Growing your brand on the internet should be similar to growing a tree in your back yard. The internet is an intimidating place when growing your brand as a musician, many bands have already have already racked up hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of fans, followers, myspace plays and you want nothing more to turn your 100 into as many as possible, you know, to catch up. Don't get caught up in the hype. Many of these followers are are faux. Some experiment's finding that 200,000 followers only led to 25 clickthroughs, because their following wasn't grown virally. Conversely, if you grow your 100 fans like a delicate plant it doesn't take long before your true fanbase overtakes the faux disconnected user base.
On the internet Viral growth
I've been hearing some chatter recently about underground music going the way of the "black guy mohawk"-out the door. one definition of Underground music is music that refers to a variety of post-1960s rock, pop, or dance subgenres that developed a cult following despite their lack of mainstream. Even though music can't hide from the internet I still believe that because of the pressures put on todays bloggers and DJs to "play for pay" or "go where the money is" that underground music can still live and thrive and evolve on the internet. Hopefully we can help increase the underground network by strengthening long distance ties between musicians and their fans. Everyone is now the underground musician. Music will go back to its purest form where the main inspiration for doing it is the love and the respect.
Have you ever heard of the legendary Abby Road Studios? If your not familiar, tons of great albums have come from Abby Roads including albums from Radiohead, Muse and the Zombies Panic At The Disco, grew their own audience by distributing their music through the internet and now you can see some great live recording, as well as some interesting insights and discussions with the band.
Seth Godin has a name for the modern day equivalent of ADD on the internet and it's called "Driveby culture". Seth chalks our driveby culture up to being a huge distraction and waste of time. "We're creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not). As an internet savvy musician you now have two audiences to inadvertently worry about. Those that help increase your traffic to your content and those that regularly see your content as valuable to their lives. As an upcoming indie artist, what is more important to you, selling out to the masses, such as the Huffington Post (pushing down thought provoking stories for linkbait and sensational celebrity riffs) or searching for that niche audience that actually appreciate your gift. Don't get distracted on being BIG, your true influence may only lie with a small dedicated group. Make sure that group is well nurtured.
could apple be creating some form of radio experience that allows users access to any song you want, whenever you want it, from wherever you are using whatever device you choose?
could we be headed towards the mass distribution of streaming music services and Internet-delivered radio?
There is still only one way to jump start a song on the way to hit status, according to songwriters – radio airplay. The fact that there is so much diffusion on the internet only heightens radio's importance.
It’s all about volume, and that means exposure to as many ears as possible – the kind of exposure that just isn’t available at any one spot on the internet.
In a panel discussion at the CMJ Music Marathon the Path of a Hit Song seemed to be highlight of the event. Those panelists who have had Hit Song success say that radio is key. Mass hits come from mass exposure. READ MORE.
Myspace is now officially a joke?
The Hitler meme videos that have been floating around on the internet picking up victims to parody just committed another crime. This Hitler meme is a video about the firing of Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta after just 9 months on the job. The video is speculated to have been an inside job and repeatedly mentions News Corp Digital Chief Jon Miller and newly promoted co-presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones. Man, Myspace is falling apart over there.
Radio is starting to have an uphill battle with digital media. The car radio as we know it is losing its monopoly, and this could mean big news for internet radio stations, iPods and hard drives. The new wave seems like its how many itunes playlists can you get in? Radio used to be an 18 billion dollar monopoly, but predictions have it only sitting at 8 billion by 2006.
Money owed that noone knowed.
Are you a member of SoundExchange? Actually, let me rephrase, do you have songs on myspace? If you do then head over to SoundExchange and grab yourself a free membership. SoundExchange is a non-profit performance rights organization that collects statutory royalties from satellite radio (such as SIRIUS XM), internet radio and other streaming platforms. Myspace recently teamed up with SoundExchange to help identify the more than 25,000 major, indie and unsigned artists who are registered with myspace but not with SoundExchange. Collectively there's $14 mill in royalties sitting in a SoundExchange bank account, waiting to be paid to you.
Are you ready for Myspaces audio ads? Regardless if your ready or not they're on the way. Myspace has teamed up wth TargetSpot to find the right balance between music and advertising that will keep listeners and attract investors. Basically the strategy -Short audio ads, increase overall value. As the exclusive audio sales rep for Myspace Music, Target spot, which represents a network of both internet radio providers and some of the largest radio groups has doubled in reach from 20 million unique monthly listeners to as many as 40 million. Target Spots plan for us listeners who still find ourselves on myspace from time to time is to have a "sensitivity to the space" and ensure a good user experience. I hope this solves all of Myspaces problems, so that they can focus on their next task, helping the musicians of it's myspace music service.
Since the go-to spot for every up and coming musician is the Myspace, i thought that grant you fly on the wall access @ the myspace HQ for one day. Techcrunch has the dirt on the internal crumblings Myspace.com from the perspective of 3 anonymous employees. What each employee reveals is a bit shocking, but after about a minute of mentally pretending to sift through many of pages on myspace music seem to make %100 percent sense. Internally, Myspace sucks, and it's ever-so apparent on the outside. The accounts state that there's lots of yelling and confusion going on behind the scenes and one employee even compared it to a poorly run enterprise development shop than an Internet company. I think the only thing holding Myspace together right now is the independent musicians back (they should pay us) and we can only take so much weight, before it's time for a lighter load. Facebook Fan Pages anyone?
The Music Power Network (MPN), which is the brainchild of Dave Kusek, (Some big instructor at Berklee) credited for being an all-around future music business expert, is coming to a YouTube Channel new you! The MPN will be making some of its educational videos accessible for free to help you achieve success in this ever changing industry. Subscribe to the network if online music business lessons and advice are your forte. Also be sure to check out the songplacements youtube channel, send us links to your songs and we'll add them to our playlists for others to see.
Songwriting goes International?
Youtube is taking major steps towards making their database of millions of videos accessible to the deaf, hearing-impaired and those individuals that don't speak english. There technology can insert captions in 51 languages, meaning that listeners world wide will soon be able to enjoy the cleverness of your songwriting.