I’m sure that you have noticed that over the past 2-3 weeks I haven’t been writing as much – but there is still a ton of new content at GYRS. I’ve had some great guest authors that range from artists to friends to industry professionals.

This is really some do what you preach type stuff. My biggest strategy for growth right now in my business as well as those of my clients has been to leverage OPA.

This is a tactic that I talk about in great length in the New Music Economy. I have also been able to lead discussions at Glazer-Kennedy events, Stompernet meetups and music industry events on how to leverage OPA to build an authentic audience - or one that actually wants to listen to whatever crap you are talking about.

OPA = Other People’s Audience.

By leveraging Other People’s Audience you are getting your voice heard by a built in group of followers. It’s the opposite of the Field of Dreams. If you are a new artist, no one is checking out your site. So why keep creating awesome content on a site that no one reads?

Put that content on a site that already has an audience and bring them back to your site – voluntarily! No spam, no trickery. If you deliver value, they will come. Thus allowing others to use my platform to get their message out.

Here are the recent posts that we have run:

Tom Silverman’s New Music Model by BJ Jansen

You Don’t Have to Market Your Music by Todd Dunnigan of Roaming Royalty

Money Grows On Tees…Not Trees by Adam Hoek

iPhone Apps As Marketing Tools by Steve Klein of Sound Around

How To Really Get Your Music on Blogs by Zach Frmmel

Here are some of the results from those posts:

Adam wrote me to let me know that Wordans.com is giving him a lifetime 15% discount code for his merch after they got wind of the article. Check out this article on his site to learn more.

Todd’s guest post was the 1st he’s ever written. He let me know that within 2 days of the article going live he had 2,577%. That’s a nice traffic boost, eh. Damn right it is!

As for my site. The traffic remained steady. I didn’t lose any readers because I stopped writing for a few days. In fact, I gained some new readers who were friends and followers of the guest authors. It also gave me time to work on other projects, like the new version of BandWPThemes that should be ready for non-members next week or start the NME Blueprint pre-production.

Others Stuff With OPA

Duncan Freeman, the guy behind BandMetrics and Indie Music Tech announced on his blog that he is now accepting guest posts due to some of the noise I have been making to increase the popularity of this promotional method. If you have a music tech startup, head over and tell Duncan I sent you. But your article better kick a$$ and add some value to his readers.

Of course you know I try and do everything that I tell you guys as far as marketing strategies. So here are some of the posts I have written in the last week:

• Hypebot – Social Media Week – Leverage Other People’s Audience
• Workshifting – The Summer of Workshifting Tours
• Later this week I have another post going up on Hypebot on Outsourcing as well as the Tight Mix Blog.
• *Update – Hypebot Post – Outsourcing To Focus On Music
• *Update – Tight Mix Post – How Musicians Can Add Value To Others
• In my remember the milk I have guest posts lined up on Music Think Tank, Grow Map, Evolvor and more.

What To Do Now?

1. Find your audience. Who are your fans and where do they hang out?

2. Befriend the site owners. Add value to them.

3. Get out and make something happen.

4. Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Holler back. I just got a ton of new video studio gear, so I’m off to put all this together. New lighting, new backdrops, cameras, mics and more. Hell yea this is a rock star life!

-G-Ro

top image by Ed Yourdon