Archive for August, 2015

5 Ways to Make Money With Your Music Right Now

This post was actually inspired by our good friend Matt Whitlock (@mattwhitlockPM). The other day he sent out some really amazing tweets about ways to get paid as an indie artist, so we decided to expand on those tweets in more detail.

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As you all have figured out by now, having a career in music is very expensive. You will need to invest lots of time and money in order to succeed at a certain level, BUT there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be seeing some sort of return of investment along the way. One of the biggest mistakes artists make in this situation is that they want to get paid, yet they don’t give anyone a way to pay them. What I mean by this is that although you have DREAMS of one day getting paid a ton of money for your music and by just being you, are you actually SETTING YOURSELF UP to get paid right now? Do you have a store on your website? Do you sell merch at shows? Or are you out here giving away free music and expecting to just magically start getting paid once you get a record deal? Let me just say this, there is money out there for you RIGHT NOW. So are you getting it? Or, are you waiting for it to fall on your lap?

What a lot of indie artists fail to realize is that there are many other ways to make money with your art ASIDE from selling your music. As a matter of fact, with all the streaming sites out there now, music sales definitely shouldn’t be what you count on to fund your music career. You have to make money in other ways. Now we know that there are actually many articles that discuss the different ways that artists can get paid, but most of those articles talk about ways to get paid once you already have a big fan base built and already have songs on the radio. Our focus, right now, is to show the newer indie artists how to make money to invest back into their career.

In order to help you, we’ve created a list of ways that you can make money right now to help fund your music career:

1. Sell MERCH at your shows. This has got to be the number one way for artists (even those just starting out) to get paid. Everyone loves a cool t-shirt, hat, or hoodie. Most people will buy it if it looks cool, regardless of who’s t-shirt it is. Our suggestion to you is to get some merch designed and set up a merch table at EVERY show. (Make sure that you have a friend to run the table while you’re performing.) You can start with the basics like shirts and hoodies, and then get creative with it and design things that are really tailored to your brand. For example, Wiz Khalifa sells lighters and marijuana paraphernalia. If you are looking for someone to design your merch, feel free to check out some of our designs and contact us. You can also use Denial Printing to get everything printed. (From shirts, to hats, to everything in between, they do it all and they have great quality and prices.)

2. Set up an online store where you can sell all of your merch items. You can even offer discounts (using discount codes) to people that subscribe to your mailing list AND you can bundle your music and merch in a package. The easiest way to do this is to use bigcartel.com to create your store and then link it to your website. (Then, when people go on your website and click STORE, it’ll take them directly to your bigcartel.com page).

3. Throw your own shows and make money off of ticket sales. Aside from getting booked to perform at other people’s events, you can actually contact the venue of your choice, work out a deal with them, and throw your own show. (Maybe add a few other indie artists from your area to the bill so that you’ll be sure to pack the venue.) Since it’s your show, you’ll make the door money. Depending on the size of the venue, you can come out with a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. It’s hard work, but who said this would be easy? If you’re interested, we can help you curate your own show, so feel free to contact us for help!

4. Monetize your YouTube channel. Regardless if you are getting a ton of views on your videos, you should still make sure that your YouTube channel is set up to bring in revenue. Collecting small amounts of money is better than no money at all, which leads us to our next point…

5. Get your music on streaming websites like Pandora, Spotify, and Tidal. We know that streaming doesn’t pay artists what they deserve to be paid, HOWEVER music streaming is now a really big way that people listen to music. So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! You can get your music on Pandora by following these steps. You can get your music on Tidal directly through their discovery platform, or by using a digital distribution service like TuneCore or CDBaby. You can also use either one of those to get your music on Spotify.

These are only five of the easiest ways to get paid right now. There are many other ways that we will discuss in future articles. One of the most important things to remember is that in order to get paid, you have to make it easy for people to pay you. You have to offer a product. You have to remind everyone that you have products that are available. And, you have to make sure to get your music on platforms that have a large amount of listeners.

If you need any help with this, don’t hesitate to contact us.

30 Content Ideas That Are Guaranteed to Grow Your Following

Marketing yourself as an artist is an everyday thing. That’s the difference between marketing and promotion: marketing is an all the time thing, while promotion is for something specific (e.g., a music video), and it’s for a certain period of time.

Social media is a very important aspect of promoting your brand and music. Most artists have a love/hate relationship with it, most don’t use it properly, and some don’t use it at all. However when you get the hang of it, social media can help you reach a huge audience.

One of the biggest mistakes artists make when using social media is that they use it strictly for promotion. Social media should never be used strictly for promo. It’s called social media for a reason – you need to be social!

Think of it this way, social media should be:

20% PROMO

80% CONTENT AND INTERACTING

People don’t want to see promotion all day. They will get annoyed and start to tune you out, so you need to produce consistent, entertaining content.

Here’s a list of 30 examples of content that you can use for promotion and your overall social media strategy:

  • Document your recording process with in-studio vlogs and photos.
    • – Take a video of you sitting in the studio with your song playing behind it. (You can do this for numerous songs.)
    • – Take a video of your friends in the studio jamming to your music.
    • – Take a photo of yourself in the booth recording.
    • – Take a video while sitting in the studio of you talking into the camera.
  • Document your musical journey with behind the scenes photos and videos.
    • – Take a photo and/or video of you rehearsing.
    • – Take a photo/video of you at sound check.
    • – Take a photo/video on the way to a show.
    • – Take a photo/video of you writing a song.
    • – Take a photo/video of you at a music event.
    • – Take a photo/video behind the scenes at a photo shoot.
    • – Take a photo/video behind the scenes at your new music video.
    • – Take a photo/video behind the scenes at an important meeting.
  • Share photos with fans.
    • – Take a photo of a fan holding your new album.
    • – Take a photo with a group of fans backstage at your show.
    • – Repost photos that fans put up at your shows and shout them out.
    • – Get videos of fans talking about your music.
  • Show love to others.
    • – Take a photo with another artist while you’re at their show or at an event. Share it, and tag them in it.
    • – Take a photo/video with the people you meet along your journey (e.g., radio personalities, bloggers, event promoters, publicists, etc.) and shout them out.
  • Get personal from time to time.
    • – Post cool photos of your surroundings (e.g., random nice views from your city or wherever you are at the moment, cool art from your area, etc.).
    • – Post a photo/video of your lunch/dinner. (You can add a caption like, “Just had a long day in the studio and decided to reward myself with a good meal from my favorite restaurant.”)
    • – Post random behind the scenes of your day-to-day activities.
  • Inspire others.
    • – Post quotes and sayings of things that inspire you. (You can write your own using an app such as Textgram or use screenshots that you find online.)
    • – Write inspiring captions for some of your photos/videos.
  • Post professional photos.
    • – If you take a new photo shoot, you can upload a pic to Instagram.
    • – If a photographer takes a cool shot of you performing, post it and tag the photographer.
  • Post snippets of new singles and video releases.
    • – Create mini clips of your new music video and post to Instagram. (Make sure you tell people where they can find the full video.)
    • – Use Flipagram to create a clip with your album cover art and music playing.
  • Repost almost everything that you’re tagged in.
    • – If a fan or friend posts a photo of you, repost it!
    • – If someone takes a video at your show, repost it!
    • – If someone posts a screenshot of your new album cover, take a screenshot of their post and repost it!

In order for your efforts to really make an impact, you need to be consistent and entertaining. If you’re not consistent enough, it will take people a lot longer to catch on. And if you’re not entertaining enough, people won’t pay attention. It’s not just about reaching more people, but getting your current fans/supporters more active (which actually brings more attention to you in the long run).

Here’s a few things to remember when posting the above content:

  • – Try to tie in your everyday photos with your music.
  • – Make people laugh.
  • – Show your personality.
  • – Post high quality photos as much as you can. (Phone photos are cool, but think about investing in a camera.)
  • – Use an app like “square instapic” to make your photos look cool.
  • – Use an app like “instashot” to add a cool white background to your videos.

If you need some help getting the hang of things, we can create a social media strategy for you. Contact us to learn more.

6 Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Brand More Visible
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  • On August 9, 2015
  • With Comments Off on 6 Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Brand More Visible
  • In Industry Resources

Your music is good, you’re live show is good, so why is it that you’re not seeing the traction that you want in your career? If you’re having a hard time getting new people to notice and take a listen to your music, there are a few small things that can make a big difference. Here’s a list of 6 things that you can do right now to make you easily searchable, look more professional, and attract new followers and fans:

1. Take Your Profiles Off Private. Being an artist and having a private social profile is one of the biggest contradictions of today. How do you expect a million people to like your photos, follow you, and retweet you if they can’t see your pics or tweets because your profile is private? You either want to be seen, or you don’t. As an artist, you want to be seen right? If there are certain individuals who you do not want lurking around on your Instagram or Twitter page, just block them, it’s that simple!

2. Make sure all of your social networks have the exact same name.  When you’re on stage, would you rather tell the crowd to follow you on Twitter @Best_Rapper784_ or follow you on Twitter @BestRapper? What’s easier to remember? The second option of course. And wouldn’t it be even better if all of your social networks had the same name? That way they can follow you everywhere without you having to tell them a different name for each one. We also suggest that your username is the same as your website domain. For instance, we’re @ExclusivePublic on all social networks.

3. Put up the same profile picture on all of your social networks. Make sure that you’re using a high quality photo (preferably one from a photo shoot or a cool shot taken at one of your shows). You are representing your music, your artistry and your brand. It’s important that you look professional and that you’re easily recognized.

4. Spice up your Twitter bio with something catchy. Whether you add a cool lyric to your bio, or add your own unique tagline, you’ll definitely want your Twitter bio to say something other than indie artist, for bookings contact [email] – BOOOORING! There’s a million indie artists out there with booking info in their bio. What makes you stand out? Show your personality. Make people want to follow! And don’t clutter it up with a million hashtags either.

5. Buy your domain name and put up an official website. When people search for you, what comes up? Can they go online, buy your music, buy a t-shirt and a ticket to your next show? Can they subscribe to your mailing list? Can they even find you at all? Having your own official website makes it much easier to find you online and it’s an amazing way to keep your fans in tune with you and coming back for more. Once you create your website, be sure to add it to your Twitter bio, Facebook page, Instagram Bio, Youtube page, Soundcloud, and any other website that you use for your music.

6. Create a logo that represents your brand. Put this logo on all of your digital marketing materials (your flyers, cd covers, etc.) as well as on your merch. This is completely optional, however you must remember that the more people see something, the more it sticks in their head. If your logo is found on all of your flyers, banners, business cards, album artwork, website, stickers, your merch and everything in between, the more it will get stuck in peoples minds. Take Nike for instance… we bet you just thought about that check mark or their tagline, “just do it.”

Overall you’ll want to remember that most of the time, the simpler the better. The easier you make it for people to find you, the more people will find you. The easier you make it for people to contact you, the better.

Need some help promoting your music and brand? Let us help you.

10 Ways to Get More People to Your Next Show

Performing live is one of the most crucial aspects of having a successful career in music. It’s also one of the best ways to earn an income as an artist. Booking shows takes a lot of work, especially in the beginning of your career, however packing out each show is an even bigger task.

Here are 10 promotion ideas to help bring more people to your next show:

1. Talk to the venue about ways to promote the event. Can they post a flyer at the venue? Add a digital flyer to their website? Post the flyer on their social media pages?

2. Offer pre-sale tickets at a discounted rate using eventbrite.com or splashthat.com. You can take it a step further by making it required for someone to sign up to your mailing list in order to have access to the discounted pre-sale.

3. Get social. Attend a lot of events around the date of your event. Support other artists in your city. Mingle at the events, and maybe even have tickets on you and give out free tickets to a few special people.

4. Create a Facebook event 1 month before your event and post on the page daily (Facebook sends everyone notifications every time you update your event).

5. Create a Facebook Ad the week of the event and boost it to everyone in your area.

6. Put up big flyers in your area and the area surrounding the venue. Nothing looks more like a big deal than seeing someones face plastered really big all over every street corner. You can use clubflyers.com to print your flyers at a reasonable price.

7. Text people and let them know about your show. Do not send a group text! Send individual texts with special invites to those that you feel would be interested in going.

8. Promote your show regularly (daily) on all of your social networks. You can even give an incentive for others to share/post by telling them whoever shares the flyer with a certain hashtag gets in the show for free (or for a discounted price, or they get to attend the pre-show meet and greet).

9. Add a few other upcoming artists in your area to the bill or add a headliner. If you don’t think you can pack out the venue on your own, you might want to think about inviting a local artist with a decent buzz to headline the show for you. Make sure that it’s in your budget and also make sure that they agree to promote the show and that their fan base would enjoy your music.

10. Send a special invite out to your mailing list to announce the show and the pre-sale tickets (a few weeks before the show) and then send another email the night before reminding them of the show.

If you are located in Philadelphia (and surrounding areas), we can help you curate your own show. Contact us directly for more details.