Why you really need to cultivate relationships with Bloggers

I owe this post to Bob Lefsetz who covered it on his site.

But, it's such an important topic that I thought we should cover it here too!

Read Bob's post for sure, but the really interesting stuff is in the Forbes post that he refers to.

The Forbes article is all about how one writer (but also various others) had enormous boosts in traffic to their websites, spikes in sales and long-term fanbase growth by being mentioned on ONE authority blog.

In the cases talked about, these are what they call 'single author' blogs - and that's a key point. These are blogs where a blogger who has become a trusted source and authority in their 'niche' has a massively engaged following who react to their recommendations.

But, in music, this could easily be describing the leading blogs such as Pitchfork, but equally the leading blogs in much smaller niches. We have regularly mentioned Chris Bracco's eBook that explains how to target these blogs. It's worth $2.99 of anyone's money.

In short, the traditional forms of promotion (radio, TV and press) now regularly have a far smaller effect on building fanbases and sales than the backing of a leading blog or blogger.

Nowhere near enough musicians understand, believe or pursue this opportunity!

Here's the choice quotes from the Forbes piece, but I heartily recommend that you read it all.

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• There’s a big difference between being exposed to a large audience, and being exposed to a comparatively smaller (but still large) audience which is ridiculously passionate.The more effective way is to take a long-term approach. The real misfortune is that nobody else does it. So people will nod and say, ‘Yeah, I should really do that,’ and then they don’t.
• “You want to focus on the idea, ‘I’m going to add value to this person over time.’ The first thing you could do is leave some thoughtful comments on their blog. Next, you could send them some email saying, ‘Hey, that was really great, but I thought you may have missed this one point. Here’s an interesting article with a different perspective on it.’ If you thought it through and did some research, the author will think, ‘Wow, thanks very much!’ and you are not asking for anything."
• “All of a sudden now you’ve differentiated yourself first by adding value. You are not going directly for the kill. Eventually, you could reach out and say, ‘Hey, these are a couple of things I noticed you’re doing that I think that I could help with. I’d love to connect you to this person, etc.’ Then eventually, you can ask, ‘If it’s okay, I just want to ask you for about 60 seconds,’ and ask them about your thing and say, ‘Do you have any advice?’ and ‘Do you think maybe this might be interesting to your audience?"
• “No pressure. One mistake people make is they often have a ‘one shot and done’ attitude about this: ‘If I don’t get my pitch in, and they don’t like it, it’s over.’ Wrong. It’s really about building a relationship over the long-term. Sounds like a lot of work? Good! Because 99% of people will not do that."

Here's the link again.

 

 

 

 

 

Get more fans to your show!

I love learning from people who have tried an approach and then taken the time to write down what they've learned from that real experience.

That's exactly what Seth Jackson does here in his free eBook, 'Get more fans to your shows'.

And it's great.

Seth says:

In the book, I discuss how to get your shows listed everywhere, how to use social media to really engage your fans, and how to attract the media’s attention.

Also included:

• Managing your time to handle social media
• How to use Twitter and blogs to get more attention from the tastemakers
• How to squeeze every opportunity from your current shows
• Simple strategies to engage with your current fans and gain more.
• How to know what will make a show successful for both yourself and the club.

It's a no-brainer - go and get it. Every artist will learn something.

You must set up a YouTube channel!

Bob Baker has been writing about music marketing a long time.

This post by his assistant, Kendra, is an exceptionally good take on why you need to have a YouTube channel that you update regularly and, more importantly, what you should put on it!

I accept that there are some artists who benefit from ignoring all the modern music marketing advice and decide not to make a direct connection with their fans - we wrote about how creating an air of mystery is an alternative way of thinking in this post.

But, the vast majority of artists now accept that getting closer to your fans is the strategy that is most likely to aid success - and videos on YouTube are a key part of that.

So, go and read Kendra's post. What's genius about it is that she has loads of ideas that I support for things that aren't you playing music or doing covers which you can film and post to enagge your fans.

Get her ideas here.

A real A&R man

I've met Jeff Fenster a few times.

He's an old school A&R man who has had some great success and there's a lot to learn here - at 17 minutes he talks about what it takes to get signed, for example.

Well worth watching the whole thing - I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that I was amazed to watch the whole 45 minutes and he managed not to swear at all - something he isn't capable of usually in a ten minute meeting!

 

D2F isn't an option - it's a must

Just before Christmas I wrote my first blog for the MIDEM site - if you don't know, that's a big music industry conference held every January in Cannes, France.

I tried to make the post reflect my view that 'direct to fan' is an essential method that all musicians need to use to build their careers but I also wanted to show that many musicians still want a record deal or some other kind of partner to help them succeed.

It's more business centric than what I write here and on the main site but I think it's good - read it there.

 

A YouTube test - HELP please

This is a video uploaded yesterday by a musician who follows our blog.

I spent some time yesterday and the day before working on and explaining a strategy that I am sure will bring additional exposure for Nick's music. He is a talented singer songwiter with a focus on 12 string guitar.

You can see the thread of the advice (there was also a long phone discussion) on our Facebook wall in the threads of the last few days - (if you're reading this weeks later, don't sweat it as the test will be over!).

In short Nick is going to build a profile as a great 12 string guitarist with lots of YouTube video and a website dediated to that niche genre of music. This WILL WORK for him as he has the talent and his material is strong. He can therefore focus on gaining a fanbase in his niche and grow from there.

It's exciting!

What I NEED your HELP with.

I want to use Nick's video uploaded last night as a test on how my experience and theories on YouTube are developing.

I really need as many people as possible to:

1. Log in to their YouTube account - this is crucial;

2. Visit the video's URL here -

3. Click the 'Like button' just under the left side of the video.

4. Comment on the video.

5. Add the video to 'favourites' and to a playlist by using the second button in from the left.

6. If at all possible - embed the video on a site that you have or post a link somewhere that points back to the video with the anchor text '12 string guitar lesson' .......if you know what that means!

7. Share the video on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

8. Watch it - although actually that's not the point right now (weird, I know!).

If you could do any or all of these things I would be extremely grateful.

The purpose of this test is to see how all those positive actions affect the YouTube algorithm and how much it increases the profile of the video on YouTube - in 'hot new videos', getting on the front page etc.

We can track that with YouTube Insights and it will really help me in my future advice to everyone who reads our post.

The point is not to 'game the system' but it is to try and work out a best practice approach to follow every time you upload a new video to give your video the best kickstart and chance of high numbers of real views and the best possible viral spread.

Nick is just the guinea pig but he deserves our help too!

Please help us out and we'll let ou know if it works, or not!

 

 

How to make loads of money being DIY

You've probably already seen all about this story but I would be remiss if I didn't make sure.

In December the American stand-up comedian Louis CK, who has admittedly had significant mainstream media but really survives by his large cult following, decided to see what would happen if he released his own live stand up video.

In comedy, live videos are usually released by one of the major entertainment companies. They bear all the costs and pay the comedian a royalty - just like a record deal.

Louis decided to shoot and produce the video himself - which cost somewhere between $200k and $250k depending on what you include (the new website etc).

He then offered it for sale as a download only from his new website.

"The experiment was: If I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?”

And, boy, did they.

In 12 days, he sold over $1million worth - hence the Paypal shot above.

Now, Louis already had a tribe that he could ignite through Twitter and other online PR, but so do a lot of bands, don't they?

The key point here isn't that he could do this but that his followers wanted to buy at that price and see that money go to him.

As Mashable said - His experiment proves, however that people are willing to pay for content if you communicate with them openly, shed the DRM and keep the price low.

I think it's also extremely important to understand that this was a globally available release done on the same day. It's a paradigm that the record labels don't get!

I want to see a band do this as their model, not as a one-off like Radiohead (which was fine), rather than signing a deal!

It will happen.

Here's the links to read all the stuff:

Lefsetz tells us how & why Louis could do this - this is a GREAT article!

Mashable tell us how much he earned

Hypebot on the story early

Louis's own explanation

Google changes the search game - this is a VERY big deal

Whether this freaks you out, makes you excited or passes you by will depend on how interested you are in the internet.

More particularly, how interested you are in SEO, traffic and how to get people to come to any website that you have.

I wasn't sure whether to post this as many musicians will think that it won't affect them. Their website isn't something that they spend time optimising and trying to ensure that it ranks in Google. Fair enough - most don't.

But, this is going to affect everyone and every website. Perhaps for the better, but when your life revolves around getting traffic to a website (as does mine) this is a massive change.

So, what is it?

Yesterday Google added 'personal search' to their search results.

This means that from now on whenever you search for anything Google will use what it knows about you and what you have on the web (for now, stuff you have in Google's apps like G+, Picasa etc) to add to your results.

They say:

"Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of Web pages, images, videos, news and much more," 

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the Web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to ... all from one search box."

The company added: "Search is simply better with your world in it."

What will this mean for your artist website? Who knows until it starts to pan out and we see the effects but it might make more people come to your site as they see that their friends have mentioned you on G+ or have taken photos at a gig.

As someone who spends time trying to make websites rank better in search results it's another thing to learn and work out!

One things for sure, Google are pushing hard to make 'social search' improve the search experience and therefore being part of their social network as an individual and as a band (with a brand page, or in our case, band page) isn't really an option, it's a 'must-do'.

Read Google's own blog on this here.

And this article on CNN is great too.

Here's the video:

Motivate and reward your fans for spreading the word

There is an awesome idea at the bottom of this post that I haven't seen used in quite this way by a musician.

The post is a very thorough explanation of how to build an iFrame page on Facebook. Of itself that is a great post and worth learning how to do - although I use the 'Static HTML for iFrame' app on Facebook rather than going through the app developer route - you might if you're geeky!

But that's not the point here.

The point is to look at the bit of the post right at the bottom just above the comments where the author offers a reward/prize for people who pass on his post on Facebook or Twitter:

To make this a little bit more exciting, I’m gonna give away one copy of Guy Kawasaki‘s new book “Enchantment“, which I have been reading for a couple of days and can guarantee you it is off-the-heezy. To be fair and give everybody the opportunity, you’ll be able to participate on Facebook or on Twitter.

On Facebook

• Go to the SocialMouths Facebook Page and “Like It” (molto importante)
• Share this post on your wall by using the link: http://bit.ly/iFrameTabs
• When you share the link add this comment How to Build a Facebook Landing Page with Frames | @SocialMouths – If you “liked” me first, that “@” in front of “SocialMouths” will automatically tag me and make your post show up on my wall too, that’s how I’ll see you. If you don’t use the “@socialmouths” in your share you will be invisible to me ; )

He then goes on to explain exactly how he'd like you to share the post on Twitter as well using hashtags so that he will see the tweets.

He then picks a winner at random after a couple of weeks by watching the Facebook shares and the tweets.

At the time of me writing this, the post has been tweeted 1036 times and shared on Facebook 1463 times.

That is a HUGE amount of traffic.

Some of these will have been natural from the post's readers but there's no doubt that the contest and specific instructions will have kickstarted the sharing. This has snowballed further as it got shared wider picking up lots of Google +1's and clearly getting the love on StumbleUpon.

OK, this is a great post that is very useful to people as a tutorial and so very shareable.

But you can apply this principal to your own site and use it to get your fans and readers to promote your music.

Simply offer a copy of your album if they tweet your post about it using the same promotional techniques.

Or, perhaps you think you don't have enough clout to get the momentum started?

How about you make a list (or an album even) of bands in your genre or locality and pick one track from each and everyone runs the contest.

If I was in a folk band I might write a post about the ten best up and coming folk acts and add my own band in there as a cheeky final suggestion. I'd then perhaps offer the albums of the top three bands in the post as a prize to a tweeter or sharer. Get the ball rolling by telling the other 9 acts that they are in the post by contacting them on Facebook, Twitter and via their sites. Spread the word to blogs that cover the genre and you ought to see a massive spike in traffic and interest in all ten bands on the list, including yours!

It's also worth noting that all the sharing and tweeting will give your site a very signifcant SEO (search engine optimisation) boost as well that will have a lasting effect on your site traffic.

Use this as inspiration to try it and see what you can do to entice fans to share a post.

We will DEFEINITELY be using this technique ourselves.

 

Link Building Guide - Simple SEO for musicians

This might seem a slightly odd post for our readers since it's about how you can approach 'linkbuilding' so that your website ranks well in Google searches. Trust us - it's relevant!

We looked at how you should apply SEO (search engine optimisation) to your band website in this post - Band Website SEO.

The basic concepts of SEO are that you set up your site correctly with what is called 'on-page SEO' and then you increase the position of your site in the search engine results by Google (and Bing, Yahoo etc) seeing that other sites have linked to your site and the content on there - i.e. Google rates sites that have good links from other sites.

So, more than half the battle with SEO is to get links to your site. Many come organically from people liking your site (and these are essentially the best links as you don't have to do anything to get them!) but others can be built by you getting other sites to link to you.

Why would you do this as a musican?

Well, you might decide that you need to make sure that your site ranks well for your band name (duh!) and if that name is a widely used term, you might not appear on page one unless you build some links. Same goes for song and album titles.

In addition, it's a good strategy to try to rank for 'your genre / your town' by which I mean if you're a folk band from London, it is perfectly possible to rank on page 1 of Google for the terms 'Folk music London', 'Folk London' or 'Folk band London'.

That's the simple version - as ever, I promise to look at this more on the main site over time. In addition searching for advice on 'backlinking' or 'linkbuilding' will give you masses of material to learn from.

But for now a good friend of mine, Dave Cain, has just written a very comprehensive post called '26 methods to boost your rankings' in which he explains how to build links and which are the best. It's pretty busines oriented but there's a lot musicians can learn from it.

Chek it out here.

New YouTube Channels allow off-site links!

Happy New Year.

I owe this one to @ThornyBleeder who posted about it over the holidays.

The post is on Social Times and sets out how to redesign your channel after the new makeover that YouTube has had.

The big notable improvement is that you can now have links to your site and social media profiles from your Channel page - every artist should go and add these now. The article tells you how:

...covers the ins and outs of the new site design, starting with the new YouTube channel design and layout.

If you haven’t visited your YouTube channel since the redesign then you’re in for a surprise.  Not only can you now post links in the sidebar of your channel, but YouTube is also now offering a series of layout templates, a new Feed and more.  Not sure where to get started?  Not to worry.  We’ll take you through all the steps of getting your new YouTube channel set up.

Read the article here.

And you can check out the quick spruce up and off-site links we have made to our YouTube channel here - http://www.youtube.com/MakeItInMusic.