ABOUT THAT RECORD

My plan for About That Record was to redesign the website and its social media accounts to grow the following and get more opportunities for the website. I was going to make a press pack to email out to different PR companies and festivals to get About That Record on the list for reviews, gigs, interviews, etc, once the website was redesigned.

RESEARCH

Layout & features

For this, I looked at different music websites and online magazines:

NME - https://www.nme.com
Dork - https://www.readdork.com
DIY - https://diymag.com
IndieCentralMusic - http://indiecentralmusic.com
Pitchfork - https://www.pitchfork.com
Gigwise - https://www.gigwise.com
Notion - https://notion.online
Kerrang! - https://www.kerrang.com
So Young - https://soyoungmagazine.com
Rolling Stone - https://www.rollingstone.com
Sync - https://syncmusicblog.com
Let It Happen - https://letithappenmusicblog.com

I noticed that each website has these categories: live, reviews, news and featured. A lot of them have an exclusive area for members of the website that has exclusive content too. Some, like NME & Dork, have a radio too where they play new music they like, as well as a Spotify playlist. IndieCentralMusic also has an 'ICM Ones to Watch', 'Song of the Week' and 'Artist Spotlight' sections.

About That Record already has all of those categories, as well as a playlist and 'Band of the Week' section. However, I have not kept these up-to-date - nothing has been posted for a while, the playlist hasn't been updated for months, and there are no bands of the week yet. I was never consistent with my posts either. This is due to my photography going well and therefore not having enough time to focus on the website. Once the website has been redesigned, I will make weekly and monthly schedules for updating it and will try to keep the posts and playlists consistent.

One thing all the websites have which About That Record doesn't is a mailing list. Whilst a few people have entered their email to be sent notifications of new posts, I need to do a monthly newsletter. This would help promote the website and all its content, and would be extremely beneficial. I could use MailChimp to do this as it seems to be the most popular mailing service and many artists and PR companies use it, which shows it is reliable.

PR Companies

I looked into different PR companies I could email to ask to be added to the PR lists once the website was ready and curated a list. However, I never sent out any emails as the website was not redesigned and I need it to be finished and be happy with it before I do so. However, I managed to get a few contacts at some of the companies from me requesting photo passes and have been added to a couple of PR lists without asking from it which is great and shows the website has a lot of potential.

DESIGN

I already had an idea of what I wanted About That Record to look like and what features I needed to add before starting this project so finding the right theme to use was quite easy. I had previously looked through all the themes Wordpress provided but wasn't happy with any of them. They don't have enough flexibility and restrict you on what you can achieve. Therefore, I decided it was best to buy one from elsewhere and import it into Wordpress.

I had a look at a few websites to see what was on offer and decided one of the themes on ThemeForest would best suit my ideas. The theme I chose is called 'MagPlus' and it cost me £50. It provides complete control over the design layout and features, and is specialised for online magazines which is perfect.

Once the theme was downloaded, I went to import it into Wordpress but I wasn't able to as the Wordpress plans have recently changed and my plan type was no longer allowed to have imported themes. This is something I wasn't aware of at the start of the project and should have checked so I could have changed my idea.

To solve this, I decided to look into self-hosting About That Record. I found that to do this, I would have to buy space on a server but I couldn't find any that seemed legit. I could use GoDaddy, but it was expensive and as I am not experienced in coding could go completely wrong. The risk of a virus, difficult-to-use website and the files corrupting was too high so I decided to give up on the idea. It required too much money too which wasn't in my budget so I wouldn't be able to afford it.

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As a result of the issues with the theme, I haven't been able to get About That Record ready for this project. By not having the website ready, it meant I wasn't able to update the social media accounts or create a press pack. I was also going to set up a YouTube channel to upload gig/festival videos and interviews to as well as create an intro for it but needed the website up before doing this. I was also going to print out stickers of the logo to hand out and put in venues as a form of promotion, but again didn't get this done. My target unique visitor number goal (2500) was not reached either due to no content being posted and no promotion being done. However, I will have About That Record redesigned soon once I have chosen a new Wordpress theme and will be able to do all of this, but after this project has ended.