Music Videos Have Leaped From Entertainment To Experience, Thanks To Social Media

The talent-hunting reality shows may have started it, but music videos in general, and social media sites, YouTube in particular, have transformed and rebranded music and their artists from entertainment to a lifestyle experience. The interactive component in shows like American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, and their various versions have given their millions of viewers part of the power to decide who wins and who loses.

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14 Ways Musicians Can Make Money from Live Shows

You know the adage, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket“. Musicians just can’t afford to do that anymore. There are just so many baskets and each one has its benefits. Some baskets will be more important to you, and some will be more important during specific times in your career.

Think of the below list as a bunch of baskets related to making money from your live performance, and determine which ones you want to use. Some of these will be no-brainers, but they’re still on the list as a reminder.

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YouTube For Indie Artists: Part One

Music videos are more important than ever when it comes to introducing your band to the world! The low cost of creating serviceable visual content (music videos, vlogs, etc.) paired with the popularity of streaming platforms (YouTube, Vevo, Facebook) has not only made videos accessible to every level of artist, but a vital part of any marketing plan. Whether you’re an independent artist or signed to a major label, you can bet that video content is going to be a primary tool in attracting new fans and selling your product. Of course, like most content streams in the internet age, it can be difficult to ensure you’re getting optimal performance on your own videos. The blog below will help you ensure your hard work isn’t for nothing!

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Nielsen's Music 360 Report

By Spencer Ritchie from Berklee’s Music Business Journal, thembj.org. 

Nielsen recently published its annual Music 360 Report, detailing consumer spending in music, especially subscription services. According to Nielsen, the appetite for music in the United States is high. Apparently, 91% of the US population is listening up to 24 hours of music a week, a much larger number than reported for similar surveys in the 1990s.

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Intellectual Property Online: YouTube Red And The Blockchain

     Last week Google announced plans to roll out a $9.99 monthly subscription-based YouTube membership. The membership is called YouTube Red and it will give subscribers access to ad-free user-generated content (UGC) including original shows starring YouTube’s most popular creators, a gaming app, and the long-awaited YouTube Music service. YouTube Red is an exciting move that will set new industry standards and for the first time will give content creators a larger platform from which to address a paying market.

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It's Time To Rethink Everything

As many of you who normally read my blog post know that I do not support the music-streaming model that is currently being used. I believe that streaming in the current business model is not sustainable revenue for the music industry. To date there hasn’t been any music streaming service that has yet made a profit. It’s easy math here, the record labels and artists spend big time dollars to produce, market, and distribute music. In turn they receive pennies to the dollar, this seems like a no brainer. No wonder why music-streaming services have not made a dollar.

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Taylor Swift Made The Choice To Not Fight YouTube

You may know very well the story of Taylor Swift going against Apple and Spotify because these two decided to stream artists’ music without paying them any, or very little, royalties. After Taylor Swift pulled her entire repertoire from Spotify and called Apple out for originally not intending to pay publishers, labels or artists during the free three-month trial, she finally made up with Apple. Following a quite restless time, Swift tweeted she is putting her album on Apple Music ‘and happily so’.

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Self Publishing on YouTube

Everyone knows how important the YouTube platform is for indie musicians. It’s a great way to get your music out to fans, grow your fanbase, and provide your fans with great content from music videos to vlogs. There are plenty of musicians out there who have become successful mainly because of their YouTube channel, with Karmin and Pomplamoose being two of the most successful examples. They grew their audience by targeting young teens with covers of popular songs. Other musicians, like Alex Day, have based their career entirely on recorded music sales and a YouTube channel featuring music videos and hilarious vlogs.

However, there is another aspect of YouTube that is vastly underutilized by the musician community on the platform - publishing. You don’t need a publisher to get your music placed in YouTube videos. You just need to be proactive with social media and reach out to YouTubers you think would be interested in using your music with their creative content.

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Is YouTube a social network, or something better?

I’m sure by all relevant definitions YouTube is – and by far the most popular. It allows people to have followers and subscribers and share content, comment and all of that, but for some reason I put them in a different category than other social networks for 1 key reason – income participation.

All truth be told, I’m not a massive social media guy – I certainly engage with it and use much of it, but I’m certainly not as savvy as the average teenager. What I do know is that major corporations and content creators are approaching social networks in 2 ways – marketing and revenue.

Most of these networks start in the marketing/sharing space and then work on how they can transition to the revenue part – we’ve seen that with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and even YouTube.

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How Understanding Publishing Can Help Independent Artists Make Money

I have read a ton of articles over the past few months about how important understanding publishing is to the independent artist, and it is. What confounds me is that even with all of this information, there is still confusion in the marketplace on how this works, especially when it comes to streaming services like YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and others.

Lots of people in this business don’t understand it. Friends of mine at labels and management companies don’t understand it, independent artists don’t understand it and as more music consumption services come online, it is becoming more valuable to get the whole picture.

There is a great article here that gives a thorough overview of how publishing and other performance royalties work – so I don’t want to be repetitive, but I do want to take this opportunity to dive a little deeper into the way publishing works on YouTube – especially when it comes to cover songs.

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Youtube For Musicians: The Advanced Guide!

The internet is full of basic advice on how to market your music with Youtube. That said, if you want to really step your game up and start reaching more of your target audience, there are only a few advanced guides that will let you know how to do that. This is one of them! So have a look for 3 ‘not often talked about’ tips that will have you using Youtube much more effectively!

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7 Ways a VA Can Create Your Best YouTube Trailer

Ah, Youtube. Where more than 1 billion unique users visit each month and over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that’s almost an hour for every person on Earth.

Chances are you have an account but since they upgraded all channels to Youtube One back in June of 2013, I bet you $10 you haven’t gotten around to uploading a killer promo trailer to drive in subscriptions to your channel. Did I just get a free lunch?

So, why is it important to have a YouTube trailer?

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: The Music Marketing Manifesto. Ten Principles for Success

• Jesse Cannon | 9 Things YouTube Recommends Musicians Do That You’re Probably Missing

•  Simon Tam | 3 Ways Your Band Can Use Creativity to Make More Money

• Mark Knight | The Music Marketing Manifesto. Ten Principles For Success

• Kelland Drumgoole | How Stuff Spreads – Gangnam Style vs. Harlem Shake

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: How Often Should You Play? 6 Drawbacks to Playing More Shows

• Ariel Hyatt | 6 Key Tactics For Organic Success on YouTube From Hip Hop Artist Robert Scott

• Simon Tam | How Often Should You Play? 6 Drawbacks to Playing More Shows

• Dillon Roulet | The Musician of Oz