July 11, 2012 Sales of vinyl records are up in the United States and I have a theory on why some of us are going analog.
Selling Your Music tagged Digital Music, Vinyl, music sales, spotify July 10, 2012 Here’s a general outline/template that you can adapt to be more effective in your sponsorship packet. You should design your packet specifically for print as well as a digital file. The most important thing to keep in mind is the perspective of the sponsor: How does the proposal benefit them/their customers/their employees? What can you offer that is different than the other sponsorship proposals being sent to them? Is it easy to take action?
July 9, 2012 My relationship with my Blackberry is one of the most consistent and rewarding ones. I rely on my mobile device for operating nearly every aspect of my day from getting a map to my destination or texting my friends to let them know I will be late. Mobile devices govern many different aspects of a consumer’s life and interactions with the world they surround themselves with.
Because there is such an intimate bond between consumer and their mobile device, the mobile environment offers a new and exciting way for artists to engage with their fans. Fans interact with many of their social networking environments from the website’s native application to their device. With access portals for fans rapidly evolving with advances in technology, it is up to the artist’s to include these mobile engagement tactics in their digital strategies.
mobile, mobile apps, mobile marketing | 1 Reference July 7, 2012 
The Music Industry
Thinks Out Loud
A big Thank You to CD Baby for naming Music Think Tank as one of the Top 10 Music Marketing and Promotion Resources! Thanks!
MTT News & Announcements tagged MTT community July 6, 2012 
Thank you to CD Baby for naming Music Think Tank as one of the Top 10 Music Marketing and Promotion Resources in your Top 100 Must-Follow Music Resources on Twitter blog post!
Check out the post here: http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/07/the-top-100-must-follow-music-resources-on-twitter-pt-6-music-promotion/
Also, thank you to all the contributors and readers of MTT. Create the Chaos.
— From all of us at Music Think Tank and Hypebot.com
Where
The Music Industry
Thinks Out Loud
MTT News & Announcements tagged MTT community July 5, 2012 You know what I would have loved? I would have loved to have been part of the Brill Building history between the 1940s and the 1960s – where some of America’s most popular songs were written. If you don’t know the history, check it out on Wikipedia. Just a taste:
By 1962 the Brill Building contained 165 music businesses: A musician could find a publisher and printer, cut a demo, promote the record and cut a deal with radio promoters, all within this one building.Or you know what also would be have great? Jingle writing between the 1940s and 1980s. What a sweet time to be a songwriter or a studio musician. Writing songs, recording them, hearing yourself on the radio, collecting big royalty checks – man, that would have been cool. But, alas, that era was very short-lived and we were not lucky enough to be a part of it. So what do we do? I’m not satisfied to just throw my hat in and say that it’s too hard to work as a songwriter. There are people out there doing it, and if they can do it so can I. I’m going for it.
July 4, 2012 Today, many Americans are celebrating Independence Day. MTT and Hypebot like to hold occasional online networking parties during the holidays so we’re holding one this week on Music Think Tank.
In the comments section here, tell us a little about yourself, what you’re working on, and your thoughts on the music industry. Include links that you think might be of interest to others and I suggest adding your name and email or some way that other readers that are interested in collaborating can find you.
Shameless plugs are allowed.
MTT News & Announcements tagged MTT community July 3, 2012 When self-appointed guardians of the Internet and rights holders argue about the fall and the future of the music industry, you can put all of the talking points into two buckets:
Guardians of the Internet
Open, free, free culture, remix, sharing, do no evil, censorship, don’t break the Internet, innovation, value creation, music-will-be-like-water (don’t worry), scale, disintermediation, alternative income sources, patronage, greedy and shortsighted labels, etc..
Rights holders (artists, labels, publishers)
Copyrights, permissions, illegal sharing, stealing, royalties, negligible royalties, transfer of wealth, ad-supported sharing, free-loading, livable wages, the necessity of labels and publishers as investors, etc..
July 2, 2012 Last month, as a part of a competition I asked 400+ musicians what they loved the most about being a musician. Whilst looking through the responses I realised I had accidentally curated some insanely inspiratinal perspectives. I decided to put them into this poster, which I hope inspires you as much as it did me, enjoy!
Finding Inspiration tagged music career June 30, 2012 Where The Music Industry Thinks Out Loud
MTT, MTT News & Announcements tagged MTT community June 28, 2012 So in part one of the Indie Artist Launch Plan we addressed what seem to be the two major problems as well as the importance of BUILDING a solid foundation.
The importance of creating the structure - built of the right habits, the right people, and the right attitude are the fundamental building blocks to the success of an Indie Artist Career today.
Developing a Strategy tagged Artist Advice, Career, Indie June 27, 2012 The music industry wishes young listeners would abandon low-bit-rate compressed digital music for harder-to-pirate and more profitable CDs. Contrary to the long-held belief that young listeners think lossy compressed music is “just fine,” Harman researcher Dr. Sean Olive has published results from the first peer-reviewed scientific test showing that young listeners will in fact choose CD-quality audio over lossy alternatives when given the choice. Has the dream of a new generation embracing CDs come true? Not so fast.
June 26, 2012 For many years, I’ve held some doubts about Kickstarter and crowd sourcing in general. For some artists, I thought it was a great fit for the culture of the band. However, for my personal band, I had some more reservations. I thought it could make the band look desperate or be a huge embarrassment if we ended up being pitifully distant from meeting the goal. However, we had a serious of setbacks that required large, quick funding and decided to give it a chance. Our band was able to raise $14,511 of our $10,000 goal for a new bus in 20 days. Here are some general thoughts, tips, and lessons learned:
June 25, 2012 There is a fabulous feature that will help you highlight the things that happen throughout your life an career that you would like to post onto your Facebook Page.
This is a phenomenal tool for going back in time and recording important things in the history of your personal life, your band life, or anything you would like to have highlighted.
For artists that have histories with other bands this is doubly amazing because you can go back and create milestones for practically anything, and really build your story.
Content marketing tagged Content, Facebook 