Introduction

Well it's about damn time I did this.

I've gotten away with calling myself a 'social media guru' for about as long as anyone without an updated and well-written blog can be expected to. I've also gotten away with 'writing' listed as one of my Facebook interests, and for someone who hasn't written anything of value in at least 2 years I'd say that's wearing a bit thin as well. So here I am.

A brief introduction. My name is Dan Maierle, I'm 27 years old, originally from South Range, MI, and now a proud resident of New York City. I have been working in and around the music business here since I arrived in May of 2005 to work as a lifestyle sales & new media marketing manager at iconic indie label Tommy Boy Entertainment. At TBE my role was essentially half sales and half marketing, the latter of which I took to more naturally. For my next gig I wanted something exclusively in digital marketing so in January of '07 I ended up at a social media agency called Youcast Corp (formerly BuddyLube). Spent a year there, learned a lot and added a lot of big-name artists to my resume. For about a year now I have been freelancing as a 'digital marketing consultant and social media strategist' with clients in the music business and some brands as well. While my website is in development you can check out my LinkedIn profile to read more about the services I provide.

I love working with brands, but for this blog I intend to focus primarily on music. It's tough to say exactly where this will take me but ideally I'd like to find and share success stories in the field of online self-marketing for musicians and artists. Official websites. Social networks. Myspace. Facebook. Widgets. Web 2.0. Word of Mouth. SEO. Advertising. Webcasts. Podcasts. Newsletters. Stuff like that. I'll also probably squeeze in a review or two, but only for selfish reasons.

So that's it! Feel free to reach out any time with feedback, ideas, success stories, or even nasty comments.