Are you going to lose your Facebook Fan Page?

Probably not, but Facebook's change to SSL encryption for Fan Pages tonight is going to make some elements of many Fan Pages disappear.

You need to make sure that yours isn't affected.

Read our post on how to make your Facebook Fan Page SSL secure.

Pay what you want

Great post from Joy at Grassrootsy.

You read so much stuff about how 'freemium' or 'pay what you want' pricing works for musicians and other creatives, but you don't often see artists (who aren't major label escapees!) prepared to test it and then disseminate their results.

So, it's great to see a post where the artist has done it and passes on their experience.

I am sure you have come across this model recently, artists making their work available for whatever fans want to pay for it.  It has been called by many names (pay what you want, pay what you can, pay what you think it’s worth etc), but they all essentially mean the same thing.  The artist gives the audience the choice as to how much money they spend on the music.

And with this in mind, I come to the main point of this post: using the pay what you want model with merchandise at live shows.  I started doing this over two years ago when I toured around the UK.  I know of a few musicians who do the same now, but have mainly encountered a response of fear when encouraging others to try it.

You can read the whole thing here.

And this is a link to a post that they refer to by Derek Sivers on the same topic.

Why musicians should be bloggers

A year or so ago a client asked me to help a friend who had started managing an artist from a remote island in the Atlantic.

The material was good but it wasn't at all mainstream - in fact it's very niche.

The task of getting attention for this artist through any traditional means was going to be difficult.

However, the genre of music did have a name, a following and one internationally acclaimed artist from 20-30 years previously, as well as a handful of other acts that people had heard of.

And there was no website covering the genre.

And a domain name that matched the genre was available.

I advised the manager to build a website all about the genre, to leverage the global interest in the older artist, perhaps even make the defining compilation for the genre and put her new artist on there.

But, the key was to build a web presence that was all about that genre and seamlessly weave her new artist into it. Not in a sly way but because he deserved recognition. And to make that website THE destination for anyone wanting to know about that genre.

We looked at what people were searching for on Google and saw that there was interest and this site / blog would definitely get traffic and readers.

There was a need for this information and this site and this was a massive opportunity to focus attention on the genre and then her new artist.

However, this is not a fast process. But then, building a presence as a DIY musician takes time.

In the end I think the manager ignored the advice and has tried a traditional approach - with no success!

The point is that blogging for musicians doesn't need to be just about you and your music. Building a site that focuses on something else - your genre, or local scene or some other random connected interest - can really focus people on you.

If that happens and your music is there to be discovered and it's good, you will get results.

I know people will read this and dismiss it, thinking that it's nonsense to spend time and effort building something that's not directly about them and their music. And somehow, it's not what musicians do, or it's 'cheating'.

But they'll miss the point.

Building interest in your music as a DIY musician is (for 99% of artists) very hard and takes a very long time. These days the artist development that you go through can be done in public on a website as you get to where you're going. Take fans on that journey with you.

Building a scene (offline works too) around what you do can be part of that process and can build very solid foundations for you and your band, and others in your niche / genre.

It's not something that everyone should do, but it is worth considering.

This post came about because of this on Hypebot yesterday.

But really read these two articles that it refers back to:

5 reasons you should be blogging.

How to blog to expand your audience - This is the one to digest!

 

 

Using Google's tools as a musician

I wrote yesterday about a great plugin that enhanced your use of Gmail.

And that reminded me that I hadn't highlighted this great post on the Prescription PR blog - all about Google's various services and how they are very helpful to the working musician.

It's true that the tools and they way that they all work together is a compelling reason for embracing Google.

Google and its all-seeing algorithms may be watching you and controlling your thoughts, but in addition to being the latest Big Brother on the block, the company are also the provider of a host of free and very powerful tools, many of which have really useful applications for musicians. As musicians are a heartless bunch who would happily lay down their grannies' lives in exchange for success, in this article we’re going to willfully ignore Google's dark side and show you how its products can help you be an efficient rock and roller.

Read more here.

 

 

How to use YouTube

A new post on the main site where you'll want to download YouTube's own 'Creator Playbook'

It's very useful!

Learn how to use YouTube here.

Rapportive - incredible relationship management tool

Rapportive - I'm not sure if this is a 'music marketing' thing but I I was so blown away by it that I have to post it.

And, in fact, I can see a LOT of ways that this can benefit musicians.

Rapportive is a plugin for Gmail that adds an amazing amount of information about people that email you by dragging it from their online profiles. This means that you can manage your relationships with them much better.

And, you really ought to be using Gmail and Google's Apps in order to run your band anyway as they have so many great functions to save you time and share info.

As a DIY musician you'd be able to record and recall what you said to any contact in the music business - venue, promoter, label scout etc - as well as being able to keep tabs on any relationships that you have with 'superfans' that email you.

And, it integrates with your fan mailing list - if, that is, you use Awber or MailChimp.

Read all about it in this great post.

And check Rapportive out here.

How to make a blogger respond to your press release

This is an awesome post from a year and a half ago.

Eric who runs Evolvor tweeted about it earlier today saying how it was ahead of it's time - and it was!

In essence, his piece says that music bloggers will ignore almost all the press releases that they get simply due to the constraints of time.

But, if you make it easy for them to use your content you'll jump to the head of the queue:

This is my battle cry for bloggers, and even more so those in music industry. We want to produce as much content as possible for our audience and want to help them discover as much new music as possible. And the labels and promoters of these acts need to wake up and understand how valuable our time is and that by providing us with pre-formatted rich media press releases, their success rate would jump through the roof.

Instead, send them a pre-formatted press release that includes pictures, videos, music widgets, and a link to a free download. If something like this comes through my email, I’m at the very least going to give it a look, and if the music is even mediocre, I still might just publish it for my readers to digest.

But, not only does the post explain this, Eric has also made a cool tool embedded in the post where you can drop in your headline, text, photos and links and it will give you html formatted code that you can send stright to a blogger.

This is a very cool tool and an insight that will help you get a LOT more coverage on blogs.

Combine it with the wsidom in Chris Bracco's often mentioned eBook, and you're set!

Read the whole post and use Eric's formatting tool here.

How to write great songs

And, from the same series as the previous post, here's very good advice on how to write great songs from people who have actually done it.

Like I said in the post on the main site yesterday - A song a day - one of the key steps to success as an aspiring musician is learning the skills you need. Learn them from experts and model your efforts on the techniques they use.

You can get some of that training in songwriting from this video.

How to make it in music

A new series of videos appeared on YouTube the other day which consist of interviews with lots of very very succesful artists and industry executives.

You might not agree with everything that they say but you can't doubt their success so some of it must be on the money.

This one is about how to make it in music.

 

How to make it in music

A new series of videos appeared on YouTube the other day which consist of interviews with lots of very very succesful artists and industry executives.

You might not agree with everything that they say but you can't doubt their success so some of it must be on the money.

This one is about how to make it in music.

 

Write a song a day

Here's a video from Jonathan Mann whose dedication to his art is unreal.

Read our new post on the main site about what writing a song a day can do for you.

 

SoundCloud - How To

SoundCloud is a bit of a mystery to me.

I use it, lots of my clients use it and we all love it, but what should you be doing there?

Is it just an audio store, or a community or a place to promote your music and find fans.

Well, it's all these things and that's the beauty of it as different people use it in very different ways. I just wonder if I should be pro-actively using it to promote music or just being part of the community!

And, now that it powers various other tools, notably RootMusic's BandPage, you might be virtually forced to have a profile and some music on there.

I've long wanted to write about the definitive way to use it, but I don't need to as SoundCloud have their own Guide.

It covers all sorts of stuff. Make sure to check out the 'Basics' section but also the 'Masterclasses'.

How to use SoundCloud to run a remix competition anyone?

How to set up Groups?

Check it out.

Assets - get lots of them!

This post is so, so true.

When you're planning a campaign for a release you can't have too many hooks and bits of content ('assets') to hang it on.

You need to plan these well in advance and know when you intend to use them to keep attention focused on your release.

Last week at SF Music Tech Summit, Ethan Kaplan said something very telling yet true: "The worst thing you can do to keep fans actively engaged... is to actually release the album."

Think about that -- just because the album comes out does not mean the campaign is over. Hell, at that point, the campaign just BEGAN! Unfortunately, too many acts waste their ammo in the weeks leading up to the Big Event, then have little salvo to offer in the weeks following, especially if the press, the airplay, film placement, or the tour do not come in as hoped.

Read it here.

 

15 ways to ROCK your Facebook Fan Page

This is one of the BEST posts I have ever read on how to actually make your Facebook Fan Page do it's job and increase your fanbase.

It's written for business but it can be applied to an artist fan page.

I'd go as far as to say that if you did these 15 things you'd be set.

I particularly like numbers 6 and 7. Number 6 tells you that Yes/No questions get the best engagement from fans - it's sorta obvious, but all the best things are.

And number 7 is about following influential people on Facebook and interacting with them. Bands just don't do this enough. It gets you noticed, but don't be spammy ....ever!

Lori says the following and I agree!

This post is for only for smart people looking for real strategy and tactics you won’t have to trade their first born to implement. It’s my best 6,186 words of awesome thoroughness written for you! No fluff. And it’s might not be a phone read – it’s a “printer”.

Read all 15 here.

 

10 ways to get your fan's email address

This post has 10 great ideas for how to get a fan to hand over their email address, and you could even still use the pen and paper form like this extremely cool band above!

I measure my success as a recording artist by the growth of my mailing list. The best way to get someone to subscribe is to offer something in return, and a great song is a powerful incentive. Here are ten techniques to negotiate that delicate exchange:

1. The classic squeeze page. You’ve probably stumbled onto one of these before: a fine-tuned infomercial-style pitch with a clear call to action and no exit links. The sole goal of the site, often just a single page, is to generate conversions. In our case, a conversion means “squeezing” an email address out of a potential fan

Read it all here.

You might also want to check out our 'Fan List' section on this at our main site.

Get more traffic to your band website

There is a VAST amount to learn if you want to succeed as a musician who markets and promotes their own music online. One key skill is how to get people to your site.

In almost every case you'll have a website and need to send as much traffic to it as you can - and the more highly targeted that traffic is the better.

This piece on the Prescription PR blog covers a lot of the basics and I agree with pretty much all of it.

There are hundreds of thousands of musicians, all over the world, with music sites. But only a tiny proportion of the owners of these sites are popular musicians that people have actually heard of (and are therefore in a position to search for). So the vast majority of music sites languish on a server somewhere, with online tumbleweed (whatever that looks like) slowly passing by them. By virtue of the fact that you are reading this, you probably own one of them.

So how do you generate more traffic to that music site that you lovingly created? Well, as ever, we’ve got a few suggestions.

Read it here.

My own latest tip is to search out as many places as possible online to submit an artist site that list where people can get free music.

Start by searcing for 'submit free music' (try it with and without your genre) and submit a link to a page on your site that only has a sign-up form for your free music offer.

I am only just starting to try this and will report back opn how well we do asap.

That's why they call it show business

In the comments to this article it says the following:

It was a constant puzzle to me how so many bands of that era failed to understand that the milieu in which they worked - live music performance - was primarily a visual one. What I learned playing cabaret (and from my mentor Dave Dee, a consummate professional in every sense) was that how we looked and how we moved were of equal importance to the quality of our shows as the music itself, because once we became 'performers' rather than backing musicians, we were engaged in theatre.

And, that's so true.

Not every band should try to create a Pink Floyd mega stage or a bonkers light show, but if you're making music and performing it, most people expect you to put on a show.

In the Guardian article the focus is on stagecraft and a certain degree of theatricality:

Creating an emotional experience is the aim of every artist who has ever set foot on a stage, but presentation is often the last thing on their mind, especially for smaller bands. A surprising number of young artists take presentation as seriously as they do songwriting, seeing it as critical to their musical identity. They're not just trying to create a point of difference – they regard elements such as visuals and even the space they play in as integral to their performance.

But it doesn't have to be that way necessarily.

At the very least, plan out what you'll do on stage, make it interesting to watch and ....put on a show!

 

Making money as a DIY musician

You may well have seen this story over the last few days as it was picked up by some big sites.

It's worth reading both these pieces and the comments (apart from the Trolls!) as they have a few insights in to what the band are doing well and not so well.

Gizmodo

Techdirt

In essence the band in question, Uniform Motion, disclose how much their self-released album will make them from all the usual sources - iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify etc.

Some people have argued that they aren't making much because they have a small audience and that they are making some mistakes in their marketing.

I don't agree.

They seem to be doing everything absolutely right.

They've obviously learnt all the ways that are available to them to spread their music and are offering it for sale in a variety of ways with packages that increase in price to increase their revenue.

Like all artists, they could do more to expand their audience and I'm sure they're working on that.

What I find interesting though is that their material and their approach to their own artistic development is the right one. They are making music, evolving, practising what they want to do and be and letting their audience grow as they do so.

You know, like true artists do?

So, to say that they aren't making any money from each individual sale now and that their audience is small is to miss the point.

Getting to a sustainable level as a DIY musician isn't about hyping yourself up to get a fleeting sales boost. It's about embracing and perfecting your art, becoming really good and finding an audience that appreciates that and then monetizing that symbiotic existence in a non-exploitative way (for both sides).

My guess is that this band will get there.

Oh, and of course the irony is that in writing about how their releases don't make enough money they have sent massive attention their way from the web savvy crowd and this will undoubtedly shift them up a gear or two.

It's also well worth reading:

their original post on this;

and the follow up;

and the follow up to that!

Here's a video so you can see that they're great!

 

Forty Foot Man from Uniform Motion on Vimeo.

Airplay Monitoring for all

I just posted on the main blog about radio airplay monitoring and a new service called Kollector that I think is game changing for all artists - even the DIY and indie artist who is yet to get any airplay.

Check it out here.

The end of publishing

I just saw this in a tweet from @Buzzsonic who got it from Michael Hyatt's blog.

I'm posting it so that I can remind myself from time to time how we market to people in the internet age.

It's a very clever video which you'll only see if you watch it from beginning to end.

But, the message is really important.

Understand your audience, create great stuff for them to share and they can tell everyone for you.

It's ace living in an age with these possibilities.

Watch it:

Face to face interaction with your fans

I saw the video below on this post on the Social Music Media blog.

And I love the idea. What a great way to get feedback from your fans and make them feel that they can get closer to you and find out what really makes you tick - something that the superfan really does want.

As far as I can tell, it'll be a Facebook App and it doesn't seem to be live yet, although you can sign up for more info at Chat with the Band.

But, although this is a great way to have face to face interaction - being as it's live - there are a whole bunch of other ways that people are using video to get a similar result speaking directly to their fans.

Jessie J took dares from her fans and posted videos of her doing them on her YouTube channel and on a tab called 'Dare Jessie J' on her Facebook Page. Great idea and well executed.

FanBridge has a feature called 'Video Fan Questions' which is an upgrade of their Fan Questions tool that simply allows you to post an answer to a fan-posed question by linking to a video you've posted to any video site.

Daria Musk used the launch of Google+ to make a splash with her lengthy hangouts/gigs using the video chat built into that new social network.

And then here's the way that Norman Cook does it. OK, it's not video based but the way he takes time to answer questions and has a form front and centre for that purpose on his site is really well done. We wrote about it here.

So, Chat with the Band might turn out to be a great tool to have live chats with your fans, but people are doing similar things already and once you have more than a handful of fans, you can too.

Whether you use Formspring, your own site, Google+ or some new app on Facebook, it won't really matter but if you give your fans a chance to ask you questions and get a response with you talking directly to them, it's got to be a good thing.

Radio still matters....

....for now.

More @Lefsetz but with a big nod to Ian Rogers from Topspin.

Bob is commenting on an interview of old school label guy Al Teller by the Topspin boss.

In the video, Al tells us like it is:

"Mass appeal radio, saturation radio play, is still the single most powerful connective roadway for an artist to fans… Mass appeal radio is still the one last barrier that has to be broken down… It’s a very symbiotic relationship between the major music companies and the major radio stations. Once that link is broken, then I think the game is over, then I think the Internet reality, the ability to do all of the pieces of the puzzle, to get from an unknown artist to someone who can sell serious numbers of recordings, that’s when I think that game will be in a whole new dimension."

So, when, and what will replace it?

No-one knows, but it matters to you because until the fall of mainstream radio, the final piece of the DIY puzzle is out of your hands. Change will come and the promise of an entirely DIY route to mainstream success will become a reality.

Read Bob's piece here.

And here's the video.

 

Take your time & do this for life!

I know that I've written about Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' before, but, I can't find the post with a search of our Dailies sites - apparently we're nearing 700 daily tips over the last year!

If you haven't read the book....you need to.

The basic premise is that 'genius' comes from hard work and application to perfecting your art and this generally takes about 10,000 hours.

Two stories that I saw over the weekend really brought this home to me.

First, on Hypebot, there's the story of Portugal. The Man.

The piece is about how they had a five year plan and a DIY approach to building their own success. It's also about how their fanbase saved them from a disaster, but that's not the bit that's inspiring!

We made a plan; we talked about a solid 5-year commitment.  That commitment had a structure.  We would release new music every 8-14 months.  We would tour virtually non-stop (more than 800 shows to date).  We would create and own as many masters as possible.  We would reinvest all of our money into the band.  The band would take care of everyone’s needs (living expenses, health care, equipment, etc).  We would document as much as possible on video and audio.  We would generate all of our own art.  We would cultivate our fanbase by developing a relationship with them by treating them like peers and always trying to give them more as often as possible. We held true to the concept of 10,000 hours, though Gladwell had not yet written his book.  We knew that it would take time to be a great live band, and the band knew they wanted to progress in their songwriting. They knew they needed to get a few more albums under their belt before they could make the right record.

Read the whole thing here. It's a very, very fine plan and one that I would encourage any band to apply.

Then there's this from one of the founders of Twisted Sister, Jay Jay French - which was in @Lefsetz's email roundup.

I have a record of every night and the amount of performances Twisted sister has played since the first one on March 20th 1973 up to the present.

Here are some statistics regarding our years learning our craft in the bars and nightclubs all of which were within a 50 mile radius of Manhattan between March 1973 and December 1982 when we signed with Atlantic Records that I think your readers would find interesting. It speaks directly to the 10,000 theory.

We averaged 250 nights a year for this 10 year span. Also remember that as a "show band' we did full costume changes for every performance.

We spent the first year 1973 playing 5 40 minute shows per night night

from1974-1976 we played 4 45 minute shows a night

From 1977-1980 we played 3 1 hour shows per night

From 1981 to the end of 1982 we played 2 75 minute shows per night

What this means is that we played an average of 3 hours per night x 250 nights per year x 10 years ( About 7,500 hours of live performance)

Add to that the 250 hours per year of rehearsals and studio time recording demos for record labels and you have 10,000 hours..............

BEFORE WE GOT A RECORD DEAL!!

We are now headlining more festivals in more countries (33 and counting) and getting paid more money then ever.

What 10,000 hours does is make you an iceberg meaning that what you see on the surface is the astounding end product. beneath the surface lies 90% of ones experience.

That is our business model, It's called hard work. not that the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame would ever recognize the blood, sweat and tears that we put in.

We really did embody all that is too patronizingly called the "American Work ethic".

It's just something that people should know.

Just let that sink in.

So, you have two artists from different eras that have both built long-term sustainable careers - meaning that they get to do this for life.

And they TOOK THEIR TIME.

It doesn't matter if you want to be resolutely DIY or whether ultimately you want to do whatever a record deal is today or might be in 5 years time, because these days you can develop in public with your fanbase growing slowly all the time. Take three or four albums to do it and get better all the time.

It's the way I'd do it!

Ultimate Facebook Cheat Sheet

This was pointed out by @ThornyBleeder the other day, but I have to mention it as it's so good.

Out of the 30 tips (most of which link off to deeper explanations) I'd only ignore one - number 12.

The rest are all things that every musician should be at least thinking about doing to promote their music on Facebook.

I recommend bookmarking it and coming back to it regularly for new ideas.

Facebook's social network domination may frequently get challenged by emerging social media platforms like Google+, but the facts remain. With more than 750 million members in its user base, it's still the most popular social network around.

That said, learning all the nuances of various social networks can be a tricky and time-consuming feat. To help you stay ahead of the curve, we've put together a handy cheat sheet that businesses and marketers can use to make the most of Facebook.

Here's the link.

Demo submission - How To

Every week we get asked how people should submit demos to record labels and managers.

My basic answer is that you shouldn't.....that is, not until you have some level of fanbase built, something going on around you already that you have built (a local following, sold out gigs, buzz on blogs etc) and then, hopefully, some of the people that can help you succeed in your efforts will come looking for you.

That's much better.

When you submit your music to me (with my 'manager' hat rather than my 'music business advice' hat on) what you're really asking me is to say 'no - I'm not interested'. If it's not mind bogglingly good, it'll get ten seconds attention (if it gets any at all) and we'll remember that artist as not being good enough - therefore chance blown. It's much easier for us to say 'no' after a very brief look than to actually take a considered view. So, really, you're sending a demo looking for rejection.

Much better to wait until you have some 'heat' and people are coming to you, or to try and get the attention of lawyers, PR companies, promoters, venues etc - the first line of defence if you like. Network with people like this at gigs and online.

Why? Well when a music biz exec gets an email or a call from one of those 'gatekeepers' saying that they have seen or heard a great artist, then we all take notice. Crap, isn't it?!

But, don't fight it (unless you are ardently DIY forever, which you know we think is the best way to be these days anyway).

However......if you are going to send a demo to someone - and this applies to those on that first line of defence as well, then Simon at Sentric has just written the gospel of how to do it.

I've written this blurb so that I can use this post as my answer to those regular queries!

Simon says:

Arguably there is no ‘perfect’ way to send demos to industry people, but there are definitely wrong ways. So many wrong ways. More wrong ways than a faulty Sat Nav. And each person you send a demo to may very well have their own preference such is the beauty of us all being individuals by our inherent human nature. All this to one side though, the following is how I personally would utterly adore to receive all demos in the future.

Read and digest his views here. I wholeheartedly agree!

And read my view on demo submission from 2009 here which says much the same thing, just in a different way!

 

Hootsuite takes over!

I've been moaning about TweetDeck for a while - how it slows down my computer and crashes ....a lot.

So, I have slowly been using Hootsuite more and more to help me with all my Twitter action. In fact, I can't now rememmeber when I last used TweetDeck.

And now, Hootsuite have added some very cool new ways to use it to update your Facebook Pages.

Can't see me going back!

Read their post about their new Facebook features here.

And here's their video:

 

HootSuite Adds Advanced Facebook Management Tools from HootSuite on Vimeo.

The money is in the list!

We've witten about the importance of your mailing list a fair bit on the Dailies and in the Fan List section of the main site.

But the point often needs to be hammered home, as in this post on the Prescription PR blog, which once again points out that collecting email addresses of your fans, really does result in more revenue for your band. The money truly is in the list!

The piece is also a great overview of how to set up a mailing list and what your options are.

One important answer to this tricky question is this: the money is in the list. What list, we hear you ask? Well, the list of people who have given you an email address. Generating a decent database is one of the most important things that a band can do these days, but, perhaps understandably – as “data management” isn’t exactly the sexiest aspect of a rock career – it can get overlooked by bands. So in this article we’re going to spell out the benefits of having a good fan database, suggest ways to build one, show you how it can generate dosh and outline some pitfalls to avoid. What on earth else do you need?

Check it out here.