April Tara » Business

SonicBids acquires ArtistData

April — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:49:26 +0000

Brendan Mulligan, the entrepreneur behind ArtistData, announced today that AD had been acquired by SonicBids. You can read Brenden’s announcement here.

So what does this mean for artists, promoters and others involved in the DIY music business? The main advantage is that users will be able to book gigs like they did through SonicBids then promote them like they did on ArtistData. (Oh, and ArtistData will be giving their users access to premium/paid services for free until September 1st.)

Is this exciting news for the indie music scene? Not really. Personally, I was never a big fan of SonicBids as it is. The results, or lack thereof, didn’t justify the cost. Plus I’m a big believer in using your OWN website to share your EPK rather than paying to host it somewhere else. SonicBids just didn’t seem to do much for anyone that I knew that was using it.

ArtistData, on the other hand, was a great service….until they started taking away some of the best features and offering them as paid services instead. That’s when I quit using it. And there were quite a few bugs too. Status updates to other sites – Facebook, MySpace – didn’t always work.

So with each service having its own share of problems, maybe combining the two will correct some of those and make both SonicBids and ArtistData more useful. Useful isn’t the problem though – providing enough value and producing enough results to make it worth the expense is the issue as far as I’m concerned.

Where in the world is April Tara?

April — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:53:38 +0000

AprilTara.com will be undergoing some changes very soon. In order to maximize effectiveness and narrow my focus, I’m going to consolidate three sites – AprilTara.com, CherryBombPromo.com and RockStarBlogDesign.com – which means that the focus here will continue to be about social media marketing and online resources but geared mainly towards indie musicians and unsigned bands. That’s where I’ve been putting all my energy for the past year, that’s where my passion lies, and that’s where I feel I can be the most helpful.

There will still be some general info that applies to anyone interested in social media – like the recent hoopla over Facebook privacy issues – so stay tuned and keep watching for posts!

5 ways to hold on to your sanity when you work at home

April — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:26:05 +0000

When most people start contemplating the idea of working at home, they envision living without the stress and hectic pace we’ve become used to when we work in Cubicle World. (I can hear the laughter coming from all of you work at home people all the way out here in Omaha!)

Even when I started out working at home for another company and I had set hours and a supervisor telling me what to do, it was still stressful. Working in an office allowed me to forget about all of the stuff I needed to do at home. I could sit at my desk without seeing the pile of dishes that needed to be done. I wasn’t distracted by the TV or tempted by my cozy blanket and paperback book on the couch next to me.

Then when I decided to work for myself instead of someone else, it became even more stressful. That security of a steady income meant I had to constantly worry about being able to pay rent or buy groceries for the week and finding enough clients to make that happen. And we won’t even talk about those days when the kids are out of school or, for some of you, having kids who aren’t yet school age.

Those visions of work at home bliss sure don’t last very long. Over the past year and a half, I’ve learned that you have to make a conscious effort to reduce and maybe even eliminate some of the chaos that goes along with working at home.

Here are five ways to hang on to your sanity while working at home:

Automate – There are so many tools out there to help you automate some of your tasks, whether they’re business related or domestic. Let’s take the TV distraction as an example. I admit, I’m one of those people that needs background noise so my TV stays on almost all day even if I’m not paying attention to it. However, I have gotten hooked on some daytime shows. Instead of letting my mind wander off, I got into the habit of using a DVR to record the shows and I watch them when I’m not working. As far as business, take advantage of tools that will allow you to automatically schedule blog posts to publish on specific days. Do most or all of your writing in one shot then spread them out so that you’re not having to remember to go back and publish them.

Outsource – My business is built on outsourcing. I started out as a Virtual Assistant, handling tasks that my clients didn’t need to do themselves. I still make my living from people who are outsourcing tasks that they don’t know how to do or that they just don’t have the time to do. For example, through Rock Star Blog Design, I build and customize Word Press sites for people who aren’t technically inclined and have no desire (or the time) to do it themselves. So instead of wasting their valuable time trying to figure it out, they’ll hire someone like me to do it. And we all know how stressful technology can be, even for us tech geeks out there!

Take a break – It’s very easy to get sucked into the Internet all day long. I know I’m not the only at-home worker out there who has looked at the clock and realized it’s 10 pm and I haven’t showered all day. I’ll also confess to spending an entire day in my pajamas. And, yes, I’ve even forgotten to eat which is pretty bad considering how much I LOVE food. So I finally scheduled a break into my day, sometimes 2 or 3. During the day, I’ll play around on Facebook apps (Farmville anyone??) or on the game site, Pogo. At night, I’ll read a NON-BUSINESS RELATED (very important!!) book or magazine. (Just picked up the 4th Sookie Stackhouse book a few days ago!)

Be sociable – Just because so many people are using Twitter and Facebook for business doesn’t mean you can’t use it to socialize too. In fact, some of that socializing can lead to finding new clients or partners, but don’t let that become the motive for your friendly interactions. While I do have a lot of business acquaintances on my Facebook list, I also have family members, old friends, and local people on there too and I sometimes I’ll just hang out and chat with them.

Do something – It’s really easy to become a hermit when you work at home and you’re also going to find yourself facing bouts of laziness. The best way to avoid that is physical activity. In a recent post at Web Worker Daily, the author Dawn Foster talks about 4 tips for holiday season stress reduction. One of the tips she mentions is exercise. Even something as simple as a 30 minute walk around the block will make a big difference.

I’ll admit, I don’t always do these myself so I know how hard they can be. Just remind yourself to do it, schedule it into your calendar, and keep at it until it becomes a habit. (Here’s a great write-up about a service called Habitforge that will show you how to do just that, based upon the idea that it takes at least 21 days to create a new habit or break an old one.)

I’d love to hear about your own stress reduction tips! What are you doing to hang on to your sanity? Leave a comment and let me know.

Be open to opportunities

April — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:03:21 +0000

As I write this, I’m sitting here listening to my boyfriend play his guitar which would normally be a pretty unremarkable event. (Not that he’s an unremarkable guitar player, it’s just that he plays guitar all the time so it’s nothing out of the ordinary for him to be doing it now.)

What’s remarkable about it is that he’s doing as part of a project that’s a perfect example of the way social media and the potential for businesses – whether it’s a band, a bookstore, a yoga class – to reach a global audience because of the interactivity involved.

Here’s a brief description of the project:

Download music tracks
Record your own ideas
Upload for worldwide release

The tagline of The Public Record site says it’s “the first large-scale, truly interactive recording process”. and at the wheel of it is Tommy Lee – yes, the guy with the sex tape but more importantly the drummer for Mötley Crüe. Tommy is giving musicians across the world an opportunity to record the next CD, “Public Mayhem”, by Methods of Mayhem.

As some of you know, I combined my love of both music and social media to form Cherry Bomb Promo and help bands use the Internet to their advantage when it comes to promoting their music. So The Public Record just totally excites me. There are so many bands out there that still have no clue how social media can work for them. In fact, a lot of them don’t even know what social media is. They don’t have Twitter accounts or Facebook fan pages and that’s why they come to me.

So how does this apply to us non-musicians?

Thanks to social media, we all have access to some amazing opportunities – everything from Black Friday deals last week to job opportunities with major corporations or, as in this case, recording with a major rock star. Some you have to look for, some just kind of fall into your lap.

When you do run across these opportunities, be open to them! We all have our obstacles – a fear of failure, a fear of success, anxiety over not being good enough. Face those fears and do it anyway.

Think back to some opportunities you’ve had in your own business. Did you pass any of them by out of fear? Did you grab onto them? What happened as a result? Did it improve your business or did you learn from something that didn’t work out?

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with opportunities. To get the conversation, I’ll share two important results I’ve had.

After one opportunity, one of those that seemed like fate, I learned not to settle for less than I deserve based on promises for something better in the future. I lost a lot of money and my kids and I suffered for it because I was foolish enough to put someone else’s needs before my own when the situation didn’t justify doing so.

After another opportunity, I learned that I was better than I thought at doing something I was afraid I was clueless about and I’m quickly realizing that I’m not only better than I thought, I’m actually pretty damn good at it!

Home Study Consultant

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:28:02 +0000

Home Study Consultant is another one of those sites that needed to be mostly static since it’s intended for an “online business card” type of site rather than a blog. I love using WordPress for these because it’s so easy for both the designer (me!) and the client. Using a flexible theme like Headway makes it easy for me to get the look they want and using WordPress makes it easy for them to update it with articles and blog posts or even make simple changes to the content.

Now for the screen shot:

(You can’t tell from the screenshot but the image on the front page is one of four rotating images, done by using the Image Rotator Leaf in Headway.)

SIN – A band site using WordPress

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:20:08 +0000

Another Headway site, made to be more of a “static” site with a blog added as opposed to primarily a blogging site.

SIN is one of the bands I work with as a social media manager for indie & unsigned bands. Their old site was desperately outdated and just about everything on it was incomplete and just linked back to their MySpace page. So they needed something more modern, current, and easy to update. We also used some widgets from Reverb Nation to add their shows and music to the site.

As always, a screenshot:

AprilTara.com

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:14:09 +0000

I am LOVING the Headway theme. So much so that I’m using it on all of my sites (although I don’t have all of them transferred over just yet.)

The first site I used it on is my own “work at home” blog, AprilTara.com. It took me about 1 hour and only one line of code in the custom CSS to get this done. That’s how easy Headway is! And flexible…I’ve done several more sites since this one, all using Headway and all with totally different styles.

Ok, here’s the screenshot:

Who IS your target market?

April — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:17:53 +0000

As I was listening to Alexis Martin Neely on her monthly coaching call with the Personal Family Lawyer group today, part of the topic was Target Market and it really got me thinking because I know that can be one of the most overlooked aspects when it comes to running your business.

Actually, I say “running” your business but your target market should be something you figure out when you’re starting your business. Looking back at the planning I did when I started my own business, I didn’t realize what a huge piece of the puzzle I was missing by not doing more research and carefully considering and evaluating my target market.

When someone asks you who your target market is, what’s your answer? (If it’s “I don’t know”, we need to talk!) Do you just have a one or two word response? If it takes you a nanosecond to answer that question, you probably haven’t put enough thought into it. Your answer should be something more than “parents” or “small business owners” or “work at home moms”!

Don’t just write out a list…try to really picture your ideal client. What is their day like? Are they busy? Are they checking their Blackberry while they brush their teeth and taking conference calls on their Bluetooth on the way to their corner office downtown? Or are they so busy with kids and school and appointments and carpooling that they haven’t had time to check their email in a week!?

One of the first questions people will ask when thinking about their target market is “How much income do they have?” Take that a step further and ask yourself what are they spending their money on. Do they travel? Do they invest? Do they splurge? If you’re marketing some kind of luxury item, you may not get very far with the frugal types. But if you’ve got some kind of info product or other item that helps people save money, then frugal folks are your friend!

There are plenty of outside-the-box questions you can ask when you’re evaluating your target market. Instead of listing what kind of job they may have, think about what they do on the weekends. What are their hobbies? Would they rather read People magazine than the Wall Street Journal?

You get the idea, right? Don’t just make a list…create a character!

Oh, and once you’ve chosen a target market, don’t think of it as being set in stone. Times change, needs change, even your business changes. If you’re feeling stuck or like your business has hit a plateau and you still feel like there’s room to grow, go back and revisit this process. You may benefit from changing your target market, adding an additional one, or just try to get to know your existing market a little bit better.

Virtually Successful

Daphne Houston

April — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:47:51 +0000

Conversion of an HTML site that hadn’t been updated for several years into a WordPress site for a career coach.

Screenshot

Details

After completing the customization of an entire Revolution theme, the client decided to use a different Revolution theme. When the second theme was nearly completed, the client requested a different color scheme.

When this project was completed, I rewrote my revision policies.

‘Nuff said.

My Direct Sales

April — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:32:56 +0000

A very simple blog designed to eliminate distractions from the marketing related content

Screenshot

Details

A very simple blog look is exactly what this client wanted for My Direct Sales. Its a content-driven site so there are no widgets, banners, or vivid color schemes to distract readers from the blog posts.

Another Revolution theme – man, those are popular! This time its the basic Revolution Blog theme.

(This client is actually a personal favorite of mine. When I first started doing blog designs, it was just modifications of Blogger templates. I asked for some volunteers to let me experiment on their blogs and her recipe blog was the first one I ever did. Even though my blog design skills have come a LONG way since then, she still uses the custom template I did for her.)