If you are a musician or a recording artist or entertainer who has your own music or recordings in the apple iTunes store or available on-line then you should be thinking about having your own app or "application" as a useful tool to help promote your music. So what is an app you ask? It is simply a software programme that is designed to specifically operate on a particular device (e.g. smartphone, iPhone, template computer, iPod, iPad, etc). Each app is usually represented by an icon on the devices menu screen.
So how can an app help you find potential customers? Well currently there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers in the world, in 2009 half a billion mobile subscribers accessed the internet worldwide. Android is expected to become the top operating system for new smartphones in 2011 and top the Apple iPhone. These stats can be seen at the "mobiThinking" website.
In February 2010 the 10 billionth song was downloaded from the iTunes store. That's scary....almost....so there is plenty of demand for those artists that make it into the iTunes store. An app can provide a vehicle to assist a musician gain exposure. While I am relatively new to the app building industry I can identify the big advantages for the musician in having their own app and the shortage of affordable app producers that can meet the rapidly expanding demand for good, basic affordable and even free apps.
Advantages for a musician in having their own app: -
2. Add credibility to your existing PR portfolio (blog, fan page, social network pages) as your fans want to be able to access your music, videos, etc, anywhere on their mobile phone that goes everywhere with them,
5. Update your fans of your new releases, new products, albums, singles, etc,
6. Have a free app so anyone can afford to have it to use and it can potentially have a viral spread amongst the music community.
7. Be one of the first musicians to have an app in the app market and take advantage of the leverage it can give you.
So as you can see from the above list of advantages there are some valid reasons why musicians and recording artists should have their own app promoting their music. The cost of having an app doesn't have to be prohibitive and nowadays can be affordable to musicians and recording artists on a modest budget or even no budget at all.
I have now released nine android apps and am branching into building basic, affordable and functional apps for musicians, recording artists or entertainers....in between recording sessions, may I add.
Contact me if you need clarification or assistance via my free band app on Android.
