FindYourFans

From Wikipedia: Last.fm is a UK-based Internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It claims over 21 million active users based in more than 200 countries.^[1] On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m ($280m USD).^[2]

I’ve been aware of Last.fm for a few years; and it has evidently grown quite popular. But I can’t really put my finger on what it is. It’s sort of like Pandora (it has a music recommendation system), it’s sort of like Wikipedia (artist pages are created by the community) and it’s sort of like a parasite (it gathers listening data from your iTunes habits).

Regardless, it’s important because so many people use it, and it really gives you a lot of linking power. It’s possible to drive listeners of the streaming radio service directly to iTunes, Amazon, your own website, even eBay to buy your products.

So let’s get Caleb Brumbelow’s songs up there as quickly as possible! And see what we can see.

Upload Music

1. Login or Sign up
2. I find Last.fm a bit hard to navigate. So next, head over to to top right corner of your screen, pull down the menu and click “music manager.”
3. Near the same area, click the link called “new label.”
4. Enter the name of the artist in the red Artist/Band area and hit go.
5. If someone has already uploaded some of your music (which happens 90% of the time), you will have to click “claim this artist.” Since I have rights to manage Caleb’s music, I click it.
6. I then enter his contact info including name, email, phone number, address, country and currency.
7. The next page gets complex. You need to choose an option about on-demand royalties. These are payments that are due to the artist for their music being streamed. You have 4 options. Most artists will pick #1 b/c they are not affiliated with a collection society such as SondExchange or PPL. Choose the appropriate option. You can always change it later if things change.
8. Agree to the Terms of Service.
9. Click “Upload Music.”
10. Last.fm accepts Wav or MP3’s that are better than 128kbps. They have a decent queue system in which you can upload multiple file at once. Choose the tracks you’d like to upload. I usually do a few at a time, rather than an entire album. Keeps things moving along quicker and avoids wasted time. If you’re uploading over night, give the full album a shot, however.
11. After the uploads are finished, choose an image for your album.
12. Now you should choose options regarding your music. If you change none of the options, your music will stream 30 second samples of each song. You can enable full tracks streams (I recommend this) or set all songs free for download (I don’t recommend this – better to give away only 1 or 2 songs)
13. Check all data, then click “Save Changes.”
14. Your music will now be imported and will “go live” in the last.fm radio system soon.
15. You can upload more music at any time.

Optimization:

Once you’re finished with song uploads, it’s time to set up a few important things.

1. Setup the “Buy Links.” From within the music manager, click on the “manage” then “buy links” tab. Here you can actually send traffic directly to your website (if you have e-commerce) or to other places that sell your music such at iTunes or Amazon. To send people to your own site, select “I have my own shop” and enter the appropriate details. Make sure to “save changes” at the bottom of the page.
2. Setup your artist image. From within the music manager, click on “manage” then “catalogue.” There will be a tiny link that says “change artist image” in the upper left corner of that page. Upload an image, and click “save changes” at the bottom of the page.
3. Add information to the Wiki. Last.fm has an extensive area for adding information, pictures, and videos about artists. Access these areas by visiting the artist Overview. You’ll notice many tabs below the overview tab on the left of the page. Each of these areas can contain content. Go crazy about yourself or the artist you are promoting. You can add an artist bio, photos, videos, albums, tracks, events, news, charts, etc!

Here are the current stats for Green Zone Studio. Notice our visitor count continues to rise slowly. Click the image to see in higher detail.