The path of the musician has become easier in the modern age, with online resources allowing musicians to get their music to the masses quicker than ever before. While persistence, dedication, and actually having good music all play a major role, there’s an additional factor that’s even more critical: you have to approach marketing correctly.

One of the major things to keep in mind is that MySpace is no longer the musical mecca that it once was. While still an excellent resource to check out established bands, much of the MySpace flock has moved over to Facebook. Facebook has some major advantages, such as the ability to quickly sell band merchandise and music through the ReverbNation Store, the opportunity to set up events, live music players and a veritable mosh pit of other useful band applications synced with Facebook.

One of the most common mistakes bands make on Facebook is setting up a “Group” or a “Profile” instead of a “Page.” What’s the difference? While you’ll have to manually go in to manage permissions, add friends, or otherwise interact with people from a “Profile” or “Group” page, an actual “Page” is designed to allow for the fastest possible spread of your band. Beyond allowing people to “like” your page without you giving them permission to do so, Pages have integrated advertising options, are displayed or suggested to users more frequently, and give some major revenue opportunities.

One of the most important and difficult parts of getting exposure is selling merchandise. Selling music, t-shirts, and other gear will help spread word about your music, and it generates the cash you need for simple things like gas for the band vehicle or recording fees, etc.

Now that you’ve set up a page and populated it with some basic content, you’ll need to actually bring people there to see it. As always, one of the best approaches is “word of mouth.” Word of mouth can be done online. As always, start by spreading words to friends, existing fans, family members, and anyone else in your social network. From there, begin including your Facebook info in your other materials, including: Read more at www.blueglass.com

Facebook has returned the “Most Recent” tab to Page walls, allowing users to view a reverse chronological stream of updates by the Page and its fans. The removal of this version of the wall was the most criticized change in the February 2011 Page redesign. Users can choose to switch between the Most Recent and the relevancy filtered “Top Posts” view, but admins can’t currently set Most Recent as the default view.

The change will please some unhappy admins who argued that the relevancy filter surfaced comments that were too old, especially admins whose Pages focus on current events.

Last month’s Page redesign included significant changes to the Page wall. Instead of the option to show users the Most Recent real-time stream of updates, admins could only show the Everyone view, which surfaced recent posts by friends, posts by other users in same language or country, and posts that have received a lot of Likes and comments. This sometimes surfaced comments that were days older than the latest comments.

Facebook has now renamed the Everyone view “Top Posts”, the name Facebook tested the relevancy view under in January. When admins set “All Posts” as the default view for their wall in the Edit Page admin interface, the Top Posts tab appears first.

Only admins could see a Most Recent view, which helped them make sure they’d read every post for moderation purposes.

See more at www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook has upgraded their commenting service in order to remain competitive against rivals like Disqus as well as IntenseDebate.

While the improved anti-spam features should help bloggers combat spam, their new “social signal” feature may also help your readers from viewing comments from annoying trolls as well.

By only allowing new comers comments to be visible to their circle of friends, Facebook is helping to reduce having a discussion disrupted by a random troll, without alerting them that their comment was censored.

Blogger’s powering their comment section via Facebook can also blacklist words as well as users who are proving to be a nuisance upon multiple posts (i.e. those who spell in ALL CAPS or consistently go off topic). Read more at www.blogherald.com

Facebook has increased the number of tab applications that are visible above the fold in the navigation menu of Facebook Pages. It also now only allows Pages with more tabs installed than fit above the fold to reorder their tabs.

The changes will allow Pages to expose users to more tabs for promotions, email signups, games, and other functions. However, it will also require some Pages to add multiple apps it doesn’t need to be able to reorder the tabs it wants, increasing friction in the Page management process.

Facebook began the rollout of a major redesign of Pages in mid-February. This moved tab applications from a horizontal bar above the Page’s wall to a vertically stacked navigation menu beneath the profile picture.

The redesign made tab applications slightly less prominent, but provided more space for longer titles and potentially more tabs above the fold. Facebook only allowed six tabs above the fold, though — the same number as before. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

“Liking” a story now posts a thumbnail to your Facebook stream, just like the FB share button.

We recently revamped our share button arrangement (you should see it to the right) and made a conscious decision to include the FB Share button instead of the FB Like button which can still be found at the bottom of our articles.

Why? Well until today when a reader ‘liked’ (or ‘recommended’ in our case) a story, a single line of text would be posted into their Facebook profile for others to see. The Facebook Share button however, which although requires one extra step for the reader, includes a thumbnail by default along with a snippet of the story – something, I can assure you, matters.

See more at thenextweb.com

Almost every popular website has a Facebook “Like” button. Millions of people press that button everyday, unaware of the full consequences that Facebook has recently implemented.

A post on the Facebook developer’s blog highlighted the ability for site owners to directly post in user’s newsfeeds.

This option for site owners, launched at last year’s Facebook f8 conference is not a new feature, but not every publisher knows about it. It allows admins to engage a subset of their audience with highly relevant updates, and the worst part is that users have almost no control over managing this incoming information.

For example, if you Liked a story on a website by pressing the Like button you’re not only sharing the content on your wall but you’re also automatically subscribing and giving permission for future newsfeed updates to site owners. This happens every time and anywhere you Like something. Read more at thenextweb.com

If you follow the idiom “fish where the fish are, it might be tempting to focus all your marketing eggs in the Facebook basket with over 600 million users and growing. But the question that naturally follows is: with pools of fish (read: customers) swimming in the Facebook virtual hot tub, why am I still wading in the kiddie pool (translation: has my website become as obsolete as my Apple 2GS)? If a new client or brand is starting out on a limited budget, do they still need a website or can they just skip ahead with a tricked-out Facebook fan page?

Spoiler alert: you probably still need both, but here are the pros and cons for each, and if your marketing budget is limited, some good news.

· All the Cool Kids are Doing It: According to a Reuters article, “more than 80 percent of 109 grape growers, distributors, retailers and other wine experts in the California who were questioned in a survey by the Wine Industry Financial Symposium Group and the University of California-Davis Graduate School of Management said they were using Facebook in their business, up from 46 percent in 2009.” If usage nearly doubled in a year’s time among a marketing savvy group, it’s probably no longer a fad.

· Engaged Audience and Customer Feedback: Websites can be a one-way street, offering brands a great way to put out their message, but receive nothing in return from customers. Facebook, and social media in general, are exactly the opposite, opening the flood gates to feedback (positive and negative) and engagement. According to

· Consolidate and Customize: Not only can you incorporate all of your social media activities onto your Facebook fan page, but you can create fan-only pages or tabs (depending on what version you have), opening up the possibility of traceable promotions, incentives, coupon codes, etc. Here’s another piece of good news for the budget conscious. With various other integrated social mediums as part of your marketing mix, your website doesn’t have to be as elaborate with a million built-in features. Instead, it should now serve more as a well-designed and easy navigable home base for key information. Read more at www.livingstonbuzz.com

Advertisers have the option to create ads with a specific landing tab of a Page as the ad’s destination. Here we’ll provide strategies for how to maximize returns from destination tab ads that point to welcome tabs that are appropriate for all visitors, Facebook’s native tabs, tabs that drive specific types of conversion such as contact info collection or sales, and demographic-specific custom welcome tabs.

Facebook ads created through the self-serve tool can have a specific tab of a Page set as their destination. This allows you to run multiple ad campaigns for different tabs simultaneously, or run ads that target a specific demographic and deliver those users to a landing tab that is especially relevant to them.

To run destination tab ads, go to the self-serve ad tool and select a Page you are an admin of as the ad’s destination. This will reveal a “Destination Tab” drop-down menu. You can then select as the ad’s destination any tab installed on that Page, including Facebook’s in-house apps like Photos or Discussion Board, or third-party apps for sweepstakes, email sign-ups, games, and media content. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

While Microsoft’s Bing and Google have just added social media to their search engines, Facebook appears to have upgraded its own search: the site now groups query results under category headings. Previously, search results would show up in the drop-down menu without any organization, but now Facebook organizes them by category headings, as you can see in the screenshot to the right. This change saves you from having to click on “see more results from search,” followed by “show results from everyone.” It’s not clear whether the site has a predetermined order for listing categories. Read more at www.allfacebook.com

This week’s mashup is a collection of must-read, hand picked resources from across the Internet focused on Facebook marketing–how to adjust after recent changes to Page design, how to market your business effectively, Facebook by the numbers and much more.

How Much is a Tweet or a Like Worth to You? ChompOn has released some interesting findings (pdf) related to social media sharing and its value to e-commerce. Specifically, the firm sought out to answer the question: “What is the value of a social action in online commerce?” What they came up with is that a Facebook Share was worth $14, a Facebook “like” was worth $8, a tweet was worth $5, and a Twitter follow was worth $2. (via @WebProNews)

Facebook Adds New Relationship Status Types, but Not to the Ad Tool Facebook is rolling out the option for users to set their relationship status to “In a civil union” and “In a domestic partnership”. These types will allow gay couples to more accurately describe their relationship. However, advertisers don’t have the option to target users based on these types, or any other types than “Single”, “In a relationship”, “Engaged”, or “Married”. (via @InsideNetwork)

Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn’t Work First, deep campaigns don’t work. Digital agencies love deep, expensive campaigns on Facebook, with tons of pages, interaction, and art. It fits in with how agencies build microsites and websites, and justifies the $100,000-plus price tag that they like to charge. Examples include lightweight games, prediction contests, treasure hunts where you include friends, and such. Unfortunately for agencies and the brands that drop a lot of cash, Facebook users decidedly don’t like deep campaigns. (via @RWW) Read more at websuccessdiva.com

Facebook is rolling out the option for users to set their relationship status to “In a civil union” and “In a domestic partnership”. These types will allow gay couples to more accurately describe their relationship. However, advertisers don’t have the option to target users based on these types, or any other types than “Single”, “In a relationship”, “Engaged”, or “Married”.

Users can change the setting by going Edit Profile, then Featured People, and using the Relationship Status drop-down menu. Not all users have the new options yet, though.

Facebook has been slowly increasing the number of relationship status types. “Widowed” became an option in September 2009, and Facebook has since added “Divorced” and “Separated”, though none of these are targetable through the ad tool. The site recently released statistics that showed that users who are “In a relationship”, “Married”, or “Engaged” are much happier according to the Gross National Happiness index than users with the status “In an open relationship”, “It’s complicated”, or “Widowed”. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

For almost four years, since the Facebook Platform was launched, I have been involved in delivering Facebook apps for top brands such as CBS, NBC, Lifetime, Universal Music, Visa and more. Here’s what we have learned doesn’t work, and more importantly, what does work.

First, deep campaigns don’t work. Digital agencies love deep, expensive campaigns on Facebook, with tons of pages, interaction, and art. It fits in with how agencies build microsites and websites, and justifies the $100,000-plus price tag that they like to charge. Examples include lightweight games, prediction contests, treasure hunts where you include friends, and such. Unfortunately for agencies and the brands that drop a lot of cash, Facebook users decidedly don’t like deep campaigns.

It is easy to think of a Facebook tab like a Web page, and throw a bunch of features on it - such as a poll, gifting, and some videos - all on one tab. However, most users do not show up on a Facebook tab like they do on a Web page. They are usually coming in by clicking on a page’s newsfeed posting (“What kind of traveller are you? Take the quiz!”), a friend’s newsfeed posting (“I’m a cranky traveller! What kind of traveller are you? Take the quiz?”), or a Facebook ad (“Find out what kind of traveller you are!”).

After an initial onslaught of Facebook sweepstakes promotions, marketers are learning that sweepstakes have very low conversion rates and almost no viral uptake. We’re also learning that they attract unengaged users who are there for the prize rather than a relationship with the brand.

A lot of brands like to do photo and video contests, but unfortunately they do not have the user base that likes to submit photos and videos. Travel and photography brands? For sure. Mobile carrier? Beverage brand? Not likely. Even clothing brands can’t pull this off.

Uploading a photo or video is a big investment on the part of the user, and they do not expect to do it for the vast majority of businesses. These campaigns also require the labor to moderate the submissions. If you must run a photo or video Facebook campaign, the best way to do it is actually NOT in an app. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

Visitors age 35-54 comprised 35.4% of Facebook’s user base in December 2010, down 3.6 percentage points from a year earlier, while Facebook’s share of its youngest users (under age 18) and oldest users (age 55+) made the year’s biggest gains, according to comScore.

Facebook’s share of visitors age 18 and younger rose to 11.1% in December, up 1.2 points from a year earlier, while visitors age 55+ climbed 1.9 points to 13.2%.

Below, selected findings from comScore’s report The 2010 US Digital Year in Review.

See more at www.marketingprofs.com

Facebook recently changed the options in its news feed settings so users either “Show posts from: friends and Pages you interact with the most” or from “all of your friends and Pages.” Some users have unknowingly been defaulted to the first option, causing lot of content to be hidden from them without their knowledge.

It’s not exactly clear what determines which default users receive, though newer accounts appear more likely to only be seeing content from a subset of friends. Previously users could select exactly how many of their friends they saw posts from. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

Today Facebook launches a major redesign and expansion of functionality of its Pages for businesses, brands, media, and public figures. The Page layout will now match the December user profile redesign, with a left-hand navigation panel replacing the tabs above the wall. Page admins will also be able to login as their Page, giving them access to Facebook and email notifications about activity on their Page, and other options. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com