GetYourStage.com

YOU ARE THE CONTENT, repeat You ARE THE CONTENT

// January 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // DIY Music, Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion

This article presents research that one third of all US internet users
post on social networks like Facebook and Twitter at once per week.

What does this mean for music promotion?

People are sharing music that they like via posting links,
People are letting others know that they will be attending xyz concert/show.
People are posting up their own pictures and videos whilst at events.

As the Music Maker, remember – YOU ARE THE CONTENT!!

Its your responsibility to make sure that people can find you,
share you, follow you, comment on you etc..

So take a good hard look at your next campaign or promotion -
is this something that your fans would love to tell others about?

Make it easy for them, give a reason for them to share,
create incredible events…..
IS it great content?
Would you want to share it?
Would others?

Depending on where you live, there maybe a local social network of choice.

But whatever it is, get on the top social networks, and start presenting
great content.

Make an engagement plan and roll it out!

if you want help with this – get in touch with me at:

http://getyourstage.com/contact-us

DO IT NOW!!

The Top U.S. Music Services On The Web

// January 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // DIY Music, music marketing, music promotion

Was just looking through this and assessing the impact for people who
want to be succesful with their music.

Here is the list for December:

Top U.S. Music Services On The Web (in unique visitors, December, 2009)

1. Vevo: 35.4 million
2. MySpace Music: 33.1 million
3. AOL Music: 29.0 million
4. Warner Music: 23.3 million
5. MTV Networks Music: 17.6 million
6. Yahoo! Music: 16.4 million
7. Jango Music Network: 9.6 million
8. ToneFuse Music Network: 8.3 million
9. MSN Music: 6.6 million
10. Rhapsody: 6.5 million

To see the full article, go here

So it makes sense that if you want to give your music some exposure,
you probably want to get it on some of these sites.

Interesting to note though is that the number one site, Vevo,
is actually a joint venture involving Google and that its main source
of visitors is Youtube.

CES 2010 Something To Think About..

// January 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Music Marketing and promotion, The Music Industry, music marketing, music promotion, the music business

if you dont know about CES, its the consumer electronics show that happens every year in Vegas.

So whats this got to do with your music?

well -> at CES, they showcase the latest technology and alot of this technology is what people will be using to listen to, watch and engage with your music.

So far this year there is a huge emphasis on connecting the web to the TV.

This means devices that allow you to consume content direct from the internet on your TV.

Apple has already put this in our hands with Apple TV, but the landscape is constantly evolving.

So what you need to think about is this:
If people in the near future will be engaging more and more with your content through their TV,
what kind of content should you be making ?
And how can you make it for maximum impact through the TV??

Just something to think about …

Over and OUT!

Incredible Fan Lead Rage Against The Machine Christmas Campaign

// December 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion

Just got forwarded this by email – Cant wait to see what happens!!

LET’S GET RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE TO THE CHRISTMAS NO.1 SPOT THEN!

Q: So how do we do this then?
A: Take your pick(s) of the digital providers below. It should take you to the page where you can purchase your copy of KILLING IN THE NAME. in most cases it’s track#2 but check before you click!

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT 6 OR 7 TIMES…IT’LL JUST GET ANNULLED IN THE CHART.

7DIGITAL – £1.19P – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-7digital

AMAZON – 29p – yes it will count
htpp://http://bit.ly/rage-amazon

TUNETRIBE – 49P – track #2 – LIVE version (yes it counts)
http://bit.ly/ratm-tunetribe

TESCO DIGITAL – 67p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-tesco

HMV.COM – 79p (careful – this is track #1)
http://hmv.com/hmvweb
http://bit.ly/ratm-hmv

PLAY.COM – 70p – it’s the only track on the page
http://bit.ly/ratm-play

WE7 – £1.07p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-we7

iTUNES – 99p – track #2
http://bit.ly/ratm-itunes

Engagement Plans

// December 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // DIY Music, Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion, the music business

NO,

not that kind of engagement!

Im talking about engaging your fans.!

So recently, I have been interviewing many many people from record companies,
publishing companies, and promoters.

The subject:  Digital Marketing.

We are doing a worldwide survey and Im learning some fascinating things.

Here is a good idea for engagement:

So in your career, you will have 4 different phases:

1. Recording
2. Releasing music
3. Touring
4. Doing nothing.

For each phase, pretty much everyone I speak to in record companies big and small has a 6-12 month engagement plan.

That means that they map out exactly what they will be doing and then create content to keep the interest and heighten it around significant events.

Many report that around the times of doing nothing, they post up content maybe once a month.

But in the build up to a major event or release, they ramp it up to weekly and sometimes even more frequent communication.

BTW Im not talking about micro blogging here, here is what I mean by engagement content:

• Video
• Audio
• Images
• Text

Video doesnt have to be music video.  It can be:
interview, live footage, rare footage, behind the scenes etc.

Audio:  Remixes, special collaborations, live versions, old rare tracks, cover versions.

Images and text – you can get very creative with this – It depends what fits your band or act.
Radiohead released a song and a pdf some time back that had several images that they wanted you to
print on tracing paper…

So once you have all your rough dates and the amount of content you need, start making and assembling it..

Then you just have to drip feed it whilst you are getting on with the “real” work of writing, recording and playing!

Get to it!

Using Stories & Communities For Understanding and Promoting Your Music With UberVu

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // DIY Music, Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion

Keeping tabs on whats going on online can help when you are trying to find interesting ways to promote your music
and also for just understanding whats going on in your musical niche (see the Core Audience program…)

Stories you read on the web don’t show you the whole picture -  the conversation around them is missing!

Enter UberVu:

http://www.ubervu.com/

Gona paraphrase a few things from their site:
Ubervu takes insights and analytics from blogs, comments, Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg (and many more sites),
and shows you what people are saying about brands, stories or events etc…
It also lets you follow comments all over the web.

For Example: Heres the link for a for the term “Arcade Fire”

http://www.ubervu.com/search/?q=arcade+fire

If you click it, you can follow along -

Here are some of the insights we get:

My search tells me that 910 people shared or commented on stories on Arcade Fire so far this month.

The spike on November 12th is in response to Peter Gabriel announcing he will cover Arcade Fire.

On the right, its telling us which platforms had the most reactions  – and Twitter is leading the pack.

So if your band is similar to Arcade Fire, you can start finding some “vocal” people online who are actually conversing about Arcade Fire and may be interested in what you are doing…

You can use it to talk back so you can join the conversation and interact -
reply to comments from inside uberVU and they will send your comments back to the original platforms.

Also -you can install their “Reaction Count Badge” -this will tell you how many times and where a post you make has been shared on the web…
GREAT!

What are some other ideas on using this service to help promote and market your music?

I spent quite a bit of time working with a hip hop artist some time back.

He developed good interest by making videos and songs
that were reactions to big events in the world, and then put them all over the web.

Eventually, he made his own show that had alot of viewers per month online,
and he then went on to attract some significant investment…

You could use it to dig away the top soil to uncover where potential fans are gathering and what they are talking about.
SO powerful
You may even just use it out of curiosity!
check it out, its pretty cool..the only limit is your imagination…

Hope you found this useful =>

Speak soon,

Hagop.

Google Adwords And The Fleet Foxes

// November 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion

Was at a meeting with  a music consultancy Im working with at the moment and just heard an amazing story about Google Adwords and the Fleetfoxes.

I dont have the exact story yet, but from what I can gather, they put together a whole list of words/phrases associated to Fleetfoxes and their core audience.

They then put these words up as Adwords and tracked the clicks.

This apparently lead them to promote the Fleetfoxes record in places that they never would have thought…

The main idea here being that taking a bunch of words and then seeing which ones people click on can start to give
you a real indication of who is actually out there and what they are interested in.

Basic obvious example: if you used the words “Gardening” and “Warfare” and displayed the ad “checkout the new fleetfoxes record”
More people clicking on “Gardening” would give you some indication about who is interested in Fleetfoxes..

Im going to dig into this to see if I can get some real concrete info on this, as so far its very rough.
So watch this space!

Where Should You Have Online Profiles? and Googles Music Search…

// November 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // How to sell music, music marketing, music promotion

Pretty big news -

Google has partnered with Ilike, Imeem, Lala, Pandora and Rhapsody to make it easier for people to find music in their search engine.

So if Google (hugely profitable and smart company) has selected these people as partners, maybe we should take note!

It also pays to do your research – in your musical niche, there may be a place where its perceived better to place music -
Where do the leaders in your field post their music..?

OK Heres the lowdown on Googles New Music Search Integration:

If you type in a music related search — like artist name, song name or album title — Google will show music related search results, including audio previews.

ILike, whose  MP3 store is powered by MediaNet, recommend making sure that your content is available through MediaNet so that Google can find it.

This can only be a good thing, particularly if your band has a name that is very generic and doesnt come up top when you Google it..

Eg if its not so unique..

According to this blog post:
“A Google algorithm randomly decides whether your playable search results come from Lala or MySpace.
Both services will let users hear the entire track once for free.
If you search for the same track again, the search box will play a 30-second sample instead.”

Naming and tagging any photos and videos of your band with your band name,
member names, song titles etc is key here so that they can get picked up by the search engine.

Lyrics have also been integrated by integration with a service called Gracenote,
so Googling lyrics will link to the music – you can do this already but take a look
at the video below to see how it looks!

Is it true that if you do what you love, the money will follow? And Nov 5th…

// October 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // DIY Music, Music Marketing and promotion, music marketing, music promotion

People tell me all the time that they want to quit their job and follow their bliss.

Im sure you’ve heard people say:

“Do what you love and the money will follow”

Well, there is something they aren’t telling you!

Its true that the money will follow, but here’s the thing:

You need to serve a lot of people doing the thing you
love for the money to follow!

ie people have to be interested in what you love to do.

When I was playing to no one, I wasn’t making any money!

Why was I playing to no one?

Because nobody cared.

Nobody perceived what I was doing as valuable.
ie “having value”, so they werent going to pay me anything.

It wasnt until i had some major understandings that things started to change.

Before I would have promoted myself and my music to anyone -
just in case they liked it or knew someone who could help me.

*(here’s the Nov 5th link!)

But then, I realized that i had to drill down and start a little fire on my own -
with the most flammable firewood!

“Flammable Firewood??”

What on earth am i talking about ?

Here’s what i mean:

i was wasting so much time trying to get things going with random “generic” gigs and people.
ie non flammable wood..

Once the focus was shifted onto a particular type of audience and shows etc,
things just started moving.

Taking the fire analogy, i had a match and at first was trying to light a big thick wet log.

I then shifted that to lighting paper, small dry twigs and other very flammable material.

So stop wasting time and money promoting to those who dont care (yet).

Do your research, find the niche and then try doing what you love…

* in the UK on Nov 5th: they light bonfires, set off fireworks and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes..
picture by: http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/4657