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Monday, July 13, 2009
Traits of Committed Artist
- Are you/your group passionate about your music ?
- Do you want your music to mean more ?
- Do you care about community and world needs ?
- Can you give 110% ?
- Are you available on request for recordings/gigs/interviews ?
- Do you have a team player attitude ?
- Are you willing to put in the sweat equity it will take?
Building Fan-Band Relationships In 420 Characters Per Day
Building Fan-Band Relationships In 420 Characters Per Day
So you’ve signed up for Twitter. Congratulations! It seems to be all the rage right now in the music industry. Bands and industry people are registering for the site like crazy. So how do you make this Twitter thing work for you? How can you use it to help promote your band?
The key is to make sure that’s not your only goal. What you should be trying to do is become part of a community of people who most likely will enjoy your music, and want to hear what you have to say. And build your numbers up slowly and organically. Don’t just sign up, start following a bunch of random people, and make your only tweets promotional in nature, like saying “check out my band on our myspace” over and over again. In fact, a really good idea is to upload a profile picture, customize your profile page, fill out the BIO line, display the link to your website/myspace, and post at least five to ten tweets (see below for more on that) all before you start following people you don’t know.
On Twitter, it IS okay to follow people you don’t know in real life, so that’s a plus. People are far less protective of their Twitter followers/followings than they are of their Facebook friends. So go ahead and search Twitter for key words of conversations that might indicate that a person may like your music, and follow them. For example, if you are in a band that sounds like MGMT, try searching for things like “Hipster Runoff” and definitely “MGMT”. Find people who are already talking about the genre, follow them, and start talking about them too. Be honest… “hey, I love MGMT as well. I play in a band and they are a major influence on our sound.” is a good start. It’s honest, to the point, and conversationally promotional. Then, if the person @replies, and asks you for the link to your Myspace, go ahead and give it to them. @replying is a public conversation, so then anyone reading that conversation will see your site as well. And the people who are actually reading the conversation, are the people you want to reach! Jump in, and start talking to people. Just don’t come on too strong… you wouldn’t walk into a house-party full of strangers and just start shouting “HEY, I’M IN A BAND… CHECK US OUT!”, so don’t do it online either.
The other key to twittering effectively, is to tweet often, but not too often, and to balance your tweets between promotional tweets, personal tweets, and conversation tweets (either asking a question, or @replying to one of your followers posts). Working Twitter into your daily routine takes a bit of getting used to, but you need to make sure you do it. Here’s an easy way to get into it.
Start by tweeting three times in a day.
Make one tweet your “promotional tweet”… things like “in the studio, laying down vocal melodies,” “just posted a new song on our myspace, hope you like it!” and “new tour dates announced! check them out here.” are all basic examples of promotional tweets. Give a bit of information that people who follow you would care about.
Another of your tweets should be the “personal tweet.” These are designed so your followers feel connected to you, the way your friends in real-life are. Say things like “Deciding between Pizza and Chinese Food for dinner.” or “going snowboarding tomorrow, stoked!” Basically whatever is really going on in your life outside of the band. Even though they seem mundane, when you’re a fan of a band reading these tweets, they can seem really exciting because they are the window into the band members personalities… and that deeper fan-band connection is what they are looking for.
Finally, the third tweet should be your “conversational tweet.” These are designed to further embed you in the community, and stimulate interesting discussion. These don’t have to be about music, or your band, because they are to show that you’re interested in what your followers have to say, and that you’re paying attention to them too. Things like “@follower, nice new tattoo you got there!” or “Question – what do you think of the new U2 single?” And if someone asks you a question, make sure you @reply back to them too. These tweets all show that you care about what the people who follow you have to say. And again, just think about this from a fan’s perspective… imagine if your favorite band was actually listening to what you had to say, responding to you personally, and asking you questions… you would immediately recognize that as a sign they cared about you too… and think how that would make you feel!
This is the power of Twitter for musicians. Promotion, fan-connection, community-building, relationship-developing. Use it to truly endear your audience to you. In three simple tweets per day. (a measly 420 characters of daily effort.)
PS – Fan relationships are precious…don’t abuse them. Don’t do any of what I’ve mentioned above if you don’t actually care. A one-sided relationship is really easy to sniff out, and it’s more detrimental to you than if you didn’t do anything at all.
Be Where Everyone Is, Be Where Everyone Isn’t
The first, Be Where Everyone Is… is all about knowing your target fans, and making sure that you are active in those places, both online and in the offline space. Being active where your potential fans already spend their time – the bars, websites, blogs, concerts, radio stations, specialty record shops, etc. Make sure you are spending your time there wisely. Don’t think selfishly when you are spending time where everyone is, that’s the kiss of death. Thinking selfishly would mean you’re going to where everyone is, and shouting about what you want to talk about, not what everyone else wants. That mentality leads to unproductive behaviour like shoving flyers in hands, postering, posting uninteresting shameless promotional messages online, shouting about your myspace, etc. When you are in the space where everyone else is, think instead about how you can add value to what’s already there – if that’s having meaningful conversations, sharing news that the others will care about, helping out others within the community, putting on free shows, asking questions, appropriately giving away some of your music etc. I say appropriately… don’t force it at people who aren’t interested… just make it available, then go about doing all the other things that can add value to the community you’re in, and every once in a while remind people it’s there. (not more than once a week.) You’ve got to stand out in the crowd, but not by being the one who shouts loudest… do it by being someone who adds lots of value to the community.
The second one, Be Where Everyone Isn’t… doesn’t mean playing to an empty room. It is more about creative thinking, and since you’re a musician, hopefully you’re really good at thinking creatively. This one is is about finding unique places to put yourselves and your music, where people aren’t expecting to come into contact with it. Now, this is useless if it doesn’t match with your target audience, for example if you’re in a heavy metal band it’s probably not worth performing live on a flatbed truck outside the Wine & Cheese Show… while you might get a few wine-lovers who love their metal, the fact is it’s not efficient, even though it’s unique and unexpected. But if you were in a jazz-band, that might be a great thing for you to do. Try finding other communities other than music-based ones that are likely to enjoy your music, but aren’t currently engaged in talking about music…. Major record labels have entire departments to this, and they call it lifestyle marketing. Again, if you’re that metal band, itching to play on a flatbed trailer, try playing outside the Tattoo Convention instead of the Wine & Cheese one. It’s all about thinking about your fans, or potential fans, considering where else they might go when they’re not actively seeking music, and being there too. So if you’d appeal to an affluent business crowd, maybe it’s busking at the airport, or engaging people online on travel messageboards… On a larger scale, this is why corporate brands associate themselves with certain musicians… the Vans Warped Tour, Blackberry and U2 / John Mayer, etc. That’s the ultimate, and it can result in gobs of money changing hands, but that’s not the point here… the point is all about association and getting in front of new potential fans. Now, you could just sit there and say “but I can’t get a tour sponsorship”… or you could say… okay, bands like mine get sponsored by Vans, so maybe I should try getting my music played in local skateboard shops, or alternative shoe-stores. I can’t tell you every example, because there’s so many opportunities out there…. but I am challenging you to try and find these unique but suitable places to engage your potential fans.
Have fun, get out there, add value to your communities, and put more music out into the world in unexpected places. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Tales Of Collection Societies Gone Wrong: GEMA
We've noted in the past some of the massive problems with various collections societies around the world. These groups are often given something of a monopoly over collecting music royalties, and even though they present themselves as being non-profits designed to help artists, the truth is usually something far different. Beyond abusing their position, their real goal is often not to help all artists, but a small subset at the top. This is what copyright law has pretty much always done. By setting up artificial barriers and monopoly rents, it allows a very few at the top to benefit at a grossly disproportionate level, and it's the rest of the creators who are harmed by this (i.e., if those monopoly rents mean that I need to pay much more than the true market rate to support some top pop star, I'm much less likely to spend money on an up and coming indie musician). The whole recording industry has been built around a few megastars, and it should be no surprise that the industry has used copyright law and collections societies in support of that.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Trent Reznor: What To Do As A New / Unknown Artist
This post on Trent Reznor's NIN blog is a must read from an artist who has helped re-write the rules of modern music marketing. I've added bold type to some passages for emphasis.
Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual "yeah, if you're an established artist - what if you're just trying to get heard?" argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I'll reiterate what I said here.
If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:
* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) - your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.
If you're forging your own path, read on.
* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Partner with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them somethingYOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters... whatever.
Don't have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]
Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]
Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).
The Beastie Boys' site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.
The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it's dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don't autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
If you don't know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don't get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you're going to be waiting a while.
Hope this helps, and I'll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.
TR
TopSpin Media info:
[topspinmedia.com]
** quick update:
Thanks for the insightful comments already - when I get a moment (and a reliable internet connection) I'll respond to some of your very valid points. Please keep in mind - these were just some thoughts I quickly wrote down and posted and not meant to be a complete guide by any means. I've neglected to get into publishing and some other things. I'll update pretty soon.
EU Telco Chief: Business Model Failure Leads To Piracy... Not The Other Way Around
"In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers."Of course, it's not clear what sort of solution she's proposing -- and it sounds a bit like she's suggesting putting in place a universal licensing fee for online music, which isn't much of an improvement. Luckily the Pirate Party's Christian Engstrom points out the problem with where that thinking leads, by noting that citizens shouldn't just be thought about as "consumers":
"We are citizens... and we do have certain human rights according to the European convention on human rights which includes the right to information freedom."Still, given where things are in the US, it's impressive enough to find multiple politicians who aren't just buying the major record labels' story that it's "piracy" that's killing their business models, rather than the other way around.
Making + Marketing = Success
It takes changing your mindset, letting go of the idea that doing good (or even amazing) work is enough. 'Build it and they will come' may work in the movies, but in real life you can end up doing a lot of lonely building.
If you really want your work to be seen, heard and loved - and to bring you recognition and rewards - then you need to see 'getting it out there' as part of the job. It's pretty simple when it comes down to it:
Making + Marketing = Success
Success doesn't have to be all about money. If you're doing something worthwhile, it will also involve the satisfaction of making a contribution to the wider world, being recognized for your achievements and creating new opportunities for yourself and others.
And marketing isn't just about selling. It's about building your reputation or personal brand, and expanding your sphere of influence.
The good news is that these days there are plenty of tools and opportunities for you to build a stellar reputation from scratch, without having to go cap-in-hand to an agent or spend a fortune on advertising. Things like blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Behance,DeviantArt and other networks.
But none of that stuff means doodle squat until you answer yes to this question:
Am I prepared to my creative energy into promoting my work as well as making it?