Is Music A Good Career Choice For Me/My Child?

Should my child become a professional musician?   This is the question I get most often from conscientious dads/moms who want to make sure their child chooses a field that will enable them to have stable income and employment.   

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How Eli Lev Created A Fan-Generated Music Video (For Less Than $300)

Ariel here from Cyber PR. For the past year, we have been working on artist development and PR for Washington D.C. based singer-songwriter Eli Lev. Eli has just released a video that makes me so happy when I watch it. It so wonderfully expresses who he is in the world and who he is to his fans, so I wanted  to share it here. Eli and I hope that this video inspires other artists to create crowd sourced videos and social moments to share.

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How A Visual Artist Taught Me To Earn A Living Through Licensing

Many musical artists don’t think about how to generate alternative revenue streams to supplement the money they make selling albums and playing gigs. Many artists avoid thinking about the business aspects of the industry in a more broad way than simply “play a gig and get paid”. This is a subject that has interested me for many years, as the financial roller coaster of being a professional musician can be very trying at times. When I was younger and working as a full time keyboard player, I could be playing in a big Broadway or Off-Broadway show one day, and the next be just another unemployed musician scrambling to earn a living after the show closed. But then I met Larry Rivers, the man who taught me how to merge art and commerce to generate revenue. My experiences with him have greatly influenced how I approach earning a living as a creative artist.

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5 Questions For A Music Industry Expert - Ariel Hyatt Interviews Julie Flanders Of October Project

Julie Flanders is an expert in Creative Leadership, Self Expression and Change. She provides creative business consulting, excellence training, whole life coaching balanced-lifestyle approaches and dream achievement. She is also the founding member of the influential pop rock group October Project. 

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Cyber PR Q&A: 5 Questions For John Kellogg, Esq. Author Of Take Care Of Your Music Business

John Kellogg is a practicing entertainment lawyer and assistant chair of Music Business/
Management at Berklee College of Music in Boston. I met him when I spoke at Berklee and my firm was delighted to represent him for the release of his book Take Care of Your Music Business, Second Edition.

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5 Critical Things You Need Before You Start A PR Campaign

As an independent musician, a digital PR campaign can be a critical component to an overall marketing strategy that will help you to:

1. Reach new fans

2. Increase online influence

3. Create new content that can be used to continue to build strength of existing fan base through social media

4. Better understand marketplace position

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The Musicians Guide To Rocking Your Next Email Interview

So a blogger of the blogosphere has asked you to do an email interview (condensed way of saying he or she will email you interview questions and you will email them back the answers), cool. Whether you have a professional publicist, a friend behaving as your publicist, or you are taking the DIY approach does not matter- this article is for you.

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The Musician’s Guide To Setting And Achieving Goals For 2015

It is still the very top of a brand new year! It is an ideal time to set your goals. I see a marked difference between artists who set finite goals and those who do not. 

Ask yourself: Is this the year I want to make a difference for my musical career?  And if so – what difference and how? Then it’s time to reach into that treasure chest - your mind and formuate a KILLER PLAN for this year. 

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9 Things I Learned at YOUR MUSIC, YOUR RIGHTS, YOUR CAREER

Oh, my default self? I call her IKIA: Impatient Know-It-All. (Replace “Impatient” with “Insufferable” if you’re a Harry Potter fan. Yes, my default self is also a dork.) She has lots of evidence that supports her know-it-all-ness, like her years of touring, recording, licensing, and a $30k fan-funding story to boot. That, plus speaking at SXSW and writing a successful e-course for musicians pretty much makes it impossible for IKIA to learn anything new, let alone be a likable contender for collaboration.

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The Cyber PR Guide to Creating an Effective Music Marketing Plan (Part 3 of 3)

In creating an effective music marketing plan, so far we have discussed building a solid and complete online foundation and outlined strategies for a successful new release launch. Now it is time to kick back and relax for a little while before starting to write material for the next album that you’ll release a year or two down the road right…..Couldn’t be further from the truth!

To build off of all the progress you’ve been making up to this point, while you are working on that next record, you will have to keep supplying content on a consistent basis to strengthen your relationship and stay relevant with your current fans, and at the same time this content will also help to increase your fanbase.

Additional merchandise is one content idea, you can make vinyl for the last album or announce a new T-shirt design. Continue to release music videos for songs off the last album is another, for example take footage from the album release tour and edit to create an easy and fun music video to upload to your YouTube channel.

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The Cyber PR Guide to Creating an Effective Music Marketing Plan (Part 2 of 3)

Releasing an album or EP into today’s music landscape can feel like a daunting task. Who do you send it to? How will you get people to listen?  How do you cut through the noise? Where are all the places to put it online?

The first blog post in this 3-part series for creating an effective marketing plan dealt with building a strong online presence, so if you follow those instructions you are already in better shape than the majority of artists releasing music today.

In this, part 2, we will discuss steps to take in order to have a successful new release launch.

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The Cyber PR Guide to Creating an Effective Music Marketing Plan (Part 1 of 3)

Happy almost end of summer ya’ll!  WE are in total denial that it is almost over BUT we are clear that it’s time to get back down to work.  In this 3-Part series Chris Hacker breaks down how to begin to build an effective log-term plan.  Enjoy this post.  Love, Ariel @CyberPR

Chris Hacker here, I lead the Marketing Plan team at Cyber PR® and really enjoy working with our artists who are in diverse genres and in all stages in their careers.

Over the years I’ve seen the same problems occur again and again. An artist will call us up looking for help promoting a new album that they’re planning on releasing in a few weeks or less! And often their only plan is just to hire a publicist. It completely baffles me that an artist will work so hard on an album, spending hours and hours writing songs and practicing these songs and then spending large sums of money recording, mixing and mastering, only to rush the release without being ready and having a complete plan in place. Especially in today’s saturated climate where even small music blogs are getting inundated with hundreds of emails a day from artists looking for coverage, just making an album and then wanting to “get some press”, is not enough of a plan. An artist needs to be working many different angles and taking many different approaches to get seen and heard.

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Cyber PR’s 2014 SXSW Survival Guide

Having attended every SXSW for the last 17 years, I’ve seen it all. The following are some tips on how to successfully navigate your through the most overwhelming music conference of them all.

Envision What You Want Before You Arrive

My first bit of advice: Arrive prepared. Know who will be attending and create some goals before you get there.

Attend at Least One Music Conference Each Year

I believe all serious musicians should make it part of their job to attend at least one conference a year.  They can be expensive to get to, but think abut it this way: music lessons and equipment were at one time expensive, and those things are also vital for your career. Conferences are the best place to meet people who work in and around the music industry, and conferences are a relaxed environment to connect with people in the industry who can change the course of your career.

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In Defense of 1,000 True Fans - Robyn Dell'Unto's Multifaceted Approach to Fan Engagement

It’s been well over a year since our last contribution to our 1,000 True Fans series, but the ideology hasn’t aged a bit. The hustle and heart of the indie artist is still a necessity in today’s music industry, and the focus remains to have an all-encompassing view of every avenue needed to reach the widest possible audience, and tap into all possible revenue streams. Of course, there is not latter here without the former.

Cyber PR campaigns manager Andrew Salmon (@andrewgsalmon) sits down with Canadian singer-songwriter Robyn Dell’Unto to talk about Twitter, crowdfunding, user generated content, and seizing opportunities.

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