1. Identify the Spot/Dig the Hole: Once you’ve identified a suitable spot to make a koi pond (a partially shaded place where few leaves will fall ) outline the shape of your pond and start digging. If you are planning on making it larger than 5 feet in length and 3 feet in depth, you might need to rent a backhoe…but for an average sized koi pond a pick and a shovel will do just fine. A good sized pond will be 5 feet long by 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep in the shallow end and 3-4 feet deep in the deep end. Be sure to give yourself a shallow end and a deep end, this will give your koi fish a shallow spot to eat, while still giving them plenty of deep swimming space to cruise around and hide from predators in. Fill the very bottom of the hole with 1-2 inches of peat gravel for drainage purposes.

2. Shoring up the Sides | Preventing a Pond Cave In: Because I dug my pond into a straight down “bath tub” shape, one of the biggest challenges I had when learning how to make a pond was figuring out how to hold back the earth from caving into my tub. Make a frame of your pond out of 4×8 wooden planks and place it into the hole. Paint the frame with a water proof sealant to slow down the inevitable decay (after all, it is going to be underground) and make sure that it is level once it is in place and screwed together. Use stainless steel screws to join it all together and countersink them into the wood to prevent them from poking into the liner.

3. Pad the Koi Pond | Place the Liner: I found that when making a koi pond, old strips of carpet make fantastic padding for the pond liner. Dig around a trash bin behind a carpet shop, or buy some remnant carpet pieces. It’s very wise to double (or triple) up on the padding under the liner, as it will also tend to break down over time, and you really want to minimize the amount of sharp objects that can put a hole in your pond liner one day and ruin the party. Once your padding is down, you can throw your liner in. It’s a very uncomfortable time of day to do it…but try to lay your liner into the pond when the sun is high and at its hottest. The sun’s heat will loosen up the liner and make it more malleable and manageable, thus making your life much easier. Fold the liner onto itself where it overlaps, then go ahead and “fill er up” with freshwater from the garden hose. Do this slowly and pull and tug at the pond liner to get rid of any slack and wrinkles in the liner as you fill it with water. The water will do most of the work, but be sure that the liner fits snugly into your frame without too much gap at the bottom corners of the tub. If you aren’t satisfied with the fit, you can always walk around and nudge the liner into place. Don’t worry…if you sufficiently padded the ground and frame you won’t poke any holes in your koi pond.

The hard work is done, now it’s time to set up your pond filters. Tetra Pond makes fantastic pond products that are relatively inexpensive and easy to install and maintain. If you have some experience in plumbing ponds or aquariums this should be pretty straightforward for you. Otherwise this might be the perfect time to go down to your local fish store and ask for some professional advice. But for those inquiring minds out there who still wanna know how to set-up the whole shebang when it comes to how to make a koi pond, tune in next week and I’ll talk about my aunt’s pond in San Diego and the unique problems involved with trying to build a pond in the middle of a patio garden.

Honestly…if you share this you’re pretty weird. but I ain’t gonna stop you.

<a href="http://www.rumstreet.com/sam-hates-europe"><img src="http://www.rumstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Sams-Euro-Gripes.png" alt="Sam Hates Europe infographic | Rumstreet" border="0" /></a><br />Presented By <a href="http://www.rumstreet.com/"> Rumstreet.com</a>

the same fellow also threw a full beer bottle at Justin while we were rending insults onto the crowd (once again….no problem there)

According to legend he also stole the Guttermouth T-shirt he was wearing whilst preparing to deliver a righteous beat down upon my lead singer (meh….whatever)

But I think the straw that broke the kangaroo’s back in this particular melee which led to the dick move (and it was a dick move…I’m not debating that…although a pretty sweet ninja dick move) that proved to be his ultimate undoing was when he made fun of my Frenzal Rhomb t-shirt (off camera) and said that Lindsay Macdougal was born with a face only a radio could love…at which point someone made the dubiously informed decision to choke him out from behind with said T-shirt…yup

CaptainSpaceman

Enter the internet…my bastion of depravity…the place where I can indulge in all things erotic without ever actually getting caught in the embarrassing situation of having to explain to anyone why I have third degree wax burns all over my man boobs.

It is for exactly this reason that I was thrilled last week when google launched “What do you love” a new concept in search engine marketing that coincided with their launch of google+ that aggregates all the search data for any given search term…google news, google images, google, google shopping…they pull it all in

Upon hearing this news, my mind went into creep overdrive. At last…google had given me the necessary tool to bring all my lustful desires into one handy portal…my fingers trembled as I punched in my first query…positive that upon clicking the search button I would be bombarded with all manner of depraved goodies that can only be found on the street of Tokyo’s Roppongi district, Amsterdam’s Red light district, or Hamburg’s Reeperbahn…

what I got in return was…well…unexpected

Kittens?…surely there must be a glitch in the system…I would enter another query…and this time…the carnality would flow forth from my computer like water from a damaged levee…the deluge of Flesh would be positively biblical!

Hoping for absolute original sin I clicked search once more…and…goddamned kittens again?

Ugghh…but I am unfazed…I know there is one search term that surely will produce the desired adult result that I so desperately crave from this potentially awesome new service from my friends at google…

…eh…

Seriously? Spongebob?…screw this…I’ll get my porn from the same place everyone else does…tumblr.

But how can you be so sure?

Klout.com to the rescue. Track your social media influence with this handy tool from Klout and see where your strengths lie, where your weaknesses are, and where opportunities rest for improvement:

It tracks the most important metrics over the four most popular social media platforms (facebook, twitter, linked-in and foursquare…and I imagine google+ is right around the corner) and shows you all kinds of graphs and scales that represent how well you are doing.

Give it a twirl. You can sign in using your facebook account and integrate any other social media tools that you happen to use. Not that I need to mention this but it’s free and available for anyone who is just curious to see how much social media influence they really have.

Bottom line, facebook is the jumping off point for every band to introduce their music and themselves to the internet. It’s free, it’s (relatively) easy to use, and it’s chock friggin’ full of the exact same cute girls you want attending your shows.

But a word from the wise: There are ways to maximize your facebook usage, and there are ways to screw up your digital marketing campaign before it even gets off the ground. Accordingly, here are my five favorite screw-ups that almost every band will make at least once when setting up a facebook band fan page.

1. Making a “Profile” instead of a “Page”

This one goes for more than just bands (I’m looking at you My Beating Heart Show.) The best way to shoot yourself in the foot before you even get started is to limit yourself by accidentally creating a page instead of a profile…so be sure to click the right button (see figure 1.1)

Fig. 1.1

Why create a profile and not a page you ask?

A) a band profile allows you to share events (otherwise known as…your shows?) with all your friends via a calendar, and…

B) A facebook profile allows for all sorts of nifty integration of your facebook into your band website that I’m not gonna get into just yet, but take my advice…facebook page…do it…now.

2. Writing “Notes” in place of a Real Blog

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with keeping your facebook profile fresh with a little update here and there. “Hi How you doing fans, the tour was great, my sexual reassignment surgery was a success, I can now fit in my pants” sort of message is fine for facebook notes. but as far as show or album or website promotion is concerned they are the internet marketing equivalent of paying someone to stand on an empty street corner wearing sandwich boards…they blow.

Why do facebook notes blow you ask? Several reasons…but here are the highlights:

Only Your friends can read them…bad

They are not indexed in any of the major search engines…very bad

They cannot be freely shared by you with anyone outside of your “like” fanbase…poisonously bad.

Do yourself a favor and start a wordpress.com blog and fill it full of updates and upcoming shows and your favorite flavor of ice cream and pictures of you and your dog and whatever ese the fuck until your heart’s content…and then share it on your facebook page…

This is done in an effort to maximize your online real estate…and it applies to bands as much as it applies to any business.

3. Neglecting the Facebook Page

Honestly, one of the things that sucks the most about a facebook page is that it doesn’t run itself. Because so many fans use this service daily, they expect each of their favorite bands to do the same. If you don’t give them personal updates and that special sort of personal accessibility from your facebook page that they can’t find anywhere else but gigs…then you might as well have not even started one at all…ignore your facebook fans and they are going to feel cheated…bottom line.

4. Over-Using the Facebook Page

I know…this sounds like a contradiction in terms, but sometimes bands (especially newer bands) will lean on their facebook too heavily to get the word out and use it as a substitute for all the other promotion that they should be doing. Fans (especially potential fans…ones that haven’t really made up their minds about you yet) are a fickle bunch…and they will drop you like a fat girlfriend from a third story building if you annoy them with constant status updates….keep it simple…one status update a day at the most…upcoming shows and the occasional personal message.

5. Linking to Their “Facebook Page” and not their “Website”

This sounds like a good idea in theory…you want people to check out your facebook page, because (for the time being) it is king of the mountain and it’s the easiest way to get people to check out your band…but what if you woke up tomorrow morning and nobody was using facebook? All those links would be completely wasted. One of the most important tenets of search engine optimization is that you always link back to your money site first. And don’t think a website disappearing can’t happen (Myspace? anyone remember friendster?) do yourself a favor and maintain as much control over your web real estate and your backlinks as you can…set-up an actual band website…the sooner the better…and start driving traffic there.

That’s all for now folks: enjoy this video of some of Canada’s finest cook’s making delicious food courtesy of Epic Meal Time:

See Also:
10 Best Practices for Bands on Facebook | Mashable.com
Facebook Marketing: Ultimate Guide | SEOMOZ

Check out this video infographic from the beast file about everyone’s favorite mobile device manufacturer/Music leviathan…”Apple”

Apple – Beast File from Duncan Elms on Vimeo.

I got into the digital marketing business a little while back (before that I was drummer in a band) doing SEO for businesses and helping them generate organic search engine results in the major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) so their brands could grow exponentially. For the record, I briefly flirted with working for a music consulting company (less than a year) but the idea of selling bands on a service that I was positive they could provide for themselves if they just did a little bit of research left a really bad taste in my mouth.

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that such advice (at least for musicians) is pretty damn difficult to come by…and even more difficult to find for free.

I’ve always been a big proponent of the ideas that information should be free (services on the other hand…should not be) But lately I’m finding that everybody wants money for advice on how to manage their digital marketing…and it is patently ridiculous to expect a band to pay thousands of dollars for sound online marketing advice when they barely have enough money to fill up their gas tank in order to get to the the next gig…it’s actually completely fucking retarded.

Brands and businesses can afford to pay a digital marketing consultant…it’s actually a very wise step for them. They’ve got the money, and they’ve also got more important things that they should be spending their time on…such as running their business.

Bands are different. Sometime the success or failure of a band depends entirely upon how close of a relationship the fans feel that they have with the band. For independent bands and bands with no label (and there are a hell of a lot of them out there) the responsibility of managing a digital marketing campaign rests squarely on their shoulders…as it should in my opinion. digital marketing is all about increasing your online presence and introducing yourself to potential clients or customers or fans in a honest way…fans can sniff out fake a mile away.

So that’s Why I’m here, to share my thought and spread the virus of free information to all the bands out there who are in the exact same shoes that I walked many miles in for a great deal of my life. Ask me questions, read the posts, write back, tell me to go fuck myself…I don’t really care. You can take what I say with a grain o’ salt or you can listen to my advice and take it for what it’s worth.

Captain Spaceman is a digital Marketing analyst and Search Engine optimization specialist. Prior to that he worked for a time as a freelance website copywriter, and previous to that he spent fifteen years playing in bands.