6 Key Tactics For Organic Success on Youtube From Hip-Hop Artist Rob Scott

This article was written by our intern Benjy Jean Baptiste about his own experience as an artist manager. 

For independent artists, Youtube can be one of the most powerful platforms available for promotion and exposure. Of course, it is also one of the most difficult platforms to garner any significant growth and attention. 

This challenge was no different for 23 year old hip-hip artist, and Brooklyn native Rob Scott. 

As his manager, it was my job to figure out how to bring his dream to fruition. Without any assistance from record labels, we began to effectively use YouTube as a platform to get Rob Scott noticed. 

Within the first couple of months, it was painful to notice that his long nights in the studio would only result in his songs receiving 11 views. To make matters worst, the 11 views I am speaking about came from the friends and family that was in the studio with him. 

Initially, we would post his YouTube link all over people’s Facebook pages until we realized that spamming individuals was probably not the best way to gain true fans. We then decided that garnering views organically is the best possible solution. Today, he has accumulated over 235,000 channel views and has acquired more than 1, 400 YouTube subscribers. 

Some may wonder how so? 

Below are 6 strategies that we used to organically build Rob Scott’s Youtube channel from desolate to highly-trafficked:

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Marketing Checklist For Musicians

By Brian Morris, writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog.

If you’re in a local band, or even a touring one, you know you have tons of other bands competing for the best gigs at night clubs, bars, weddings, and other events and venues. Many bands do little marketing, which presents an excellent opportunity foryour band to employ proven marketing materials to give you the edge when it comes to booking.

The following serves as a marketing checklist for musicians.  If you develop a creative marketing strategy using the tools described below, you’ll land more gigs.

Before we begin, let me say that I definitely understand that local bands often have limited budgets. Chances are, “musician” isn’t your full-time job. And depending on your market, you probably don’t get paid what you’re worth when you play out. In my area, most local bands charge in the neighborhood of $500 for a four-hour set, which means each member (assuming it’s a four-member band) makes around $125 per night.

Keep in mind that a good band marketing strategy will earn you more than it costs. The marketing tools listed below will help you: a) land more gigs; and b) increase your status, which means you can land more high-paying gigs. When your band is in high demand, your band can charge top dollar for your services, possibly making more money and working less than you are now.

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FL Studio 11 Released, Performance Modes and Multi-Touch Support

Hot on the heels of Image Line‘s release of Deckadance 2 (read our First Look review here) comes the brand new update to their production software, FL Studio 11. The features in the brand-new version of FL Studio (formerly Fruity Loops) include a new performance mode for triggering clips in a fashion familiar to session view in Ableton, multi-touch support, a host of new and updated plugins, and more.

What’s a product launch without a promotional video? This one does a good job of showing the new features:

One of the best parts is that Image Line allows FL Studio users to update to major new versions for free-  meaning if you’ve bought a past version of their software, you’re set to download 11 and use it ASAP.

For a full list of features and updates in FL Studio 11, check out Image Line’s official update page.

Social Music Began With Napster’s Hot List

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

We like 8Tracks (web, iOS, Android) for mixtape sharing, because it makes it easy, and pretty. You simply upload songs from your computer (or choose them from SoundCloud or Free Music Archive), then share them anywhere, even on a webpage:

http://8tracks.com/mixes/1618864/player_v3_universal

The original idea for 8Tracks, according to founder and CEO David Porter, was to build something like the most second-most-powerful feature in the original Napster (after the ability to search for and download music, of course): Hot List.

“For me, the most compelling feature of Napster 1.0 was the ‘hotlist’ button,” writes Porter in a blog post he emailed our way. “After downloading something interesting or a bit obscure, I could click on the ‘hotlist’ button next to the uploader’s name to reveal the other music on his hard drive. It was, for me, the first example of *social* music discovery on the web. Admittedly, since the files weren’t sorted in any meaningful way, it was quite unorganized. But I knew there was something big there.”

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Music 3.0 – The Blog Behind The Book: The Music Subscription Music Service You Don’t Kno…

Music 3.0 – The Blog Behind The Book: The Music Subscription Music Service You Don’t Kno…: Subscription music services have been getting more and more press as the music business and their customers gradually adopt the concept, b…

5 Questions To Ask Your Fanbase

In Music 3.0, your fanbase is a living, breathing thing that needs your attention not only in order to grow, but to keep from dissipating. Marketing guru Seth Godin calls your core fans your “tribe,” which needs a leader to keep the group active. The leader can either be the artist himself, someone designated by the artist, or even someone very vocal within the group. Either way, it’s the leader’s job to constantly check the pulse of the tribe to keep it healthy. Here’s an excerpt from the Music 3.0 Guidebook that explains that process, as well as 5 things to ask your fans to gauge their interest.
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“The leader must constantly check the pulse of the tribe to hear what the members are feeling and thinking. This can be helpful in determining just what the tribe likes and dislikes about you and your music. Maybe there’s a direction that you briefly touched upon on your last record that drove the tribe wild, or maybe one that they hated? You might choose to follow your musical instincts instead of listening to tribal feedback, but at least you won’t be surprised by the resulting reaction. 

Taking the tribe’s pulse also lifts the mood of its members, since interaction with the leader is always appreciated and results in more participation. Showing your appreciation for their participation fosters even greater loyalty and participation and gets them invested emotionally and intellectually.

So how do you take the tribe’s pulse? You ask them questions or ask them to help you. For instance, you can:

1. Ask them which piece of merch they prefer. 

2. Ask them about the best venues in their area, why they like them, and if they’d prefer to see you there. 

3. Ask them what song they’d love to hear you cover. 

4. Ask them who their favorite artists are (this answer is great for other elements of social marketing as well).  

5. Ask them to judge the artwork on your next release. Then, when they respond, reward them. Give a free T-shirt to the first ten people who respond. Send them a secret link to download a track that’s available only to them. Give a personal shout out to some of the best responses. 

All of the above makes them feel special and great about belonging, and keeps the interest in the tribe high.”

You can read more excerpts from Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age,

Read more: http://music3point0.blogspot.com/2012/02/5-questions-to-ask-your-fanbase.html#ixzz2RDvNqnlT
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

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The Tools of Music Fan Engagement [Part 1]: Blogging

One of the best tools to use to engage with your fans is a blog. A blog is essentially a web log, an online journal where you can post entries and where your fans can leave comments.

Blog posts can be used to announce news (album, tour, etc.), document experiences (recording, touring, etc.), or offer anecdotes from your personal life (passions outside of music, funny pets, etc.). Posts can be mostly text, mostly photos, or you could even do video blogs.

Why Blogging is Great for Fan Engagement

Blogging is one of the best tools to engage your fans with because it’s interactive. Your fans can leave comments, which you can then respond to, creating an ongoing conversation. Also, if you host your blog on your own website (and you should), it allows you to engage with your fans on your own terms, without tons of ads and links trying to take them away to view other content.

Blogging also creates a stronger connection to your fans. It’s a great way to show your personality and give fans insight into your career, which can help turn casual fans into super fans. Your blog also adds context to your music, and that’s how fans will come to value it more. They might be fans of your music already, but if they become fans of you on top of that, then the music gains an increased perceived value. Our CEO David Dufresne likes to make the comparison of having your music in a gallery versus at IKEA.



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4 Big Music Marketing Ideas

This is a guest post (submit your guest post) by Shaun Letang, a music industry consultant out of London. You can find more about him at Music Industry How To.

I’m going to share with you four mega-tips that could instantly change your music career for the better! All four tips are focused on your mental approach to music marketing, as without the right mentality, it’ll be a lot harder to launch a successful music marketing campaign.

1. It’s Not All About You

This is probably the biggest point of the article and one that a lot of musicians still haven’t realized:

If you want people to buy in to you, you first have to benefit them!

As a music adviser, I’ve seen countless promotions by musicians in various forms. One thing a lot of them have in common is they focus purely on themselves. For example,”I want to become a big musician so I’m going to let everyone know about me.”

Thinking like this can kill a music career.

Ask yourself, if someone came up to you saying, “I’m going to be the next Jay Z / Mariah Carey / Justin Bieber, buy my music,” would you go on to listen to them?

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12 Social Media Tactics For Artists

Here’s an excerpt from The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media ebook that looks at the basic concepts for artists to use social media more efficiently.

“Heidi Cohen at ClickZ post a great article regarding the 13 tactics to make social media work harder. I’ve adapted her post for Music 3.0, since her points are excellent, but I’ve found that only 12 of them apply. They are:

1. Understand how and why your fans use social media. This is the best way to make sure that you’re interacting with the majority of your fans in the first place.

2. Develop content that meets your fans needs and interests. This shouldn’t be too hard. They like you already and will probably want anything you give them. Don’t be afraid to offer rough mixes, rehearsal and studio out-takes, and behind-the-scenes videos.

3. Use a variety of forms of content and understand the role that each plays in social media. Blog posts, video, forums posts, Twitter and Facebook posts are all important. Many fans prefer one over another, so it’s best not to ignore any of them.

4. Encourage your fans to share content. The key to a healthy fan base (or Tribe” as “Seth Godin calls it) is not only their interaction with you (the artist), but also with each other.

Read more: http://music3point0.blogspot.com/2013/04/12-social-media-tactics-for-artists.html#ixzz2RBu3OyZQ
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

SoundExchange Distributes $117.5 Million In Q1 2013

Despite growing efforts by Clear Channel and others tolicence music directly, digital music performing rights organization SoundExchange had announced a first-quarter 2013 distribution of $117.5 million. It’s their largest first quarter payment ever and 10% above Q1 2012 distribution.

Fourth quarter 2012 payments were $134.9 million  – the largest quarterly distribution in SoundExchange history.

SoundExchange distributed  $462 million to recording artists and labels in all of 2012.  Since inception, they’ve paid more than $1.5 billion in royalties from 2,000 digital music services.

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