You Have Great Music, Now Lets Do Great Marketing

As far as marketing yourself as an up and coming musical artist, its best to have your social profiles and websites setup before making your big push. Keep your bios consistent across the net. Always consider the fact that your supporters or anyone interested in your music will become interested in you and your brand extensions.

There are tons of free ways to get things together like clothing lines and accessories. Companies like Cafepress and Zazzle let you to design and brand your own gear then sell it from their site without any overhead.

10 Is A Pretty Good Number 

It seems like I have an affinity for creating lists in 10s. I mean really, people say that 3 is the perfect number. Well, sometimes you need more than 3. That's why I try to give you at least 10. So here's another list of useful information for you. 

YOU'VE ALREADY BEGUN NOW LETS GET YOU MOVING FORWARD

Let's say you have a just created your new site, blog, or social network profile and really don't know how to best get the word out so you can build your audience. You may not know what to do next. I'd say the best thing to do is get your website, blog, and social network profile links out there. The more backlinks you can setup, the more traffic, visitors, and views you can get. This can raise your internet visibility with the search engines and get more likes and followers. Now I'm writing this off the top of my head. If you blog, you have my permission to copy and paste this into a blog post. Just give credit where credit is due, ok?? I can guarantee that if you share this info, a ton of people will take notice. Everyone from brands to fans would love to get their hands on this all this info in one place. The best thing about this post is that nearly 99% of the stuff in these tips can be implemented for free! So lets get started!

Being a musician, band, artist, or composer in the new music industry can be tough considering that your act may or may not have capital backing to dump into your marketing and promotion efforts. The beauty of the new music industry is that, at its core, a huge part of it is online based and like many major and small business, the internet is a life saver for a fledgling business. Take this into account when thinking that the internet holds no weight in commerce for business. Now here's where a split can happen between music acts these days. Some want fans, fame, and fortune. Some just want to make a living without being in the spotlight. As a musician, artist, band, or composer you have to choose. You may not choose your ultimate path at first, but within time you should...and probably will.

Here's where I plan to help. This blog is usually chock full of info about the new music industry, music publishing, and different ways to make money with your music. However, there may be some of you who are just starting but don't know where to begin or which avenues you should consider implementing into your plans. There are tons of ways to go about it. I will attempt to combine a few of the suggestions I've made in the post HOW YOU CAN MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR MUSIC with some suggestions to grow your fan base, create an income stream, and keep the income coming in. 

Being an artist or band in today's new music industry is not an easy task. The difficulty is not in the form of what you have to do, but how much you have to do it and timing is crucial to the success or failure of a band's endeavors. Rallying the troops to get behind your brand and keeping them loyal to you is easier said than done. It requires effort on both parts, the band and the artist, in order to work properly. These days, music acts need to stay engaged with the fans, and in order for a fan to see their favorite artists thrive with recognition they must also properly support those artists.

The music scene is full of urban music (and other genres) producers that love to sample. Sampling can be considered an art in itself. I don't necessarily agree but what I can say is that using someone else's creation to create your own is like wearing someone else's clothes when you have your own. The mindset, to me, is I want to look as good as you do or better than you did with the same stuff you got. I honestly have no problem with a person that samples. I really didn't care to do it myself. I may have sampled 3 or 4 classic songs in my life as an urban music producer. Even then, I didn't care to do it.

This is a basic primer to much of the new music industry's business model as well as what you need to do to copyright and publish your music the right way. This is by no means an exhaustive knowledge base. Its designed to give you as an artist, musician, songwriter, or composer, as basic foundation that you should build upon. SEEK KNOWLEDGE AND USE WHAT YOU LEARN!! 

The answer?...I think you should understand what it takes for your music to make an impact. That understanding comes from knowledge, resources, time, patience, and a little trial and error. Whenever an artist asks me for feedback about their music, I give them that. Feedback. Not the kind of feedback a fan would give, but the kind I would give. Constructive feedback.

See, in my mind, I believe every human being on this planet possesses natural creative talents. We all tap into that talent in various ways. All musicians have talent, just some are more tapped into that creative well than others. I believe as musicians we should be there for each other constructively, offering insight and experience to help our fellow musicians along. Its a sure sign of support.

this post will go over some questions I ask myself when hearing new music,

Setting The Stage

I'd like to consider myself a big fish in a little pond of guppies. Not big in terms of cash flow, and not extremely big in experience, but knowledge is what grows my fins and tail bigger than the guppies. It can seem prideful and arrogant to say.

I used to be one of those artists that claimed to know everything, but knew nothing past the brown on my skin and the notes in my head. Once I started meeting people in the industry, I soaked in any knowledge they gave up. It took time for me to get what some were saying, but it wasn't what they were saying, it was the questions that I asked.

I mean for crying out loud, if you're going to be in the business of music, then you need to know the business! That's like saying you want to open a store, stock the store, and make money off the sale of your products without actually knowing how to run your business. That's like saying you want a girlfriend without actually attempting to get a girlfriend, then when you do get her, you do nothing to understand her or keep her happy. You just completely ignore what makes the relationship work, yet you want all the benefits of a good relationship. 

It doesn't make sense and it's an recipe for disaster. Do you know how many incredibly talented artists that made it into the majors yet never went anywhere because they didn't know how to handle their business? Even more, how about the artists that actually got signed but who's projects or careers never saw the light of day? What about the artists that start on their way, create incredible music, then they get handed some bogus deal from a nobody who claims they're going to make them a star? I could run on and on about these situations in question form but I suggest that you use the power of the search engine and find out the statistics on how many artists start down the road of a glorious music career only to never truly make it because THEY DIDN'T KNOW THE BUSINESS.


So stop reading, go ahead and search...this article will still be here when you get back...