With a 16 year career, over 2 million albums sold, and six top 30 singles, Sister Hazel’s journey stands out as a an example of the type of long and successful career that every artist aspires to have.

With their combination of great music, extensive touring, and unique fan centered events, Sister Hazel hasn’t just acquired fans, but built a community.

I got to experience the Sister Hazel’s fan phenomenon first hand when I attended the band’s annual event The Rock Boat this year. I was so amazed at how well Sister Hazel has succeeded at building and maintaining their fan community that I wanted to find out how they did it.

I had the opportunity to ask Sister Hazel drummer Mark Trojanowski my questions.

Here’s what he had to say:

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For March’s post of the month, I chose Media Killed the Radio Star by Eric Beall. The article raises some interesting questions about why the music industry is struggling, and tries to address how musicians and the recording industry can get ahead in today’s world.

According to Beall, the problem is that music industry relies on a business model that leaves the industry at the mercy of gatekeepers, making it “a pawn in a game that it doesn’t control.”

While the music industry is good at finding and developing artists, it lacks the ability “to see that the power lies with those who understand how to use music to attract an audience.”

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You’ve been working on promoting your band and your music for quite a while now, but things are stagnating.

Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate your marketing plan.

What would you like to achieve on and off line with marketing?

Are you using Facebook as well you you can? Are you networking like you should in your local music scene, or even networking as you should with folks who can help you move up the ladder in the overall music industry?

It may be time to sit with your band mates and/or business friends and advisers to reconsider these points.

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These days our bandwidth can be so low from working and maintaining relationships with family and friends how do you keep up with the latest and greatest? Easy; use Twitter to follow the people that actually create the technology.

That brings us to Lee Martin – he takes care of Them Crooked Vultures and Beck’s Web needs, and he is also a developer within the Web Music Technology community. I am a little late on being completely blown away by his Twitter app to stream music – twt.fm. To be exact I am up and over 1.7m users late!

Within maybe 30mins I had uploaded links to 3 songs of my band Life Love Misery, including links to purchase from iTunes and it was played almost 200 times. Imagine if you band is popular; watch your bandwidth!

Once you log in and start an account this is what your twt.fm page looks like.

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In his blog “Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers,” Seth Godin aims to debunk the myth that when it comes to social networking, the more followers you have, the better.

Godin reminds us that in the new climate of social networking, producing quality content is still a better method for success than simply striving to have the most followers. Just because you have 200,000 followers does not mean that any of them are actually paying any attention or visiting your page.

Rather, Godin argues a better strategy would be to start with a small number of followers who are actual fans, then produce quality content that those fans be excited to pass along. This should not only cause more long term growth, but result in a move valuable type of follower that is not just a number.

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If you aren’t using Pandora Radio, you are missing an amazing chance to share your music with new fans.

Pandora is the largest and fastest growing radio platform in the world with 45 million registered listeners and growing in the United States.

Pandora offers a unique opportunity to independent musicians – Pandora prides itself on selecting music using a level playing field, where music is considered for inclusion solely based on quality.

Once music is selected for inclusion, the unique musical identity of a song is analyzed through the Music Genome Project. Those attributes are then used to create personalized stations for each listener based on their musical tastes.

… …

I had the opportunity to ask Pandora founder Tim Westergren some questions about the role of independent music at Pandora. Here’s what he had to say:

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If you really want to give yourself the best chance to succeed, make an impact, and get noticed you need to be different.

Some people can just be so special at playing guitar that they will stand out no matter what – hello Jimi Hendrix and those folks – but that is the exception. Just about everyone plays guitar, which means there are more ultra-talented guitar players.

The better way to make it is to compete in an area with less competitors. If guitar is your calling, then so be it, but if you have a choice, find the most obscure instrument around and become amazing at it.

Then see what happens…

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As I watch some bands move up the ladder and others sort of stagnate, I often begin to notice the importance of Branding.

Some bands really get it, and others don’t.

What do you want your band to be known for? What do you want others to think about attending one of your shows? Or think about as they are going through your website?

You know, sometimes you need to be the person to slip these thoughts into someone’s head, or at the very least you need to set the tone.

Will shows always be a fun party? Or a mix of serious and fun? Do you want things to feel consistent, or different every time? (Different every time still falls under the category of “Branding”)

Think about it, then see if you are consistently projecting the image you’d like to be projecting at your shows, on your website, twitter statements, etc.

After all, the most important aspect of branding is being consistent about it.

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In her article “Get Paid in 2010: Want To Increase Your Bottom Line? Focus On Your Fans!,” Ariel Hyatt is asking you to “take off your artist hat for a minute and put on your business hat,” and use a greater connection with fans as a way to increase your ability to make money.

To be more successful and make more money in the new year, Hyatt suggests you start thinking of yourself and your craft as a brand, and your fans as customers.

The key, according to Hyatt, to getting fans to buy from you, is creating a relationship with fans. “Every study on sales has proven one thing: People hate to be sold to, however people love to buy, and people always love to buy from people whom they like and who they feel they trust.”

So how do you become a person that your fans like and want to buy from?

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I occasionally get random thoughts that I want to remember, and so I write them down and then think about them later. This thought came on New Years Eve, and I sent a text to myself to remember it.

Back in the day (way back in the day), if someone had a great thought and wanted to remember it, they had to chisel it into a stone tablet (think, ten commandments), or in later years learn how to read and write, then use expensive ink and hard to obtain paper like papyrus or something.

Basically, you only wrote something down if it was *really* important, and therefore you felt that the effort and cost to memorialize the thought was justified.

These days – you can text it to yourself while at a concert. Not even a writing utensil is needed.

For music, the barrier to development used to be access to and cost of a recording studio to produce

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