when we do up date the site it won't be over whelming. Even so, hang in there and visit the site often taking in the information you need to get your task done. the more tricks you know on how to use the site them more you'll discover what it can do for you.

Wishing you the best,

Glen @ Surf For Local Music

Surf For Local Music ~ Musician/Band Updates

SFLM Musician/Band Updates:

First off I'd like to thank everyone that signed up to SFLM in the past few months, musicians, bands, music fans, fan site owners and our advertisers. As the site is about to be updated we're reaching our goal of 200 band and musician sites from the New England area. We will have a total close to 500 ads in the networks prior to our public release. It is important to note that not all of these sites are claimed by their owners.

Discovering New Sites:
As the site owner and moderator I found that by discovering new music sites each month, is great way to keep the networks fresh with new sites for our music fans to discover. If the site owner does not claim the free advertisement spot of their URL I will simply replace it with a new one. Yesterday I did this very thing and 12 Myspace sites were replaced by semi pro and professional music sites. As you may already know "Myspace" Music Profiles are no longer allowed on our networks as they proved to take up to much time to moderate in keeping the networks family oriented and from keeping the site's clock from freezing up due to large graphic files.

Side note; In my opinion, I think Myspace is great for attracting new fans outside of your geographic area. Other the other hand I'd advise any band to have their own professional site to refer their close fans to or just simply run an e-mail and/or USPS fan mail campaign to stay in touch.

Now here is a benefit to using SFLM as an alternative; Many people now shy away from signing up to another e-mail list in fear of an overage of in box email clutter and spam. SFLM offers a safe way for fans to receive your e-mail through our system without "you" the artist knowing their e-mail address. The best part is that they can always have the option to sign up to your direct e-mail list when they feel more comfortable to do so. Right now SFLM uses our referral system for this task but soon our site will be updated and we will have the expanded e-mail options. You can either use your referal links on our promote SFLM page now or wait until we update the site and give you a detailed plan on how to best take advantage of what SFLM has to offer.

FREE Ad Spots on SFLM:
If you have received an email (a month ago or longer) from me telling you that your site has been added to our rotation chances are it is gone by now if you did not sign up and take control over managing the Ad. All is not lost though because you can sign up and just enter your URL address. Remember, an "Ad" on SFLM refers to a URL, banners (two sizes) and text ads.

SFLM is not a set and forget system:
I think some site owners think that all they have to do is place their URL in our system and then forget about it. Nothing could be furthur from the truth. This is a Network and Networking any business takes effort. Things on your to do list include; communicating, assigning credits to ads from your total balance and surfing the network to gain credits (or buying credits).

Why become a Paid SFLM network member:
For just $8.97 you can subscribe to SFLM monthly (by the month it is $9.97) and be a "Semi-Pro" SFLM member. Here is what you get;

• Place up to 5 URLs in the system!
• Manual surfing is every 7 seconds @ .6o credit ratio (see our pricing page for more info.)
• 10% bonus for sign up
• *Email you referal line every 20 days
• Upon Signup: 200 Credits
• Monthly; Free auto credits: 200 Free manual credits: 200 Paid-to credits: 20
• SFLM pays you 5% if your referal becomes a paid member.

* See our pricing page for the most acurate up to date information.

This is a great way to support the network!

Surf For Local Music focuses on the New England area. By sending your fans to us all of the bands in the network share this warm market (live music fans living in the area). Your not selling out by any means. By having a close knit networking list of fans to market your music to, creates a powerfull promotion machine. We will soon be updating our site and will be launching our site publicly to the "L.ive music fans of New England". Untill then use our system to rack up the credits (keep your assigned credits on the low side- say 50 to 75) so upon our release you will take advantage of the exposure.

That's it folks for today! Make sure you surf the site's networks (4) today to gain some credits in each one while discover some great new sites of musicians, bands and music pros to network with.

Sincerely, Glen @ SFLM

How to assign credits to your site on SFLM

Hello, Thanks for referring to this page on how to assign credits to your ad on
Surf For Local Music.

Whether your ad is a Site (URL), banner or text ad this "how to" applies to all:

1. First, log into your account at SFLM. If you do not have an account yet go here; Join SFLM Today!
2. Click onto your "member's area" link at the left top of the page in the black links section.
3. Click onto your "manage ads" link below the previous link.
4. Select the ad type you wish to edit or ad credits to.
5. Now, Click onto your site's ID number to edit that specific site. For example we'll click onto the "64" it should look like this example "Site_Ex001" below.
6. Now view your credit balance and then decide how amyn credits you want to assign to your ad.
7. Now check the local assigned credit box and the below that enter the number of credits you want to assign to your ad that will appear in our traffic network. See Site Example #002 below.

Site Example 001
Site Example 002

GREAT! Now you have a handle on this. Don't forget to send your kind comments to us. You can do this on the site by going to the "information" link, then "about us". You will see the simple contact form. If you give me a great referral I'll put you on my "referral" page.

More info; If you'd like to receive an automatic message when ever I update this blog your can download this small program to your computor. I loaded it into my computor to test it to make sure it works and that there are noproblems with it and I do have anti this and that programs and a fire wall and there were no alarms. It tested fine and works great. You can get that here: SFLM Blogspot Auto Update

Thank you for making
Surf For Local Music work for you.

Sincerely Glen @ SFLM

How to put SFLM to work for your music site!

1, What does SFLM stand for?


Surf For Local Music.com


2, Why was it created?


To not only promote musicians on Eccentric Musician Distribution Contract but also other local (New England) bands.


3, What does the site do?


The site has four Networks or as some call it "Site Rotators" Your Music Site's URL is placed into one of these called "Manual Surf". As a member surfs through the music sites placed on the network that member earns credits for each site viewed.


4, What are these credits used for? The credits you accumulate as a member are used to promote your own music site. You simply assign them to your site on the network. Alternatively, You can also assign them to banners or text ads also placed on the site.


5, Are there any restrictions?


Yes and for good reason. Musician & Band sites are located on "Manual Surf" only. Banners and Text ads can be placed on "Auto Surf" and "Manual Surf" as well as "Paid Auto" and "Paid Manual". There are restrictions on the type of sites and how long it takes to load up in a browser as well. Typically, A site should load up in about 7 seconds but with Myspace sites that are loaded with graphics and media this can take up to 20 minutes for a dial up user. MySpace sites are being phased out of rotation because of the high maintenance involved in keeping the rotation moving smoothly.


6, So MySpace sites are no longer allowed?


Yes new accounts are restricted from placing myspace sites. There are a few left on the site but they are from our pre launch period and they will be phased out and replaced by new member sites.


7, So lets say I have a band site. Say for example..."http://www.surfforlocalmusic.com". I go to your site sign up as a member and place this URL address in the "Manual Surf" network and then what?


You go surfing! You go to the "members area" link and surf the network your site is located on. In his case it is manual. You view some sites and each time you do you get credits to promote your own site on the network. When your site burns through the credits you go surfing again for some more.


8, OK, So my site is seen by others like me who are signed up to this network? Precisely, and you can really make it work for you if you get involved as an active member. If you refer others to the site you can send an email out to those who you refer. So a band for example can use the site to email their fans who also use the site.


9, OK, so it's not just bands and musicians that are viewing each other's ads? Correct...That is the goal past our pre launch period anyway. We are waiting for some upgrades to the site that will make it "Fan Friendly". Once this happens we will focus our direction and advertise to the live music fans of New England.


10, Do you have any incentives for bands and musicians to sign up now?

Yes, Upon sign up you will get 50 credits after you surf only 20 sites. Also, If you find us on myspace you will still get 25 credits for signing up as a friend (SFLM on MySpace). So these 75 initial credits will be maintained though out the pre launch period. When we do our public release we will refresh these credits and ad them to what ever balance you have at that time.


11, What about paid members?


Paid members will also get their initial credits refreshed. Paid members are very important to us at SFLM. They are the bread and butter to our survival. They are what influences us to offer "FREE MP3s", Merchandise and concert ticket give aways to attract new music fans to our site. There is a great feeling you get when you give FREE MP3s away and are still able to pay the band for them.


"Well, Thanks Glen for explaining how the Surf For Local Music network operates. I'll be sure to log in when I get back to the computer." Your welcome, take your time and poke around while your their. Send me an e-mail to there is a place for it right on the site.


Cool...so that is http://www.SurfForLocalMusic.com ? Yes.

New Bands Listed on SFLM

Below is a list of new bands we found that are active in the New England area. You can search them out on Surf ForLocal Music. If you like what you hear email them and tell them how you found their site;

• The Stir band
• Orange Community band
• New Life band
• The King Bees
• The Rogue Blues band
• Johnathan Singleton
• Ryan Montbleau band
• Greg Luttrell
• Bruce Bears
• Strict9
• Chuck Regto

The sites above replaced current sites that were listed as a free promotion. The webmasters failed to sign up for their free promotion. Also, as new rule "Myspace" sites are secondary to professionally hosted dot com or dot net sites. So most of the myspace sites will be phased out. Why? They generally load to slow and bog down our traffic timer. Myspace webmasters do not seem to control thier site's heaviness as they allow "auto play media" and comments that have heavy graphics. Myspace webmasters that control their site will most likely be able to stay on the SFLM rotation. That said, we are asking our members who have myspace sites to ad another site URL (the band's main site) and use myspace as a back up in case their site goes down.

As far as marketing your band, It is suggested that you use a dot.com or .net site hosted by professional server or your own. Telling your fans to go to myspace is like a business telling their prospects to find them in the yellow pages rather than handing them a business card with thier phone number on it. Why send your current fans to a site that has a million other bands to distract their attention. Always, refer the main site if you have one. Use services like myspace or even SFLM for that matter to find new fans that you would not otherwise reach.

It is important to note the difference between a service like SFLM and a social site though. SFLM is a specific service and that is to promote local music in a defined market in a specific geograghic area. SFLM is some what like a radio station except that we play "websites" and like radio listeners our viewers (also known as surfers) come to surf for new content and perhaps win a prize or two. They also surf to gain credits so they can use these credits to promote their own site. It is a perpetual networking community. The biggest contributors are those who surf and promote for free while our also important supporters pay for ads and call it a day. But even those folks must surf at least 50 sites per month to contribute to the surfing network. This is only 12.5 sites per week!

Some folks abuse our system. especially on our "Auto Surf" network. One particualr member is currently racking up up to 1500 hits per day. We would not mind so much if he or she was actually looking at the ads. This person is going to work while leaving the computor on and allowing it to Auto surf our network. Hmmm....I'm working on this one. We call this abuse. I don't like to lose members so the task here is to communicate proper surf etiquette and to educate proper marketing techniques as well as to inform new marketing techniques.

Glen_P @ EccentricMusician.com

Get automatic updates when I post to this blog.

Ok, you all know I do offer some A ok' content here...i hope. I believe that some of what I post is usefull to most folks who are trying to market themselves, their music or whatever. Take my post on how to ad a banner to Surf For Local Music. And soon I will post on using html text links in your ads. Knowing how to use text links in this manner can make the difference. You can also hide that long URL address with the affiliate ID attached at the end. Bands can use it as well...Just place your name in there. No one cares about the address. Get them there first and if they like it they'll save it in their favorites. Oh, that reminds me here to tell you that while surfing on Surf For Local Music you can easily save the page your viewing by clicking onto the link called "bookmark".
`
Now, regarding this blog and others that I manage. If you like the idea of getting some info on marketing, advertising, online publishing then... If you'd like this blog as a way to recieve updates on Surf For Local Music then...If you...ok enough of that here you go. I have a cool small little program that will tell you when I update this blog. Here it is;

Click onto this link; SFLM_Blogspot_Auto_Update

How to put a banner on our traffic exchange!

First go to SFLM and log ii an then;

Go to your "members area" link. (top of page)

Go down three link levels and click onto the "Banners" link (top of page)

When you arive at the right page it will say "Banner Information" at the top. Any existing banner(s) that are currently running will be listed on the top of the page.

Below this is the area where you will ad your static banner. Currently we do not except flash banners.




The first selection to make is the Display Type. You have two choices Credit Only Banner and Paid ot Click banner.


1, Credit Only Banner; This banner would be placed on our "Manual Surf" and "Auto Surf" networks.


2, Paid ot Click banner; This banner would be placed on our "Paid Manual Surf" and "Paid Auto Surf" networks.



The second selection to make is the Initial State. Again two choices. Choose Pause if you don't want this banner to be in the rotation or if at somepoint you want to stop it and switch it off with another one. Marketers do this to keep the ads new and refreshed so they stand out to the eye. Choose "Active" if you want to place it in the network for people to see and respond to.


The third selection to make is the "Description". Simply enter a short description of the banner so you can easily identify which one is running in the list. This is only for your eyes.


The fourth selection to make is the "Destination". Use this format to start your code out to insure proper placement; Http://www.YOUR SITE HERE


Now, you may have copied the code from a free banner maker service online or an affiliate site or perhaps someone emailed it to you. The code would look something like the example below;


a href="http://www.eccentricnewnegland.com">
img src="http://www.eccentricnewengland.com/images/_____. jpg" border=0>



In this code, the top URL would be what I (You) would enter into this field. Just copy this portion of the code) and enter it or paste into the "desintation" field. It ends with . com or what ever your URL address would be for the landing page.


The sixth selection to make is the "Exclusive" field. A simple yes or no here but allow me to explain what this is. When you enter a website's SFLM system you have a choice of attaching this banner to it by entering the banner's ID number into the edit site area. This banner would then be displayed at the same time the web site is when someone surfs to it. Selecting "Yes" would tell the system to only display the banner when the site is viewed. "NO" means that the banner would be displayed anywhere within the "surf network" you have assigned it to (above).



The seventh selection to make is the "Banner location" field. This is the page where your original graphic is placed. If your not sure you can right click onto the picture and select properties. This should reveal the original location. In the example code above it would be the bottom selection that you would want to copy and past it into this field. It ends with a pic file extension like .jpg or gif.



The eight and last selection to make is the "Link Prompt" field. This is the text you would see if you were to roll your mouse pointer over the picture. Simply just enter a compelling short notice to entice the would be viewer to click onto the banner.
That's it! I hope this helps you. Now, If you don't have a banner you can design one online for free at mybannermaker.com. Latter on today (08/02/2008) go to www.SurfForLocalMusic.com and surf to find my tip page on how to spice up you email, myspace, blogs and web sites with text links!



Time for some sleep :)

Glen P @ SFLM

yikes my poor site at Neomn.com

Perhaps I should sue myself for neglecting one of my most favorite sites?

New England Open Mic Night Magazine is my oldest yet most sought after site for New England musicians who just want to play because they like to and not get paid for it. Open mics are better than Karaoke! They are real musicians who are not afraid to expose thier raw talent.

http://www.neomn.com/ is a great publication and it requires almost constant attention to the latest open mic is in the local area.

This week I am going to put some time into this site and update it with some new listings.

Glen P

Sonitus Sanctus: Free Catholic MP3 Links: Loads of Contemporary Catholic Music

Sonitus Sanctus: Free Catholic MP3 Links: Loads of Contemporary Catholic Music

Don't be afraid, Learn gow to use SFLM and put it to work for you!

Hi folks, a few updates here from www.SurfForLocalMusic.com (SFLM)...

First off...Today's myspace site that was axed on SFLM was a band called "Chaos". You never signed up to SFLM guys and if you did then I would have at least warned you that your site was getting heavy on the graphics slowing your browser load in time down to a crawl. Clean it up and then sign up to SFLM if you'd like to be on our FREE promo site and get these important updates. Under normal conditions a SFLM member whose site suddenly does not meet our requirements would get "Dog Housed" (see my site for more info.) and then I would send you a warning explaining the reason.

THINK OF THIS AS A SERVICE;

If your site is to slow to load up no one is going to look at it unless they have high speed service and even then it might get bogged down.

If somone places an obscene comment or graphic on your myspace we'll warn you if we or someone surfing catches it.

This is not a bad thing. We don't consider this a service but it is built in to our syystem and it is valuable to know if your site has a problem.

OUR SERVICE IS TO PROMOTE YOU! It is FREE to Join and you get free advertisment credits to use as needed. You can list a site, a text ad, or a banner (small or wide). If you don't have a banner you can get one for free at;
www.mybannermaker.com

By the way the Band CHAOS was replaced by Fusion Artist Sean Coleman. Surf for him at www.SurfForLocalMusic.com.
Here is a speedy way to get surfing once your a member..
Use this link and put your membership number at the end of it past the = sign;
1,http://surfforlocalmusic.com/Surf/Manual.php?ID=your#here
Manual surf is for searching out Music Artists & Bands of New England
2, http://surfforlocalmusic.com/Surf/Auto.php?ID=your#here
Auto surf is for searching out personal sites and music related fan sites.
3, Paid Manual surf is for searching out local business coupon offers and deals (New england).
4, Paid Auto surf is for searching out Internet business offerings like business, marketing software, and store fronts.

So don't be afraid to come by and check out www.SurfForLocalMusic.com. I am a local business and marketing entrepreneur and I created SFLM as an alternative and easy way to reach out to a new audience. It is FREE to join and I am in PreLaunch Mode which means I am giving away ad credits. I'm locking the system up for a while once I reach 200 Music Sites so don't wait.

JOIN Now!

Glen Peladeau
SFLM

SFLM Axed Some Sites and replaced them with new ones!

Every so often I go into SFLM and surf through the sites just as my visitors do. If the site loads to slow because of heavy graphics or if the Auto play is on the audio player this ties up the surfing timer slowing down the surfing process. It's not that I don't want people to hear the music but I want it to be a matter of choice. If they want to hear it they can click play. So here are the sites (listed below) that were axed from SFLM. May I remind you first that these are sites that I preloaded into the surf system for prelaunch and the site owners are not members. They were contacted and unfortunately they did not become members of SFLM. Those that do respond recieve FREE advertising right through our prelaunch and then I refresh the credits (50) so they recieve FREE advertising when the site is recieving traffic from the public (Post Pre Launch). Members who have a site in the system that is found to not meet requirements recieve communication from SFLM indicating the problem and are given time to correct it.


#147 stager lee...has autoplay on myspace...it is locking up the timer
repaced with; http://www.hopehoffman.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
# 153 http://www.myspace.com/maththeband
Math the band has autoplay on myspace...it is locking up the timer
switched out with; unlimitedenthusiasm.com
-----------------------------------------------
154 http://www.myspace.com/dellus
has autoplay on myspace...it is locking up the timer
repaced with; http://www.myspace.com/hannahrodrigue

-----------------------------------------
155 http://www.myspace.com/fanstar69
this site is to heavy with graphics
repaced with; http://www.newmercymorning.com
---------------------------------------
165 http://www.myspace.com/thecaulfieldsmusic
has autoplay on myspace...it is locking up the timer
repaced with; http://www.myspace.com/thepresumpscotriverpickers

To view view more fast and easy to load music sites check out our SurfForLocalMusic.com site and sign up as a member. There will be a Non Site Memership available soon. For now please just enter a favorite site that you would like to support into the system. Name the site and put this into the same field; "FREEMbR".

Myspace is great but it's not a catch all!

Yes, MySpace is a great place. you meet new people, your band, your club, your business attracts new folks once in a while. But not everyone goes to myspace, some folks don't want anything to do with the site. It is just not for them and there are plenty of reasons for it. So what else is there besides the mighty e-mail list sign up sheet you have available for customers or music fans to walk up and faithfully sign up? What else is there on the internet besides your site that is asking for customers to sign up? For musicians there are some online services out there like fanbridge (for musicians) and Topica Lists for groups and business. But these sites bring the customer to their site not yours. Even myspace detracts the young bands from hosting their own site and keeps the user within their own network. The trick is to get more visitors to your main home site so "you" can get the viewer's undivided attention.

Participating in traffic exchanges is a step in the right direction to expand your marketing tactics to attract more visitors. Actually your not attracting them they're already there doing what we do called "surfing". You can either surf to get site views to your own site or pay to have your site viewed so many times.

The problem with traffic exchanges is that they seem to attract the business to business crowd as well as the MLM and affiliate marketing industry offers. There is no incentives to attract the everyday internet browser. Currently, I am working on SFLM to do just that and this will be part of the update to the site in July. This is why I am focusing on getting small local business and music artist sites on board now. After the update we'll focus bringing the public to the site.

The folks who sign up now will be getting some free advertising as an incentive. Currently, there is 117 bands and 43 small businesses, blogs and personal myspace sites combined. I also have some great incentives in line to attract those visitors once we do go public. So if your in New England and you have something to offer please by all means sign up to SFLM today. It costs nothing to join and we'll keep you updated on the sites traffic stats as well as your own stats to your ad (s) on the site.

Show your blog to New Englanders

Hello Fellow Bloggers, Are you from and one of the six states in New England? If so, how would you like to show your site (that originates from New England) to the folks in New England? And do it for free? This traffic exchange network does just that and more. Aside from mostly being about supporting live musicians in the area (Our mission) we also can help you capture a direct audience in the universal world of the Internet.

It works much like "Blogger" you click on the next button to reveal the next site. Actually No this is incorrect...the side you'll be plugging your Blog on is in Auto Mode. So every 7 seconds a new page loads and you can tell it when to stop (pause button) and you have the option to save it to your favorites.

We do have some requirement for your site to meet though. This makes it better than the "Blogger" though and it is great for us surfers. People who insert a site's URL are not allowed to have a site that loads ridiculously slow. You see most people still have dial up so we at SFLM accommodate this by not allowing heavy sites loaded with graphics. You can test your site for this right on our system (it is easy to do). If it loads within 15 seconds your ok.

So do this right now..it is free to sign up. Just copy your Blog's URL address (highlight it and hit Control C) and the paste it into our form's field (Control V). Check the Auto Surf button (*Your not allowed to post on the manual this is for bands only) and fill in the rest of the form. Test your site and your ready to go. You can now start to surf the SFLM network and receive traffic that is New England Based! The more you surf the more your site will appear to other surfers.

http://www.surfforlocalmusic.com/

Get your site or advertisment on board with us before July!

Why before July? Because that is when we will be marketing to a different list and that is New England Area Music Fans. These are folks that can move product. Heck there already out and about checking out different live bands what makes you think they can't support your business if you have something to offer that they want?

SurfForLocalMusic.com

We will also slim down those free credits we have been offering (50) once you join our network which is FREE by the way. Once July comes I'll put the red carpet away for bands and businesses and start my campaign for the music fans. You folks who sign up prior to that date will be enjoying some free surfing for some time. So whether you have a Music Site, a Music Service. Business, a local Business (New England) or a Internet related business offering related products....Your time is short! Sign up today for free.

SurfForLocalMusic.com

You have nothing to lose except free advertising. Doing so will help us kick start our new service and will eventually become a great new way to reach out to new customers and live music fans. They're going to love us once we update our new site at the end of June.

SurfForLocalMusic.com

What is a "Shared Warm Market" and why is it so powerful?

For those of you who are in business or in the advertising and marketing industry you probably know what this means. I coined the term "Shared" Warm Market because this is how I set my promotions up for my clients.



Let's explain what a warm market is first; A "Warm Market" usually refers to group or a list of close friends, relatives, past and current clients (to resell or up sell). In the case of my business, I bring together these "Micro" warm markets of various music groups, solo artists (their fans) and local business (their clients)and provide a service that "shares" the combined warm market. Hence the coined term; "Shared Warm Market".



SFLM is focused on the New England area. This in itself is a defined market area to advertise to. Then the focus is broken down to people who are active in going out to see live entertainment. What does this tell us as advertisers? These people are more likely to get out of the house, visit your business (or see your show) and spend some money. The same goes for your clientele visiting your business (in reverse) which will aide my music service clients. They come out and visit your small business so what is stopping them from going out to see some good entertainment now and then? Nothing... They already show that they have the means to do it. So your not just blanket advertising to everyone. You are focusing on a niche market. A pre-qualified market of people who are still spending money even in a diminished economy.


Every local small business needs to focus on this aspect of their business in order to succeed and win over new clientele some how some way. By combining resources of a different industry which already shares some of the same basic important traits of your prospects (Local Live Music Fans) you may find yourself some great new customers who are more than willing to support your local business. SFLM does just that but we do not do this all by ourselves. It is a team effort. You bring us your "warm market" and as a service we bring you the combined "shared warm market". To help you do this I have included a small snippet of code below that you can copy and paste into your site;


Copy this code to your website to display this banner!
<a href="http://www.surfforlocalmusic.com"><img src="http://www.eccentricnewengland.com/traffic/images/SFLM150X60_Med_01.jpg" border="0" /></a>

Filtration in your pool gets out the bugs

The summer is almost here. It is slow to come but it will be here soon enough and folks will be in the pools to be cooling off. While we're swimming around we take a few bugs out of the water here and there. Thanks to the pool's filtration system those pesk dead bugs that have drowned are screened out for easy disposal.

Now what does this have to do with music you ask? In the old days the A&R Reps would listen to thousands of groups before they find a few that show promise for the label to sign a deal with them. Things are a bit different now. Today it is mostly the music fans who search for new music and now they are baraged with all the music the world can deliver. Is that Good or Bad?

I think this depends on who you ask but if you ask me it is a mixed blessing. Nowadays, you get to hear alot of new stuff because of the interent. The thing is when you start to spend so much time sorting through the music that is not so good you have to ask yourself how much of the good stuff are we missing out on?

This is where Surf For Local Music sets a new standard in our quest for new music it is called "Filtration". While we may not have music that suits everyone's tastes we do make use of some filiters so our viewers can review new sites faster and sites that have cleaner material. We do not go so far as filtering out bad music though because this is a matter of taste to some degree. We do look for good musicianship and a quality recording to the degree you can understand the words and the clearity of the music. At SFLM we also only list music artists from the New England area.

That said, There are promotors booking agents, club owners, radio djs and A&R reps catching on to SFLM. So don't wait for us to come and find you go there now and sign up. It is Free to join and we will only give you the boot for the reasons stated above and we will let you know if your site has been mini bused or deleted. We will also give you the reason why so you can make some changes if you feel you want to give it another shot.

Added more sites and we're growing

OK, I added even more music sites to the network today. We're up to 91 sites that should load fairly fast while your surfing SFLM networks. The site owners have been contacted and informed that they have 50 credits (used for site views). I'll need to get back to them to let them know about the added benefits though like for example they need to sign up and register a URL on the network before their 50 credits are up or they'll lose them to the next site that will take their place when it expires. Folks can sign up anytime but this is what I do to help promte bands as well as to kick start the site and keep fresh material in rotation. Also when a musician or band does sign up and surfs 50 sites on the network they'll get a whopping 200 credits. Not bad when you consider that the audience we are specifically targeting is New England area live music fans!

I'm looking to get at least 200 bands from the area on the network prior to moving on to the next phase and that is to update the site and then target our music fans. If the majority of the bands participate we will all have a great place to directly market our music to. This is what I call a shared market. www.EccentricMusician.com takes advantage of a shared market as well in a similar way. Bands can go to www.EccentricNewEngland.com to see what that is all about.

SFLM is gong to be a great promotion machine with many opportunities for every one involved. Please don't be scared off by our site's appearence and it is not user freindly. This we know which is at the top of the list for updates prior to launching it to our music fans.

Thanks, for your support and participation.

Glen Peladeau

LILMS Headquarters

Eccentric Musician

www.SurfForLocalMusic.com

New Sites At Surf For Local Music

Hi folks, Every week I search out new music sites and ad them to my personal list. I give them 50 credits (site views). Then I invite them to sign up (Free). When they sign up I transfer the credits over to their new account and then refresh their account to 50 credits.


If they don't sign up for free there site will be deleted after there 50 credits are used up or if I run out of space or if there site no longer meets out policies.


This is great for A&R Reps, booking agents and promotors too. The new sites that I post on my account are previewed by me. Meaning they need to load up fast! I don't have much patience to wait for a site to load it's heavy graphics. The stats (on myspace) need to reflect a certain percentage of success. I look at the ratios between how many times the music has been played and how many fans they have. And of course their content and music.


If your site is not listed then sign up today. It is Free to sign up to http://www.surfforlocalmusic.com/

Promoting your band locally vs. nationally

Hello, Glen Peladeau here from LILMS HQ. Boy things sure have changed since I first started studying how the music industry worked back in the early seventies. Back then bands had to climb their way out of a local scene after proving themselves over and over a million times to get recognized enough to pick up gigs else where. The Internet was not publicly released so all the other promotions channels were all we had. You know, the ones we seem to forget because we're so Internet focused now. We also seem to forget that those old days still have a lot to teach us as far as promotions go. Like taking things one step at a time rather than going "full blown" and releasing everything we've got to the world. The local scene provided the all important testing grounds for a developing band or solo artist. Nowadays' you can put something together relatively quickly and release it to the world in a matter of days if not hours.

This is both Scary and Dangerous for the developing artist. Scary because it is to easy to put something that we may momentarily think it is great ourselves and then come to the realization latter on that it wasn't that great after all. Dangerous because we now released it to the world...whoops! We just created a perception of us in our listener's head whether it was GOOD or BAD. If it was bad then we've lost our new potential fan and then we tell ourselves "I know we could have done it better". If only we have taken the time to play it to our friends first, played it at a open mic night or at our next gig to receive that all important feedback from our local peers and fans. That is what we are missing in our industry these days folks. Good ole' fashion local marketing and peer to peer testing.

Even in my own music business for example; I just a launched a new promotions site called www.SurfForLocalMusic.com (SFLM for short) and I am still asking my peers, music fans and bands about what their thoughts are on the site. It is growing slowly day by day but I want to do it this way because I know if go full throttle and get it wrong I won't be spending time and money down the road trying to win back support for the site. The same thing goes for your music. Test it out on your local scene first before you put it out there for the world to see it!

This also the mission behind www.EccentricMusician.com. That is to give local musicians and bands an opportunity to sell their music to a local * "warm market" being New England based live music fans. I also don't compete with the big boys in that we exclusively sell "live recordings" and this also gives the artist flexibility to sell their physical CDs online, off the stage or both. The live recordings are more likely going to get someone to come out to see your show and different live variations of the same song can be sold to the same "fan" over and over after seeing your show. So you can see how powerful the concept behind the marketing is. Now, once the artist is offering music online with www.EccentricMusician.com we market that music artist for free on www.SurfForLocalMusic.com which is establishing it's own Internet warm local market.

So the point of the article is not to sell yourselves and your potential success short by just haplessly posting recordings out there for the whole world to hear for first time. If you want to test it on the net try posting it on a smaller site first. One that is focused on your local entertainment scene (hint,hint).

Glen E Peladeau
DBA; LILMS and its Subsidiaries

This article is also posted here;
http://www.eccentricnewengland.com/index.php?pr=Article051408

* "Warm Market" is a term we use in marketing and advertising to define our customers that are already familiar with our product or service and who are warmed up so to speak. This usually translates into more sales if all is well with what we are selling.