General Users

Fans

Native Communities

Retailers

Comparing Patreon

Manufacturers

Confronting Negative Content More Effectively

Customer Profile: General Users

Sarah’s a songwriter. For months she‘s been working on a collection of songs she wants to market. With little money, she heads to Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Snapchat, YouTube, SoundCloud, and ReverbNation. That’s six sites she monitors. She’s constantly told she must stay current to gain prominence with hopes of an income she desires. Every day she plugs away distracted by nonsense.

Then she discovers Muezbiz.com and begins to grasp how the site connects her style of creations to local music scenes everywhere and how revenue sharing works. How connecting to her market can be easy without upfront costs or confusing hashtags. She likes the site’s simplicity.

She buys into the idea and starts to upload her music into a Muezbiz collection, setting a price and specifying a percentage she wishes to share with her retailers. She discovers she can sell her custom T-shirts and coffee mugs inside the same collection. Cool! Sarah knows she has a local following...she posts her Nashville coffee shop events. She‘s been thinking of touring selling tickets along the way. She sends one message to all Country music retailers everywhere a new collection is available. Very cool!

Karen keeps watch for Sarah’s Nashville performances. Melissa and Harry are traveling through and want to discover grassroots Country performances on their trip to Charlotte North Carolina from Dallas Texas.

Monique who lives in Birmingham Alabama, heard Sarah performing on a corner while visiting Nashville Tennessee. Monique is a Muezbiz member who loves Country music. In her list of clubs, she finds “Sarah’s Country Soul” club and joins. In Sarah’s club, Monique finds all sorts of stuff including a variety of videos with Sarah’s and other musician's street performances. Monique share’s a favorite onto her local Birmingham Country bulletin. As Monique shares an icon next to her image tells she’s a music fan.

Because Monique loves Sarah’s music, she decides to become a Muezbiz retailer in Birmingham, starting with setting up a free Country music store adding Sarah’s Country collection. Next time Monique shares, pins a comment, or replies to a post her retailer icon appears by her image.

One day Monique notices an event on her Birmingham calendar promoting Sarah’s upcoming performance in a small venue outside Birmingham and Sarah is offering tickets. Monique shares with all her Muezbiz Birmingham Country fans Sarah’s collection within which Sarah’s ticket offer resides including the link to Monique’s Muezbiz store.

The next day Monique notices Sarah’s music sales have picked up and four tickets were sold for Sarah’s performance. She supports her sales by sharing a video Sarah has uploaded with a retailer icon link to Monique’s store. She gains six more seats. Monique earned 45 percent on each item sold.

Albert Nez from Chinle Arizona met Monique in “Sarah’s Country Soul” club, likes her tastes in Country music, and occasionally streams Monique’s collections. He shares one of Sarah’s collections into Chinle’s Country bulletins. His store mostly represents Navajo bands. He finds Sarah’s sound to be an inspiration.

Customer Role: Muezbiz Fan

Jessy and Amy head out on their first road trip starting along the gulf coast from Sarasota Florida and ending at the New Orleans’s French Quarter Festival. Both are music hounds who love discovering back roads and music along the way. Muezbiz leads them to their first stop, a high school garage rock band in Palmetto, just north of Sarasota. After an afternoon of great grassroots rock and a CD purchase, they head north into Tampa for a free evening music store event sponsored by Taylor Guitar featuring Tommy Emanual. All along the way Jessy and Amy discover grassroots events from backyards to venues and COVID aware drive-ins. At each show they share their favorite videos and photos of Blues, Rock and Folk/Americana experiences on their local Muezbiz genre-related bulletins.

Amy’s an aspiring songwriter and has saved for a custom acoustic guitar. The next day outside Tampa she’s finds Louis Smith, a luthier in Tarpon Springs on Muezbiz’s Tampa Folk/Americana bulletin. She became inspired by recommendations in replies to Louis’s posts. She considered buying her guitar from a friend representing Louis on Muezbiz, giving Louis a pre-order and her friend 10 percent of a $3,000 sale. Instead she decides to feel Louis’s instruments first by playing. After hours exploring she decides to buy.

Because of the length of time she spent making her decision, she and Jessy missed a local event of another favorite band The Craven. They decide to buy The Craven’s latest releases from a friend in Crawfordville Florida, and drive to a camp spot at a Florida state park.

Two weeks and 18 shows later they land up in New Orleans for and exciting cap on a great adventure.

When they arrive home Jessy goes out and buys a Taylor guitar. He sees on the Muezbiz Sarasota Folk/Americana bulletin a person teaching guitar. He also finds someone teaching jazz guitar on the Muezbiz jazz bulletin. He decides to explore both.

In the meantime Amy has completed original songs and is looking for a specific kind of drummer. She finds a couple sensitive and complex drummers on the Muezbiz Sarasota Jazz bulletin.

After recording with her new band, she uploads a cover image, music and T-shirts into a Muezbiz Collection titling it “Arpeggio,” and easily sets up a tour selling tickets. With one message she informs all Folk/Americana retailers everywhere she’s launched “Arpeggio,” and shares “Arpeggio” onto her Sarasota Folk/Americana bulletin. Within days recommendations in replies to her shared post happen, and sales for tickets and T-shirts start to appear on her Muezbiz sales report page.

At this point she doesn’t want to spend her time being a Muezbiz retailer. She’d rather spend her time creating and occasionally checking her sales reports. Instead of maintaining her own website, she’s decided it’s a lot less trouble using Muezbiz’s window onto the world, allowing others to make some money sharing her art. She promotes Muezbiz at her shows. No more social media. No more need to constantly post trying to pitch her website and shows. More focus...less trouble and better results.

Customer Profile: Native American Communities

Albert Nez is from Chinle Arizona. He loves his cultures Native American music from singing drum groups to fancy dancing. He supports his community by hosting a Native American Facebook Group reflecting his interests. He expands his communities with “Friends” he knows and some he doesn’t. In effort to grow his “Facebook Group” views, he discovers his ability to share is restricted forcing him to consider paying for Facebook’s push ads. He commits and finds his “Friending Rate” improves. Over time his numbers fall. Responding, he adjusts his messaging and advertises in other regions. Then his personal funds run short. He asks for donations. Eventually he stops advertising. His Facebook “Friends” continue to upload content. Then a full time job limits Albert’s time further.

Then Albert discovers Muezbiz understanding how he and his Native communities can make money on Muezbiz. He sees how he can support his communities and they can support him once he establishes a “World Music“ store representing a globe of Native American musical creativity. He recognizes how Native communities can become inspired by sharing their profits. All Albert has to do is share inside his region Collections filled with music, merchandise and tickets. He sees how profit sharing can extend his marketing with incentivized people carrying the baton. A digital baton splitting into a thousand pieces.

Albert joins Muezbiz, then becomes a retailer and starts a Muezbiz store selecting the World genre, and calls it “Albert’s Native.” He begins adding interesting and relevant Collections to his World genre store.

Albert sees and understands how Muezbiz Clubs focuses users on his Native activities. He defines a club called “Albert’s Fancy Dancing,” and begins posting his favorite performances. Others start posting favorite videos, photos and comments with replies. Albert shares his post to his Chinle World bulletin.

In his club are a list of genre-related virtual events from many “World” clubs. He posts an event featuring a film he took at a rodeo last summer of a fancy dancer group he represents in his store. Albert posts the full event video on his clubs bulletin, a retailer icon next to his image links to his store. Clicking around other World clubs he notices his event and it’s link back to Albert’s Fancy Dancing.

In Albert’s Fancy Dancing club users see retailers from other regions representing Collections published by many different Native performers. Users, mostly from indigenous communities, are enjoying and selecting to buy products out of Native Collections. As Albert’s club activity increases, Albert‘s income grows. With income from his Muezbiz store, he starts to advertise in other Native communities from Farmington to Grants, New Mexico and eventually toward South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux.

Albert promotes his Muezbiz store in his Facebook Group bringing his users over to Muezbiz and encouraging them to upload their content into Collections. Knowing the risks of losing members he spends his personal dollars advertising on Facebook to relocate his groups to Muezbiz. His Muezbiz club start to grow because Albert’s communities believe in him. Other Native users become familiar with Albert’s passions, adding his Collections to their regional Muezbiz stores.

Customer Role: Muezbiz Retailer

Sarah has published her Country Collections on Muezbiz and decides to become a Nashville Country music retailer. At any time she can switch back to her publisher role. As a retailer, any time Sarah adds a bulletin post or shares a published Collection the icon next to her image informs users she‘s a retailer.

Sarah adds her own published Collections to her Nashville Country store along with other Country Collections to represent, giving her more ability to earn. Whenever she sells her own work out of her store she receives 90-cents on every dollar. She earns less from the other Collections sold. Revenue sharing divides income between publishers and retailers specified when publishers upload product.

Sarah sees a percentage publishers allocate to their regional retailers when adding product to her store. In a Collection the publisher is giving 75 percent to their retailers for their music. After listening to a couple songs, “Not bad.” She adds the collection to her list, opens the collection right away sharing it onto her Nashville bulletin. Her retailer icon links her shared Collection in her Country music store. In moments another user sees Sarah’s shared Collection. Sarah decides to advertise this new Collection to Nashville.

Bill is a music fan who for years loves to collect music of all kinds including Country, Folk/Americana and Rock. He sets up stores in each of his favorite genres adding liked Collections including Sarah’s Country Collections. Users anywhere can discover and buy from Bill’s Muezbiz Missoula Montana Country Store or buy from a their own local retailer.

Bill supports and with permission records socially distanced drive-in performances. Bill starts a Muezbiz Country music club called Bill’s Missoula Home where he uploads his video recordings with a link to his store. His club opens to a globe of Country music fans who can select to share his bands onto their own regional bulletins. As a Muezbiz retailer, Bill advertises his club in Nashville and Missoula for 50-cents a day. He decides a month’s ads for each.

Red Rabbit Records (RR) signs Sarah’s latest Collection. RR, a Muezbiz retailer, includes Sarah’s Collection. RR has agreed to producing T-shirts with Sarah’s custom art. T-shirt sales are sent directly to buyers or distributed at her concerts with printed or digital proof of purchase. RR advertises exploring towns from NYC to LA. Retailer ads are assigned to any region. Publisher ads are placed in clubs.

As Sarah gains popularity, RR decides to decrease the percentage given to local retailers for her ticket sales. Demand increases for Sarah’s products. RR advertises her T-shirts and tickets for performances.

RR benefits from the increased exposure in local markets without having to compete inside genre-centric competitors. Sarah, RR, and local retailers benefit as each plays their part in a traditional approach to product distribution bringing content back down to individual regions instead of being buried inside masses of uploaded content lost in over generalized hashtags and keywords.

Customer Role: Muezbiz vs Patreon’s Crowd Funding

Jessy’s band the Dirty Dogs is challenged because of COVID-19 restrictions. Jessy and Megan live together fixing part of the “six-foot separation” problem. Their drummer is unbelievably energetic, throwing sweat and constantly replacing skins. Their bass player loves to dance on stage laying down punched lines keeping audiences on their feet. Nevertheless, they have managed to pull off some practice sessions and even produced a collection of new songs recording separately and layering. Recently they joined the lineup performing at drive-in shows and have started an outdoor concert project with a film with lots of closeups and distance shots from drone-mounted cameras.

Jessy decides to introduce their band’s content to Patreon, an online content creator crowd funding model. Patreon promises musicians their fans will pay a monthly fee, a guaranteed income. The idea appealed to Jessy who spent a few hours uploading content, planning online virtual performances, and because he’s actively involved with social media has five-thousand followers.

After six-months Jessy noticed profits he had hoped for from Patreon didn’t happen.

Examining the numbers, the “Why” became clear to Jessy. Like all crowd funding models, Patreon relies on creative content providers to actively engage in social media and any other forms of publicity. Breaking down further, only a percentage of users are willing to dedicate a monthly fee. A two percent response rate of five-thousand is 100 members. At $5 a month that’s $500 divided into four members is $125 a month. Granted, Jessy thought, if I can inspire fans to pay the upward limit of $10 a month maybe we can profit a bit more? Or if I spend more time posting or advertising on social media? The math behind Patreon simply doesn’t work as well for music. Rotating podcast content does, therefor musicians must consider weekly blogging music related content.

Patreon, similar to all crowd funding, is a reward concept which requires additional effort suppling signed posters, shout outs and newsletters to list a few... consuming more time and investment.

After a year’s effort Jessy decides all his efforts on Patreon isn’t paying enough to continue. He might as well go back to his earlier social efforts linking fans to his band’s website store.

Then Jessy finds Muezbiz where members can help promote—inspired by income sharing—music they love on local bulletins throughout the U.S. He understands the benefits filtering content down to local communities within the style of music they play. Simplicity works. Jessy uploads content for free, then with one message he connects to a globe of genre-specific retailer‘s free stores. He occasionally posts roadshows offering tickets. From the Dirty Dogs “virtual” club members can share and earn as the Dogs content traverses a globe of hometowns. He sees how his income can grow without having to constantly engage, giving him and his spouse more time to perform in drive-ins and create.

Muezbiz is Jessy’s neighbors, sharing the Dirty Dogs experience. Word of mouth.

Customer Role: Manufacturers

Roy builds highly specialized custom guitar amplifiers. Each amp is a work of art. As a result, their pricing is high. After several tradeshow presentations where sales barely paid for the cost of the show, he’s become disenchanted. He’s tried social media finding it confusing and time consuming, and advertising lacks market precision specifying genres. He wants to hit the rock musician market inside specific regions. A “50 year old, New York, any gender, speaking English, musicians” doesn’t cut the cake. If you miss, you miss. Add the fickle nature of social media buyers, the complications over swamp the need.

Roy discovers Muezbiz’s rock Clubs and as a member fan he finds he can advertise in specific locations. He sets up a rock music Club and calls it “Roy‘s Bangers.” In his Club he uploads video demonstrating his elaborate custom finishes, electronics, and tonal characteristics. He uploads videos of performers using his equipment. Observing different regional rock Muezbiz bulletins, he decides to advertises inside Seattle WA’s rock bulletins for 50-cents a day. He posts an event directing Seattle’s rock bulletin users to Roy‘s Bangers Club. He explores with a 30-day small ad a $15.00 contract, with a heads up when the contract has ended. For a song, he starts to move his amplifiers and decides to advertise in Nashville TN.

Roy is also a musician with quite a few loud and crazy head banging expressions. He’s already uploaded his music into a Muezbiz rock Collection, and decides, “What the heck, I’ll upload my amps into the same Collection.” Roy decides to give 30 percent to his regional retailers for the amp.

Lucinda loves Roy‘s amps grunt sound. She decides to add Roy’s rock Collections along with her music. Bill from Duluth MI knows Lucinda personally, hears Roy’s amp and lays down the cash supporting Roy and Lucinda and buys a couple of their songs. (Muezbiz earns 10-cents on every dollar sold.)

Roy introduces a new set of custom guitar cables. He wants to easily test market his new product.

Mary Smith is the American Sales Manager for Ziggy’s Acoustic Guitars. Ziggy supports local music stores with live events featuring a variety of talented artists demonstrating their instruments. Mary’s print advertising efforts are minimal because of little ROI. They pay to place instruments inside internet distributor‘s print catalogs like Musician‘s Friend, taking advantage of their house mailing lists.

Mary expands her marketing by setting up a Muezbiz Folk/Americana club called Ziggy Guitars and uploads their latest demos. Then she posts a virtual club event. Events in clubs are seen by every user everywhere, genre specific, and linking back to originator club. Ziggy now has presence for free.

She also wants to support regional music stores sponsoring their performer demos. She easily finds the online ad contract including dates, region, Folk/Americana, prices and uploads her custom ad. As a member fan, she discovers how she can easily update her ad image at any time. As a member publisher, her ads appear in every club within a specific genre. As a retailer, her ads appear in regional bulletins of her choice.

Customer Role: The Negative Content User

Muezbiz is a social site and everyone is aware of the issues surrounding questionable content.

Rosie is looking over her Hip Hop scene trying to find local Hip Hop performers. As she’s perusing, a political post appears...nothing to do with presenting or creating Hip Hop. She hits the report button.

Up comes the notification in the Muezbiz control panel. Without any resemblance to Hip Hop, we decide to archive the post, eliminating visibility. This decision is fairly simple.

Muezbiz user posts, good or funky, live in an online environment focused on interests and region. A social world where bad messaging is likely to be interrupted by local users. Researching Facebooks Groups focused on local communities, have less negative content because Groups have local sponsors and users likely to object to inappropriate content. Same is true for Muezbiz.

Muezbiz’s club structure opens doors to global communities allowing users to define genre-centric clubs including bulletins and event calendars. All users can see and choose to join these clubs.

Even if a user defines a club posting horrible content, the site’s structure doesn’t allow those users instant access. Bad players would need partners to spread bad content into other regions. If they became publishers, they’d need to convince retailers to represent and share their bad content.

Worst case and reply: Ghastly starts a club posting awful stuff and an event leading users back to his club. Ghastly’s event appears in all calendars in every genre-related club. Users in other regions see his event in their clubs. They can report the event or participate. If users shares onto their local bulletins, the likelihood of reporting is high. The events high level of exposure increases the possibility of reporting.

Legacy social sites emphasis on adding people to user connections, especially unknown people, asks for problems. This sets in users minds an image of commercial strength with little thought of consequence.

People approach Muezbiz looking for things musical, not necessarily to gain more human connections.

Rosie likes her Hip Hop community. She finds performers, an audience for her venue, and real friends who enjoy the intense rhythms found in Hip Hop and Rap music. She loves positive Rap, and has become a Muezbiz retailer with a store representing positive performances.

On the musical side, Hip Hop and genres like Rock are notorious for exposing listeners to harsh commentary. Negative content communicated musically, is okay. Negative messages must be in musical context. We expect bad actors will attempt with lip syncing and deep fakes to break our rules. Algorithms will filter some bad content. We will trust and publicize to our communities to use their best judgements.

Muezbiz isn’t built to commercially benefit every business model imaginable therefore its scope is more limited. For musicians and music audiences the benefits out way the site’s limits.

John Cole

Founder and lead developer

If you wish to message me directly, use our Contact Us form.