7 Useful Widgets And Website Add-Ons For Music Artists
There are literally hundreds of widgets and website add-ons online for artists to use to promote themselves, market a new project, gather information or give their fans some extra media to interact with the artist. However, how many of these widgets or add-ons are actually worth taking the time to set up and use? And which ones?
1. Voki.com: A Voki character is without a doubt one of the coolest and most fun additions to your web page. Artists can easily sign up for free and customize their character to look like themselves. Then, they can give their character a custom message to tell their visitors, either by using text-to-speech, recording a message through a phone call or microphone or by uploading a pre-recorded message. Your character will move its lips as it tells your visitors your message and will move its eyes and heads; following the mouse’s movements. Voki characters are great to give visitors to your web page a welcome message or to make an announcement to your fans in a new and creative way that will surely stick by them.
2. Eventful.com: So, you’d like to go out for a few gigs sometime? Rock up the stage; burn the roof down; steal the show? Just one question: where should you start? Eventful.com has created a brilliant widget to tell you exactly this! Sign up for free and create your own ‘Demand It!’ widget, which you can post up anywhere on the internet to allow anyone that would like to see you live to simply click the ‘Demand It!’ button under your artist image, telling you he or she would like you to come to his or her area to perform. This way, once you see the number of ‘demands’ from a few areas soar sky high, you know for sure which areas not to leave out when you go burning down those roofs! Eventful.com also takes down the contact information of everyone that ‘demanded’ you, so that you can easily send them a message to tell them that you’re coming their way.
3. Socialvibe.com: Okay, this one doesn’t have the sole purpose of doing something for the artist, but don’t stop reading just yet. SocialVibe has created a way for people to earn donations for their favorite charities simply by placing a customized widget with their text and picture on their web page. The more people see the widget, the more money you raise – it’s that simple! And what better people to raise money this way than those who’s web pages get lots of views; artists? Raising money doesn’t take long either, by just having this widget on your MySpace page for half a year, you can easily raise more than $15,000! So don’t be a game breaker; show the world that artists also care!
4. Snappoll.com: Curious to know what fans think of your new album? Or which song from your new album is the most popular? Or what single your fans think you should make a video for next? With Snappoll.com, you can easily create a free poll to post up on your web page for your fans to vote on!
5. Picturetrail.com: Sure, all artists need some pictures up on their web page to display their image to the fans, supporters and industry folks. But whilst you’re at it, why not display your pictures in a creative and original way? Picturetrail allows you to upload your photos and quickly create professional-looking flash slideshows that either scrolls through the pictures automatically in a pre-defined manner or can be user controlled.
6. Phonesherpa.com: Make some extra money by selling your own ringtones and wallpapers! Just sign up for an account, upload and edit your material, and then grab the store widget to easily sell your ringtones and wallpapers from anywhere on the internet!
7. Animoto.com: With Animoto, you can easily create your own website intros, music videos and more! Simply upload the pictures you want, insert the text, upload your music, and Animoto will animate it all more professionally than you’d ever believe!
Below is a video that I made with Animoto in 10-15 minutes to promote my e-book ‘MySpace Music: Top Of The Charts In 30 Days‘:
And there we go! 7 useful widgets and website add-ons that may prove useful to you as a music artist. I know of a couple more, but I’ll save those for later posts (I can’t give you everything at once now, can I? 
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As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, etc. or know of another great widget or website add-on that should be added to this list, feel free to drop a comment below!
Filed Under: Music Promotion
