Don't give everything away for free!

I am passionately pro you giving your music away for free.

There's a great article on that on Mic Control here. You should definitely be doing it.

But, I love this other piece about a new company that will allow you to stream shows to your fans, but get paid for them!

It says that the experience of engaging with your band, for the fan, is the one part of you as a musician that can't be replicated - so don't give it away for free.

Not sure that I agree completely as you can do some for free and some paid, but the mindset is important.

Yet this presents us with a potential dilemma.  Many of us have fully embraced giving away our fixed content as a way to promote our real revenue generating events: touring and appearances.  But what happens when we're given the ability to literally tour the world from our laptops?  Should our 'shows' be free because it's the internet?

My message is that it should not and cannot be free.  If you utilize an online broadcasting website that doesn't offer you the ability to get paid, you will be effectively devaluing the only asset we have left.  The only asset that is not replicable and cannot be saved to a hard drive: yourself.

Read it here.

And check out the StageIt service here.

Get your Ustream on!

The problem with doing this music tip aggregating thing is that I find something and I don't just post it - I root around and see what it's all about.

Great stuff, since I can then apply it in my music marketing efforts for my clients, which is what it's all about.

But, it eats up time.

I've not used Ustream before for any of my clients, although I am obviously aware of it and have seen colleagues do some good stuff.

Then, this article from Musician Coaching got so many ideas and questions going that I have spent half the morning digging around the Ustream site, the web and even calling people up who've used it!

They all love the experience and the feedback that they get from fans.

It's not easy to just jump in and you want to spend time setting up a channel and working out how you want to use it, but the veiwers are there and the fan engagement is very strong.

It seems that everybody really likes the Ustream app on Facebook and reaching out to their fans before a broadcast on Facebook appears to be de rigeur.

As part of a broader new media strategy that these artists are employing, and a much more accessible profile to their fan base, I definitely think we fit into an important part of that. I do think when you talk about Twitter and Facebook, we all know the biggest artists out there that are updating those feeds, and they can be easily ghostwritten. But there’s no way to get in front of a video camera and replicate talking live to your fans. I definitely think there are some artists – and Nikki Minaj and also Trey Songz would be examples of that – who have used us as part of broader and more engaged policy with their fans, and then in conjunction with traditional media have broken through to the mainstream.

Read the whole piece here.

And wander about Ustream here.