Derek Sivers’ Blog Alexa Traffic Rank: 42,736
As the founder of CD Baby, Derek has definitely made some noise in the industry so you know he has a thing or two to say about it. An entrepreneur and former musician himself, Derek shares his vast knowledge of the music business and doesn’t hold back.
Hypebot Alexa Traffic Rank: 52,627
As the blog itself states, Hypebot covers it all—from music to technology to the new music business.It’s one of the best resources out there for staying on top of the ever changing music industry.
Music Think Tank Alexa Traffic Rank: 113,120
The Music Think Tank is just that—a collective of industry experts and analysts providing commentary and advice on anything and everything related to the music industry.
Digital Music News Alexa Traffic Rank: 126,689
Digital Music News is a leading news and information resource for the music industry by Paul Resnikoff who has become well known for his executive writing style and “Resnikoff’s Parting Shot”—a colorful commentary on current events.
Gen-Y Rock Stars Alexa Traffic Rank: 395,380
Gen-Y Rock Stars is run by Greg Rollett of Label 2.0 and a slew of other great projects geared towards the DIY generation.Greg has spent a great deal of time working with DIY artists and has a lot to share for those interested in taking their careers into their own hands.
New Years resolutions can be a pain. You know you’re supposed to follow through but it’s not always easy. That’s why it’s important to set realistic ones that are simple to achieve but will make you feel accomplished. If you’re ultimate goal in 2010 is to advance your music career, then the following 5 resolutions will help you achieve that goal:
1. Give back to your fans. This is always important and simpler than you think. It could be a friendly little email with an exclusive download or even a video of you playing a song about how great they are.
2. Be creative. This is obvious but crucial to really focus on and remember at all times. As a musician, it’s your job to be creative. But it’s also important to think outside of the box and be creative in other areas of your music career as well. Such as what you’re going to do for your fans in #1.
3. Create a bank account for your music career. If you want to have a music career then you have to treat it like a business. Take it seriously by setting aside some money to invest in merch or better equipment. And remember, there are some great ways to promote and sell your music and merch for little to no costs (like Audiolife)!
4. Embrace technology. Seriously guys. If all you have is a MySpace profile, it’s time to focus some of your efforts elsewhere too. There is a slew of great resources out there JUST FOR YOU! Embrace them. Love them. Use them!
5. Have fun! After all, I did say it’s important to be realistic. [:
I’d love to hear some of your own New Years resolutions in the comments below!
If you stay on your toes and up to date with music industry blogs then you’ve likely come across this by now. If not, it’s a good thing you’re here. The Indie Maximum Exposure List is a list of 100 bites of advice for you to indulge yourself as a musician. The list was compiled by an A-list team of music industry experts and provides advice for indie artists to advance in their careers. The PDF file is 44 pages long which is why I’m keeping this post brief so CLICK HERE and start movin’ on up!
Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Holland, Director of Artist & Label Relations at Jango Airplay. If you haven’t heard of Jango Airplay, it’s a great tool for emerging artists to get discovered by millions of online radio listeners. Continue reading the interview below to learn more about Jango Airplay …
How did Jango Airplay get started?
Jango started in 2007 as online radio, very similar to Pandora. In early 2009 we launched Jango ‘Airplay’, our promotional platform for emerging artists to get guaranteed airplay right alongside all the big name artists to our 7 million monthly listeners. There was a big gap in the market for emerging artists to get a real voice in online radio. We have the listeners coming to hear everyone from Jay Z to Bob Dylan, Arctic Monkeys to Willie Nelson and figured it would be great for artists and listeners alike to get these new bands some exposure.
Do artists that sign up to Jango get to decide who they want to be played next to?
Absolutely. In your artist dashboard you can pick up to 30 ‘Similars’ which are the artists you want to be played alongside. You can change these anytime you like as well for more targeting. We also deliver to each artist a report, the ‘Fan Overlap,’ that gives them a list of the artists most liked by their new fans on Jango. This can really help in re-targeting.
By now you’ve either been criticized or have yet to be—it’s a fact of life and there is no escaping it, unfortunately. But criticism, no matter how harsh, doesn’t mean you should throw your towel in and just give up. What matters more is that you continue to establish strong relationships with your fan base because they are the ones that will carry you on regardless of how much or how little criticism you are met with. Keep in mind, however, that critics will often say things for a reason, so rather than internalize what they write or say, take a moment to reflect on it because it might just be constructive. Heck, for all you know, what they say just might boost your career.
CLICK HERE to read “Take It With a Grain of Salt—Dealing With the Critics” by Loren Weisman at the Music Think Tank.
Last week Apple held its Rock n Roll event and unveiled some nice new features and toys, including the iPod Nano with video. One thing that got overlooked is an awesome music marketing feature for indie bands. Apple iTunes, in their 9.0 upgrade allows people to share what they are looking at in iTunes via Twitter and Facebook.
I think this is great for musicians and I wanted to quickly walk you through this new addition.
Take advantage of this feature and also relay the message to your fans to let them do your marketing for you.
Modest Mouse's recent album is a compilation of previously released singles.
The way listeners enjoy music has changed drastically in the past ten years. Technology has completely reshaped the marketplace through file sharing, single track downloads, online music streaming, etc. Yet, the way that music is compiled, released and marketed has remained largely the same.
Most artists still spend months and years producing full albums, pouring the majority of whatever marketing budget they have into a single event – the album’s release date. Despite this, most listeners will only download two or three songs. After that, they have another two years to wait for new material.
In an increasingly competitive market where fan engagement is at a premium, artists can’t afford to continue following this model. Modern music marketing is about the artist-fan relationship. Along with live performances, new music releases should be considered the backbone of this relationship, not simply a product to drive revenue or attendance.
In a recent report on the music industry by the Forrester Research Group, author Mark Mulligan argues that to spend the time and resources releasing full-length albums only serves to “put speed bumps in the continual artist-fan relationship.” Instead, he encourages artists to “think outside of the confines of the album and maintain steady, continual streams of creative output.” The report has a lot more to say about releasing music, some that I agree with and some I don’t. I cover the full report on my blog. But I think that Mulligan is spot on in what he says here. It’s what fans want, and it can pay big dividends for the artist.
Of course it is. Ask yourself that question one more time. What important word sticks out the most?
Business.
That’s right kids – it’s a business. If you want to succeed and make a living creating and performing music for the rest of your life, you have to start a business. And it has to make profit if you expect it to work.
Many inspiring musicians never think of the business side of things; they expect their music to be enough work, that some label will come along and do all the hard work for them.
Unfortunately for them, the days of a label signing a band because they wrote a hit song are long gone. Why? It’s just not a smart investment.
Sean “Diddy” Combs, also known as P. Diddy, digs Facebook. He just launched a new competition show on MTV called Starmaker. The show is similar to American Idol, but Diddy claims the rules of stardom have changed, and that he’ll be putting great emphasis on social media and social networking tools such as Facebook.
“Before, it was just at live shows, now you have to be able to do a great live show, you have to be able to do a great online interview, you need to have a great Facebook page, you have to have a great television performance,” he said.
There’s no arguing with that. Another sentence, however, proves that Diddy is onto something that the record industry as a whole still largely ignores: “You have to understand how to be able to brand yourself,” he said. Exactly. As a musician, today you can do more for your image and your fans through simple, freely available tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, than an army of spin doctors hired by record companies. Learning to leverage these tools, as proven by musicians such as Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Josh Freese, Amanda Palmer and others, will be a crucial part of every musician’s career, while record companies, in their current form, might become more or less irrelevant.
Marketing has taken on a whole ‘nother meaning in this technology and “always on” age. Marketing is not just neatly packaged ads and campaigns that you push out to the public. Marketing is now a communication channel between you and the public – whether your fans, potential fans, passers by, people looking in Twitter Search, Google searches, YouTube videos, comments and any other interaction point that there is.
The goal here is to create value at all of these interaction points.
Last Thursday, I went to an Atmosphere show in Orlando, FL – a long way from his hometown in Minneapolis, MN. Upon first glance it would appear that 1,000 kids paid $15 to see a white rapper from the burbs. Taking a closer look you will see the real value of what was happening here.
Pre-Pre-Show
As with all Atmosphere tours, he has released a new EP for concert go-ers to get excited about. This time he made it a free 7-song download available at their in-house record shop, 5th Element Online. To help their overall marketing efforts, they made you sign-up for a free account to be notified of new releases and tour info in exchange for the EP.
New Years resolutions can be a pain. You know you’re supposed to follow through but it’s not always easy. That’s why it’s important to set realistic ones that are simple to achieve but will make you feel accomplished. If you’re ultimate goal in 2010 is to advance your music career, then the following 5 resolutions will help you achieve that goal:
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