Caroline Baran was participating in one of the most successful community building effort of the music world, the ever expanding Postmodern Jukebox community, more specifically the #PMJsearch contest.

For those that don't know Postmodern Jukebox, they're awesome and you should go see them stat, while they're still playing reasonably sized venues.

PMJ, as they're affectionately known to their fans, are as masterful when building an audience online as they are on stage. Scott Bradlee, the ringleader, started making videos with his musician friends and posting them on YouTube. Slowly but surely the videos gained popularity. They arranged popular modern music and time-shifted it to eras gone by.

They then started touring and are diligently turning their YouTube fans into paying - and very happy - gig goers.

We should know. We're going to see them again in Portland in November - in a venue several times bigger than the previous one.

PMJ has done everything right, using all the available (free or near-free) tools at their disposal.

They do frequent live Facebook videos from their tour. They stay in touch with the community and they really make us feel like a part of an ongoing party.

And it's made the big guys sit up and notice. Labels, promoters and other industry big-wigs are trying to get them on their roster, but given the size of the PMJ community, Scott and the gang have a strong bargaining position.

And that is the key trend for upcoming artists, prove that you can build an audience and doors open.