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Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Last Saturday I had the pleasure of hosting a very animated and informative #DCWEEK panel discussion about how performing artists can use the web to their advantage. On the panel was Sean Glover, Director of Artists Relations at SoundExchange, Dave Sherbow, owner of onefanconsulting.com and musicbizguy.com and Keith Center, frontman of The Dreamscapes Project and owner of Figmental Records.
A number of important points were made during our discussion. For those of you who were unable to attend, here’s a summary:
- In order to maximize your online experience, you need to address the foundational elements of online marketing – define your identity, define who/where you target audience are, and define your attitude towards the web. Ask yourself how do you view the web? How would you google yourself? What is your competition doing? Go to your fans and make it easy for them to identify you. Don’t expect them to come to you.
- Key words in online marketing, via Jeff Pulver, “Listen, Connect, Share, Engage”.
- Emails are golden! Artists should prioritize collecting and owning fan data (such as email addresses, zip codes and cell numbers) and endeavor to collect this information via all their online platforms. Having a fan newsletter is one of the most important e-marketing tools. Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing avenues as it’s permission-based marketing. You can also be targeted in your marketing.
- MySpace (the grandfather of social networking sites) is not dead. It’s still a very effective promotional tool within the music industry due to its user-base, the familiarity of its lay-out and effective music player. Its power as an interactive platform has decreased, as social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have taken over. Dave Sherbow talks further about this in his blog post “Making Myspace Into a Tool That Matters”
- Artists need to protect their digital assets! Thousands of musicians have still not signed up to SoundExchange.com to collect their digital royalties. SoundExchange is an independent, non-profit performances rights organization which collects statutory royalties from satellite radio (such as SIRIUS XM), internet radio, cable TV music channels and similar platforms for streaming sound recordings. In order to receive these royalties artists MUST sign up to SoundExchange (it’s FREE).
- To stop yourself feeling overwhelmed with online management, choose solutions that are right for you. Two task management solutions recommended were Evernote.com & Rememberthemilk.com.
- Online marketing only works in conjunction with effective offline marketing. If you are not aggressive and proactive with your offline marketing, the impact of your online marketing efforts will be decreased. The two compliment each other.
That’s it. In a nutshell.
Tags: branding, Music Industry, online marketing, Social media
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, marketing | No Comments »
Friday, May 7th, 2010
 One Fan At A Time: Building Your Music Biz To The Max
One Fan Consulting (run by industry veteran Dave Sherbow) offer a free 75 page e-book that is full of resources, advice, and guides showing artists how to make money in the ever changing music industry. Go to the One Fan Consulting website HERE to access.
The New RockStar Philosophy
This is a must-read for all artists. A comprehensive step by step guide covering everything from branding, online presence, touring, merchandise, networking and more. Access the e-book HERE. The blog is also a great read too.
Squeezing The Show
If you’re artist trying to figure out how to handle the complex business of tour booking and tour marketing then I highly recommend reading the free e-book called “Squeezing The Show”. It was written by Ben Coe from The Artist Farm, an artist management company, formerly from Red Light, one of the major management firms in the US. Download the PDF HERE.
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, marketing, music | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
I’ve been noticing more and more that some musicians are sticking to their personal Facebook page to promote their music rather than opting for a Facebook fan page. I think it’s extremely important for every musician to have a Facebook fan page for the following reasons:
1. It strengthens your online brand instantly by keeping the personal and professional separate.
2. It’s automatically set as a public page so it’s more effective for search engine indexing and viral marketing.
3. It offers the “insight tools” function which provides information on how fans interact with your page. You can view traffic and fan demographics. You can also export your data into an excel sheet.
4. You can send messages to fans according to their geographical location and demography. Therefore your marketing becomes targeted.
5. You can exploit the power of indirect connections to boost your fan base. For example you can ask your fan base to recommend your page to their friends.
A great book on Facebook marketing is ‘3,000 fans in 30 Days’ by the New Media School. I thoroughly recommend it!
Tags: Facebook, music marketing, musicians, Social media
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, marketing, music | 14 Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
I’m really excited to finally launch my ‘Music Marketing Workshop series’ in Washington DC! I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now and really wanted to offer another service to musicians and music industry pros outside of my usual monthly PR and marketing campaigns.
The first installment entitled ‘Online Marketing For Musicians: Part 1’ is co-hosted with Sisarina, DC’s leading web marketing company. I really wanted to host a workshop that would provide both a music industry and non-music industry perspective. All musicians should see themselves as a small business. Therefore I was keen to combine my knowledge with Melanie Spring from Sisarina, who has successfully helped to launch numerous small businesses in the DC area.
I encourage all musicians and music industry pros to provide as much feedback as possible as to what they would like me to cover in future workshops. I want to cater these workshops around their needs, and make them as interactive as possible.
You can download the flyer for ‘Online Marketing For Musicians’ HERE.
Tags: music marketing workshop, online branding, Social media
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, marketing, music | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
I was very lucky to meet the lovely Mary Adkins, founder of SeeJoeRock, at a monthly music industry networking event that I co-host with two industry colleagues in Washington DC (called the Metro Music Source). I was really keen to find out more about how Mary was helping musicians in the Greater DC area and beyond, and what SeeJoeRock was all about. I quickly signed up as an ‘Industry Pro’ and asked Mary to answer some questions for me regarding the SeeJoeRock philosophy and history.
1. What gave you the inspiration to create www.seejoerock.com?
I’ve owned a Graphic design company for the past 10 years and in that time, have worked with several musicians and bands as well as knew many artists on a personal level, that had basically been doing just about everything they could to promote themselves – by themselves. They were using sites like MySpace and Facebook as their main sources of online presence, but with the over-abundance of musicians as well as everyday people on the sites, viewers noticing them or even finding them for that matter, was far fetched unless they already knew or heard about them or their music.
Most artists also only had a small circle of “people they knew” in the industry, and had the mentality that they needed to live in NY or CA for the “right people”, or any industry pro for that matter, to ‘discover’ them. I wanted to create a way to bridge that gap. With the design and development tools and skills I already had, I decided to develop a website that put these unsigned, DIY, emerging type musicians, bands, solo artists etc in the spotlight – and create a way to directly connect them with music industry pros in any corner of that field that could help them take their music and music career to the next level. (Pros like Agents, Labels, and Promoters to Screen-printers, Photographers, Radio personalities, Booking Agents, T-shirt designers etc). In Jan 2008, www.seejoerock.com was born. The site took about a year to build and it launched in April 2009.
2. How is SeeJoeRock different from other social networking sites?
Its focus audience is for a specific niche group – Musicians who are dedicated to making a career with their music and are serious about taking that next step in making that happen, and industry professionals whose target client base are these indie type of musicians they offer their services to. It’s been often referred as the “LinkedIn” for Musicians.
To keep things user friendly, SJR offers the same familiar structure as most social networking sites as far as a profile goes – you can upload your bio, list your talents & skills and years of experience, to uploading photos, mp3s, videos, status updates and an area to post your events. Much like the other sites, you can add other users to your network, comment on their profiles or send them private messages. You can also add their events to your own “I’m attending” calendar.
But this isn’t your little sister’s social networking playground. The users are other emerging musicians and industry professionals who are all there for the same reason – to connect, network, give-advice, assist and help each other gain exposure. (There’s also an area for Super Fans to just help spread the word!). SJR also offers a place to post Classifieds or “Wanted Postings” – Say if a band is looking for a drummer, they can post an ‘Ad’ up free and any user on the site can respond, which will link back to their profile to allow that connection to begin.
SJR also promotes these musicians (as well as the pros) by featuring a new one every couple of weeks and puts them in the spotlight! These featured users get put right on our homepage. Their videos get posted front and center on the homepage as well as in our header graphics, quick links to their profiles, blasted on all of our other social networking sites, added to our blogs, newsletters, and online press releases. Each week the musician, as well as the pro, gets to plug themselves live on a fast growing internet radio partner (JJDJRadio.com) during our weekly Wednesday night ‘SJR segment’ which also promotes the site as well as the featured users and other events.
We’re also adding several new tools and cool features that will be hitting the site very soon! And more contests are in the works! And to be a part of all of this.. is free.
3. Who are the top 5 artist on SeeJoeRock.com who you believe are going to be hot in 2010?
That’s a tough question. There are many many artists on SJR who are incredibly talented and are very driven to succeed.
A few however that I can name that are well on their way are:
1. Taylor Berrett one of SJR’s first members, we just found out in Nov, was signed with Motown/Universal!!
2. Zack Borer just informed us that his music was selected as a pre-load for the new “Google Nexus One” phone.
3. The Neon Rush was just signed by SJR Pro / Record Label, RYO Records and just launched their new album this past week with them.
4. Power Pirate a hot new and young D.C. area band (as young as 15) hit the ground running! Shortly after winning the SJR Music Video Contest held with SJR Pro, Blue Light Digital Sound, they won a spot in the NAMM SchoolJam Battle of the Bands and will be flying to California to perform.
(You can read here for full info: http://www.power-pirate.com/vote.html)
4. What advice do you have for emerging artists who are trying to establish themselves in an increasingly saturated online world?
- Join SeeJoeRock.com! *wink *wink.
- If you’re serious about becoming successful, treat yourself, your music, your band.. as a business. If you don’t know how, find someone that can help you do this.
- You need to create your brand, be marketable, and market yourself.
- Promote yourself, music and shows non-stop.
- Keep in touch with your fans, give them an incentive – free show or downloads.
- Keep your online profiles updated and fresh.
- You can accomplish a lot on your own, but wearing too many hats can wear anyone out.. know when it’s time to find help and allow them to do what they do best so you can focus on what you do best.
- and last but definitely not least, believe in yourself.. if you don’t invest that in yourself, how can you expect others to invest in you?
Tags: marketing, Music Industry, music industry professionals, social networking, unsigned musicians
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, Uncategorized, marketing, music | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
I had the pleasure of meeting David Sherbow in September and October of this year. Firstly at the Dewey Beach Music Conference where he was a panelist, and then again at the Future of Music Policy Summit and Baltimore Music Conference (where he was also a panelist).
David has worked in the music industry for over 40 years, and has been a major player in the hip-hop music market with his independent record promotions companies. He has worked for artists such as Jay-Z, Ludacris, DMX, Ja Rule, Ashanti, Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Mariah Carey, and Pharrell.
David is now busy promoting his latest music industry venture, livemusicmachine.com, which is a pioneering new music booking platform for artists and fans alike. He also runs the insightful music industry blog musicbizguy.com. He kindly answered some quick fire questions for me:
1. What is livemusicmachine.com?
DS: Livemusicmachine is an easy to use online widget which allows every band and artist in the world to be booked simply and easily from virtually anywhere on the Internet, at anytime and by anyone.
LiveMusicMachine’s booking widget can be placed almost anywhere, including an artist’s MySpace page, their Facebook fan page and even directly onto their YouTube videos. LiveMusicMachine has an easy to use feature that gives artists the ability to auction themselves off to the highest bidder. Fans, on the other hand, have the ability to pool their resources to book their favorite band or to make an offer if they can’t handle a band’s price or requirements.
2. Why is livemusicmachine.com so empowering for musicians?
DS: Most artists who look for gigs approach it by looking up the food chain to night clubs and other live music venues. Instead they should be looking down the food chain to their fans, and the thousands of potential house parties, dorm parties, college parties, private concerts, after parties, meet and greets etc. If their fans knew how easy and relatively inexpensive it was to find and book their favorite local, regional and national artists, they would book them all the time.
The LiveMusicMachine booking widget provides bands with a well designed, 3 different view artist calendar from which they can be booked directly by fans and clubs. The widget’s look, ease of use, and utility for artists means it empowers them to be immediately booked by fans and clubs from anywhere online.
I believe that artists will replace their calendars everywhere on the Internet with the LiveMusicMachine widget thereby substantially increasing their opportunities to be booked and make money. Within a few weeks, artist managers and booking agents will be able to manage all of their artists with one user name and password. They will be able to field offers from one place and see all of their artists’ dates individually from a separate calendar or together on an overview calendar.
3. What’s the most inspiring success story you’ve heard recently of an up and coming band breaking through in a creative and original way?
DS: Amanda Palmer. You can read the good and bad things about what she has done but she is very creative. Although she has done some truly inspiring things, she has also managed to shoot herself in the foot too.
4. What advice do you have for emerging artists who are trying to establishing themselves in an increasingly saturated online world?
DS:Everybody who writes music dreams of becoming a successful money making artist. Before they let this dream run away with them, people need to take a deep breath, sit down and really ask themselves what level of time, resources and commitment they are willing to devote to a career in music. Personally assess yourself. Focus on who you really are and ask yourself if your could really be that person that makes it in the music business. Dig deep and then answer the question honestly without pulling any punches. If you decide that you really have the music, the charisma and the drive and focus, then put your nose to the grindstone, and work as hard as you can and go for it!!
Tags: marketing, music booking, Music Industry
Posted in Music Industry, Social media, marketing, music | 24 Comments »
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