Reverbnation Review: Is the Artist Social Media Worth the Hype?

Some people would say that the world has enough social media sites. We do not need another.

However, Reverbnation is not just a social network. It goes beyond that. Sites like Facebook and Twitter offer pretty much the same thing. With Reverbnation, although you get all the qualities of a social network, you also get a highly targeted audience: members of the music industry.

For many musicians, getting discovered in conventional social networks is an uphill task. With Reverbnation, although you still have to work quite hard, at least you will be catering directly to music industry professionals with your content. And that can make all the difference.

What is ReverbNation?

ReverbNation is a tool that was created to cater for the needs of artists, music professionals, music lovers, record bands, performance destinations, and companies to allow them display, publicize or broadcast their musical content. It is primarily located in the United States but it is utilized by artists and creators from all over the globe.

It also allows music lovers or followers to obtain music they love through downloads and purchases. You could also watch music videos from this platform if you wish. Additionally, it allows musicians to sell songs and donate 50% of the proceeds to various charity organizations while they keep the remaining 50% to themselves.

Chart Ranks

ReverbNation also ranks music according to popularity charts with each city or nation having its chart. Every nation across the world has its chart.

Charts place musicians in order according to popularity. The most popular music or musician is at the top of the chart which is placed in descending order. To get to the top of the chart, you must increase your “Band Equity”. To increase your Band Equity, musicians must keep getting followers in ReverbNation, likes on Facebook, a good number of music likes, a good number of twitter followers, and much more. ReverbNation seems to have an algorithm that considers all these key factors. As you get more popular, your chart position rises but as you level off, your position also drops down.

This chart rank characteristic allows users to view music on a worldwide or nationwide scale, but on top of that, you could view charts by genre or region, so you could narrow things down to what you like. This tool also helps users associate with labels, music bands or labels. You could also use this to spread your music to a specific target audience. Such a great feature gets the music to its true enthusiasts while helping musicians get true followers.

Get Discovered!

ReverbNation is a platform that allows artists to interact and get discovered from a social community. It gives artists an active audience that is ever renewing itself. It allows you to network with various artists to come up with new content, the platform could also be the ideal place for you to get assistance for your music collection.

As an artist, you probably have a lot more of other artists in your circle, so using ReverbNation shouldn’t be that much of a hassle. ReverbNation will make your circle have many other artists in it, and it’s only a few clicks away. ReverbNation is sure to make you even more networked as an artist.

As if that’s not enough, ReverbNation helps you keep track of all your music, followers and provides a mode for you to keep track of all plays. It also allows you to keep in touch with your followers or listeners through feedback. Feedback allows you to know how well your songs are doing out there.

You also stand a chance to meet fellow artists with helpful suggestions. Artists such as these could also give you useful feedback which could boost your career particularly when you are a beginner.

ReverbNation and Social Media

There are scenarios where musicians have a huge following with low play count. A good musician should be able to get higher music play than the number of followers they have. If you produce great songs, then ReverbNation is the best place to gain visibility.

ReverbNation can link your social media accounts to your website to ensure all show the content you have. Everything new is automatically posted on all social media platforms since all your accounts have been synced to your ReverbNation account.

Key features of ReverbNation

This site is the best place to get great services like digital distribution, concert promotion, concert booking, fan relationship management, web promotion, web hosting, sentiment tracking and so on.

As an artist or a band, ReverbNation offers you the following great services:

It gets you in touch with people via your profile.

Your profile is the starting point for knowing other people in the music industry, especially other ReverbNation members. A profile is meant to display the basic things about an account owner including what sounds you fancy, your manager and the label you belong to. Profiles on ReverbNation also feature your playable songs. Your profile also has a section that allows you to post your videos, blogs or shows.

Reviews

ReverbNation allows users to give musicians feedback through the crowd review feature that it has. This is a great way to know how people feel about your content. Through this feature, musicians can also gauge how their music can perform in the market, or their genres.

ReverbNation’s Promotions

ReverbNation helps you promote your music in places with music lovers, the site has a feature called “Promote It” that allows content owners to promote their bands in specific areas on the web where music fans could be found easily. Such places include Pandora, Facebook, YouTube and many more.

Widgets

ReverbNation also comes with widgets that help artists promote their music. Below are some of ReverbNation’s widgets:

1. ReverbNation’s Site Builder

ReverbNation has a site builder that can turn your basic profile into a website with a .com address. The website comes with a photo gallery and a music player to make it identical to a real website.

2. ReverbNation Social Sync

As mentioned earlier, this platform allows you to link all your social media accounts to the ReverbNation account that you have so that each time you update your ReverbNation account, your social media channels get updates as well.

Sales For Venues

ReverbNation also has a “Promote It” feature that helps venues sell their tickets. On top of that, they also have Fan Management services for venues to help them stay in touch with their patrons. Through ReverbNation, venues can now book bands and promote their shows as well.

ReverbNation for Managers and Record Labels

Managers and record labels can now manage talent from a single account at ReverbNation. On top of this, they have also been given a chance to promote found talent, manage their fans on the platform, find shows, book them, and put them in order.

ReverbNation for Fans

This platform has been designed and built for music lovers. If you are a music lover, then you will love this platform even more because it gives you a unique chance to discover new artists and music out there. ReverbNation makes searching for tunes simple since the process has been enhanced; you can search by name, location, genre, and much more.

Email Newsletters

Email is one of the greatest, but still underrated, methods which artists can get in touch with their fan base. This is why ReverbNation gives artists a chance to reach their fans via mail, to inform them of oncoming gigs like tour dates, photos, and music releases, and it works well too.

My story with ReverbNation

I was initially sceptical about this platform, but a friend convinced me to take a leap of faith with it. So far, I have no regrets with it and my experience with this platform has been quite good. I paid for their basic package of $20 and I haven’t been charged anything extra since.

Ever since I started using it, ReverbNation has not asked me to pay a certain amount of money to get some sort of extra service. Therefore, I have not paid them to stream or play any music. It also hasn’t been hard to make sales on ReverbNation, which is why I am quite happy with it.

At the time I joined ReverbNation, I was just starting out as a musician. I had to spread myself thin doing this, but with Reverbnation, things became a lot easier because they really took control of things for me.

However, I have to mention that if you want to make it with ReverbNation, you need to do your research first. Do your homework and decide exactly what you want ReverbNation to do for you. Once you do this, when the time to execute your plan comes, everything will go as planned and you won’t be disappointed.

So far, my experience with this site has been fulfilling, and I am thankful for this platform.

Pricing

Reverbnation has 2 pricing plans:

Basic plan at $12.95 per month and Premium plan at $19.95 per month, charged annually. With the premium plan, you get everything on the basic plan plus Digital Distribution, a Website with Free Domain, and Unbranded Embeds.

There are also several tools available at an additional cost. You can place your music ads with Promote It for $21, distribute it to music stores from $1, and receive crowd reviews for $12.25.

Pros

• Fans can have a playlist of their favorite or preferred artists.
• The site does not take any cuts, they only charge an annual fee, other than that the rest of the money you make is yours unless shops like iTunes take a cut.
• Users can add their band profiles into their social media accounts making it easy to be discovered.
• This platform allows users to embed YouTube videos making it easy for them to set up their audiovisual profiles.

Cons

• ReverbNation has too many tools to offer its users. This turns into a disadvantage since some people can’t get around them to use the platform effectively. It is too much to process.
• The annual charge on it is pretty hefty. The charge is done annually but it is still quite expensive.

Verdict

I believe ReverbNation is an effective platform for artists who want to make themselves popular or to get somewhere in the music industry. It also has a huge collection of tools that can really help you advance your career.

I love how Reverbnation gives you the liberty to create a music store, produce tracks and market them, as discs, ringtones or digital downloads then make good money out of them. You could even make awesome T-shirts and sell them too!

It is for these reasons and more that I would recommend this platform to any musician searching for ideas that could help them generate more sales.