Five Key Thoughts From The New Music Seminar 2010 NYC

Posted on 22 July 2010 by gregrollett

New Music Seminar 2010 New York

So I couldn’t make it up to New York for the New Music Seminar. But that’s cool because a ton of my friends and music buddies could. Last night I got this quick wrap up from BJ Jansen on 5 things he took away from the event. If you are at New Music Seminar, or have some opinions on the matter, leave them in the comments below.

1 – It is all about the Artist, their Music and their Brand; now more than ever before. – The ultimate success of an Artist depends on no one else but the Artist. You can have the greatest people working for you and with you, but if you aren’t motivated and on-point all the time, you will get nowhere. The Artist must live and breathe their brand like never before.

2 – Success today hinges on radical brand differentiation. – Acts that will be successful in today’s climate will do so by rising above the rest through the uniqueness and originality of their brand and material.

3 – It’s not about quantity; it’s about quality, when developing your fan base. – When dealing with social media and the internet, strong emotional connections override density of numbers. Engagement, adding value, clarity of message and building lasting emotionally based direct-to-fan relationships will be the key to an Artist’s success.

4 – Redefine Success. – The idea of what success is today needs to be redefined to fit today’s new model. You don’t have to sell millions of records to be successful in today’s industry landscape. Building a strong relationship with your fans will allow you to monetize your music and you will become successful.

5 – It is all about relationships and collaboration. – Now more than ever it is important for Artists to freely collaborate and build collaborative relationships to support each other to succeed in the new model. The strength of these relationships can help you find ways
to focus your message while using other Artist’s audiences to find your niche’ and find new fans.

What do you think about these 5 issues that took the stage at New Music Seminar. Holler back in the comments and check out BJ’s site Pitch Artist Services.

Automating Fan Interactions Through Account Linking

Posted on 21 July 2010 by gregrollett

Today I get to introduce you to Dave from Shinobi Ninja. If you have been reading this site for a while you know about these guys and their genius marketing and innovation. From iPhone games to NES Cartridge shaped CD sleeves they know how to create an entrance. Dave is going to be sharing some of what they are doing to promote their music as well as music industry lessons he has learned over the years. Today he shares a quick, but very effective method to getting one piece of copy onto multiple sites on auto-pilot.

Automate your music marketing

These days, having a number of social networks is the Indie musicians best bet at interacting with their fans. The more you network and connect with your fans, the more they will respond to your calls to action and/or opportunities to buy merch from you. Its simple really:

Connect With Fans + Reason To Buy = $.

When connecting with fans through your networks, your message should the same throughout. If everybody sees the same message at the same time, you have a much better chance of getting the desired effect. I do this constantly with my band and have set?up a way where I make 1 post that cycles through all my linked networks. Here’s what it looks like:

Tumblr -> Facebook + Twitter -> Myspace

How To Link

1 . Set up a media “dump” page.?I use www.Tumblr.com because it’s the easiest way to blog. Making an account and your first post takes literally 5 minutes. Here, you can literally create a post with as much rich media and text as you want and send the link to that post through your networks. This is the origin of the message you’re trying to link to the rest of the networks.

2 . Link your Tumblr to your Twitter account

  • Click the “Account” menu on the top right of your Tumblr dashboard and select “Preferences”.
  • Enter your Twitter username + password and you’re good!
  • When making a Tumblr post, you have the option of sending the post to twitter.
  • Just click the box on the right of the page next to “Send To Twitter”

3. Link your band member’s personal Facebook accounts to the Tumblr

  • While logged into your or your band member’s account of Facebook, install the Tumblr app by going to this url: http://apps.facebook.com/tumblr-feed/
  • Allow Tumblr to access your Facebook page.
  • Enter the url of your tumblr page. Usually its (username).tumblr.com For Shinobi Ninja, its ShinobiNinja.Tumblr.Com?Click “Start Importing” and you’re good!

4 . Link your Myspace to your Twitter

  • In your myspace home page after you’ve logged in, click “My Account”
  • Click “Sync” in the menu items under “My account”
  • In “Sync to Other Services”, click “Get Synced” next to twitter
  • Check the box that says “Update My Status From Twitter”

BAM!!!!! YOU”RE GOOD!

5 . Double check your networks to make sure that they don’t double up. If your facebook is connected to twitter AND tumblr, then you’ll have duplicate posts every time you post something through Tumblr.

6 . THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP!!!!! After you post on Tumblr, cycle through your networks and respond to those that interacted with your post.
Complete the equation: CwF + RtB = $

If you don’t understand this, go here: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/02/video-trent-reznors-new-model-for-music-business-?profits.html

What Does It All Look Like?

Here is a live campaign from Shinobi Ninja announcing our EP Release Show on each of the sites:

Tumblr

Shinobi Ninja Tumblr

Twitter

Shinobi Ninja Twitter

Facebook

Shinobi Ninja Facebook

Myspace

Shinobi Ninja Myspace

Everybody has their own networks and results will vary across platforms. Remember that although this is one way to link your networks, its not the only way.

Customize your posts to be the most effective they can be with respect to how your audience consumes them.

This post was written by Dave Machinist, an experienced musician with 10 years of DIY grind as a Drummer and DJ.  When he’s not playing drums or hustling with his band Shinobi Ninja, Dave is attending Grad School at NYU Steinhardt, getting a Master’s Degree in Music Business. He also runs a recording studio, The Sound Machine in Manhattan.

Top Image by andyzweb

The Guest Post Theory For Marketing Your Music

Posted on 14 July 2010 by gregrollett

Writing Guest Posts For Music Marketing

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:

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

You Don’t Have to Market Your Music

Posted on 08 July 2010 by gregrollett

Today I have a guest post from another BandWPThemes member Todd Dunnigan of Roaming Royalty. Todd has been one of the best action takers I have seen in the indie space. Over the last few weeks he went from knowing nothing about WordPress to getting his new site up, taking part in blogging contests over at Ariel Hyatt’s site and today writing a guest post for the GYRS community. Below is what he sent over!

You Don’t Have to Market Your Music (Unless You Want to Succeed)

Roaming Royalty - Marketing Your Music

I’ve lived this feeling dozens of times, and comments I read on other music marketing blogs tell me I’m not alone. It’s the feeling I get when I’m just about to hit ‘send’ to e-mail out another newsletter, the feeling I get when I’m working really hard on some goofy promo video instead of a song, or the feeling I have when I’ve stayed up all night searching internet portals through which I can promote my band.

It’s the feeling that I wouldn’t have to do all this stuff if my music was good enough. Music marketing is actually quite enjoyable ’cause in the end it’s really all about finding and connecting with other people who dig the same things you do, but sometimes a huge marketing effort leaves me and many others feeling kind of inadequate, like, why doesn’t my shit just blow up on it’s own?

A Reality Check

Metallica, Radiohead, Rush… we can probably all think of an band or artist who has legions of devoted fans based pretty much solely on the music. Thom Yorke and Geddy Lee don’t do silly stuff for a viral video, or tell you to sign their e-mail list on the way out of the show. That being said, those guys do work hard at staying connected to fans. The bad news is, we don’t all get to be Phish. A remarkably small percentage of us will see our basement jams morph into a stadium packing cultural phenomenon. The rest of us have to live with the fact that people won’t magically find us just because we are awesome, granted, it happens, but realistically? Probably not to me and my band, and it’s not your best move to bank on that happening to you and your band.

Marketing Is Whoring?

Here are some quotes about clever marketing ideas from the comments section after an article about promoting yourself at DIY Musician

“I just can not get over the feeling of taking advantage of people, for example offering some meaningless/arbitrary reward for fan loyalty (akin to whoring yourself out) doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Me personally I think id ask Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, what they would think of this sort of behavior and they probably would say leave that up to the PR and Marketing guys who already lost their souls but if you have to DIY (do it yourself) practice your craft and be true to yourself.”

“In a nutshell, it’s degrading to musicians to have to continually ‘gimmick’ their way into people’s ears, when the music should be reward enough to keep them coming back.”

The Problem With That Attitude

If you see connecting with your fans as a ‘marketing gimmick‘ you are probably doomed to failure. In the end this is about using modern tools to achieve something that people have actively wanted since time began, and that’s to find others with common interests and connect with them. One reader lamented “rarely do I hear discussion about the importance of the song writing or emotional connection through the music.”

Anytime you’re griping about a lack of anything, you’re missing a golden opportunity. If there is a lack of discussion, then start the discussion, lead everyone to your website for the discussion, and while they are there discussing it, make sure people know you write some of this awesome music everyone is discussing. Is that a marketing gimmick or is it connecting with like minds? Both really, but no one got taken advantage of and no one sold their souls. If you did it right people went away feeing they got something of value.

Being Multi-Faceted

If you came up in a punk/indie or metal type scene, bands that appear to be over-hyped are generally viewed kinda suspiciously, I feel that, but this is not over-hyping. It’s actually an opportunity to use the other things that you are already interested in to gain listeners and hopefully customers. Let’s be real, with so many bands out there is not that unique of a thing to be a rock star anymore, but I know I’m going to be putting my other interests together so I can be something like a martial artist/carpenter/RV traveler/family man/swimmer/businessman/rock star. Now that’s more interesting, and ‘marketing’ is really just finding ways to connect with other people who like those things too. It shouldn’t be a pain, it should be fun.

This post was written by Todd Dunnigan from Roaming Royalty. Go check out their music and join their email list to hear more about things happening with their band.

If you are really looking to make an impact online, consider picking up BandWPThemes.

Money Grows On Tees…Not Trees!

Posted on 06 July 2010 by gregrollett

Today we have another guest post from BandWPThemes member and Australian pop/rock artist Adam Hoek. Adam is really doing some great things on the DIY tip and today he chats about getting custom merch at no cost upfront. Adam breaks down the process with Wordans, and there are many alternatives such as Audiolife that can do similar dropshipping and print and demand services.

8 easy steps to getting your music merch off the ground and into the crowd.

You gotta spend money to make money. Thats what they all say, but I’m coming to you today to tell you that they may be wrong.

Today Im going to help you through a system to make money while you sleep, hell it will even make money while your awake!

Bands need merch, merch sales are the easiest way for a musician to make money today. With CD sales dropping its better to go it Diddy style and expand your business. You’ve already got your mailing list set up. So now its time to give those subscribers what they want. Awesome t-shirts!

I’ve gone through all of the stress and failures (building a screen press and printing my own shirts) for you, all you have to do is follow these steps and you will be well on your way to what ever your dream is.

Step 1. Make an account at Wordans.com

I don’t work for Wordans, they work for me now. I tell them what I need and they get it done. I didn’t sign my soul away to get this, all I did was get an account. This is seriously the best Online t-shirt distributer I’ve ever seen. Very easy to work with and its all FREE!

Step 2. Open an online store.

It’s really that easy. Just click the button and BOOM you’re a millionaire, well not yet, but nearly!

Step 3. Make some designs

Here is the part that may hang you up. Maybe you don’t have awesome design skills. If you do, Great! If you don’t, Great as well! Why? Because now I will share yet another world with you. The world of get-other-people-to-do-your-stuff-for-you. Otherwise known as GOPTDYSFY or Outsourcing.

Outsourcing could actually cost you money, but it doesn’t have to! Here is how to get free awesome designs.

Ask around, I bet you know a few people who can draw some seriously awesome unicorns. You just need to ask them “Hey can you draw a unicorn for me?” If they say yes, put that magic on paper. You now have a rocking Unicorn Tshirt.

If they say no. Don’t worry. There is still an option. Luckily for you, you are a musician, which hopefully means, you have an audience. Now is the time to start a competition for your listeners. Ask for submissions, the winner wins their design on a t-shirt and gets some free music from you! Heck yeah! If you go this way, let me know. Coz I want to submit some stuff myself. I love free t-shirts and music!

Step 4. Upload

It is best to upload your design as a PNG. This magical format was invented by a snow dragon and allows you to have transparencies in your image to let the color of the tshirt shine through!

Also try to make your images as close to 5MB as possible, this will allow for best prints. You can do this trough cropping and resizing your image.

Put your design into a category. I always put mine in music with sub category rockstar, because..thats just how I roll. But maybe you can put yours in Hobbies with sub category Fishing. Im sure you can come up with something better though.

Give it a name and some relevant tags and start making a shirt

Step 5. Create a product

music marketing with tee shirtsIt will take 24 hours for your designs to be approved. They need to make sure you didnít upload an image of a black hole. This, when printed may cause the universe to get swallowed up. And I don’t care if that’s your evil plan, Wordans just wont let it happen. So go do your evil elsewhere.

In the mean time, go ahead and play around with the designs already in the system. You can browse by category or search for designs. Why don’t you search for “Big A“ and see what you come up with? OH, OH, OH whats that? A freaking sweet Trippy colored A you say, yeah that one is mine. Go ahead and put it on a shirt.

You can resize and rotate that sweet design and place it however you want.

Step 6. Submit

How to sell your music merchandise

This is where the money is! So pay attention! First you have to name your product. Don’t name it something lame, name it something awesome so that people enjoy just looking at the names of your shirts. Call the shirt Geoff or something crazy like “ILovePancakesInMyBelly.” Fun right!

Ok, now its money time. Here you get to set your commissions on the T-shirt. I recommend setting it at $5. This means you will make 5 dollars every time you sell this shirt. You can set your commission to $100 if you really want, but good luck selling the shirt!

Step 7. My Products Page

Now go over to the “My Products Page” from the side bar and put your shirt in a category. You may have to make one first. Just click the blue text next to the Category box.

Generally speaking your category will be Mens or Ladies but you can also catagorize by theme, such as FanSubmited or MonkeySlappingMothers, whatever you find useful.

Step 8. Advertise

You are pretty much done now. You own a t-shirt company. All you have to do is jump on myfacetwit (Myspace ,Facebook + Twitter) and spread the word! If no one buys a shirt, its no problem. Because so far it hasn’t cost you a dollar! And you can upload unlimited designs!

Eventually someone has to buy one right?

Your designs can also go into the public database. Like my Big A design. This way when someone buys a shirt with my design on it I make 2 dollars. Not bad for not doing anything!

You can also Customize the look of your shop, which you should do! Make it match your other stuff.

You can visit my shop here http://adamhoek.wordans.com/eu/my/boutique Go have a look and tell me which design is your favorite!

This post was written by ADAMHOEK. Adam is an indie pop/rock Australian musician making music in Holland. He has over 50 minutes of FREE downloadable music for you too! Go check out what he’s doing over at www.adamhoek.com.