Devo got loads of press by letting fans choose everything from the songs on their new album to the color of their hats. If you're secure enough to make your own wardrobe decisions, you can get useful feedback on your songs by conducting a focus group on Jango. It only cost me $75 to play 12 of my songs to targeted listeners 3,000 times in a single day. The information I gleaned helped me select which track would open my new album, and persuaded me to cut two others.
This post is part two of the "How to REALLY Get Your Music on Blogs" blog series here on Tight Mix. You can download the entire series for free in the form of a .pdf e-book here.
In the first part of this blog series, I suggested that you write down some defining characteristics about your music, your lifestyle, and your fans. I hope you kept that piece of paper, because now you are going to use those keywords in your search to find the best blogs to approach with your music.
Where to start your search
Searching for anything online can be a complete waste of time if you are looking in the wrong places. It is often difficult to figure out the best place to begin your search, and can be quite overwhelming. I have tried out dozens of search websites in my days with Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR, but I always find myself coming back to the same few resources.Here is a list of some excellent places to start searching for music blogs:
Google Blog Search
Google Blog Search is basically just Google, but only focuses on content published within the blogosphere. The search engine indexes blogs by their site feeds, which are checked often for new content. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of your search terms, which can be a very helpful tool if you want to get the freshest content related to your search sent straight to your feed reader.
The Hype Machine
The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator, which basically means that it re-posts the newest and most popular music from a hand-picked selection of music blogs around the globe. They make it very easy to discover new music, as well the music blogs that are hosting this new music. The best way to find music blogs on The Hype Machine is to search for artists that sound similar to you, and click through to the blogs featuring that music.
ELBO.WS
Elbo.ws is another aggregator website that features a collection of great music blog posts and acts as a snapshot of what music being blogged about often. They encourage their users to visit the blogs to read the posts, buy the music, and click the sponsor ads. The site is very similar in function to The Hype Machine, so you should try searching again for artists that sound similar to you. They track a ton of music blogs, so you should be able to find a few more hidden gems here.
Captain Crawl
Captain Crawl boldly calls itself "The Music Blog Index," and is just as simple and effective as Google Blog Search. It may even be better, because it focuses solely on music blogs. This powerful search engine helps users find videoclips, live concerts, mp3s, reviews, promotion material, demos, lyrics, documentations, and more. Look up some music that is similar to yours, and you're guaranteed to have a healthy list of blogs in no time.
What keywords to use in your search
Ok, remember the little exercise I talked about in part one of this blog series? Sift through whatever defining statements you wrote down, and handpick the most buzzworthy terms. Here are some popular keywords that I wrote down about my band:
poetry, hip-hop, rap, jam band, indie, rock, painting, drawing, New Jersey, New York, NYC, suburbs, teenagers, Nas, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, Gorillaz, vinyl, records
Now, start hitting the search engines with combinations of your most defining keywords, and visit blog after blog after blog.
Compile a list of contact information
While performing your search, keep an excel spreadsheet open and input the contact information for all of the relevant blogs that you come across in your search. Most blogs will give you several ways to contact them, but some will prefer certain methods. To alleviate the confusion, create a “notes” column in your spreadsheet, and make little comments about specific submission guidelines, and anything else that differentiates a blog from the rest of the pack. This will save you tons of time and headaches once you actually start sending out e-mails to these bloggers.
What about all those other, non-music blogs?
It is extremely important to note that getting featured on non-music blogs can be just as beneficial for your music career. More likely than not, you and your fans share a similar lifestyle, or similar common interests. If, for example, you enjoy exercising regularly, it would be a great idea to search for blogs related to staying fit. Maybe you can present the blogger with the idea of writing a post about listening to music while working out, and ask that your music be mentioned in the post. Targeting location-specific blogs is useful, too. If you're from Akron, Ohio, try to find some blogs that only talk about things happening in Akron.A few weeks ago, I found this quote by Zilla Rocca in the comments section of Audible Hype, and I'd like to re-post it here because he articulates this strategy really well. He even takes it a step further, suggesting that artists should reach out to forums, fan pages, and other non-blog websites too:
Stop catering to just bloggers. Most of them will be gone in 6 months, and even more will be gone in a year. There are a billion other websites that have nothing to do with hip hop, and whose webmasters and authors DON’T get tons of free shit flooding their inbox on a daily basis. GO AFTER THEM. They will enjoy a nice piece of quality free music delivered to them because they are jaded and edgy and tired of free music. If you rap about limited edition Dunks, look up sneaker and boutique blogs who love that stuff. If you make beats that sample Indiana Jones movies, find diehards who have forums and fan pages all about Indiana Jones. These people most likely don’t know what 2dopeboyz is, but it doesn’t mean they don’t want fresh new music that caters to their tastes. - Zilla Rocca
Getting a feature placement or an interview for your music on a lifestyle/non-music blog is a great way to snatch up new fans. It positively reveals a side of you that fans may not have known about previously. Keep an eye out for these kinds of blogs, and don’t dismiss them in your search.
Some takeaways:
Scope out blogs (both music and non-music) that relate to your music, your lifestyle, and your fans.
Compile a list of contact information for you to use later on, when you start crafting your pitch letters (more on this later).
In the next installment of "How to REALLY Get Your Music on Blogs," I'm going to stress the importance of becoming an active member within blog communities.In case you missed it,click here to read to read part 1, "Defining Your Music, Your Lifestyle, and Your Fans."
This post is part one of the "How to REALLY Get Your Music on Blogs" blog series here on Tight Mix. You can download the entire series for free in the form of a .pdf e-book here.
Music blogs have become an extremely effective medium for artists to garner positive, and sometimes career-changing exposure for musicians. Getting featured on a blog can cause significant boosts in music and ticket sales for an artist, and there are tens of thousands of new music blogs springing up each day. The potential reach for your music in the blogosphere is HUGE!
However, getting featured on blogs is a very meticulous and time-consuming process. Blog promotion can be frustrating at first, but if you are persistent and work hard at it, the benefits for your music career can be astronomical. As with anything, it's important to have a plan before taking the leap.
When deciding to start a blog promotion campaign for your music, it is important to FIRST take a few minutes to really think hard about yourself, your music, and your fans. What makes your music so special, and different than everybody else's? Bloggers will usually only feature music that is high quality, and that stands out from the rest of the pack.
Grab a pen, whip open a notebook, and jot down some defining words about you and your music, using the following categories:
Personality
Hometown
Type of music (genres and subgenres) and lyrics (if any)
Similar artists
Lifestyle and interests
Fan demographics (age, sex, location, etc)
I decided to take a few minutes to write down some defining characteristics about my band, The Formatters. Here's some of what I came up with...
What kinds of words did you come up with? Many of these words will become important keywords that you will use when searching for blogs to reach out to, so keep that list handy.
In part two of the "How to REALLY Get Your Music on Blogs" series on Tight Mix, I will be discussing the best ways to go about searching for blogs related to your music and your lifestyle.
Many of my all-time favorite songs are “growers” – album tracks that don’t really grab you the first few spins, but eventually dig their hooks in and don’t let go. Few artists these days have the luxury of writing growers, because listeners aren’t willing to invest that kind of time. Unless the artist is proven to deliver, the listener will tune out and move on. While I’m a huge fan of the album format, it’s hard to deny the shifting focus from albums to individual songs. Every one of those songs needs to grab the listener’s attention and hold it until the last note – preferably longer! In order for your songs to be grabbers rather than growers, they must have clear and familiar structures.
After 45 hours of work over six weeks, my song is one of the 118
approved to be in the RBN Store when it launches. My last article laid
out what it takes to get your song in the game, namely a deep skill set
and lots of time. While I managed to clock in well under my 60-80 hour
estimate, I had a considerable head start.
Knowing what I know now, would I do it again?
Free music is free advertising. You,
as the music creator and/or promoter, need not pay a single cent to get
your music into the ears of consumers. This is assuming, of course,
that you’re aware of how to distribute and market your music online
with social media and web 2.0 tools and you believe in the power of the
mailing list.
If you think that you can simply make a few profiles on popular
social networks, throw your music up on your pages, and fans will flock
to you overnight-then you are sadly mistaken. However if you have come
to the realization that the only fool-proof method for artists to grow
their following in the 21st century is to cultivate genuine
relationships with their fan base, then you’re well on your way to
building a sustainable music career.
Product Samples
Think of free songs as product
samples: the music-buying public samples your product at no cost. For
those who don’t care for your music (no matter what the reason) they
can easily sever their relationship with you and your product right
then and there. No harm done.
For the people who like your product, they can easily dig deeper and
sample some more of your music to get a better feel for your identity
and what your brand represents. From there they can decide whether
their values align with yours and if they would like to continue their
relationship with you. If you and a potential fan are birds of a
feather (so to speak) then chances are they will be ready to forge a
deeper bond with you and take your relationship to the next level.
Free music increases the potential for engagement with audiences
because anyone can participate. Free eliminates risk and lowers the
barrier to entry for consumers. If I may use a food-related metaphor,
your songs are the appetizers that will lure audiences to dine with you
for a full meal—free mixtapes/EPs/CDs/whatever. A full meal provides
your audience with a clearer picture of your overall vision and your
artistic identity. If people really enjoy your meal(s) then they will
seek yet another option (or options) for consuming the deliciousness
that you offer. These additional options for engagement with you
include live music, merchandise, premium products, and any unique
experiences that you can offer your hungry, eager fan base.
In short, free songs lure consumers to sample your free mixtapes,
and free mixtapes are the bait to lure fans to spend money on live
music, merchandise, deluxe edition mixtapes, and premium-priced music
products and experiences. At every stage in this chain your product
must gratify whatever desires your audience is seeking to fulfill,
otherwise they may be inclined to discontinue their relationship with
you.
It All Starts With Great Songs
What’s important
to take away from this is that everything in the music business starts
with the song. Nothing on earth can replace great songs. When a song
taps into something that puts songwriters/musicians/performers on a
level playing field with audiences, when a song facilitates the unity
and interconnectedness of a large and diverse group of people—that’s
where the magic happens.
If you don’t write songs that bridge a connection between you and your audience, you’re not going to have an audience.
But if you write music that-one song at a time-brings your audience
closer to you as a human being, there are endless possibilities for
monetizing that relationship with your audience.
Your music is a representation of your ideas. Thanks to the beauty
of Creative Commons licensing, ideas are distributed freely with proper
attribution to the author/creator. The web makes it easy for great
ideas to go viral—fast.
My question to you is why would you make it more difficult for fans
of your work to spread your ideas? Why not give them what they
want-free music-and let them market the music for you? I guarantee that word of mouth marketing is more powerful than any form of marketing you could do (or buy) yourself.
Stop Complaining
Stop complaining that the
consumers you want to sell music to don’t want to buy. A lot of them
actually do want to buy, but only on their terms. These
people are empowered consumers and if you treat them like the
traditional record business has been doing-not giving a damn about
their feelings, wants, and needs; trying to force them to buy
music-audiences will shun you and leave you broke, bitter, and
fan-less. Avoid that miserable fate by serving consumers free music on
a platter with all the bells and whistles you can dream up to make your
product stand out from the competition.
Listen to fans when they tell you what they like and what they don’t
like. Ask them what music-related products or services they want to buy
and how much they’d be willing to pay for them. Then deliver on those
products and services and make them more awesome, worthwhile, and
fulfilling than your audience could have ever imagined. Give your
customers extreme value with every purchase they make with you.
Case In Point
Large corporations blow millions
of dollars on advertising, usually without definite knowledge of how
that spending will directly convert into buyers and revenue. Companies
buy advertising because they expect it to get their brand and their
product in front of consumers. The advertisers hope that those
consumers who see their ads will buy what the company is selling.
Eventually.
If companies are willing to spend millions of dollars on advertising just for the potential
that it could bring them business, why on earth would you not embrace
giving away free music to advertise your talents as an artist?
Be real about how music commerce works in the 21st century and be willing to experiment with business models. And always, always, always give
the customers what they want. If you’re not willing to do that then
your customers are perfectly capable of going elsewhere to get what
they want (and they will).
Call me loony. Call me overly optimistic. Call me a pirate who’s
decreasing the value of music. Call me whatever if it helps you sleep
better at night. But the fact is-as contradictory or paradoxical as it
sounds-free music is smart business.
About the author:
Dexter Bryant Jr. [d.BRYJ] is a Dance Rock producer and
singer/songwriter. His primary areas of study are music business 2.0,
music marketing, digital marketing, new media, and music publishing.
Dexter helps companies expand their brand presence online and he’s
currently the Digital Marketing Director of Dynasty Music Entertainment
and DbryJ Music Media Group. Learn more @ http://hitmusicacademy.wordpress.com/
A few weeks ago, Kevin English of eleetmusic got me in to the closed beta of Rock Band Network, which provides the necessary tools to get your songs into the game. When it launches, the RBN Store will sell those songs through the game's interface, with 30% of the purchase price going back to the artist. Now that the beta is public, you may be eager to dive in, but let me warn you - it's a lot harder than I thought it would be! Authoring your first song requires a deep skill set and 60-80 hours of focused effort.
I love ReverbNation. I could write a dozen articles on the various tools they provide for artists. For now I’ll focus on one I just tried for the first time: Street Team Missions.
Whenever a fan subscribes to your mailing list, they’re given the option to join your street team. You create missions to direct your team’s promotional efforts on your behalf, and they compete against each other for rewards of your choosing. ReverbNation manages the whole thing automatically by measuring plays, widget clicks, banner impressions, and mailing list signups.
Sound too good to be true? I thought so at first, so I joined several other artists’ missions to get a closer look.
I promote to establish and nurture a genuine relationship with my fans.
I measure my success by the number of subscribers to my mailing list.
Notice I said mailing list, not Twitter followers or MySpace “friends.”
I’m talking about the people who grant me permission through a
double opt-in process to email them directly on a regular and
consistent basis. Right now there are just over a thousand,
but there are plenty more out there who might love my music if they
heard it. So how do we reach those potential fans?
My phone rang last week and it was Tom Silverman from Tommy Boy calling to discuss my panel for his upcoming Chicago New Music Seminar. Tom was half amused nd half disgusted. “Have you seen Billboard this week?” He asked. Since Billboard s a publication I largely ignore, I fessed up: “No. Why?” “You have to see this article,” He said. “It’s the most ridiculous thing ever.”
In a few moments, I was reading it and I was laughing out loud.
So considering 97 of the things on the Maximum Exposure List are very, very long shots for the majority of independent musicians, I have redefined this list and present a guide for the rest of us.
Click here for Ariel's Indie Maximum Exposure List.
Recently, two of my songs were featured on a large cable network, and I signed an exclusive publishing deal. All thanks to Taxi? Nope. The music supervisor found me on thesixtyone and I connected with the publisher through Sonicbids.
Over the course of twelve years and 100+ forwarded submissions, with $3525 spent on membership and submission fees alone, I haven’t made a single deal through Taxi. In fact, I haven’t received so much as a phone call or e-mail from an interested party (cue the crickets).
There are essentially two kinds of blogs out
there: one is really an online magazine (e.g. Pitchfork), and the other
is a true blog ― a web log chronicling someone's personal interests and
opinions. Both are great places for you to get reviewed, promoted and
heard, but it's the plethora of personal blogs that are our subject
today, since they are more numerous, more accessible, and potentially
more valuable to your promotional efforts.
Why do we continue to see so many cliché railroad track press
photo (or photos of bands in front of brick walls, or cruising in an
old Chevy, etc.)? It certainly isn’t on account of laziness. After all,
it took some planning and initiative to get the shoot scheduled, line
up a photographer and location, assemble the group, and pick the
wardrobe. No, it’s not laziness. It is a lack of creative
self-analysis. That’s right, my friends. Sit yourself down on the
couch. The good doctor is in.
Podcasts are the radio of the internet. Getting played on podcasts can
help expose your music to potential new fans. By following the steps
below, you'll increase your odds of being played on any podcasts --
whether it's a music podcast or talk show.
If you are a songwriter trying to market your songs, then I’m sure you’ve encountered endless marketing programs and ideas for selling “your songs”. Typically, however, when you look more closely, these efforts end up focusing on selling recordings of your songs—ways you can sell downloads or videos. If you are a songwriter, and not a performer, then this can be frustrating. Even if you perform, you might be the kind of songwriter who does great material for film and television, such as niche pieces (world music, or rock from the 60’s). You might find a retro audience, but that isn’t what you are about.
Yet, there is a world for songwriters.
Pure songwriting, where you write songs or compositions intended for someone else to record, and are not a singer/songwriter or in a band, or create songs and instrumentals for media, such as film or television, differs remarkably from the performance world. Pure songwriting is often behind the scenes work. In the business world, this type of activity is called business-to-business, which is much different than retail sales. You are pitching within the industry, to industry professionals, not to consumers. So, in general (there are exceptions), a fan base won’t help you. A strong online presence is largely irrelevant. What you do need is a good business model, a niche (if you can develop one), a thick skin, patience, and a well developed sense of humor.
Why is it so different? Well, first of all, you are not actually selling something. Movies, television, and singers, don’t buy songs—they license them. So your goal is to do what publishers call “exploiting” your songs. You want to get them used. That means you need to know about the various kinds of licenses, how they might be valued, and their long and short term benefits for you. This is serious stuff, and not simple. Granting some licenses precludes granting others. As a friend of mine suggests, it isn’t for the weak.
Much of the available information is out of date. That doesn’t reflect badly on the authors, but does indicate how rapidly the market has changed and is changing. It is practically a cliché to say that the market is increasingly competitive, and the chances of having a single recorded and selling enough copies to send your kids to college is much slimmer in the era of downloads, a growing online catalog, and a growing Indie presence. Not that there isn’t money to be made, but you need several strategies to be successful.
Part of successfully defining a strategy is determining where you fit into the music business—writing songs for recording artists, writing music for music libraries, and writing for videos or games are, in some ways, quite different businesses. Although they are not mutually exclusive, deciding early on where you want to focus will help you build the specialized skill set and marketing acumen to make progress. We will examine each of these businesses (more, if we can ferret them out), and look at ways to gain a foothold. We will look at making and maintaining contacts, and understanding the basics of doing business in these fields.
In the course of this blog we will look at the changing world of the contemporary songwriter, and take a stroll down some of the paths you might choose to take. Through the eyes of people who might be your customers, library owners, artists and producers, we will try to see what their expectations are, and how you can learn to meet them. We will look at the way things have gone for some successful composers and songwriters, to see what can be learned from their diverse experiences.
And a word of caution: In a world of downloads and royalty free music, it is tough to know where you stand. Songwriting is (and pretty much has been for a long time) a business. Irving Berlin was known to check constantly to see that he was getting paid for recordings of his songs. If you see it only as an art (and it is that too), that is certainly your choice, but bear in mind that you are going to be competing against some talented people who are both artistic and businesslike. You will even suffer in competition with people who are more businesslike than you and less talented. Such is the life. We will look at the variety of business models appropriate for songwriters, the kinds of music being used today (and where), and some ways of getting it into the right hands—hands that will do that business alchemy of turning music into gold. If not gold records, at least some income for you. This exploration will be open ended and will try to incorporate changes in the songwriting world as they happen. I hope the information is useful to you, and that you not only succeed, but maybe even change the songwriting world a bit more.
Read more at http://www.insidermusicbusiness.com/blog
College radio can be your best friend as an up and coming artist. These
stations are the most accessible radio option for indie artists, so
targeting college radio in your promotion campaign makes sense. There
are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting
playlisted at the college stations you approach. As you package up your
CDs, keep the following in mind:
Arron Clague is a member of the indie electro band Eight to Infinity, whose music I’ve had the pleasure of mastering many times. He was kind enough to share his thoughts on the band’s shiny new iPhone app below.
I’ve run across a few situations
recently where people have been limiting the amount of their music that can be
heard online. So here’s a few thoughts about free streaming music, and the
business model involved.
Nothing that I’ve seen or
heard tells me that music fans will pay money for a CD in order to hear music
they’re restricted from hearing online - just so they can find out if it’s good
or not - or that people who buy CDs are happy to sit and click ‘play’ over and
over again on last.fm instead of buying music…
There are two paths you can generally take with
your marketing. You can jump on the road that everyone else is using or
you can reinvent the wheel and push the limits of your efforts. I like
to go somewhere in the middle, using tried and true models to get fans
excited about music, events and products and then looking for doors
that no one has yet opened, seeing what happens and then looking at
ways to enhance these new methods.
One of these “new road” tactics has been in
outreach programs for musicians looking to connect with bloggers. In
this new social media era, creating real relationships with people,
fans and industry folks is proving to have more of a long lasting
effect than the friend blasting days of Myspace glory. The words that
come out of bloggers and trust worthy Twitter sources can do leaps and
bounds for your virtual promotion and has proven to help sell records .
Musician bios are deceptively hard to write - especially if you are
writing your own. What to include? What to leave out? You know you
don't want to start at birth (I hope!), but what about that time you
opened for your fav artist - should you include that? How long should
it be? This guide
will help you figure out how to write a bio that gives people the info
that they need without overloading them with so much that they stop
reading.
The problem artists face is that we're operating on a super tight budget, and popular email newsletter service prices can add up quickly. We need to extract as much value as possible out of each penny spent, and at $0.01/email for the typical service, we're going to run out of pennies fast.
So along comes a service called messagepub.com that provides not just email but also Twitter, Google Chat, AIM, text and phone messages for a fraction of the cost ($0.0015/email, and the first 5,000/month are free!). The catch is it's made for web developers. You need to know how to code to get it to do anything.
Well, I just happen to code a bit in addition to playing music. So I wrote a simple newsletter tool for my site here that sends emails through messagepub.com. I call it PubMail. You can try it out by subscribing to my newsletter if you want (johnnybroadway.com/mailing.list), and you'll even get a free song download in the welcome message for signing up :)
You can download PubMail for free (open source!) from its new home here:
Just go to the downloads page and you'll see a zip file there. The homepage includes detailed info to help you get started, and I wrote it using PHP5 which is available on almost any shared host, so chances are you're already set up to use it, just unzip and go!
I hope other artists, bands, labels, or anyone else looking for a simple and affordable email newsletter/mailing list program will find this useful to them. If you know someone who might find this useful, please pass it along. If you have any questions or suggestions for improvements, send 'em my way!
What the internet has provided us as professional musicians is not just
the ability to promote ourselves, but an ability to define ourselves.
Blogs, profiles, personal websites – these are the new resume. You can
now write a blog that attracts attention to your knowledge and
personality, create a Facebook profile that shows employers your mutual
contacts, and build a website that attracts new students and clients.
And yes, if it works right, this altogether could lead to new work.
thesixtyone
is quite simply my favorite music site, both as a listener and and
artist. Billing itself as “a music adventure,” t61 is like a massively
multiplayer game, complete with reputation points, levels, quests, and
achievements. It’s a fun way to discover and be discovered. The rules
are constantly in flux, so I’ll omit the fine details and walk you
through the broad strokes of establishing yourself as an artist.
Create a listener account. You’re given the option
to convert it into an artist account, but don’t do it. You’ll need
separate listener and artist accounts to effectively promote your
music, because some crucial functions are only available to listeners.
Learn the basics. Select your genre in the right hand column and listen to some of the music in top songs and hot right now, under the popular
tab. If you like a song, heart it! You’re given a daily allowance of
hearts based on your level. Once you reach level 5, you can heart the
same song multiple times. When you “max heart” a song, you’re rewarded
with a loud “holy shit!” (which made me jump out of my chair the first
time I heard it). As the song grows in popularity, you’re rewarded with
reputation points. The earlier you heart a song, the more points you
stand to earn. At some point the song may “hit the home page,” moving
it from the browse tab to the popular tab and providing a large point bonus to supporters.
Click here to read Brian's entire post at PassivePromotion.com
You can have thousands of people on your mailing but some will support you more than others. It pays to get to know them because one of them may buy 30,000 CDs! It has now happened twice to different music artists I have worked with.
Check out the article in the Free Advice section of TSAMusic.com.
As many of you know Cyber PR is a hybrid of Internet Marketing,
Social Media and PR. I am an avid Internet Marketing student and I
gather the nuggets I learn from my studies for musicians.
I recently spent two intense days in Los Angeles, where I attended
an Internet marketing retreat led by my mentor, Ali Brown. I belong to
her mastermind group and participate in her yearlong program.
It was a whirlwind, and the core principles I learned were both basic and critically important.
Would you pay $1 for a new fan? Would you pay 2 cents to have your
song played to a fan of your favorite band? I would, and did, with Jango Airplay.
Jango
offers free internet radio that plays listener-selected artists
alongside similar artists. Tell it which artists and songs you like and
dislike, and it adjusts accordingly. Basic social networking features
are included, allowing listeners to share music and compare tastes.
Jango Airplay lets artists buy their way into Jango’s recommendation
engine, promising guaranteed airplay alongside your pick of popular
artists. You can buy 1000 plays for $30, 2000 plays for $50, or 5000
plays for $100. I started with 5000 plays, and was so encouraged by the
results that I spent another $200 for 10,000 more.
Click here to read Brian's entire post at PassivePromotion.com
In a post I wrote last week, I mentioned that I’ve been following Matt Gross from popular music blog, The Music Slut
on Twitter. After reading a thread of his tweets highlighting “PR Fail
1,2 etc” of the day, our office began to discuss what has been a
recurring question “what is the best way to communicate with music bloggers …
without being completely obnoxious?” After bouncing thoughts around the
room, we decided to go straight to the source and ask blog writers
themselves.
Click here to read the entire post and learn more about how to approach music bloggers.
I am a music producer and run a small music production and consulting
company. On any given day, I receive an average of twenty emails that
are completely out of left field. We're talking the “wheel is turning,
but the hamster is dead” kind of emails. That totals about one hundred
of those a week. Again, I am a solo music producer running a small
organization, so just imagine for a moment how many emails must be
received by the big boys, the big wig companies and the people that
sift through emails for many of these people day in and day out.
If you are soliciting an individual, think about what you are
sending out and to whom you are sending it. Your lack of preparation,
consideration or professionalism can destroy that contact and get your
email deleted. Worse yet, they'll never get to your music, which was
the main point after all.
I had an email from a musician today who said he was struggling a
little with the idea of giving away mp3s. It’s a really common issue,
and so I thought I’d share my response.
1) You’re not giving away music, you’re giving away RECORDINGS of your music;
2) Don’t try to make money from your music, make money BECAUSE of your music;
3) Economics works differently for bits than it does for atoms.
I’ve been there.Your sound is amazing, your fan base is growing, you are abundant inpassion and your wallet has not caught up.Many bands approach the marketing game hot and heavy butultimately lose steam when it comes to what I like to call “consistence andpersistence”.Even more artistssimply won’t approach this critical aspect of the industry because they are intimidatedor overwhelmed.
I’m here to offer simple, clear and cheap actions that canrocket your band to stardom. If you believe in your music and commit toembracing the business side with these tools, anything is possible.I suggest you start with afew items that seem fun (or at least doable), apply them for a few weeks andonce you are comfortable, add a few more. And if you get stuck, just give me ashout:
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10“Easy To Implement” Musical Marketing Tips
1)Sign-upon every social network you can, and go beyond Myspace and Facebook (eg, Bebo,ILike, IMeem, etc.).Some of thesesites have millions of users that you will be missing out on if you only stickto the mainstream social networks.
2)Continueto add new content to your website and social networking profiles (most socialnetworks have feeds so whenever you perform new activities, such as addingphotos, songs, blogs, new shows etc., it gets picked up on your feeds for fansto see)
a)Createas many songs as possible (multiple versions etc…).
b)Createa weekly blog: Your music draws fans in.Once you have them on your site, having a personal blog will keep themon your site.As they get to knowyou, the loyalty grows in leaps and bounds.
c)Createas many videos as possible: This doesn’t have to be a video that coststhousands of dollars to create.Itcould be as simple as a video you record at home working on your newest songwhile playing an acoustic guitar.
3)Getyour fans involved!
a)Havethem rate songs.
b)Engagethem in the process of choosing what songs will be on your album.
c)Engagethem in the process of selecting your album artwork and packaging.
4)CreateFan Ambassadors.
a)Wheneveryou find true fans that love you and your music, do anything you can to makethem feel as involved in your career as possible.They are the ones who will help spread the word.
b)Createcustom CDs just for them with their name on it.
c)Writethem a song for their birthday and give it to them as a ringtone, download orCD.
d)Givethem the task to help spread your music; they are more than willing to do that.
5)Networkwith other Bands constantly.Makefriends!
a)Thisshould be your number one goal anytime you are around musicians.By doing so, you can start booking newevents with these artists, and this will help expand your fan base immensely.
b)Themore people you know, the more people will help you get known.
6)Connectwith Music Bloggers.
a)Thisis critical.Bloggers focus ongetting content out daily, and want to be the person who finds the next bigthing.They love to write aboutmusic, and establishing a good relationship with key bloggers will help spreadthe word about your music.
b)Anytimeyou find a blog you dig, comment and lead them back to your band’s site.
7)Brandyour Band!
a)Makesure your website and social networking profiles are tight and enticing when anew fan visits your page.
b)Create:a cool logo that your fans would post around as stickers, flyers, or somethingthey would love to wear; custom products; a CD and merchandise item for everylive show; custom shirts for specific fans with their names on it.
c)Signeach of the products that you sell at your shows.
d)Giveaway your merchandise to fans who will wear it and promote your music.
e)Havea beautiful girl and handsome guy manage your email list during shows.Many men find it hard to turn downwriting an email when a beautiful girl comes up to him. You have to use that toyour advantage.
8)Utilizetried and true guerilla email marketing tactics.
a)Makesure you add new friends to your social networking profiles on a dailybasis.You can do this allday.I would recommend adding themaximum daily as you never know what new fan you will reach, and how that fancan help you.
b)Themore you send out, the more you increase the odds of getting new fans
c)Don’tbe afraid to send messages out over and over, keep your band and brand in theirhead at all times.If they don’tlisten to you the first or second time you sent a message, they will the third.
9)Followup with your fans.
a)Senda message to every new fan that is added to your social network profile- thisshould be instantaneous.Follow upwith them and ask how they are enjoying the music.
b)Writecomments on other artist’s walls that are similar to you.This helps to create new exposure totheir fans (great minds, and all that).
10)Spread the word!
a)Wheneveryou have a new product, or a big update for your band, get it out there: blog,bulletin, email and SMS text your fans with updated info.
Every once in a while you come across one of those no-brainer ideas
that can help you exponentially. This is one of them. To all the bands
going on tour, looking for free promotions to a built in audience.
Bloggers are the journalism that you should be looking for and more
specifically, you should be looking for local bloggers, that write
about their community and what is going on there.
Building a community of fans to rally around you and support you and
interacting with them in a meaningful and connected way is both labor
intensive and time consuming. In fan building and social media (much like in the music business)
you cannot jump to the front of the line. To make it today as a
musician (I don’t care if you are independent and totally DIY or signed
to a major label) you must focus on building your fan base.
The #1 most effective way I know for building a fanbase which is the first step towards making more money: Building Your Email List And Sending Effective Newsletters.
I asked myself
this crucial question when writing my latest e-book, "What are the
important skills and practices required to create a winning and
profitable music business apart from good music?"
The answer rests in being a good leader of your ship,
having a well-designed and communicated strategy and a good marketing
plan that can be executed to promote your music in a structured way.
If you re-read that last paragraph, you'll see how much I
emphasize the idea of strategy and structure. It is with this careful
planning and well-understood principles that your music business will
become profitable.
STRATEGY
A strategy comes to life through its ability to
influence hundreds and thousands of decisions, both big and small, made
by anyone from the director level to the street team level. It is, at
its core, a guide to how you behave and provides an external reflection
of your music business.
A good strategy fuels and ignites your fire to more
compelling actions and results. It leads you to a destination that is
clear in your mind. A bad strategy on the other hand leads you to a
less competitive, less differentiated position. It is simply a waste of
time and energy as it does not move you forward; instead, it keeps you
where you're already at.
The word "winning" is important in this context. An
average strategy plan, when executed, gets you mediocre results and may
not be a fair reflection of your true talent. A winning strategy plan
on the other hand transforms your current situation into monster
success through developing the right tools, people, techniques and
street teams to share your art with the wider world.
As musicians, we are explorers. As explorers, our job is
to explore the depths of our hearts and souls to share the music that
feels most at home to us. Our job is to experiment, and experimentation
takes time before it is successful.
Your music business needs a framework for achieving
results that can be built upon to achieve your specific goals in your
specific music genre. When you start to put together a puzzle, you
would start by finding the corners and the edge pieces before building
and assembling the inner pieces. It is the same with putting together
the framework for your music business.
Constructing a music business plan is the first step in
gaining clarity and direction in what you'll do, how often you'll
release an album, how you'll market your music and how you'll make
money. The framework of your music business is what holds it all
together - the operations, the marketing, the management and the
finances. Let's look at each one separately.
OPERATIONS PLAN
Your business operations is the activities
your music business will do in order to share your music. These are
usually gigs (what type of gigs?), recording (how often? when?),
distribution (whom? how?), sponsorship, and other avenues of generating
revenue.
MARKETING PLAN
The activities and tactics you will
undertake to promote your music through your music business. These may
include PR, social networking on Facebook, Myspace, etc, blogging,
podcasting, video blogging, flyer and poster marketing, etc.
MANAGEMENT PLAN
Who will form your core team for your
music business and what will they do? Regardless of whether you have
the capacity to get these people involved, knowing what you want is
core to getting a framework to build your music business.
FINANCE PLAN
Knowing what money goes out and what comes in
is crucial to understanding how your music business can be successful.
My accountant often tells me that the success of my business is equal
to how well I can understand the numbers on my cash flow sheet. He is
right and I pass this advice on to you
This article you just read is an excerpt from Kavit's new e-book called "How to Design a Winning & Profitable Music Business."
Released 9th Sept. Available for free download from:
www.innerrhythm.org/ebook
Facebook's business section allows you to create what is known as a Facebook page which can be tailored specifically to you as a musician and is a place where you or your bands can build a fan base.
On Nov 17th, 2007, here is what Facebook says on its official blog:
“We launched Facebook Pages, which are distinct, customized profiles designed for businesses, bands, celebrities and more to represent themselves on Facebook.
We noticed people wanted to connect with their favorite music, restaurants, and brands; but there was no good place for these types of affiliations to exist. Now, there is a place for them and you can become a fan of whatever pages you choose in order to interact with your passions in new ways. You can post reviews for a local restaurant, buy tickets to a new movie, or be the first to get a heads up about new promotions.”
Here are some examples of musicians with Facebook pages:
The simple fact is that there are still not many Facebook pages and so if you create one, start sharing it with friends and use the appropriate words, you could grow it to a big, big traffic puller.
Follow these steps:
1.If you haven't yet got a Facebook account, go and open one at www.facebook.com as it's free.
2.Set up a Facebook page from here: http://www.facebook.com/business/?pages
and follow the step-by-step instructions to adding all the images, text, web links, videos, etc and other information you have to make it an informative page.
3.Share the page with your friends by sending them an email and placing your page link in it. And ask them to forward it on.
There is also an Insights dashboard where you can see how many people visit the page and how many become fans. More than anything, it is an advertising mechanism to be used with Facebook's Social Ads which are pay per click advertising. If you dont have the money to pay for ads yet, still go ahead and set up a Facebook page to build up a fan base.
This is a website of which you might think is similar to Myspace. BUT, there is a huge difference.
You can upload your music under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA license. This means people can use your song for many different purposes. In this way could be that your song will be used for a commercial, jingle, remix, etc. This is all free exposure for your act and might get you in the spotlight you want to get in. People that use your song need to state your name (or your artist name) and need to share their work with the world as well.
HypeBot published a list of 100 music promotions tips and ideas that's definitely worth a read if you are an artists trying to get your music heard. Several of the tips are common sense but focusing on the basics often times yields the best results.
Click here to read the List of 100 Free & Affordable Hight & Low Tech Music Promotion Tips from HypeBot.
This post is part two of the "How to REALLY Get Your Music on Blogs" blog series here on Tight Mix. You can download the entire series for free in the form of a .pdf e-book 
