Most bands who get started with a bang do so through great marketing and addicting talent, and Portland-based Silversafe is no exception. With all sorts of little notes in various small social networking sites, a Google search completed on February 16th, 2008 shows 1310 results, and most are relevant. That’s saying something for a band that only got its start less than two years ago. And more importantly than that, they are listed in all the right Web 2.0 ways.

I can hear you innocents pondering my emphasis on Silversafe’s progress: “So what’s so special about 1300 results in Google? Aren’t bigger bands in there like 13 million times or some ungodly amount?” True, viral marketing spawns great big numbers in Google and other search engines, but non-unique names pull keywords that are unrelated to the band itself. One band, The Sucks, who played at Silversafe’s February 7th show at the Mt. Tabor Theatre, is “ungooglable”, according to drummer Tyler Chen, as well as a Willamette Week article giving kudos to the small band’s memorable name.

There are a few things going for their web propagation, and it is a great example of what to look for when doing your band marketing.

1. They have kept their MySpace page updated, even going so far as to tie MySpace features into their main site’s functionality (such as posting photoblog links on the main page). Even better, their event calendar is constantly updated in MySpace, more so than their main site, which allows sharing of show dates. Note: the only suggestion here is that they either refer visitors to their main site over to their profile for calendar updates, and remove the events section of that page, or ensure updated info is on both MySpace and Silversafe.net. One of my rules of good web design is, “If you can’t maintain it, it’s not worth the confusion.”
2. All their shows are promoted by the venue through very searchable sites. Most venues have a MySpace profile as well as a workingconcert calendar (I emphasize working due to the number of un-maintained venue homepages in circulation). The venues also tend to maintain a link to either the band’s main site or MySpace page.
3. Fan sites are popping up everywhere. Their placement in the Bodog Battle of the Bands, an event aired on Fuse Network, had given them a huge marketing push. As they got the word out that they needed votes, MySpace bulletins, fan sites and newsletters popped up for weeks. Though the band did not fair as well as more established bands, it didn’t finish last, a sign that the band should not be counted out. Fans expect that, once their first album is released and more notoriety is found with mainstream fans, the band’s chances for a larger contract is inevitable.

Using Silversafe as an example, we can see that social networking is important to propagation on the web. But what is it that will make Silversafe attractive to both mainstream audiences and major record labels? Tune in for the next post that talks about what you should do as a band to attract mainstream listeners.