Submitted by Michele Botel¬I've been involved in the B.C. music scene for several years, with a focus on singing and song writing. Recently, I have familiarized myself with marketing my songs on the Internet via such sites as ReverbNation, My Space and Facebook. I'm beginning to realize this is the way for musicians from remote locations to get songs exposed to the world! These sites are programmed to be intelligent in that they track each visit to the site, each song play, new fans and fan demographics, etc. with updates in real time and calculated at the end of each day. The artist can arrange to have each site synchronized with one another, thus a fan gained on one will bump up the statistics on the others. Against my nature, I've spent too many hours in front of a computer in the past three weeks, yet here are the results as of today's statistics: Michele Botel, singer/songwriter, ranked at 45 out of 550 Canadian country music artists on ReverbNation (top 6 percent) and 387 out of 3,893 Global country music artists (top 10 percent).These charts are not filled with amateurs, and many famous country music artists are on the list!I now have eight of my songs gaining exposure around the world as I sit here strumming my guitar (or sitting in front of this computer) in my living room, and soon people will be able to purchase my songs on iTunes and numerous other possibilities will open up. There are other local artists I have discovered on these sites as well. To support local musicians, continue to attend local events, however, you can also log in to such sites as www.reverbnation.com and www.myspace.com, type in the artist's name and give our tunes a listen. We'll be thankful for your support of our music.