The Best Social Media Site for Bands

I often get asked: what’s the best social media site for bands? My business clients ask the same thing using different words: what is the best marketing channel to promote my brand? The idea that there is a magic formula or single solution to take care of all your needs is a misnomer. Where you should be promoting and the tools that you should be using should revolve around one main concept: where your target audience is. It’s as simple as that.

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Developing a mobile app for your band

Why Your Band Needs an App

It’s no secret that the world of music has changed over the past decade. In fact, there’s no aspect of writing, recording, distributing and marketing music that hasn’t changed. While some bands may be actively seeking major label success, the truly inventive bands are working hard on every aspect of their music, including promotion. This is largely because today’s independent musician is truly independent. They often produce, record and promote their music without the help of a record producer or PR company.

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First Impressions Count. The Importance Of Brand For Your Band

Without doubt, the biggest challenge any new band or artist faces is getting their music heard. So it’s important you give yourself the very best chance of cutting through. Sadly, just having great music is not enough. Bands frequently spend months writing and recording new material and then rush it out before considering the importance of presentation or brand.

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Tips on Writing an Effective Artist Biography

Album finished? Check. Tour dates? Check. Press photos? Check. Press release? Check. Biography? Urgh! If you’re not a spectacular storyteller or wondrous wordsmith, then the task of writing or updating your biography can seem like an arduous task. However, a biography is an essential item in any musicians marketing tool kit. It positions your brand identity, communicates your key achievements and provides background info to fans and media alike. Here are a few pointers to help you on your way…..

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Navigating the Music Business - Mapping Out A Living

So how hard is it really?  You write songs and sell them, that’s all there is to it, right?  Unfortunately the music industry isn’t quite as simple as we’d all like it to be.  There are many different sectors through which an artist must pass and even more ways in which these sectors can be negotiated and traversed.  To successfully navigate the music industry one must learn what happens in each of these sectors and how they inter-relate.  To help you get started we have a ‘Map of the Musical Universe’ courtesy of PRS (click to enlarge).

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Can Indie Bands Use Lady GaGa's Example For Originality & Controversy?

Indie bands and musicians - What can we learn, if anything, from the viral marketing techniques employed by the world’s biggest pop star (except Justin Bieber of course), Lady GaGa? If at this point you’re grumbling “Not my thing” or “I hate pop music” you’ve quite possibly closed some of the potential doors available to you and sorely missed out as a result. Let’s also forget the obvious point that GaGa has millions of followers anticipating her every move. I plan to use this individual simply as a conversation starter on the topics of controversy and originality, which are becoming ever-more important in today’s music industry.

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DIY Promotion, Songwriting and Pricing w/ 3OH!3

When you think of DIY bands, chances are the acts that come to your mind are not on the billboard charts. At least not yet. When we first reached out to 3OH!3 for an interview, we had our doubts as well. However, as you will see below, 3OH!3 was born and raised in DIY ethos and continue to move forward with the same mentality even today.

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Google+ is for PEOPLE, Not Bands

There has been a lot of talk about Google+ recently, and rightly so. When the Goliath of the internet launches a new product, we’d all be wise to pay attention. And while I agree that it can be a powerful tool for musicians to share their work, everything I’ve read in the music blogosphere has missed the point. So far, the articles I’ve seen have focused on the eventual addition of “brand pages”, or pages that are attached to a band rather than an individual. But Google+ is for people, not bands.

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SEO Band Names: How To Choose A Band Name So You Will Be Found Online

Make it easy for your fans to find you online.

Choosing a band or artist name that is search engine optimized (also known as SEO) can help your career down the road.

Yes, many bands have managed to achieve success in spite of unsearchable band names (the band Girls come to mind), but why not make it easy on your fans and choose a name that is easy to search for and find?

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Don't Hold It Against Me – But Product Placement Will Not Save the Music Industry

The new Britney Spears video for ‘Hold It Against Me’ got me thinking about product placement and monetization possibilities for the music industry.

The video has overt references to Britney’s fragrance Radiance, Makeup Forever, Sony, and the online dating site PlentyOfFish. I have no idea* how much it costs to get into a video that will most likely garner tens of millions of views over time, but I can imagine it is not insignificant. Britney Spears isn’t the only one to include product placement in videos either—Lady Gaga didn’t shy away from video advertising in Telephone and even some rock musicians are starting to go with the trend to make up for lackluster CD sales.

Clearly it’s becoming a staple of the music industry just as it has been in television for a long time. I always enjoy a good product placement bit on 30 Rock.

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What Kinds of Images Best Represent Your Band?

As you’ve no doubt realized by now, image is pretty important to your success as an artist. It affects your live show, it affects your online presence, it affects your marketing opportunities and strategy.

But in the countless hours you’re obviously devoting to exploring and experimenting with your image, are you thinking about what kind of image you’re going to use?  

The superb Riff City published a tremendously insightful post last week entitled Docs of Perception: Visual Records and How We Hear Music. In it, author Julianne Escobedo Shephard explores the relationship between camera technology and our perception of artists.

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What Is A Brand?

One of the things that an artist or band hears a lot these days is the need to promote “your brand” in order to get ahead in the Music 3.0 era that we all now live in. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard to promote your brand unless you’re 100% sure of what a brand is. So what exactly is a brand? Here’s a quote from the Music 3.0 Internet music guidebook that describes it perfectly:

A brand is a promise of quality and consistency. No matter where in the world you go for a McDonald’s hamburger, you know what to expect. No matter what product you purchase from Apple, you can expect sleek high-tech design and an easy to understand user interface. Brand management is protecting the image of the brand and carefully selecting how to best exploit it.

For an artist, that means a consistency of persona, and usually a consistency of sound. Regardless of what genre of music the artist delves into, the feel is the same and you can tell it’s the artist at first listen. Madonna has changed directions many times during her career but her brand has been consistent. Her persona remained the same even as she changed to and from the “Material Girl.” The Beatles tried a wide variety of directions but you never once questioned who you were listening to. It was always fresh and exciting, but distinctly them.

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How To Post A Perfect Press Kit On Your Website

I’m often amazed when I go to an artist’s website, and I look around, and I’m trying to find basic press information and I can’t.

It seems that in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook Fan pages, and constantly focusing on your two-way conversations, we’ve forgotten the important basics.

This is a revised excerpt from my book, Music Success in Nine Weeks, (which, btw 65 artists are blogging their way through I’m proud to say) and it talks about an asset that no matter what we all face with new digital solutions, new platforms and apps that we’re going to be forced to learn, we should always remember: Your press kit.

It’s up to you to post your press information clearly and succinctly, so that you’re easy to find and write about. Posting an accessible press kit to share with journalists and new media makers( bloggers, podcasters, etc.)  is good common sense.

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If I were a record label and you were an artist, would you marry me anyways, would you have my baby?

It’s been said that over a million songs a year are being uploaded to the Internet, and that number is growing.  In addition, the number of new “artists” entering an already crowded marketplace is exploding.  And as you all know, it’s not only hard to generate a return on investment when promoting artists and music, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to fight through the noise.  The last thing music fans need right now is another PUMP; what fans do need and want…are FILTERS they can trust. 

From this day forward, this label will cease to PUMP out anything and everything you create.  Moreover this label will no longer support or promote artist websites and brands.  This label is going to have one management team, one fundraising initiative, one website, one set of widgets, a unified scheduling page, one mobile app, one social stream, one streaming radio service and one voice.

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