For all intents and purposes, once a name is taken on the Internet, it’s gone forever. This isn’t entirely accurate – when you grab a domain name, you generally only have it for a year or two, and if you don’t renew it, it becomes available for anyone else to purchase – but for the most part, accounts on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter etc, remain yours forever, even if you are inactive for extended periods of time.

So once you’ve settled on your name, or “brand”, you need to grab as much Internet real estate as you can!

1. Domain Name – the most important Internet “property” is your domain name. Never let anyone else buy your domain for you – always do it yourself, because whoever’s name is on the registration is the legal owner. If available, buy the “dot com” domain that matches your band name, with no hyphens (eg. yourbandname.com). We recommend GoDaddy for your domain purchases; they are one of the largest, most trusted names in domains.

2. Myspace – Once you’ve signed up to Myspace, you can claim your customized URL (eg. myspace.com/yourbandname)

3. Twitter – You can claim your customized Twitter URL when you first sign up; during the sign up process, you are asked for a “username” which will become your customized URL (eg. twitter.com/yourbandname)

4. Google – Google provides a free email address on the domain gmail.com so sign up and secure yourbandname@gmail.com. You’re not just signing up for an email account, but signing up to all the Google webmasters’ tools, which are brilliant when promoting yourself online.

5. Facebook – On June 13, 2009, Facebook began allowing you to create a customized URL for your profile. Instead of using the typical form facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 for your profile, you can create facebook.com/yourbandname. This is especially useful for solo artists, but less important for bands – they can create a Facebook “Page” instead.

Even if you’ve never used Twitter, Myspace or Facebook, set up these accounts – they are invaluable when marketing yourself as an aritst. These are the most important items to grab, but don’t stop there – we’ll go into more detail later, but look at signing up to as many social networks, blog sites, photo and video sites as you can. Some of the more important sites are:

Youtube.com
Wordpress.com
Flickr.com
Ping.fm

Building your mailing list is the key to success. This is what your music career relies on because it contains the names of people who will keep coming back to see you perform. These are people who will buy your CD, merchandise or anything else you sell. Basically, these are the people who will continue you support you.

You might already have a Myspace or Facebook page for your band and are thinking “Who uses email any more?” The fact is, everyone has an email account. You need an email account to sign up to Myspace and Facebook. You don’t want to lose contact with someone because they don’t use Myspace or Facebook.

So start collecting email addresses today. The absolute easiest thing to do is grab a couple of clipboards and some sheets of paper, make three columns and title them:

• Name
• Email
• Location

Your mailing list is now your gold mine, and your success will be dependent on exactly how you use it.