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.

 

 

 

 

 

Music Blogs are great - but beware the hype

So, following the previous post about how a blog review can break a band, you also need to watch out about the hype.

There's a new artist breaking through right now called Lana Del Rey - I'll be surpried if you missed the buzz!

Strangely enough, two of my songwriter clients have worked with her and they both think she's the real deal with real talent and vision.

But, that's not the point here.

The point is that in this Pitchfork article there is a very telling paragraph that you need to consider when you head down the route of pitching to and being loved by blogs.

As of 2011, the closest thing we have to MTV's old "buzz bin" is music blogs-- entities with the exact same vested interest in mainstream cool-hunting that your television once had. The only problem is that the people who read, write, and obsess over them are hyper-aware of what a tempting audience they are: They're sensitive to pandering and "fakeness," wary of being used to piggyback toward another audience. Appeal to them successfully, and long arguments about music-industry machinations and "authenticity" are more or less inevitable.

In other words, the bigger the blog, the harder it is to get them to take notice and the more you'll be accused of hype and style over substance if you succeed.

Nothing's ever simple, eh!?

Read the whole thing though as it's got a lot of insight into how an artist can come to attention in the web 2.0 world and also how the imagery and style can help send the mesage that the artist wants to get across.

Blog reviews REALLY make a difference!

I owe this post to @Lefsetz and to @iancr - one mentioned it and the other made it!

It's from Ian Rogers must watch weekly online TV show - This Week in Music - which is geting better all the time.

He's talking to Marc Geiger, web-head, tech bloke and long-time promoter about the power of the music blogs.

At the end, he says, "you can break a band off one review"!

Think it might be worth getting blogs to talk about your music?

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.

Music Blog promotion

We're on holiday!

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.

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.

 

How to blog as a musician

It's very rare that we recommend something for our readers and followers to buy.

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.

Have a look at it here.

How blogging can promote your music

Blogging should be a part of every aspiring artist's online activity.

With your own site as your online hub, you should be posting information about you, your music and how it is part of your everyday life - all of which will enagage your fans.

You might also decide to start a blog on your niche, or your local music scene or some other topic that will help support your efforts as a musician. Being the person who writes the best blog on music / entertainment / going out in your town will quickly make you a key player in your local scene, which in turn will advance your music career. As will building a blog on our genre of music to attract global fans.

I'm not saying that you have to build blogs as well as your own site, but it is a good strategy.

And, even if it's just your site for your music, unless you're a techy, you'll need some solid advice.

I did when I started Make It In Music.

And I turned to Darren Rowse - the owner of ProBlogger - one of the authority sites on how to be a blogger.

Before I launched our site I read his book cover to cover and it helped me a great deal!

Today, he is launching a new book, at a 50% discount for this week.

It's called ProBlogger's Guide to Your First Week of Blogging and if you haven't built a site or if you have, but you're not blogging, it will help you a massive amount and give you the kick start you need to make a difference.

The book I read was his 31 Days to Build A Better Blog, which I wholeheartedly recommend, but as it's on offer and is for beginners, start with his new one first.

Get it here.

 

 

Getting covered by music blogs

We looked at a great article the other day that gives a detailed overview of how to get bloggers to write about your music.

Read that here.

And then, add to that, by reading this interview with Fred Pessaro, one of the editors of Brooklyn Vegan - one of the biggest music blogs that you might hope would cover your music.

It has background on how  he came to have that role as well as insight as to how they choose what to cover. But, as a man right at the beating heart of a vibrant music scene, he also has some tips on how to get noticed generally.

I think that’s important. But one of the things I also think is important is just getting out there and playing. People who just get out there and play as much as they can do well. For instance, I book a lot of metal shows in the city, and I notice who plays a lot. Any band that plays a lot, whether it’s the first band, the second band or are in some other position on the bill probably has a strong work ethic. Any band that will play anywhere, at any time is probably a band that really wants to work. And it’s probably a band that, even if it’s not good now, will have the work ethic to be good later on.

Read that here.

The right way to get music bloggers to write about you

This is a great post that EVERY artist should read.

It's a detailed look at why music bloggers are now very important to your success, how to approach them and what not to do.

I have added my own rather good (if I say so myself!) comment in the thread below the post that sets out how we approach bloggers when promoting an artist release. It's a handy, short 'how to'.

But, I thoroughly recommend you read the whole thing.

If you want someone to blog about your band but can’t be bothered past the point of spamming a collection of mailing lists, you’re wasting everyone’s time including your own. Whatever you do though, don’t give up. That next email you send or blog you read might lead to you finding your biggest supporter. It’s always worth a shot, but unless you’re sensible with your expectations and are willing to be at least a little bit honest with yourself along the way, you’re not likely to make it past a single blogger’s delete button.

Read the whole thing (and my comment!) here.

And Chris Bracco's free eBook on getting written about by blogs is essential reading too.

 

The right way to get music bloggers to write about you

This is a great post that EVERY artist should read.

It's a detailed look at why music bloggers are now very important to your success, how to approach them and what not to do.

I have added my own rather good (if I say so myself!) comment in the thread below the post that sets out how we approach bloggers when promoting an artist release. It's a handy, short 'how to'.

But, I thoroughly recommend you read the whole thing.

If you want someone to blog about your band but can’t be bothered past the point of spamming a collection of mailing lists, you’re wasting everyone’s time including your own. Whatever you do though, don’t give up. That next email you send or blog you read might lead to you finding your biggest supporter. It’s always worth a shot, but unless you’re sensible with your expectations and are willing to be at least a little bit honest with yourself along the way, you’re not likely to make it past a single blogger’s delete button.

Read the whole thing (and my comment!) here.

And Chris Bracco's free eBook on getting written about by blogs is essential reading too.

 

Blog reviews sell digital media

Very quick redirect to @Lefsetz's blog.

His piece talks about how interacting with influential bloggers helped to break an author.

Read it here.

It works with music too.

Chris Bracco tells you how. I love this free Book.

Third Party Facebook Comments change - what it means for musicians

This week Facebook launched its new commenting system for third party sites.

This is a truly incredible opportunity for all musicians who have a Facebook Fan Page.

In truth, I am quite freaked out about how good and how fast are the changes that Facebook is implementing.

I've linked to two articles that are both worth reading and there's two videos below as well.

But, here's the two key points.

If you use Facebook Comments on your musician website, anyone who comments will have that comment appear in their Facebook News feed, and any replies made on Facebook to that comment will appear on your site. So, all their mates will see that they like your band.

Bingo!

And, if you want to leave a comment on that blog that you love that talks about your music genre, you can do so as your band Fan Page and there will be a very obvious link back to the Fan Page where people will be able to find your music - and it won't look spammy.

Double Bingo!

These are HUGE opportunities.

We'll be adding Facebook comments to our music marketing blog asap (whilst retaining a traditional 'ordinary' commenting system as well).

You'd be mad to not make use of this development.

Please take the time to look at these - it's well worth your while.

Techcrunch article

Facebook specialist article

Facebook Launch video

Facebook marketer's video

Online music promotion overview

Good little article on the basic steps you need to take to get the most out of your online music promotion.

I'm a massive fan of the approach talked about here in approaching blogs as part of your promotional foundation (don't forget @cbracco's brilliant eBook on this).

Think of your online media campaign as equivalent to gigging. Playing in front of lots of small audiences will build up to a larger fanbase. This in turn will get you gigs in front of bigger audiences and so on. In the same way, start with the smaller, niche blogs and e-zines to gain the exposure that will make larger sites take notice of you.

Be prepared to give stuff away. This will remain true for the whole of your career, but particularly at the beginning. People will only pay for stuff if they want it. If they’ve never heard your music, they won’t know if they want it yet.

The internet is brimming with free tools and opportunities for promoting your music, in a way that just wasn’t possible with traditional media. A little bit of know-how (and a lot of time) can get you a long way.

I'd actually recommend interacting with the blogs that you find using theirs and Chris Bracco's methods for a while before emailing them, but the principle is a key one that all artists should be embracing.

Read the post here.

Focus on your local scene first

Image by superfem

I wrote about the need to focus on your local scene for online and offline networking in the 5th part of our Twitter series on the main site - Twitter for musicians. It's point 23 and I think it's REALLY important.

Although that piece talks about using Twitter and interacting on that service with players in your local scene, I also talked a little about transferring that to the real world. The venue owner, the sound guy, the local guitar shop, record store, local paper journo - these are all people you need to get to know in your local scene.

But, there's also a whole load of very niche focused small local blogs that cover 'what's on' or music in your town, state, area - whatever.

This article / interview on Hypebot about the importance of hyperlocal music blogging made me think about this relatively recent addition to the ranks of players that you need to be talking to.

Hyperlocal music blogs are important because they encourage fans to become active participants in their cultural lives; document the happenings in local ecologies of music culture; foster communities that support creativity; and raise awareness for regional artists among like-minded fans with similar tastes in music. In what ways do hyperlocal blogs encourage fans to become active participants in their cultural lives? How does blogging benefit regional artists and help to create a healthy and sustainable ecosystem of local music culture?

You can read that piece here.

A simple Google Blog search for 'your area / town + music (or live music)' should throw up a bunch of people that you ought to reach out to.

And for a superb 'how to' on reaching out to bloggers to promote your music - get this free pdf from Chris Bracco at the Tight Mix Blog.

 

 

 

10 things for musicians to blog about

MicControl delivering the goods again on this one.

I advise my clients to write at least two posts per week on their site and, usually, to email their list once a week pointing them at those two posts (and perhaps something to buy as well). Sure, some artists think once a week is too much email, but I think once a month isn't enough - so pick something between the two that you feel comfortable with. See my posts on building and using your fan email list for more on that.

Whatever you decide, they key is to have really engaging stuff on your site for them to read!

Jon Ostrow has come up with some great ideas of things that you can talk about in this post.

However, the very real problem that many musicians run into with blogging is that they misinterpret their need to blog as just another form of self-promotion. 

But creating a blog as a musician does not inherently mean it needs to be about yourself. In fact, it's actually more beneficial for you if you avoid writing about yourself... people tend to hate narcissism more than anything else in the world.

So what SHOULD you write about then? Well, why not write about other aspects of your passion for music. You are a fan right? You are exploring the inter-workings of the music industry right? You have tried and failed a bazzillion times right? Well write some of that down! People are always on the look out for new blogs that tell it like it is. This could be a great way for you to expand your networking into the blogosphere and establish meaningful relationships with those who can actually help you build a credible name!

The following are a few ideas to help you get the brainstorming session started, but please feel free to add more ideas below in the form of a comment:

Read John's list of 10 tips here. 

I'd add that it's also important to be actively involved in the comments on the site too - discussing things back and forth with your fans is great engagement!

YouTube, Blogs and the Future of Music

Jon Ostrow (@MicControl) put me on to this yeterday.

Great interview with one of the founders of Elektra where he talks about how he sees music promotion today.

Watch it and get some ideas!

The 50 most blogged artists in 2010 - how to be one in 2011

The Hype Machine has very helpfully compiled a list of the top 50 most blogged about artists, albums and songs of last year.

Why should you care?

Well, I think that cultivating a following amongst influential music bloggers should be a key part of every artist's online music promotion and marketing. I don't need to tell you how, since Chris Bracco has laid it out in this essential and very impressive guide.

Look at this post on our site to see how that fits into an overall online music marketing strategy.

Looking at the list from the Hype Machine you might think that you'd have to be either a semi-folk Americana acoustic act or banging electro! Maybe you do to get the attention of this sub-set of bloggers (that style of music is heavily favoured in the largest most successful blogs).

But, if that's not your niche, fear not as you can easily find a plethora of people to write about your music - no matter what the style.

Nonetheless, if you do fit that scene, you are set to get the most coverage!

Check out their top 50 most blogged artists here.

Get Bloggers to write about you

This article is aimed at brands rather than musicians specifically but most of it applies and it's full of some really great tips. Getting coverage for your act on blogs is a key part of digital music marketing - you need to learn how to do it.

Cultivating relationships with bloggers is vital for any serious brand marketer. They can be a real asset to help you spread word about content, products and services. They are more likely to link to you than mainstream media sites and they often link in the right way. 

I’ll try to shine some light on the tools you can use to unearth the most relevant blogs to your business. You’ll find that there are many bloggers out there that will be receptive to working with you, you just know how to seek them out.

Read the whole article here.

You can't push your music at fans

The internet allows artists to spread their music in a myriad of ways in an attempt to build a fanbase.

But, often, this comes across as salesy and hyped. So, although the playing field has been levelled, it seems that there is still a need for a filter that people can trust that will validate your art.

Yes, you can persuade fans one by one online or in the real world by pushing music at them, but isn't it better to be everywhere with a following wind of recommendation?

Have you ever been in a subway in any major city and have seen a musician with a box of tapes or CDs saying 'hey check out my music!'? Maybe that musician was on a street corner or outside of a club, but it’s all the same idea. These musicians are pushing music at you, expecting you to listen because they say it's good.

Now take a step back and look at what musicians, yourself included, are doing through social media: 

Pushing, Pushing and PUSHING!

Whether you realize it or not, 'promoting', or spamming your music in this sense is exactly the same as sitting in a subway stop and telling people to listen to your music. It is a complete waste of time and is not by any means a recommended way to build a strong fan base and increase sales.

What is the biggest problem with this situation?

Read a great piece on this from Mic Control.