Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about music player widgets and how to best utilize them to promote your music. There are a lot of widgets that allow you to share only songs, but why settle to that when there is so much more you can do with them. Music player widgets are evolving and they can serve many purposes from being an mp3-player to promoting your gigs and playing your music videos - all in one sleek package. I wanted to find a widget that could also help in branding and I intentionally left out music widgets that are meant mainly for selling music. There are better ways to make money with music nowadays than selling it directly. You can read this article for more ideas about that.

The most versatile widgets I found were Reverb Nation’s Tunewidget and Indie911’s Hoooka. Both of them allow you to share your videos and music, but overall Tunewidget seems like a better choice with a clear layout and more functions. The thing I really like about Tunewidget is that it shows all the essential information in a very sleek package and it actually encourages people to press the play button with smooth visual cues. You can input your upcoming shows, band information, a picture and music videos to the widget. The listeners can also sign up for your bands mailing list and share the widget on their own websites. As far as I know Tunewidget is the most versatile widget around for indie artists at the moment proving that music player widgets have indeed come a long way from playing only single songs to functioning as “portable” websites.

Now, you might be asking yourself how to best utilize the widget. I suggest you start by thinking about placement. First of all make the widget the main music player on your own website and try to convince your fans to place it on their own websites, blogs and social network profiles. The next step is researching social networking sites and creating your artist/band profile on the ones that have most potential to get your music heard. Wikipedia has a nice list of social network websites, but I don’t recommend just blazing around and creating a profile on every one of them. It’s a long list, so for the impatient ones I have created a narrowed down version with my recommendations.

Here are some important guidelines and ideas to help you get started with social networking and getting the most out of your widget:

• Choose only one widget, which you will use in your own website and every social network you have a profile in. This way you can create brand awareness and make it easier for your possible fans to recognize your widget out of the many.
• Create a profile in every social network that in your opinion are best for promoting your music and your image, and place the widget in all of your profiles (if possible). However, I would advice you to avoid creating a profile in too many social networks. Instead try to concentrate on the five most important ones and manage them everyday by making new connections, participating in conversations, answering questions/fan mail and customizing the visual layout if possible. Of course if you have the resources and time do join in as many social networks as you can handle, but remember that an unmanaged profile doesn’t get you too far, and in some cases it may also create a negative image of you or your band. If you don’t interact with your fans, especially in the early stages, you become non-existent in their eyes.
• When using many different services, always create your profile with the same username and nickname if possible. This makes it easier for your fans to find you and also will help you with branding.
• Put the music player widget in spotlight by placing it in the center of attention. When a new visitor views your social network profile the first thing he/she should see is your widget.
• Go viral and encourage your fans to share your music player widget. Basically the widget is the ultimate ad for your music and your image. It catches attention and the person clicking it is not redirected anywhere. Everything that the potential fan needs to know about you and your music is right there in the small box.
• Reward your fans for sharing your widget. This is just a crazy idea, but you could for example give a special concert via webcam for those fans, who place your music player widget on their own websites, blogs or social network profiles.