3 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Announce A Release Date

Bands often come to me while they are in the studio with a clear idea they would like to release their album within a few months. However, without a finished product this is rarely a successful strategy. I’ve even seen a few bands announce their album release date on social networks and then have to retract that date, due to a variety of circumstances.

These are three reasons why you shouldn’t announce your release date before you have a finished product.

Click to read more ...

Increase The Probability Of Getting Featured

As technology is growing and becoming much more accessible all over the world, more Record Labels and Artists are getting their Music Production hats on and releasing music to the world. The thrill of seeing the material out on stores such as Beatport, iTunes, Google Play, and others is a great feeling but then the artist and record label begin to realize there is not enough attention that is needed and begin to ask, how can I get featured and get a banner on Beatport or iTunes and others?

Click to read more ...

It's all who you know?

When you hear, “It’s all who you know,” it sounds so intimidating - like you need to be a former roommate of Mark Zuckerburg, cousins with Richard Branson, and dating Taylor Swift.

But simply contacting a stranger can lead to a worldwide network of connections.

Click to read more ...

What the 2012 Nielsen Social Media Report Means for Music Marketing

The world’s leading global communication and measurement company, Nielsen, just released their newest report, State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012. While the continued growth of social media is no surprise, there are several new trends that musicians should be aware of.

First, there is the idea of “the global living room” or “social tv.” TV-watching has transformed into a new immediate and shared experience. Over 33% of Twitter users actively tweet about TV-related content, making it a shared experience on a larger scale. People especially love to engage real-time during broadcasted events. TV programs are responding by not only taking in the immediate feedback, but writers are adjusting scripts based on what trends, TV shows promote hashtags for viewers, and they sometimes broadcast live tweets (if appropriate for the program).

Click to read more ...

The 5 Most Important Skills Twitter Teaches Us

Picture this: one day, a company comes out of nowhere to introduce a service that renders Twitter obsolete. Overnight, all of those hours you spent cranking out tweets are useless. Or are they?

Let’s face it: Twitter is not so much about our follower counts, retweets, or mentions. Those are just numbers. Here’s the real deal: Twitter prepares us for the future by teaching us valuable, real-world skills.

So even if Twitter dies tomorrow, here are the five most important skills we can learn from it.

Click to read more ...

From the Mouth of a Artist, Tend to Your Social Network Daily and Watch the Roots Take Hold

Lisa Sniderman from Aoede is one of my past clients and for the past few months I had wanted to interview about her experience and growth using social networking to grow her fanbase. Well we were finally able to make it happen. I felt it was important to have a artists say all of this, sometimes hearing it from a peer carries more weight. So take a couple minutes and read about how Lisa went from essentially zero to social networking wiz and grew her fanbase over the last 1o months.

Lisa set the wayback machine to December of 2010 when we first talked. You were a couple months away from releasing your most recent album Affair With The Muse and hired me to help you with your website and online marketing efforts. Your online world at that time was fairly small; less than 1000 on your email list, a handful of Facebook fans, less than 100 Twitter followers. We talked about what you would need to do to grow your fans. How you would have to spend time engaging with everyone on Facebook and Twitter. How you would have to write articles to post on your new blog. How you had to open up and talk about yourself personally more than you talk about the new album. I remember at the time you said you were not sure you could do all of this, that you didn’t know if you had the time. But, you forged ahead.

Now not even a year later and looking back what do you think about that journey?

Click to read more ...

Do's and Don't's of Social Networking - Know your fans to keep your fans!

So one of the main things I’ve had to learn this year with the rapid advance of social networking as a direct-connect to your fans is this:  DON’T make the mistake of overmarketing to them.

Fans become fans because they LIKE your music, but they are naturally curious about the person behind the music and the LOVE getting to know you even more than they like your music.  This is an incredibly important lesson to learn. Keep in mind that the same should be true for you in order for there to exist a genuine relationship between the two of you…be more interested in learning about and knowing your fans than SELLING to them.  They will buy your music if and only if you’ve established trust and interest with them as an independent artist.  Let’s face it - we’re not Taylor Swift or Beyonce who have had millions of dollars behind developing their brand that is mass-marketed to everyone.  We are independent artists with limited marketing budgets and time and genuine care will go a LONG way in your social networking strategies.

Click to read more ...

Music Marketers FAQ – What's most important as a promotional tool: Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube?

I’m continuing the Music Marketing Experts FAQs where my favorite gods and goddesses of online marketing and Social Media promotion share with me the questions they get asked the most by musicians.

What’s most important as a promotional tool; Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube?

Click to read more ...

Music Marketers FAQ - Why Does Social Networking Take So Much Time?

I asked 5 of my favorite gods and goddesses of online marketing and Social Media promotion to share with me the top questions they get asked the most by musicians.  Then I sent them around for all of us to answer. I’m going to kick off this installment with a question Bobby Owsinski ofte gets asked. Here’s the first one:  It’s obvious and so simple! Why does social networking take so much time?

Click to read more ...

Building a better Network

Most musicians or artists think of only one or two aspects of their career; music and social networking. I find that most musicians just go through the motions not really giving it their all especially when it comes to social networking. In order to improve your skills as a musician, get more gigs and make more money you have to think outside of the box. Improvisation is a key asset to your bag of tricks and can pay you back ten fold. If you always practice what you know you will never learn anything new or improve your craft and skill set. Trying new things out and getting out of your comfort zone forces you to expand your mind with the side effect being some potential hit tunes on your hand. More importantly it will help you to bridge out of your genre of music, once you get good, and allow you to diversify your income potential by taking on other projects or gigs. This article however is not about making better music or writing hit records, it’s about doing simple steps with social networking, like improvisation, that will pay off in the future.

Click to read more ...

What are the odds of succeeding without a record deal?

I found an interesting Blog post the other day that seemed to cause major disagreement between musicians on the subject of record deals, specifically whether musicians needed a record deal at all nowadays. The original Blog was entitled, Do Social Networks Really Help Musicians? It makes the point (in a round-a-bout way) that social networks create so much opportunity for musicians that overcrowding, by and large, negates the benefits for the masses.

Click to read more ...

Do Social Networks Really Help Musicians?

The purpose of this article is to cut right through to the heart of why it’s so hard for musicians to benefit (in any meaningful way) from social networks. The social network provides new and exciting benefits for musicians, which is why most embrace new social networks as a way to expose their music to thousands of potential fans and music industry reps. The only trouble is overcrowding. What always struck me as strange is the myspace mentality. It appeared that musicians actually thought that having a million friends was a good thing on myspace, despite the fact those friends were all musicians who only ‘friended’ you so that they can get more ‘friends’ for themselves. Perhaps myspace’s tag line should have been, “Join myspace, an endless circle of incestuous pleasantries probably amounting to nothing”. I guess that wouldn’t have been snappy enough.

Click to read more ...

Prescreen Your Future Fans with Twitter

Two months ago, I began implementing Ariel Hyatt and Carla Lynne Hall’s strategy to increase my Twitter following, as laid out in their book Musician’s Roadmap to Facebook and Twitter. The basic idea is to follow potential fans in the hope that they will follow back. I discovered that the more selective I am in choosing who to follow, the more likely I am to connect with people who may become genuine fans. I’ll share my process and results below.

Click to read more ...

Seven Rules for Effective Social Networking For Artists

Whenever I read about effective social networking for artists, I see the same few discussions concentrating primarily on examples of people who had traction prior to the use of social networks and found that they were able to continue to build their fan base using these tools.  

Amanda Palmer is the most common example.  She is excellent at engaging her fans and followers, but she has many of those fans and followers because of the significant backing of a label.  While her path is interesting, and it does provide useful lessons for artists just starting out, I don’t think all of her techniques and approaches apply to the beginner.  As such, my goal here is to discuss some of the things that I, as a more unknown artist, have found effective in building and maintaining a modest following.

Click to read more ...