Rhymefest Is Creating A Business

Posted on 04 May 2010 by gregrollett

photo by Rhymefest

Rhymefest is dope. He’s a dope MC and performer. I saw him open for A Tribe Called Quest at HOB in Orlando a few years back. He rocked the crowd like he wasn’t supposed to. We were all there to see Tribe and Rhyme stole the show.

Quick background on Fest:

he wrote Jesus Walks for Kanye (Grammy Winner), dropped a slept on album called Blue Collar in 2006 on Mark Ronson’s Allido Records (single was Brand New) and has been a major force and voice in hip-hop for longer that you would believe.

Now he’s back and doing things on the Internet the way we like to see it. He just released a pay-what-you-want mixtape, Dangerous: 5-18 in honor of the release date of his next album, el che (actually dropping June 8th).

Bandcamp

To release the mixtape he didn’t go the all too easy but honestly stupid route of putting the .zip file on a sharing site like every other hip-hop artist does. Nope, Fest threw it up on Bandcamp, got himself a custom subdomain and hosted the tracks on his site. Fans can choose to cop the album for free, but they need to enter their email address and confirm it to download the 17 original tracks. Check the screenshot below:

Fest is building his list, segmenting it by location and purchase price and getting you free and original music and Bandcamp is doing all the work. Nice work.

Twitter

With Twitter he is connecting with fans, chatting with them about subjects most rappers and artists stay way, away from. The questions, the interactions and the RT’s only add to his popularity on the service. The other thing I love is that while he does push out some of his music, he gives more than he takes.

In the post on not using Twitter like Myspace, I mentioned a comment from Chris Brogan where you look at your last 10 Tweets and see who and what they were about. 7 of the last 10 Tweets from Fest are engaging his audience. Check the shot below:

Facebook

Most artists use Facebook to either copy over what they are saying on Twitter or really, leave it dormant. Not Fest. Here he is using the platform to connect with a different audience that the one that connects with him on Twitter. he gets the medium and in return, he is building his audience on this platform as well (29,000+). Check the shot below where he has wall posts about a contest for high school kids and his listening parties:

His Blog

Most artists plug themselves, or just post stale links to reviews or interviews that they did elsewhere. Fest uses his site to announce a Google Group for Independent Thinkers, hold debates, talk about show prep and more. Kudos for the effort man, blogging is tough work but it pays off. The only tips I could say would be in the WordPress structure, permalinks and SEO department.

Expanding His Reach To OPA

Using other sites expands the reach of this promotion. Today I caught wind of a guest post he wrote for DJ Booth. It was actually the 3rd part in a series. I speak about this all the time, but when you post on your site, you only get to reach your immediate audience and sometimes the trickle down effect from Google. Leveraging other people’s sites and audiences is huge, and here Rhymefest does it in an engaging way, that is way beyond just dropping another track.

In fact that is what he talks about in the article, Entitled DJ’s Are Creating Cheap Disposable Music.

Wrapping Up

Ultimately Rhymefest is working hard to expand his reach online and connect with his fans. He is building a database and creating tribes on multiple networks that are all distinct from each other. The engagement at each venue is different and tailored, while still being true to his brand. Even if he doesn’t notice it, he is building a business, one with window shoppers, fans and customers.

And these people are not going to sleep on “el che” when in drops this June.

What do you think of Rhymefest’s strategy? Let us know in the comments below.

-Greg

Bands With No Myspace Player

Posted on 30 November 2009 by gregrollett

I wrote a post a few weeks back on how to get rid of your Myspace player and told bands to send over screenshots of their Myspace page minus the player. I thought I would feature them and give them a little love here today.

The first is from Jay Broyer, a singer-songwriter who has a really cool website based off of WordPress at JayBroyer.com. Below is the screenshot of his Myspace page sans the player.

The next artist is Cutlass from Mexico City, Mexico (love the International readers!). You can learn more about them over at myspace.com/cutlassmx. Here is their screenshot they sent over.

In both cases the musicians chose to use the Bandcamp player and you can see how nice it makes the page look. With some styling you can get your columns to line up and your songs can easily be streamed by the 3rd party provider.

If you would like to learn how to do this, please check out the post on How To Swap Out Your Myspace Player.

-Greg Rollett

Create Physical Packages on Bandcamp

Posted on 16 November 2009 by gregrollett

Over the last few days, we released what we think is the game changing online music economy model and the feedback has been great. Many bands are wondering how they can implement this model easily and this morning I open up my email to see a note from Ethan at Bandcamp that may be the answer. A few feature packed updates to Bandcamp are now allowing bands to sell physical products in an amazing interface that is seamless for the fans and the band.

Here is a video from Ethan that walk you through the new additions.

What this means to your music marketing?

I think there are a few key takeaways from what Bandcamp is doing and how it applies to the new music economy model in our video. The first is it supports nearly every stage of the new music model. From the free download in exchange for an email all the way down to product bundles and exclusive physical stuff (vinyl, stickers, t-shirts, etc).

The next is that you begin to record the fan data. As the sales come in you can begin segmenting your fans into big ticket, small ticket and free. Import your new customers and fans into your mailing list and segment them from the beginning. This will really help you market to them down the road.

The last is the module we are creating right now about the pre-launch. When you create all the excitement and buzz about your product in advance, but have no where to send them (no iTunes link yet, etc) you can now have them pre-order with Bandcamp. When they do so you are securing a transaction and getting them into your future marketing funnel by importing them into your email autoresponder (we recommend Aweber and Fanbridge).

So what are your thoughts on Bandcamp’s newest feature? How does this apply to your music marketing and sales funnel? Let me know in the comments.

-Greg

P.S. If you haven’t watched the new music economy video yet, you can opt-in here.

Swap Myspace Player for BandCamp’s

Posted on 26 October 2009 by gregrollett

I wish I could take the credit for this, but I have to give it’s due to Corey Coleman, an indie musician from Buffalo, NY. It all started with a post on Music Think Tank when Andrew Dubber declared October 24th, 2010, “Global Quit Myspace Day” due to their inability to do something “great” with every band on the planet.

The comments is where some amazing thought went down and Corey laid the following comment that I recommend you all go and do right now on your Myspace page.

…Until next October, here’s a way to improve the experience for you and your fans. In response to Rich Dale’s comment above, there is a way to replace the Myspace player with the Bandcamp player. I did it at my myspace page

I believe the code is

<style>

table table td.text div
{
display:none;
}

table table table td div
{
display:block !important;
}

</style>

Just put it at the beginning of your “Musician Bio” section and then paste the Bandcamp embed code after it.

So there you have it. Get rid of the super compressed, load-hogging Myspace player in favor of the sleek download, streaming, payment and email generating player by the cool folks of Bandcamp (on our list of Music Marketing 101 Tips).

Here is a screen shot of Corey’s Myspace page where you can see the Myspace player removed in favor of the BandCamp one. Great move Corey and one I hope many bands take note of.

You may also note that Corey is using his Myspace page as a place to send people to more accessible points including his

Feedback and Homework

I’d love to see some more screenshots of people getting rid of the Myspace player. Anyone that sends one to marketing@genyrockstars.com will get the photo featured in an upcoming post.

Also, I’d love to know your thoughts on this great little trick. My guess is that you could use any player that fits your fancy including ones from our friends at ReverbNation, Grooveshark or Audiolife.

Till next time rock stars.

-Greg Rollett

Bandcamp Turns 1.0 and Still Kicks Ass

Posted on 03 March 2009 by gregrollett

A buddy of mine asked me a few days ago what service to use to distribute his mixtape for free. I drew a blank. For all the social sites I pride myself in knowing, I didn’t have a “cool” answer. I told him to try the torrents or even zip the file and use Box.net or another file sharing service, but there was that element of a music specific site missing.

Tonight as I was flying through e-mails I got a message from Ethan Diamond at Bandcamp telling me about some sweet updates and the growth to version 1.0. Then it dawned on me that I had completely forgot about potentially the most innovative site for digital music to come along in the Web 2.0 world. I tested the site out a few months ago and fell in love. They had some big names giving away their music for free or with the Radiohead “Pay What You Want” model. I remember downloading former Outcast protege Killer Mike and today on the homepage they had a new feature from Del the Funky Homosapien.

Essentially what Bandcamp has done is created a platform for musicians, bands and artists to distribute music on their own terms, how they want, in the quality and the price that they want.

In jumping to version 1.0, they made a few upgrades including:

  • Download codes! Reward your biggest fans with free downloads of tracks or albums that they’d otherwise have to pay for. Email them out, or print them up and bundle them with merch. more info
  • New customizable players! Select from a variety of sharp-looking, customizable embedded music players. Fans will soon be spreading your euphonic agenda across every square inch of the globosphere. more info
  • Speed! Gravitas! We’ve greased up the tubes to make your sites load with blistering speed, and moved from bandcamp.mu to bandcamp.com to give the whole dang enterprise the weighty air it so richly deserves. more info

Check out a quick video from Ethan explaining some more about Bandcamp:

I am going to get some tests going asap on the site and see what damage we can create with this tool. Will keep all you Rock Stars posted.

If anyone has used Bandcamp for their music, let me know about your experience, any stats and view points for others looking to use the service. Fore more on Bandcamp, read their blog (also featured in our Artist Services Section) or chat with them on Twitter.

-Greg