Check it out here - The DIY musician myth.
Thursday 30 June 2011
What makes a hit song - is it science?
Here's another one - and this time it's about whether you can use all the data that now exists about songs themselves and their commercial success to make any judgements about what it is that makes a hit.
In some ways it's similar to Jay Frank's findings (although, for me, his data delving is way deeper and his conclusions more thorough), but it has some interesting facts that might help you when you're penning your next global mega-smash.
What do hit songs have in common over the years, and how are they changing? And what does it all say about who we were, and who we’re becoming?
Two Rutgers master’s degree candidates delved into this with a presentation called “Visualizing a Hit” that maps popular songs against some of their musical attributes in an effort to find out what they share, and how they have changed over time.
Wednesday 29 June 2011
Get your music noticed online
This is a great post that has a bunch of ideas for how to get your music noticed by people that have influence.
Some great suggestions and methods.
If the music business is a lot about who you know…is there a way to systematize networking so that you can make friends with the right people on a steady and predictable basis, even if you’re more shy than Bigfoot?
Imagine being friendly with a top radio DJ and personally sending him your latest track to play on his show, or calling up a popular music blogger to offer her a cut from the proceeds of your latest music package. One of the best ways to impress potential fans is to get an endorsement from people that they respect.
Expert advice on getting your music in Movies and Ads
There's a lot of people on the web giving advice on how to succeed in the music industry and most don't have real world experience.
Sarah does - she doesn't talk and teach about the whole music industry - just her area of expertise which is music synchronisation - or, to you and me, how to get your music in movies and commercials.
She runs a revolving course every few months which is based on her 15 years as a music supervisor and her course that she develpoed for UCLA.
Like I said, she knows her onions.
But, here's the thing about her teaching - every time that she reopens the course she does a few video presentations covering some really great basic info - and they are free. I've seen the first one for the new course on how - exactly - you should submit your music to music supervisors and it's great. Information that you ought to know.
You have to sign up to see the video, but I wouldn't let that put you off. I know there are more free videos to come whilst she promotes the new session of the course and they'll be of the same high quality.
The course itself gets rave revies. We recommend very few things here that you have to pay for, but if you think synchronisation is a viable route for you and your music, there is no better advice than this.
But, whether you have any intention of buying or not, go and get the free advice in her promo sessions.
There's also loads of stuff on her Sarah Gavigan site (videos, info, etc) that is well worth checking out.
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Making friends with fans
This is intelligent and precise thinking on what the growth of social media has done to the relationship betwen artists and their fans. The positive and the negative.
It's from Nancy Baym, an online fandom expert, and is full of insights that every artist ought to be attuned to.
There's a two part interview from the Bandzoogle blog and a follow up video from NMS.
Here's a snippet:
Fans and friends are not the same thing. Individual fans may become friends (as they always have), but real friendships are mutual – friends choose to be connected to each other, they do things for each other, their relationships are based on equality, they spend time together. It’s not a kind of relationship that scales to a large fan base. Artists can’t be expected to take the kind of interest in each individual fan that the fans take in them. That said, the boundary is often not clear (if it ever was), and each artist has to figure out the boundaries that work for her or him, because it’s not the same for everyone and there’s no right or wrong way to draw those lines. Some people feel fiercely private and want a strong difference between friends and fans, others are totally happy to treat fans as friends and to meet them and see where it goes. Just like some of us are gregarious socializers and love to go out and meet new people and others of us are homebodies who are happy with the small social circles we’ve got.
For the full text, click the links and watch the video.
Making Friends with Fans from Nancy Baym on Vimeo.
Make Ringtones for your fans
It's weird, but people (and I am one) just don't delve into what their phones can do unless given a nudge - we are all too busy - but if you help your fans to use your music as a ringtone, many will. Does it help promote your music and your band? - a little, and every little counts.
Of course, there are also very many ways that you can sell your music as ringtones - again Google 'sell music as ringtone' and see, or start with this article from Hypebot.
BUT, until you have a sizeable following, I wouldn't bother selling ringtones - the cost is usually high to set it up and the returns are low unless you become a mass market phenomenon.
Giving them away is the ideal answer.
Make up audio files in the correct formats and simply have a page on your site that offers them for free download (behind an email sign-up is obviously best practice). Also, spend some time explaining how fans can get the file from your site to their phone - maybe a YouTube video and a blog post can do that? The ringtones don't just have to be parts of songs - you could create music especially or record some kind of talking / shouting - whatever you think your fans would like.
This article from Evolver.fm set me off on this train of thought. Their piece talks about making ringtones form any file - even a YouTube video - and has a clear explanation of how the ringtone tool at Brinked.com can be used to make the files.
Most smartphones fall on the side of allowing you to choose any audio as your ringtone, but it’s not the simplest thing in the world to make them and transfer them to your phone — especially on the iPhone.
Brinked.com offers a nice web app for converting any MP3, WAV or OGG music file into a ringtone, but we were more interested to see that it’s also capable of grabbing the audio from YouTube videos and making ringtones out of those, for free.
Monday 27 June 2011
How to make money from your concert posters
Once you have a fanbase that turns out to shows, you can use posters to both promote those shows and as a source of revenue. Fans love a quality poster as a memento of the event.
Phish are the masters of this with each new set of dates accompanied by the pre-sale of an individual poster for each show. Before they even start prmoting the gig (let alone playing it) they have earned several thousand dollars.
You might well not be at that scale, but selling posters from your site and from the merch table is something you should be looking at - high quality art and a distincive approach to branding is obviously a key ingredient (see Phish for ideas!)
But, there are issues with ownership and rights that you need to sort out.
Concert posters have long been the standard when promoting gigs. It’s simple, efficient, and people generally love seeing these unique pieces of art. In today’s DIY market coupled with fading music sales, artists are beginning to rely heavily upon poster design as an additional merchandise revenue stream but few realize concert posters/design pack a hefty legal punch. In short: Who owns the concert poster? The band that’s performing? The designers who designed the poster? Perhaps the venue that booked the artist? If you don’t think these issues are important, think again.
Every gig counts!
Image by Identity Photogr@phy
This is a mindest thing!
You have to accept that a gig that seems pointless - nobody turns up, no merch sold, it actually costs you money....that sort of thing - might turn up a great opportuntity.
Of course, some shit gigs will be just that - shit.
But you have to play every one as though it counts. Don't put on a sub-satndard show if it's just the barman and you. You don't know - that barman may have a brother who is head of A&R at EMI.
Friday 24 June 2011
How to write a great song
And, here's two great short ones on songwriting - one from one of Adele's co-writers and the other from a veteran with 30 years experience.
They know their stuff.
Five ingredients of a hit song
Fraser T Smith on hits and co-writing
And, for good measure, check out our blog section on songwriting tips.
13 steps to music success
Bob Lefsetz again.
This time advising old school artists on what they need to do to build a new fanbase when they have a new release.
BUT, equally applicable to your career whatever stage you're at.
And, Bob has a beautifully simple way of distilling the steps down to the basic truth.
Here's the first key:
1. You’ve got to know who your fans are.
It’s best if you’ve got everybody’s e-mail address. But you need a presence on Facebook and Twitter too. If someone decides to check you out on a whim, which is what fans do, we mindlessly surf to the firing of neurons in our brains, you’d better be readily available online, with up to date information. People will go to Facebook first, but if you’ve got a Web page don’t focus on design but information. Even if you yourself don’t post, make sure there’s new info EVERY DAY! That’s what makes people come back. And if you’re posting on Facebook or Twitter it had better be you, nothing pisses people off more than when an impostor, your lackey, posts for you. It’s easy to detect, just like boys impersonating girls online and vice versa. Anybody who says you can’t tell the sex of someone online doesn’t play, it’s OBVIOUS!
20 pieces of bad advice for musicians
Now, being as everyone is entitled to hand out advice, I don't agree entirely with all 20!
The one I have the most beef with is this:
With the rise of the Internet/social media I can build an audience online
Remember that the articles are stating that these are pieces of bad advice.
To be fair, the point made is that you can't just expect to build an audience online - that your online efforts amplify and add to your offline effots, and that I do sort of agree with. However, I (as you'd probably guess) do give a lot of weight to what can be achieved purely online. Indeed, in our personal experience with our clients a lot of initial momentum is built entirely online.
So, generally, these posts are great advice, but rememeber that your own experience and interpretation of ANY advice you get is as important as the advice itself.
Here are the two posts.
The original 10 pieces of bad advice.
The follow up 10 pieces of more bad advice.
And, of course, or the best advice - visit our main site - Make It In Music!
How to find blogs and forums to promote your music
This might seem simple, but this video from @musicmarketingx has some great tips.
Chris sets out two places that you need to be looking to find promotional opportunities and places that can drive traffic to your artist website. His tip on the way he uses Google Reader to find blogs was new to me, and it's great.
If you click the link to watch it on his site, make sure to read the comment from Chris Jackson below the video too - don't just concentrate on the biggest blogs, look for ones with a niche focus that you fit with perfectly.
Here's a link to the post and video.
Finding your 'hit zone'
What I like about this piece is that it states that you need to be trying to write hits, but not by selling out - and, the best way to get to a hit is by being true to your convictions and your art.
Finding your Hit Zone is essential if you’re an emerging songwriter, artist or producer, because without it:
- Most or all of your marketing, online networking and live shows will be useless;
- You’ll have a hard time building a fan base;
- You’ll probably only sell your music to your friends and family;
- You won’t get TV/film licenses;
- You’ll have a hard time getting signed;
- And so on…
Yes, your Hit Zone is that important. It’s the most important thing you can do as an artist to attract fans, make more money and achieve success. It’s like the g-spot: if you haven’t found it, you’re just flailing around and wasting your time.
Wednesday 22 June 2011
You MUST put your music on YouTube
Okay, so you lucked out and somehow managed to slip one past Geoff Smith and get a spot play on Radio 2. Millions of listeners all over the UK have just heard your 3 minutes of radio-friendly-two-tone-emo-shoe-gazing-nu-metal-folk-soul. Which means you’re now going to sell a load of singles, yeah?
As is ever the case with these articles, dear reader, the answer is no (and sorry about that). What will probably happen is this: around 0.01% of the people who heard Jeremy Vine interrupt calls from inane members of the public to play your song might be interested in hearing the tune again - but for free. And if they like it enough, then they might consider paying to download the track (or, since it’s Radio 2 listeners we’re talking about, see if they can find a 78 in an antiques shop in Rye). Either way, when they've got a little more acquainted with your music they may, heaven forbid, finally take the plunge and purchase your whole album. The main thing is: they've got to be able to hear that radio-friendly song again.
SEO for musicians
I'm linking to this article on Hypebot because I'd like all musicians to learn a bit about SEO - because it WILL bring you some new fans.
Why wouldn't you want that?
I know this from experience and use it for my clients as set out in the video below.
So you finally have a website for your group or band, but you have no idea how to get traffic there. This is an issue that many musicians go through because they have no real knowledge of SEO (search engine optimization). In order to get traffic to your site, you have to properly optimize your website which in turn will improve your rankings and move you up higher within search engine results. Contrary to what many believe, it’s really not as hard as it seems. With a little hard work and persistence, you’ll have your website at the top of those results before you know it. Here are 9 tips you can use to help you get there.
Read the Hypebot article here.
Watch our SEO basics video here.
Monday 20 June 2011
BandApp - what's that about?
Are you using it? I'd love to know what your experience is or what you think?
The people behind it have some serious industry experience and seem to have a very innovative approach.
The gatekeepers don't know
He rubs some people up the wrong way, but, for me, he just tells it as he sees it, whether he is going to piss you off or not.
This is a great piece where he talks about how a DIY musician will break through to the mainstream.
That’s what great music does. Inspire you. Keeps you going when no one else will pay attention, when they’re pissing on your dreams if they’re aware of them at all. Put on that record and let your freak flag fly.
Well, not exactly. Amanda Hocking was cold and calculating. She delivered books she believed would sell. Which is why when we ask why no outsider has triumphed in the music game we’ve got to point out that they’re all trying to be hip and cool, whereas he who wins without a major label…will be positively mainstream.
The music will be catchy. With great vocals. Harmonies. Not only choruses, but bridges.
The breakthrough will come not from Brooklyn, but somewhere far from hipdom, where a young soul is creating to get out of the hole he’s in, to make it.
The gatekeepers don’t know.
Repeat that to yourself. You’re as smart as they are, probably smarter. Because you know the target audience. What does a fiftysomething male know about what kids desire? Radio doesn’t know either, otherwise it wouldn’t do research!
You’re the expert.
And, do follow his link (this link) and read the story about Hocking in the NY Times. It's inspirational.
I particularly love the part where she says that it was hearing two musicians encourage kids to make their dreams come true that made her keep trying - and then she put in the effort!
DIY music promotion - don't mess up!
If you can now record an album in a shed, should you also take all the photos, make the video and run the marketing campaign? Maybe, and often you'll feel like you have no choice.
We often come across artists who have spent years perfecting their sound in their own home studios, and who excel at DIY recording...who then ruin a fantastic home-recorded album by designing a crappy cover in Photoshop and shooting their own video (making it much harder for us to get journalists or bloggers to take them seriously). It’s easy to see why bands do this: it’s infinitely cheaper and often quicker than hiring a professional. And in some cases, it’s absolutely fine to take the DIY route – for example, there might be a guy in the band with a day job in online advertising, who can set up an excellent, cost-effective campaign. Or there may be a photographer in the group who can sort out some fantastic press shots. The problem is that there often isn’t, and with a plethora of cheap gadgets and online services available, it’s very tempting for musicians – who are so used to taking a DIY approach to their music – to assume that a) this is a good way of filling the gap and b) that a DIY approach to everything will always yield positive results.
Friday 17 June 2011
Claim & control these essential online profiles
Make sure that you follow the links to the 'how to' posts for each of the sites at the bottom of their main post.
The two places that I think really count are Amazon's Artist page and Wikipedia.
The hidden reason for getting your Wikipedia page sorted is that the links that you can put on your Wiki page to each of your online presences (Website, YouTube channel, Facebook Page etc) is very strong. Wikipedia has what is called high 'Page Rank' and that tells Google to rank the pages that it links to very highly - just what you want.
Getting a Wikipedia entry to stick when you have no real online profile is difficult and not worth the effort - do it when you are noteworthy enough and use it to 'juice' your other sites.
How Turntable.fm will change music forever
I don't know, but I have heard a wall of noise about this new site, Turntable.fm, this week and I've logged in and had a look around - and I was hooked - a bit.
Go and check it out. It's in a 'Beta' mode right now so you might be able to log-in if someone you know (i.e. a Facebook friend) is already a member or you can sign up to their invite list.
I'll point you to this article for the full explanation, but in essence this is a social newtork that allows you to play music to others in self-selecting groups (rooms) and as such it could be the much vaunted 'music recommendation engine' that so many people have hoped for.
On the other hand, it might just be a fun way to play records to people.
I did enjoy it and found myself listening to records that I had forgotten I liked and discovering new ones.
Will this change music forever? - maybe, or maybe not. But I have an odd feeling about it! One thing I do really like is that the way that people vote on each song in the room as it plays could give real feedback on whether people like a song - an unbiased opinion that is otherwise hard to come by.
Go to Turntable.fm here.
Thursday 16 June 2011
5 ways to crack writer's block
This links to a post that specifically deals with writer's block for songwriters and it's got 5 great tips.
But, the post is part of a set of posts from a group of bloggers all writing on the same topic on the same day - a 'synchro-blog' (in itself, a great idea that you could get a group of local or niche-related bands to do on a shared topic).
So, check out the post but the one's that it links to have some great ideas as well.
Here's the first tip:
1. Stop listening to music that sounds like yours.
This would seem like a no brainer. But it is not. When writing a song, if you want to sound like John Legend, don’t listen to John Legend.
Why?
Because your natural tendencies will ALREADY take you that direction. Let those tendencies flow while allowing other influences to seep in and make you unique.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
How to increase sales at your shows
This latest quick video advice from Phil at Nimbit has two great tips for selling more CD's at your shows.
Unfortunately, the very clever Square card reader isn't yet available in the UK but every savvy performing artist in the US ought to be using this.
Marketing Methods for Musicians
This is something that you need to bookmark and read at your leisure.
It's 18 posts on the Dotted Music blog that, combined, give a great overview of how to market your music.
It would be impossible not to learn something from these posts.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
How to develop stage presence
Great article - and not something that is often written about.
Stage presence is a complicated thing, if only because it comes in so many varieties. If we were to compile a list of artists considered to have a great stage presence, we would probably find that no two are quite alike.
Let’s start with the fundamentals – stage presence is the conveyance of feeling comfortable on stage and complementing your musical performance with the appropriate visual aspect.
‘Appropriate’ is a key word here. What will be considered appropriate depends on the music being performed. While a swing guitarist playing his ES-175 behind his head might get a few laughs these days, rather than being subject to horrified looks from the audience as would probably have been the case only a couple of decades ago, some forms of showmanship fit better with certain musical styles than others. Thus, a lot of what consitutes a good stage presence will be dependent on the genre in question.
There are some things common to just about any genre and this is what I want to focus on.
There is also a famed teacher of this art in the US - Tom Jackson. He's not cheap, but he is worth checking out. Generally held to be the number one coach.
How to blog as a musician
Although we're always buying training books and courses ourselves - and we believe that it's essential to invest in knowledge that can help you reach your aims - I guess that we'd feel a little uncomfortable if we were doing it all the time!
Plus, when we get the time and develop our own training products, you can bet that we'll be recommending those!
In fact, the last thing we recommended was ProBlogger's 'First week of Blogging' guide. Several people bought it on our recommendation and thanked us!
So, now, ProBlogger have released a new eBook called 'Blogging for your Business' and it is just as applicable to 'Blogging for your Music career'!
We learnt all the basic knowledge about using Wordpress and the ins and outs of blogging from ProBlogger (at the very least, it's worth digging around their blog)
So, this comes well recommended. What we like about it is that it takes the approach of seeing blogging as something that supports your efforts to market your business (or, in your case, your music). Yes, it deals with the technical side very well, which is always welcome, but it will help you understand how writing about things that are not just about your latest release will grow your audience.
Oh, and it comes with a money back guarantee!
So, you can read it, learn everything you need and then ask for a refund!
Expert blogging instruction with a money back guarantee that will help you build a bigger fanbase - we like this.
Use Facebook Notes to spread the word
I have to admit that I, like almost everyone, don't use Facebook Notes very well.
This piece from Madalyn Sklar points out the best way to use them to help spread some news or information across Facebook. Since you can tag friends and Pages from the Note, it's a great way to start the spread of the Note within Facebook.
In her article, Madalyn looks at how a Note is written from a personal profile, but you can also do this from your Fan Page. By default, a new Fan Page does not have the 'Notes' app but this can easily be added by visiting the 'Edit Page' area and adding it from the standard apps.
You could use this for all sorts of things - maybe as Thank You notes to fans for coming to gigs including a photo of them (and tagging them in the Note so that their friends see) or for adding some extra detail to an event listing, as a place to jot down a quick post (perhaps a Tour diary entry) that you feel doesn't need to go on your main blog or even a repost of that blog post from your main site. The possibilities are pretty endless.
I'll be trying this out a lot more now that Madalyn has pointed it out.
Monday 13 June 2011
Project planning - uncool but vitally important
Much as it pains me to admit it, every time that we have fucked up a release over the last 20 years, it has been because we didn't plan it properly and failed to get all our ducks in a row before we started on a campaign.
This might seem so utterly simple but I guarantee that you'll ignore this, fuck up, and chalk it down to experience.
So, get all your shit staright before you start and know what everyone has to do and when.
In a nutshell – and you probably know this already – rock and roll success is one of the most difficult things to achieve, and if cash or talent alone can’t secure it, then what will? Well, it’s our view that one of the most single important things that can help give artists an edge in the quest for success, but gets repeatedly overlooked, is this: a plan.
Read this great post about this here.
How to write a hit rock song
This post is an old one that has turned up there as people like it - and it's full of tips on how to write a hit rock song.
Whether you think it's all great advice or not, it's a very useful piece as it follows the writer through the stages of crafting the song with videos of him playing the sections. If you're new to songwriting it's going to give you, at the very least, a reference to how someone else gets from idea to song.
I remember being a kid listening to my favorite bands of the day and wondering, “how do they do that?” It seemed totally amazing to me that someone could take an instrument and create this piece of music that made me have so many strong feelings be it happiness, anger, joy, and write these words that seemed to speak to me.
I still have that same feeling sometimes when I hear great new bands, except now I understand after my many years of studying music, writing music and performing it in front of people there is more to it then just writing for writing’s sake.
How to use Instagram to promote your band
Well, actually, no, not really as Instagram is easy to deal with direct from your iPhone and can now be linked to all your other social networks including Twitter and Facebook.
If you recall, in our Twitter music marketing series, we point out how much fans love to see photos of the band doing .......anything!
So, Instagram ought to be a no-brainer addition to your ways of keeping them engaged.
Read exactly how to do it in this excellent piece from Mashable.
Tour diaries: They are the satisfying sustenance required by every hardcore music fan to feed a band addiction. A glimpse into the backstage, on-tour-bus life of one’s favorite band. Now, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, it’s easier than ever to create a highly visual tour diary to sate the appetite of your friends and followers. One word, my musically inclined friends: Instagram.
Friday 10 June 2011
Getting your music out there!
This is a great interview from the Music Making Month series made by Propellerhead software - the wholeset is an awesome resource!
In this episode they have a chat that's well over an hour with the folks fromn Nimbit - the DIY musician's 'direct-to-fan' system.
I know that most people won't watch this whole video - and that makes me sad!
When some people who really know their shit sit and pontificate for over an hour about things that you can do to get your music out there and make a difference to your career, you ought to listen!
Watch it below or at this link.
Getting Gigs and Agents - what you need to know
The first one from Grassrootsy gives 4 tips on what a booker is looking for when booking a band - and it's really insighful.
While hashing things out in the group, I took note of how a booker decides who to book for his venue. Now the following list isn’t set in stone and will probably be different for each individual booker, but these 4 factors (in order of importance) will guide a venue into booking you.
Go here to see what those 4 tips are.
That piece itself links to an interview on the same site with a booker who goes into detail about his own experience booking bands and promoting the shows:
The more people you can bring, the more leverage you have. You gotta give something before you take it. So when emailing venues, talk about how you can team up with a local band or two and bring 30 REAL people. Don’t BS and lie to the venue. We have a 25% rule. Whenever a band says they will bring 50 people, we just assume it will be 12 or 13. Then we don’t usually want to do business with them again because they exaggerated their draw when we could have put on another like-minded band with a draw that could have made the night profitable for everyone.
It's long but well worth a read.
Lastly, there's this piece from Dave Cool - and it's a must read.
It talks about how you find a booking agent, but almost the whole piece is great advice for how to be better live and get more gigs - like this nugget:
Get your live show to the point where people are going home blown away and talking about you when they leave the venue. So rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse again, then play as many shows as you can. And be sure to build your set list in a way that makes for a great show, not just a series of songs played one after another.
The definitive book on this subject is Jeri Goldstein's 'How to be your on booking agent'. It's spot-on and WILL help you get more gigs. Not cheap these days though as it's in demand and currently sold out. You can get it on Amazon or for a Kindle. I recommend it.
Thursday 9 June 2011
A vinyl record crowdsourced label
I'll let them explain it:
After roughly a year and a half of bootstrapping and slowly building, we are finally able to announce a soft (beta) launch of Hifidelics.What we have here is essentially an online record store built on top of a crowdsourcing platform. Our focus is to release limited edition, creative vinyl records from some of the freshest, up-and-coming talent. When I say ‘creative’ records, I mean something extra special in the packaging or the record itself.
Go and read their post about the idea here.
And, you can check out the Hifidelics site here.
It might be that it's a great place for you to release a record, or it might just inspire you to make an extremely creatively packaged record - these resonate with true fans very well.
3 tips for your fan-funded record
But, this post on Digital Music News reduces the advice to 3 great points that you NEED to know.
Today, as we watch the labels shift and recorded revenue streams dry up, the idea of patronage has resurfaced. Platforms like Kickstarter and Pledge Music market themselves as direct financing engines and have helped artists raise some serious cash. And this can work: I just raised more than $10,000 on Kickstarter, but not before learning some surprising lessons.
Keep your band website simple!
Basically, keep your website design simple - that's what your fans want - to be able to find what they're looking for.
As you can see, an overwhelming 76% of participants want their web experience to be easy.
A lot of musicians want their website to be a work of art, with noisy header images, Flash animations, splash pages, automatic music players, and other gimmicky things. While they can seem cool at first, all of that stuff just ends up getting in the way and degrades the experience your fans want to have when visiting your website. Do you think your fans will be able to access your gaudy Flash website from their iPhones? Think again.
Make It In Music - Seminar
I'm doing my first ever speaking gig as Make It In Music on 13th July in Bristol.
It's called 'How to break your band using the Internet - methods, tools & tips'.
I'm really looking forward to it, although, like most people, I don't relish public speaking!
If I get enough time before the event I'm hoping to turn it into a pdf that I'll make available afterwards - to all our readers, not just those that come to the event. Given that I am always overworked, this might fail to materialise!
Here's the blurb:
An in-depth and interactive seminar on how to use the Internet to build a fanbase for your music. The latest and best practices that every musician should know and use including what you need to know about the artist website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, music blogs and more.
The seminar will give you a workable plan that you can apply to stand out on the web and attract a fanbase that can underpin your success.We will look at:Building an effective website for pennies
Why you need a mailing list
How to best use Facebook
Why Twitter is a key tool that you need to master
Effective promotion using music blogs
How, why, where and when to sell your music for maximum sales
….and more.
And, you can find out more and book tickets here.
Like I said yesterday - no heckling!
Tuesday 7 June 2011
Topspin and RootMusic sync up a beauty!
I use Topspin and RootMusic BandPage for my clients.
When Topspin announced this yesterday, I added a New BandPage (from scratch) to a client's Facebook Fan Page and had it installed and with a Topspin store selling 10 different records / CD's / downloads within 10 minutes!
Sure it needs tweaking and more doing to it, but, that, my dears, is the future!
Read the post on Topspin's blog or watch the video below. In short, this shows why Topspin are at the leading edge of Direct To Fan - sharing API and looking to offer the best functionality for promoting, marketing and selling your music.
I know I sound like their salesman - I promise I'm not! - but it works for me.
Someone asked me yesterday if I didn't think it was too expensive. No, I don't. I come from an old school background where my artists were paid maybe 15% of record sales. So paying $9.99 per month and 15% to the distributor and keeping 85% feels pretty good to me!
Get your music in Movies & Ads - Do's & Don'ts
Here's two great articles from a blog that is new to me and full of great posts - American Songwriter.
They are both about panels held by music supervisors and have a bunch of great tips on how you can optimise your chances of getting your music used in a movie or an ad.
There were some common threads that ran through the discussion—as far as dos, don’ts, and other things to be conscious of—for those searching out song placement opportunities. Here’s what resonated most:
• Do your research before reaching out to music supervisors.
Know exactly what project they are working on and what kind of music they are looking for. If you send them something that contradicts what they need, you’ll most likely be blackballed from the supervisor’s working order. Make sure to include all “metadata” for your songs for digital delivery. “Track 2” doesn’t work. Deliver songs via DropBox, YouSendIt or a similar method. Don’t send mp3s unless agreed upon beforehand.
Read the Nashville panels tips here.
And here's their article previewing it with more direct tips and insight.
Two things that I do in relation to music supervisors:
1. Whenever I watch a movie, I look for the music supervisor's name or if I see their name in an article like this, I note it down. I then find and follow that person on Twitter and put them in a Twitter list of 'Music Supervisors'. The stuff I find out from that is IMMENSE!
2. I build a music synch page on my artist's website. On there we create a few players defined by mood and / or tempo (we use Topspin widgets but SoundCloud is perfect as it allows downloads) plus details about availablity of the much loved 'one-stop' (meaning that the 'supes' can clear a whole track and its publishing without needing to get a third party permission) and the availability of instrumentals and cut-downs. We also try to note anything else that we think will help a music supervisor find it easy to pick our artist's tracks! Then, we have a page link that we can email at a moment's notice.
Sweet!
Your fans don't see your Facebook posts!
Not so, hombre!
The sad fact is that something around 90% of fans never return to the Fan Page once they've liked it, so it is imperative that you get your posts seen in the fan's News Feed. And, with the advent of Facebook's EdgeRank system to determine what shows up in a fan's News Feed, it is the most popular posts from all their friends and Fan Pages that they like which they are showm.
However, there are some things that you can do to try to help make sure that your posts have good EdgeRank and therefore are most likely to show up high in a fan's News Feed.
In short, it's down to the old chestnut of engagement.
A report from Buddy Media that you can download for free here gives you the full facts.
And, Hypebot have a recap of the report's points here.
This is very importnat to your music promotion efforts on Facebook - don't ignore it!
Friday 3 June 2011
How to find local fans on Twitter
We look at how to find potential fans of your music in your local area in this part of our Twitter music marketing guide.
Obviously, if you can find your fans near to your home base then you radically increase your chances of getting those people to shows.
This video from Ariel Hyatt looks at another way to do this.
Don't give away all your music for free
Interestingly, in that particular situation, evidence suggests that charging more increases sales - check it out.
But this post is about the whole idea of the effectiveness of giving away music and whether it is the right course for musicians.
I had a conversation with an artist manager this week who partly believed that giving away music to those who had already become a fan (by being on an email list or 'liking' on Facebook etc) was the best way to use freemium.
I categorically disagree.
I think giving away free music is THE key to building a fanbase in the DIY musician world. By that I mean the exchange of some free music (a selection of tracks - perhaps 6 or so - rather than 1) in return for an email address and the potential fan's time invested in making a judgement on your music. But, I also think that this article makes a great point. Don't just give away the farm on first contact. Give something (preferably from your own site rather than in a Twitter DM) and then entice that listener into a deeper relationship.
Don't bombard them with free material at the get-go! Let the two way relationship build (Funnily enough, using an autoresponder such as Aweber, as we recommend, is the ideal way to do this).
I don't agree with the whole of Dave Cool's article (basically as I know free works for my clients) but the measured approach that he is advocating is very much the way to go!
The argument for giving away your music is that you should simply want to have your music heard, and since people can generally find music online for free, then why bother putting a price tag on it? Live shows, merchandise, licensing, and subscriptions are just some of the ways that bands are encouraged to generate revenue. However, should artists just give up selling their music? Are we to believe that nobody buys music anymore? I’m not so sure that’s the case.
Clever album marketing embraces affiliates
I think you'll read about this everywhere today, but I can't ignore it as it's important and resonates with some consultancy that I've been doing.
I was asked last week to work on the marketing for a forthcoming album for a major label established artist and one of the things that they wanted to look at was the use of 'affiliate marketing'.
If you don't know what this is, it's when somebody is paid a percentage of a sale in return for sending a buyer to a website. It is used a lot by many online retailers (such as Amazon) but hasn't been used a great deal by musicians (Joe Bonamassa being the exception and trailblazer - reading his 'affiliate page' will help explain it as well).
So, I was gobsmacked when the Kaiser Chiefs announced the online digital release of their new album this morning - available only from their own site and in an innovative way. There has been no pre-release to the press for review (save a single sent to radio earlier in the week) and they have decided to make the recordings of the new album available to all at the same time.
In an official statement, the band said their intention was “to create a music experience that can be shared and enjoyed by all and at the same time revitalise and subvert the industry standard”.
"It can re-engage the excitement and spontaneity of offering new music immediately to fans, allowing them to hear the record at the same time as media and critics alike and hopefully giving people a fun experience at being the Kaiser Chiefs A&R department,” they added.
Fans can go to the band's official site - http://www.kaiserchiefs.com/ - and create their own version of the album by selecting 10 of the 20 available tracks and designing their own artwork. The digital album is then bought for £7.50 and then a page is created for that version of the album as an affiliate page.
Fans can then promote that page (i.e their version of the album) and earn £1 for every copy sold.
Sure, there is some seriously cool coding going on on this site to make it all seamless, but it's not an impossible thing for a DIY musician to acheive - there are affiliate systems available available to all budgets. What's more important is that Kaiser Chiefs fans are lapping it up. Alerted by an email from the band (see how that mailing list is important), they are embracing the idea and tweeting about it like mad. The band have very cleverly engaged their fans.
The process of selecting the tracks and designing the artwork is very nicely designed and the code that builds the affiliate page is very smart - helping to make the experience for the fan simple, as well as new and exciting.
There's also a clever little film introducing the idea which connects the online album creation to a real world experience in a very well thought out way as well.
Whether you're a fan or not, you ought to check it out and go through the process of creating the album to see how it's been done.
The best piece on it that I've seen today is this one from the Guardian which details the concept and also some of the band's reasons for doing it this way.
Of course, there will be a definitve physical CD release in the near future as well!
Thursday 2 June 2011
8 Facebook marketing tips you might not think about
And, they are all applicable to musicians and how you use Facebook to promote your music.
There’s lots of good advice out there for running a good Facebook Page and how you can build a long-term community. I wanted to offer something a little bit different and look at those simple tips that you might often overlook, but are fundamental to running a good Facebook Page. A Facebook Page itself is now almost shorthand for running a social media presence altogether, yet it’s still such a unique medium that many of us are getting our heads around. There’s certainly no tried and tested right or wrong method to it, though many brands are making the mistakes as they go and importantly learning from these. Check out our own tips, and let us know your own below!
How to promote your album
It sets out a timeline for what you need to do to promote your forthcoming album from 12 months before release (or 4 months as a minimum!).
Although I am not set on the idea that every DIY musician should be setting up to release an album (building a real fanbase by releasing singles or solo tracks, gigging and spreading the word online comes first) until they are ready, when you do, this is a very valuable reference tool.
Releasing a new album takes more than just duplicating discs and throwing a party. You’ve got to get the word out if you want your music to sell. But with so many methods of promotion and so many outlets for music discovery, it can be difficult to know where to focus your efforts. Stay calm! This promotion timeline will guide you through, step by step, breaking it all down into bite-sized chunks so you can get out there and start generating press and buzz.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)