But had to post this piece on the main blog about promoting your music to bloggers.
It's an update of Chris Bracco's great eBook - go and see what we think here.
Friday 29 July 2011
Monday 25 July 2011
Building the perfect band website
Simple yet crucial stuff on how to build the perfect website to promote your music. And I know that the guy who writes these articles, Chris, knows exactly what he is talking about as his main business is building websites - a lot of which are for musicians. He knows exactly what works and what to avoid.
This article covers all the key points and I pretty much agree with the whole thing.
Keep it simple and don't forget to keep it up to date!
Most bands make one of two mistakes when it comes to the aesthetics of their website. Either they let their desire for a funky-looking site trump all other considerations, or they completely ignore the importance of design.
Let’s start with the first mistake that bands make – going on a design binge. There is a huge arsenal of powerful but dangerous tools available to musicians - Flash, Photoshop, After Effects and so on – which can ruin a website just as easily as make it look fantastic. Misuse of these tools can spoil a music site in two main ways: first, by inducing amnesia about the important things that a site should actually do as well as be, or by making a site so reliant on wizardry that it causes problems for users viewing the site in certain browsers.
Get your music featured on the right blogs
Over the last 12 months he has built one of the leading music advice sites on the internet with contributions from many knowledgeable experts as well as himself.
He and his partner, Chris Taylor, are upping their efforts to get the very best advice to aspiring musicians by hosting a webinar - like a group teleconfernece call, but online, with slides and stuff - on 2nd August. This is a great way to learn from experts as you get the info and then you get time to ask them the questions that their advice will inevitably raise.
And, I agree with them on the choice of the first topic that they are covering - how to get your music featured on blogs.
I taught a seminar a couple of weeks ago and told the attendees that I believe blogs to be the NUMBER ONE way that a DIY musician can reach out, get coverage and start to build an audience.
It's free; it just takes time and organisation but is definitley something that you should be using as the cornerstone of your online marketing efforts.
And these guys know exactly how to do it.
The webinar costs $10, which pretty much just covers their costs - I'll be there, and I know I'll learn some tricks and tips. It's a 45 minute class, plus 30 minutes of questions and everyone gets a PDF of all the notes to take away and implement. That's great value.
Oh, and I'm not getting paid to recommend it either - I only suggest things to my readers that I think are cast iron value.
I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Thursday 21 July 2011
6 Tips for effective Twitter networking
It's essential reading and really does give you chapter and verse on how to use Twitter as part of your music promotion efforts.
But, I'm always looking for more tips and loved this post from Social Media expert Madalyn Sklar as it distills the essence of Twitter into 6 simple tips.
Here are my 6 simple tips that will help you build momentum and followers. There is no magic pill for instant success. But if you follow these strategies, you will improve your results. And remember, it’s about building your Twitter network… one follower at a time!
It takes time, consistency and a plan of action. So let me ask you… how effective are you on Twitter? People I talk to either love it (and might even admit to being addicted) or they just don’t get it, not understanding how it can help them.
YouTube tell you what to do to get best results
This is BRILLIANT and I owe @DannyDee for pointing it out.
YouTube is preparing a 'Partner Playbook' for those lucky enough to have a YouTube Partner channel (where YouTube pays you because you get great traffic).
But, this piece on Social Times is written by someone who was at the YouTube Partner conference and where YouTube's Ryan Nugent gave an hour long presentation on best practice.
OK, so it's not targeted to musicians using YouTube but pretty much anyone making video and using YouTube to virally spread them can learn a lot from this.
Creating great content is, without a doubt, the most important ingredient in the recipe to YouTube success. However, even if you have the best content on the planet, nobody will see it if you haven’t optimized it for discovery. Ryan Nugent of YouTube’s Next Up Lab says, “50% of the work is making a great video and the other 50% is what you do when you upload it.” Here, we lay out some helpful rules and guidelines for optimizing your content, as outlined in Ryan’s presentation of the YouTube Partner Playbook.
Check out the Social Times piece here.
And watch the YouTube video here. No, really, do. It could be the best use of an hour of your time!
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Audiosocket - a new type of music licensing?
That particular bit of their business is a cool way for other web based companies to offer their users access to pre-cleared music for video and web apps and the like. You can read more about that here.
But, just like Gobbler in the previous post, I didn't know about Audiosocket at all!
What it means for you as an artist is another potential outlet for your music and one that can earn you revenue.
As a DIY musician in the modern music busines you will almost certainly have been told a lot that alternative revenue generating methods are key to your survival - they are. And, licensing your music for ads, TV, web use etc is the main one of those routes.
Audiosocket look like a very cool outfit who A&R their catalogue and represent 'culturally relevant' music rather than 'crap stock music'! I like that.
Their 50% commission of any fees might look heavy but as it's free to join, and they offer a non-exclusive deal and you can still license your music yourself (or with another agent) as well, why not submit your music and see if they'll take you on?
Gobbler - a Dropbox for artists
But Gobbler is designed specifically as an online storage and back-up solution for musicians with very trick integration with all the most popular recording systems - Pro Tools, Logic etc.
I talked to all my management clients about this today - one was already using it and loved it and all the others signed up.
It's a no brainer.
I found out about it from this article in the LA Times - which I heard about from one of my Google+ circles (BTW - I find myself looking at that way more than Facebook already!)
Sitting on a bus as it was rolling across Turkey on a concert tour in summer 2009, the 37-year-old Los Angeles entrepreneur watched singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz fire up a disc drive where he had stored a song he had been recording. To their horror, the drive was dead.
"I started asking other musicians how they kept copies of their work," Kantrowitz recalled. "They were all on these old tapes and disc drives. To me, that was crazy."
That gave Kantrowitz the idea to launch Gobbler, a company that would not only back up artists' digital files but also let them collaborate to create songs with other musicians anywhere there is an Internet connection.Here's the LA Times piece.
And here's the Gobbler intro video.
Tuesday 19 July 2011
How to make your digital album more like a physical one!
I didn't know about half the things that Chris Bracco has put into this post!
The post talks about 7 ways to make the digital music experience more tactile and involved - like when you had a CD or that lovely bit of black plastic that so many now fondly remember!
An example is the interactive tags in the metadata used by Arcade Fire on their last album that makes the images in iTunes interactive. This is one of the things that I didn't know you could do!
But the piece has 6 more cracking ideas - check them all out here.
How to blog as a musician
We've talked about the need to blog as a musician in several posts lately.
Now, Jon Ostrow at Mic Control has written a free eBook that sets out exactly HOW to blog effectively.
It's full of great information and I recommend that every musician gets it and implements his teaching.
Just click the big orange button on the right of the screen!
MicControl Consulting from MicControl on Vimeo.
Monday 18 July 2011
How to market music online
Bas Grasmayer is one of the people you run into online when you get involved in any aspect of online music marketing - and he knows his stuff.
He works for a digital distributor that has a focus on the DIY musician and has just finished his heavyweight thesis for his degree course - The Answer is the Ecosystem: Marketing Music Through Non-Linear Communication
I've read a lot of it already, but more importantly, I've bookmarked it and will go back to it again and again.
The part that I have focused on so far is the section where Bas talks about creating an ecosystem for your music to live in:
- First, a band, group, artist, label, has to differentiate themselves. This means, their music has to be very good, but it also needs an element which defines it and which makes it different from all the other music in the niche or sub-genre.
- Second, as an artist or label, you need to give fans a message that spreads. Niels Aalbers mentioned that people love telling stories. With the phenomenon of word of mouse, stories spread faster and more easily than ever. This does not mean that you have to tell stories in your songs, but that you have to be a story, as an artist or a label, be remarkable and be worth mentioning. A good example of this is the immensely popular pop artist Lady Gaga, whose songs are (arguably) about nothing, but the identity of Lady Gaga is a great 'story' (one only needs to look at the pictureon this page to understand that).
- Third, when this story starts spreading, that's when you start building your ecosystem. This has to be done with patience according to Niels Aalbers, specifically noting that business models should be kept out of the door for as long as possible.
- Fourth, once the ecosystem is in place, one should start listening very closely to this ecosystem to see what it wants. This is a paradigm-shift in marketing communications, because it has traditionally been about finding a consumer for your product, but this is about finding a product (business opportunity) for your consumers
You might think this would be a bit heavy to wade through, but it's not!
You see Bas, as a futurist, hasn't published his thesis in a mass of text, but as a very, very cool HTML5 site. You can skip about and read bits as they take your fancy.
Without wishing to be too rude about Tony Wadsworth's report Remake, Remodel: The Evolution of the Record Label which is broadly in the same ballpark (OK, I admit its directed to the record industry rather than the DIY fraternity...but they both need to learn the same realities!), Bas's effort makes Music Tank's approach look laughable. Their report, which isheavier on supposition rather than data, costs at least £45 (Bas's is free under Creative Commons) and doesn't address the core issue of what to do about the changes in the way people consume music in the ay that Bas does.
PLEASE take the time to read and bookmark Bas's report. Its ace both due to it's content but also just because of the way he has made it availbale to all.
10 best tips for Facebook Music Promotion
And, I know that many people will have seen this post from Mashable about how best to use Facebook to promote your music as many other folks tweeted it last week.
But, it's such a good Facebook primer I need to post it here to come back to time and again.
Here's a part of tip number 1:
So you just joined Facebook and have a grand total of 50 fans (44 of which are your extended family). Well, you know how you can hook new fans by opening for another band on stage? The same goes for Facebook.
“We have some bands that have Facebook Pages that grow really slowly, so we try to reach out to other artists who they have a relationship with, and that tends to drive those ‘likes’ up,” says Allison Schlueter, VP of digital marketing at Island Def Jam Music Group.
Ask a band whom you’re tight with to post your new music video/track/album art to their wall with a link back to your Facebook Page, and remember to return the favor — or, you know, you could just buy said band a beer the next time you play together.
Thursday 14 July 2011
Old school street promotion meets new school tech
It's a great point.
The piece itself is about flyering for your gigs, but this kind of street promotion can also be used for general awareness.
When teemed with a QR code on your flyer or poster - as this post from Live Unsigned suggests, you can marry the best of the new school techniques (sending a potential fan to your site to get a free music taster or to buy a ticket - right on their phone) with the old school in-venue / record store/ rehearsal space/ boutique flyer methods.
Give it a go.
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Likes direct from Mobile
I'm in a rush!
Catching up from 2 days off and rushing to a seminar tonight.
But I wanted to try this out - I'm not sure if I've set it up right, but please give it a go for me, and try it for yourself.
This is a QR code from Likify.
People scan the QR code and the 'Like' button comes up right on their phone. Brilliant.
Give it a go. Try Likify here.
Friday 8 July 2011
Hit song metrics for 2011 - so far
So, when he analyses all the hits of THIS year so far and tells you exactly what the science tells you about what is making a song a massive hit right now, I would take the time to take notice.
THE AVERAGE LENGTH OF INTROS IS 4.88 SECONDS
Intros are getting significantly shorter. Compared to last year, the average intro decreased by 37%. The Top 25 had an average intro length of 2.96 seconds. In fact, there were only two songs with an intro over 7 seconds. Last year, it was 2 of the Top 10. Now it’s 2 of the Top 25. And sales increased as a result. Expand to the Top 50 and it’s only 20% of the titles with intros longer than 7 seconds. That’s down from 48% last year. The chances of a song with a longer intro succeeding continue to decrease every year.
A simple online space for artists
I tweeted about this yesterday but want to make sure that everyone knows about it.
One Sheet is a very simple online presence for artists. The cleverest thing about it is that it links to the API (the exchangable information) in all your other online profiles at places like Facebook, YouTube, Songkick etc and therefore it updates itself.
It takes 2 minutes to set up and, in theory, you can leave it alone after that.
I also like the clean and simple design with a single large image background and the clarity of the layout and usability.
Genius.
I expect most artists to build one and use it as an online business card. I can see industry folks using it as a quick reference on any band as well.
Here's what Billboard said about it.
Thursday 7 July 2011
Play by the New Rules
You know the drill.
It's good stuff and you should read it.
1. Listen to a lot of records. A knowledge of music is the best education. Spend more time listening than posting on Facebook. The musicians of yore could play every lick on their favorite blues records, can you?
2. Learn how to play. Start with lessons. Only give them up when you surpass your teacher. Know how to play what you don’t like. It’ll come in handy, just like studying algebra.
3. Write. We’re interested in what you have to say. You can wring emotion with a note, but begin composing lyrics too. Music blew up in the sixties because we were interested in more than the surface, we wanted to know who these acts were, we wanted to know what they had to say.
4. Rehearse. If you’re not frustrated, if you’re not chomping at the bit, you’re not doing it right. Sure, post the results to the Net, but don’t expect anybody to pay attention. And promotion is passe. Don’t tell people to listen, go back and cut more until you create something so good it spreads by itself.
5. Use what’s come before as a stepping off point, not as a blueprint. Although you should know how to play the classics, your music should not sound just like the Beatles or Zeppelin, but different. If you haven’t got people scratching their heads, telling you to turn it down, you’re playing it too safe.
That's just a bit of it. Like we said, read it.
Don't do any self-promotion - at all
We tell you to build an email list, social media yourself to death and spread the word - but there is another way.
Refuse to play the game and don't do any of those things!
Manchester band Wu Lyf are one example of how doing this and creating an air of mystery can work wonders. Read this and then this to see how their reverse publicity worked wonders.
It's worth noting that they did engage the world through a website - of course, it didn't follow any of the 'best practice' methods that I and my ilk advise, but it did give them a focal point for the mystery to unfold.
And then there's the Weeknd - read our piece on them here - who did create all the social media profiles but their twist was to hit it all in one go with some stand out material and moody photos!
But is this 'no publicity' hype anything new?
It usually starts the same way. Some band posts a song to a music sharing site like Bandcamp or SoundClick. One person sends it to two people, who each send it to four, and so on, until it gets picked up by a music blog like Gorilla vs. Bear or Brooklyn Vegan and then aggregated on the Hype Machine. A week later, the band has caught the attention of record labels, tastemakers, and promoters.
But everyone wants to know, who is this act? They won't do interviews, so all anyone has to go on is two MP3s and a low-resolution profile picture where they're too far away from the camera to make out anyone's face. And still, Pitchfork just gave their song the Best New Music designation. They're booked for a South by Southwest showcase. Fifteen days have passed, and the band is now the blogosphere's next big thing—even though the blogosphere couldn't recognize the band on the street.
This is how underground bands come of age in 2011.
Young and Beautiful - not the only way
There's a section in our free eBook for musicians called "Be young and beautiful" and some people get pissed off with it.
To give myself a break I must state that I wrote it two years ago when our focus was on what we had learned from 20 years of working in the traditional music industry - majors and indies - and our involvement was less with DIY and niche musicians - which is much greater today than it was back then.
But, I re-read that section often when people argue with it, and it's still mostly right (although I will make some minor changes when I do version 2!).
My argument is that the frontman or solo artist has a better shot if they are young and beautiful - and that, horribly, is true - even if you're a DIY musician. I do try to point out that 'beautiful' might not be what is so considered by any traditional definition, but more relates to the overall package of talent, looks, sex appeal, wit, "extremeness" and more.
The young thing is more easily defended - the younger you are it's simple maths that you have more time to get better, hone your skills, build a fanbase - whether in a deal or DIY.
And I don't say give up if you feel that these two assets aren't on your side. All I'm trying to say is don't ignore the truth that the world judges you on these things and therefore if you don't have them you will need to find ways around them - hiding from this truth won't help!
Of course, the more obvious the raw talent, the keener the desire and the more thorough the preparation and dedication, then the less these perceived superficial factors will impact - but they will still play a part.
So, I liked this article in the Telegraph as it looks at an artist who, although plenty young enough (at 26), has been told time and again by the mainstream industry that she wasn't 'pretty enough'. She isn't a Barbie clone, but nor is she just plain - major label A&R seems not to have learnt from Winehouse and Adele that the package can conceal rare talent.
She has now found herself on the brink of success by honing her talent, playing gigs and building an online fanbase - lo and behold, the route of the DIY musician.
'A friend of mine overheard a meeting at a major record company just the other day, a bunch of guys discussing whether 'ugly is in’,” says Lotte Mullan, in outraged bemusement. “The terrible thing is, they are not even joking. They were like, 'Look at Rumer and Adele, do you think ugly’s the new thing?’ Can you imagine anyone having that conversation about male artists? Whenever you get female artists who are ballsy and outspoken and don’t apologise for themselves, some people still want to make it about their looks. It would almost be funny, if these weren’t the people you had to trust your career to.”
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Street Teams - learn from the Pros
I have just been wandering about the web looking at info on Street Teams for my seminar talk.
Amanda is the expert at these as she ran them for a while - but she's not here!
Fancorps have long been a leader in providing these services to major brands and artists alike and I noticed that they offer a free pdf for download that explains their service.
I'm not suggesting that you need to hire them (although you could - I have no idea what they charge), but just reading their pdf tells you a lot about how they think an online street team can spread the word about your music - and so you can apply that thinking to setting up your own team.
Start off by emailing your fan list and ask them to sign up again to a separate list (any decent email service like those we recommend in our Fan List posts can do this) and then give them assets to use, tasks to do and street team only rewards for doing so.
Give it a go.
Tuesday 5 July 2011
Get your Wiki on
We looked at how you should claim certain online profiles - if your profile would stick - in this post.
But, creating a Wikipedia entry and geting the self-appointed guardians of all things Wiki to leave it there, can be tricky.
That's where this article helps with specific advice.
You need to ask yourself two hard questions. Questions which may lead you to retire from the music business, but questions that need to be answered before going anywhere near Wikipedia:
- Has your band achieved anything of note, that deserves an entry? I.e., sold any records? Or played any big festivals?
- Has your band ever been reviewed in any serious publications?
If you can answer yes to either of those questions, it’s okay to start thinking about writing a Wikipedia entry.
Is this the first DIY Musician star?
But, his rise to success is almost entirely down to an understanding of the online marketing and promotion of his music. He embraced social media and demonstrates an ongoing willingness to give music away for free - his new album has a free download link as well as being for sale on iTunes.
And, that album was released with no fanfare and no obvious campaign from Amalgam, but it caused a stir in all the right places because of the work that Lil B has been doing for the last 4 years.
Of course, his talent for getting a story covered in traditional media has added to his level of awareness, but it's his hard work and DIY ethic that make him a DIY musician to model.
1400 tracks posted on MySpace over the last 4 years - constant improvement and evolution of his music whilst in direct engagement with his fans. Oh, and note, that's MySpace - dead for 'cutting edge' rock acts for a year or more, but still a very important musical hub for Hip Hop. A large part of the Hip Hop fan demographic is still looking for music there. Don't ignore it yet if that applies to you and your music.
He's got Facebook ,Twitter and YouTube licked too though!
For a far better appraisal of what this means for DIY musicians, read this article on The Arts Desk.
Anything you want
Derek built CDBaby, sold it and gave the money to charity. He knows what it takes to make something happen.
This new book is purposely designed to be read in an hour and is full of great advice whether you're a musician or a budding entrepeneur.
My favourite review of the book and Derek's mindset is in this article at Brainpickings - Check it out here.
And here's one of his pieces of wisdom.
If it's not a hit, switch from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.
Monday 4 July 2011
Great YouTube music marketing
I owe this post to Greg Rollett who emailed this link out yesterday.
He's promoting his evergreen and brilliant course - the New Music Economy - you can check that out here. I vouch for it.
His blog is great too - click here.
But whether you know of Greg and his music marketing skills, this video is worth checking out just to see how the creativity involved is making the artist concerned grab fans very quickly - of course, the music is good and his talent isn't just on the video front.
We wrote about how people would start using the in-video annotations to link to other videos on YouTube to make a new kind of interactive video - and this does that to a degree by asking others to download the videos and get involved.
But, the big deal is just in the creative thought that went into the video.
Greg said:
He used creative editing to make 3 versions of his music video and then filmed them being recreated in 3 iPhones. It is one of the most creative things I have ever seen.
Beyond this, he has put the 3 videos up for download so fans can recreate the videos themselves with their friends (you need 3 iPhones to recreate).
Go watch the video now and see what ideas you can think of for using mobile and video creatively.
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