In Defense of 1,000 True Fans Part XI – Marian Call Leveraged Twitter to Tour 50 States & Returned w/ Money in Her Pocket

Since Spotify’s US launch and the F8 announcements, a major sea change is underfoot.  I have been following some of the most important and lively conversations about the meaning of all of this for independent musicians everywhere.

I don’t have much to say about it all (yet) but my knee jerk reaction is to revert back to the basics. As things get more and more complicated and as artists are being included on platforms that will yield them smaller fiduciary returns, it is more necessary than ever to remember and practice core marketing principals. I am strongly reminded of their necessity of the basics when I look at this from a global perspective.

I just returned from Scandinavia where most everyone still refuses to use Twitter and the people I met and spoke to mostly believe that email newsletters = SPAM.

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 ...

Artist Advice: Tools to Avoid Getting Overwhelmed by Twitter

This article is by Brendan Moore (@webmusicguy), Founder of Receptive Music, a digital marketing agency that makes the web work for artists.

 If you ever wonder how someone following 10,000 people can possibly keep up with their timeline, they either: 1) Don’t, or 2) Use some of the tactics below.

If you continually follow new people on Twitter, you will quickly get a couple hundred (to thousands) of people you are following, and your Twitter timeline will move way too fast to stay up-to-date with.  Worse than that, you will have lost context of who all these people are that you decided to follow.  Here’s how to stay organized:  

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 ...

10 Things Every Musician Should Do Online Every Day

Do you or your band have a daily online routine? You better. At the speed this world moves you can’t afford to miss even one day of what is happening. Your competition is not sitting still, so you better be out there. But as a band you have to find a balance that is not going to hinder your ability to be a band. You need to write, rehearse, record, perform… if you don’t do any of those things, being online won’t mean much.

So I thought I would take a look at my daily online routine and maybe you can apply to it your routine.

10 Things Every Musician Should Do Online Every Day

1. Quick Email Scan. – When you wakeup, you’re a band, so whatever time of the day this might be is fine. Grab your iPhone or smartphone and do a quick scan of your email for anything important or urgent. Respond to those very urgent emails right away. You will know what they are when you see them.

Click to read more ...

What is Twitter? Do you have an answer?

Even though Twitter adds millions of new users each month, it still feels like Twitter can’t tell users what Twitter is - in fifty words or less! 
 
The best way to discover what’s new in your world…

The what, why and how of Twitter is as confusing as it has ever been.  Since the music industry is one of the first industries to heavily embrace Twitter, I asked some industry friends the simple question: “What is Twitter?”  Their answers and my answer are below.  Please contribute to the conversation by answering “What is Twitter?” as a comment. 

Click to read more ...

MySpace Still Rules Google Search Results for Music Acts

Given that it’s pretty much dormant (and we never did much with it in the first place), I’m always surprised to see our MySpace page show up as one of the top three results whenever I do a vanity Google search for my band. I was curious to see the Google rank for the MySpace pages of well-known artists and conducted a quick search experiment last week. It wasn’t exhaustive — I just started with some of the bigger “indie rock” names of the past decade and threw in a handful of classic rock acts as well. Also, for band names of more than one word, I didn’t put quote marks around the full name, I just typed the band name and hit return, figuring that’s what most people would do when conducting a search.

For most of the acts, the Google Music Search player appears at the top of the results (no surprise there). And in almost every case, the band’s MySpace page was one of the top five search results. Of the 10 other artists I conducted searches for, Led Zeppelin was the only one where a MySpace page wasn’t one of the top 10 search results. Facebook only made two top-10 appearances (one of which was a search for my own band), though it was in the 11th or 12th spot for several acts. Last.fm made a surprisingly strong appearance and was a top-10 result for almost every artist.

Click to read more ...

University research proves that the smart interlinking of multiple artist-controlled web properties drives success

I recently took a fantastic journey to Australia where I spoke at a music conference called Big Sound in Brisbane. There I had the honor and privilege of meeting Dave Carter, a Dr. at Griffith University who was presenting a fascinating study called The Online Marketing Research Paper. 

The Online Marketing Research Paper examines the web presence and sales data for 99 independent Australian artists distributed by Musicadium (a digital music & video distribution service) to identify whether any of the documented online activity corresponded with proportionally higher royalty returns to artists.

I think all artists should read through this important case study.  You can download it by visiting here: http://www.musicadium.com/online-marketing-research-paper

In my opinion Dave Carter found out some very interesting things: (Disclaimer: I may find this study so inspiring is it scientifically backs up my theories and teachings at Ariel Publicity and in my book/online course Music Success in Nine Weeks. Affirmation feels so sweet….)

Click to read more ...

In Defense Of 1,000 True Fans - Part II - Matthew Ebel

In part ii of my 1,000 true fans series I chose to interview my friend Matthew Ebel. I have known Matthew for a few years because he runs in the same geeky podcasting circles that I proudly run in.  Matthew is the type of artist I refer to in my book as a “Builder” meaning Matthew is constantly pushing his career forward using not only musical innovation but also technology.  

What I find most striking about this interview is the fact that Matthew makes 26.3% of his net income from just 40 hard- core fans.

Click to read more ...

How I use Twitter

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and mailing lists are all a P.A. system. (Remember P.A. stands for “Public Address”.)

Speaking through them is like stepping up to a microphone, on a stage, in front of 10,000 people. What can I say that’s worth saying to 10,000 people? It has to be something that most of those 10,000 unique individuals will find interesting.

I try not to let that paralyze me into thinking that everything I say has to be super-important. Occasionally I light-heartedly post something cute or funny. Nobody wants to be around someone who’s too heavy and profound all the time.

Click to read more ...

Proper care and maintenance of networking sites

Networking sites are great promotional tools. Everyone from the indie artist to the artist who has a massive advertising and marketing budget has one. But when is it time for house cleaning? When is it time for certain things to go away? A good deal of what is posted is unimportant, boring and, let’s face it, stupid. Now, if you’re just another face on Facebook or Twitter, it doesn’t really matter. However, if you are an artist, a band or someone who is trying to promote and market, those little stupid updates can harm you more than help you.

So what is the answer?

Simple. Do some housecleaning now and then and make sure you are providing the information, the image and the promotional materials that will reach the most people in the best way. Be smart in a world of social networking. Twittering, face booking and whatever other term you can come up with where people are putting out the dumbest information that might only apply to the fewest people and end up causing the most problems and over all disinterest possible.

Click to read more ...

Twitter 101 For Musicians - Free PDF

. I’ll keep this short. Twitter has a really good how to guide for business but the exact same rules apply to artists and musicians. Go here to download it