Digital Hustle: 3 Ways To Dominate the Internet with Your Music

There is a huge demand for the unsigned artist to learn how to properly get their music to these new outlets. Here are 3 functions DIY need to know: music business management, public relations, & social media management.

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How To Take Your Twitter Promotion To The Next Level - Free Ebook

Hi guys, just a short post for you today. I wanted to share with you a free guide I’ve just written on promoting your music with Twitter. In fact it’s not just about promoting your music with Twitter, it’s about how to take your Twitter promotion to a whole new level, and get in front of a load of fans of your genre pretty much on tap!

You can skip to the bottom of this post if want to download this free ebook now (Click the blue button) and don’t want to read the background info.

From what I’ve seen, Twitter is one of the best forms of online promotion you can do as a musician. It’s easy for new musicians to get in front of potential fans relatively fast (Faster and easier then say building up your Facebook fan page), but it also does a great job of driving fans to any new material you may put out there.

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Just When You Feel Like Throwing in the Towel - Don't!

If you are an original artist, of any kind, I’m sure there are times you get immense pleasure from what you do.  I’m sure there are other times when you get incredibly frustrated. And yet other times when you begin to doubt yourself.  It’s completely normal to compare yourself to what is already out there; but don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because the “established” art that is out there currently, and “liked” by the masses, is better than your work for that reason alone.  Or that your original work isn’t as good, because it doesn’t have thousands of fans, comments every few seconds, and invitations to large awards shows. 

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Why Don't They See It?

I think we are all tired of hearing about how the music industry is a terrible business.

I get several email newsletters every day chronicling the steady, downward spiral of the major labels. These emails also report about infringers, pirates and the fact that you need more zeros than most simple calculators can handle to find your percentage royalty share from the much loved and hyped Spotify. Doesn’t anyone in the music business talk to people who have been through gut-wrenching changes before in related (or perhaps not related) businesses?

So what are the problems? Buying and consumption patterns of the customers have changed, the labels have lost control of pricing, and barriers to entry across the spectrum have evaporated (to name a few). When I see these problems which seem completely insurmountable, I think of two companies who have lived through this firestorm, and as of today, are thriving, globally dominant operations. The first is IBM and the second is Getty Images.

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Relationships Are The New Distribution

Social Media superhero Chris Brogan recently wrote a post on the basics – the 4 P’s of marketing(product, price, place, and promotion) and talked about how many people don’t spend enough time on their Product, and try to make up for it in Promotion. If that doesn’t work they try competing on Price. But rarely is much time spent thinking about Place.

This got me thinking about how music is marketed, and how absolutely right he is. A lot of indie musicians tend to spend the majority of their time on Product and Promotion, with Price usually being the standard $0.99 per track. The common mistake is in thinking that Place, which is your distribution, is taken care of once you’ve gotten your music up on iTunes or Bandcamp.

I think we need to start thinking of distribution as more than just where people download or buy your music from, and maybe shuffle a few P’s around in the process.

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Are You Really Selling Music?

It is critical in any business to ask yourself several questions before starting. As a performing artist (or songwriter, composer, producer…), one question you must ask yourself at some point is, “What am I selling?”.

One of the biggest ‘light bulb’ moments I ever had was as a senior in high-school, when I learned the story of Ray Kroc. For those who aren’t sure what I’m talking about, let me explain….

Ray Kroc is the man milkshake machine salesman who took McDonalds from being a small,  innovative, fast food restaurant, into the largest restaurant chain the world has ever seen. Before he died, he was asked what was his secret to selling burgers. His reply was simply, “I’m not in the burger business, I’m in the real estate business…”

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Creating a world for your customers to live in - Marketing and its direction in the modern environment

Today we want to buy into an experience, not just a physical product. We look at different options and think about aspects such as

• What is the environmental impact of the product I am buying?
• What is the company’s approach to business? (a prime example is Apple’s modern youth vs. Microsoft’s cumbersome heritage)
• What do other consumers think?
• How is the product being developed over time to match my needs?

Amongst other things, these aspects of how a company presents itself and its products to its sector are indicative of the change of focus. A brief history of how marketing has come about can help to put into context how some companies work, and more importantly can showus where to place our marketing focus in future projects:

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Simple Strategies for Marketing Your Band in the Next Generation Music Biz

Finding effective strategies for marketing your band is a priority. Most would agree with this, but only when you get time to think about it. The problem for many bands is actually finding the time to think, then think marketing then think ‘strategies’. It amazes me how many times I still come across bands who are still…….

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