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Step 1: Find sound alikes – famous bands similar to you
They started by looking at similar bands in their genre that had large friends lists at MySpace. Dashboard Confessional, for example. They would go and they would ping each and every friend in Dashboard Confessional's friends list…
Step 2: Ping each person
And then they would go to the comments and post:
"Hey if you like Dashboard Confessional, you're probably going to like Our Band [band name here]. Would you please come check us out and leave a comment?" Then, people would check them out and leave comments.
Step 3: Get personal
The band would then personally respond and personally thank everyone that left a comment. And they always signed their name using a sig file, which included their IM address.
Step 4: Instant Messenger bonanza
Then they would get their new fans’ information through Instant Messenger, and they would sit all day long on Instant Messenger chatting back and forth with their new friends, and according to the band it was crazy. They actually couldn't turn on their IM because the minute they would open it up, they’d get thousands of people trying to ping them. So they had to post their status as “Away” on their IM because their buddy list was insane.
TIP! Give your music away. The whole time, they were giving away their music for free to build their audience.
Step 5: Run contests
After several months making thousands of personal contacts, a new marketing idea struck them: They decided to create a contest to run for their fans. They asked fans to add them to their “Top 8” friends. This success of the contest manifested in the band getting even more MySpace traction.
Each of the 20 people in the contest got points for convincing others to add their video and/or song. According to Greg it got completely out of control.
After this successful contest, a company called Brickfish took notice and offered to help them launch a second contest. Entrants had to design a T-shirt, and in return the band would write a song for the winner.
So, out of a well planned T-shirt contest they got an additional 100,000 hits to their page in two weeks, and the winner got a shirt, a personal call from the band, and an original song written about them. “It was unbelievable.”
Step 6: Engage your audience consistently
Another of their strategies was to send out a bulletin every single day. Not a hypey bulletin pushing themselves, but a simple one that would engage their fans by asking a question like, “Should we get chunky peanut butter or smooth”
They felt that there was no reason to blog because they weren't really on the road, and they didn’t have a lot of news to report, so they just kept asking questions on their bulletins, day in and day out.
And they had a call to action: They would ask everyone on the bulletins to comment back on their pages. They would get hundreds of responses from people, which then would add a track play and a front page hit to their MySpace page. Just due to the question, they would get 500 messages instantly, and 600+ comments a day.
Step 7: MTV action
After their wildly successful Brickfish contest, they got a song placed on MTV’s “Laguna Beach.” They don't really know how they ended up on that show – they think a fan probably e-mailed the track to MTV – but the episode aired three times, and all of a sudden they noticed people started to buy the download.
Step 8: Get ready to charge for tracks (after a solid fan base is built)
It was only after all of this traction and attention that the band started pushing their iTunes page. This was after a full year of solid online promotions. They took the free MP3s off of their MySpace page and they started seeing their sales pick up.
Step 9: Repeat and repeat and repeat… and repeat
They put a big wall-mounted dry erase board on the wall of the war room, and every day they each had a goal to make 150 friends and comment back personally.
Step 10: Measure your goals and write them down
Then they laid out a weekly plan to hit their goals and numbers at iTunes, which were 200 plays and 400 friends a day. They also went after the friends of other bands.
Step 11: Be masterful at one thing
I asked if they did blogging, podcasting, Twitter, or other social networking sites, and to my surprise, he said “no.” They did this all on MySpace alone. The goal for MySpace was to consistently add 200 friend requests and 400 plays to the traffic they were already generating.
Step 12: A record deal
Because of all of their solid dedicated focus, a Record label took notice and offered them a deal. The moral of the story and the end result of all this work: The Band [your band name here] got a deal.
Was this process easy? No. It took solid dedication, trial and error, and a hell of a lot of time invested, but they managed to be one of the top selling bands at iTunes in 2007 and they beat a vast majority of artists signed to major labels.
I think this is a phenomenal and an inspirational story and one that teaches us lots of lessons. From my experience, musicians tend to give up too easily and lose focus, and then become defeated and give up. With a plan and some dedication, you can get very far with the tools available to anyone who wants to give it a go.
Source: Ariel Hyatt founded Ariel Publicity and Cyber PR 12 years ago and her firm has worked with over 1,000 musicians and bands of all genres. The Ariel Publicity mission states that all artists deserve to be heard and there is a place for artists of every level to receive exposure. Go to www.arielpublicity.com to learn more and sign up for Sound Advice, Ariel Publicity’s bi-monthly e-zine for musicians & entrepreneurs who want marketing, promotion, and PR tips for navigating the new music business | 
