Don’t click on this link unless you have some tiume on your hands!
It’s a list of 100 great socila media tips but each tip links to another article and pretty much all of them are really worthwhile. It just cost me well over an hour of productivity.
Bookmark it for sure.
In todays social media world, the video seems to be the optimum format for getting your music across. As much as we like to listen to music, the art of discovery is often helped with a video.
With all the low budget tech out there, it is now within everybodies reach to create a video. I succesfully filmed a band at a live gig recently with just two iphones just to see how it would work, and it didn’t turn out too bad!
So if you fancy giving it a go, there are a few simple things you need get right before you embark on your first video production.
Peter Gavin has put together a list of 5 key points that will help you create your first video in a post that i found on evolver FM.
He says you need to consider these things..
1. It takes 2 (cameras) to make a thing go right
2. Lighting is the more important than your camera
3. Audio quality can make or break your video
4. You already own editing software
5. Resize your videos without losing quality
He goes into depth in the full article that you can read here. Which also has more leads/links to more info that will guide you through to making your first video.
VYCLONE Iphone APP
Another interesting way to create a video is to use a useful app that has just appeared on the Web.
Vyclone is a new free iPhone app which allows you to include and remix your own video footage with the ones of your friends recording the same event.
Vyclone synchronizes and edits everyone’s clips to create one movie with all the angles cut together.
Sounds awesome, you just make sure you get a few friends to install the app at your gig and get them filming, all the pain of syncing is taken away so you can just use the best shots!
For more info go here
Go on give it a go… it’s not as difficult to make a video as you think!
Links
http://evolver.fm/2012/08/17/5-ways-to-make-a-low-budget-video/
The way music can effect people is fascinating, it seems to be able to effect you physically and emotionally, but have you ever wondered how?
I came across the following video which gives you cool insight into how music really does effect you, and the reason we are all addicted to it.
Check it out, music really is a drug…..
Hi! We’re back from our Summer Holidays, Ian spent a lovely 2 weeks down in Devon dodging the rain, whilst I avoided the Olympic madness in London and spent the time in Berlin. So we are back now bringing you more tips and suggestions we have scoured from the web, and as we were away there’s a lot to catch up on.
The first thing to catch my eye is an article on how to grow your mailing list. This in my mind is the single most important thing a band should be doing, after writing some amazing music!
Musicians have to get over the fact that their music won’t be magically discovered as it was before the internet, and staying connected to your fanbase is imperative, and the best connection you can have (after their telephone number which is highly unlikely) is their personal email address.
Jon Ostrow, Cyber PR’s publicity director has written an article that hits the nail on the head and lists 10 Ways To Grow One Gigantic Mailing List.
Continual and correct engagement with your fanbase is crucial to keep them loyal, and with sense of exclusivity you will continue to keep them that way.
He mentions in his article…
When building and nurturing a fan base, your objective is always to strengthen loyalty, then size. Going way back to the ‘1000 true fans‘ theory, having 1000 super fans who buy everything from you and are in constant support of you is far more beneficial (and lucrative) than 10,000 casual fans. So, creating a strong sense of exclusivity is very important when offering something in exchange for an email address. You want your fans to feel as though giving their email address to you is meaningful, as if they were joining a club or community, ultimately strengthening their loyalty to you.
Check out his 10 winning ways to grow your mailing list here
Link
http://arielpublicity.com/2012/08/02/call-to-action-10-ways-to-grow-one-gigantic-mailing-list/
by Steve
We seem to be awash with infographics here at Make it in Music! I just found this other cool one (courtesy of Mashable) displaying the facts about How The Internet Has Rocked The Music Industry. Sometimes its good to see the details!
I love Infographics, especially when they are well designed and informative. So i just had to share this one with you. Here is 15 Top Tips on how to Record Like A Professional.
It’s almost here! The Olympic Games in London starts in just a few hours, the buzz here is pretty intense and the City seems to of gone mad. And amongst all that we have still managed to get out of the pub, and bring you 5 Olympic nuggets for you to peruse at your leisure. See you at the finishing line! And in no particular order….
1. How To Make A wikipedia Page For Your Music
Excellent set of guidlines and rules for crafting your own wikipedia page. you got to make sure you create something that doesnt automatically gets removed. Thats happened to several people i know.
http://musformation.com/making-a-wikipedia-page-for-your-music/
2. Utilising Fan-created Content In Your Next Music Video.
Useful examples of getting your fans in to help create your next viral video!
http://musicgoat.com/build-a-kickass-fan-community-with-crowd-sourced-content
3. Top 5 Mistakes Musicians Make with Their Live Show
This is real solid advice, all musicians should read this one.
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/07/top-5-mistakes-musicians-make-with-their-live-show/
4. The Totally Colourblind Man Hears Colours As Music
There are times I wish i could do that! Just Watch…..
5. More Free Samples! This Time Some Out Of This World Weirdness
Sometimes, you’re looking for a beat, chord or riff that you can use as the basis for a track, but on other occasions, what you need is a bit of other-worldly weirdness to add atmosphere.
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-13154-free-sample-downloads-217833/114
Enjoy the sports fest! See you next week….
Steve
Kickstarter and fanfunding, are the buzzwords of the moment. Thank you Amanda Palmer!
But realistically, how easy is it to reach a target?
You have an email list of fans, but how many will give you some of their hard earned cash?
There are many questions like this that the average musician needs answers to, so John Oszajca of Music Marketing Manifesto has recently interviewed someone at the other end of the scale to Amanda Palmer, singer/songwriter Kat Parsons, who recently reached her modest amount (in comparison) of 20,000 US Dollars to record her album, and asked her why she chose Kickstarter what her pledges were, how she engaged her fanbase to reach her target.
The interview is a podcast on his website and you can hear it here.
Link
Last week here on our posterous page we posted an article on How To Increase Your Reach On Facebook. Explaining that the reason your posts are not being seen by your entire fanlist is becauuse of a system called Edgerank, which basically puts your posts into more newsfeeds depending on how viral your previous content is. This judges your content as relevant and worth spreading.
One system that I have personally seen to bring results is to run a poll. Facebook has a section in create a post section called ‘Ask Question’. Working for a band, we decided to get the fans involved and created a poll about what songs the audience wanted to hear at an upcoming London gig. We placed just few songs in there to start, and allowed the fans to add more songs to the list, effectively creating a chart of what were the favourite songs of the bands fanbase.
The engagement was amazing, and the chart filled up nicely bringing many songs they hadn’t played for a while to the list, which were then added to the setlist on the night of the show.
This also had a positive effect on the edgerank, as other posts seemed to reach further and be viewed by more of the fanbase. Just the result we needed! Polls can be useful, our reach definitely increased and the fans got to hear songs that they wanted!
Polling fans can also be used to obtain different information you may need to move forward with your career, such as what songs should i finish for my album?
You could very easily do this on Facebook but there are other applications that can help you get feedback and be even more engaging to your fanbase such as the online app called Popplet, and DIY musician Abi Robins did just that.
Mark Boyd has written an article for about how Abi used Popplet and she shares some of her ideas about fan polling that can help you build and maintain a loyal audience for your music.
She states in Marks article,
“A lot of my fan base thought it was really cool to use Popplet as a way to provide feedback. It gave fans an insight into the new album production – much more than just asking a poll question – and a lot of people thought it was a really neat idea. It was a way of presenting the information that they hadn’t seen before, which, I think, turned quite a few heads. The fact that it looks really neat and it is easy to navigate helped a lot, too.”
She also gives 5 Tips For Effective Fan Polling, so its worth reading the whole of Marks article here.
And find out more about Popplet here
Of course you can be very imaginative about the things you poll your fans about, fans love to be involved. Remember in this Social Media age you are now their property, with them you are nowhere.
Links
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/07/5-tips-for-effective-fan-polling/
The music industry today looks to be full of artists that seem to come from nowhere. All of a sudden they have a viral hit, whether it’s from a video, or a trending tweet.
The DIY musician needs to realise that this kind of thing doesn’t happen purely because they have have written an amazing tune. There are thousand of undiscovered brilliant tracks out there. More often than not, it has become succesful because of their canny use of Social Media. And probably even more so because they understand what their niche is.
So what is a Niche?
Cyber PR’s Jon Ostrow puts it like this,
a niche is simply a specific or ‘specialized’ market. In other words, it is not ‘the whole world’ or ‘rock fans’. A niche is a very detailed, smaller sub-section of a bigger market, but most importantly those who are characterized within the niche are far more likely to be loyalists than fans of a more generalized market. Not to get too ‘marketing-jargen’ on you all, but typically speaking, the more specific a niche, the more dedicated those within it will be, and visa versa, the more broad a market becomes, the less dedicated the fans will be.
So clearly, all music genres fall into niches, the trick is, How do you conquer that niche to get your message/brand across? Well, you need to define and locate the fans of your niche, Jon suggests collating the following information to help you determine that.
Check out the Jons Full article for cool tips on how to understand and conquer your niche, you can read his full post here.
Link
Make It In Music Daily 