In order to promote the upcoming class I have on DIY mastering with CreativeLive, the recent article I wrote that caused quite a stir on Reddit and of course Musformation’s book, I will be doing a Reddit AMA where I will answer live any questions you may have about promoting your music, recording or whatever else you may think I have insight on. I hope to see you there. The AMA will be in this Subreddit tomorrow 12/5 at 5PM EST.

Have you heard the joke about the difference between Spotify and a toilet?

A toilet only gets shit on by one asshole at a time.

Because of this all to telling joke, Spotify has taken it upon themselves to make a website to tout all the nice things they are doing for musicians. While you may hint that I have a little sarcasm in my voice, I actually believe we should give services like Spotify a chance and don’t agree with Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich and the rest of the naysayers. With this new website, Spotify is allowing musicians to easily see what the paying rates are and how they will increase with time. They also allow them to see analytics courtesy of the always awesome, Next Big Sound. They have also partnered with Topspin to allow musicians to sell merch via the service to fans who listen to them on Spotify. If that weren’t enough they now have a list of best practices on how to get the most out of Spotify as a musician. 

Musformation reader Vaudrey wrote in to ask -

“I was wondering what the fastest way to find your optimum target audience (outside of my existing friendship / fanbase) – is there a good market research type platform to narrow your target? It seems easy if you sound similar to someone popular, but if your music spans genres it can be a little harder to find the right audience in the initial stages… Been getting a great deal out of your book! – they should teach this in higher music ed! Regards, Rich.”

I think a lot of finding your target is fiddling around. As described in our book, I think it’s very important to establish a few acts even if they are a wide variety of genres to target. Enter them into Google Alerts, Mention and Feedspot and start to see who is writing about them. It is important that some of them are small and some are large. Search through tags on Bandcamp if need be and you then want to watch what these targets do on every social network. See who is covering them, what blogs are their community, where do they play? Finding all of this and watching these targets everyday will help you find a niche. If you are very unsure of demographics you can also run a Jango Airplay campaign and watch your analytics.

Topspin has long been one of the most powerful tools for musicians on the market and now they have enabled a way for you to trade promotion with other Topspin acts. Check out their press release below and get going.

“ArtistLink is aimed at helping you promote your campaigns to new fans. The ArtistLink Promo Exchange is a free and optionalcross-promotional network where your offers are promoted to fans of similar artists and in return you agree to allow other artists to promote their offers in front of your fans. The more impressions you give to other artists, the more impressions you get in return. We’ve been testing the Promo Exchange for several months and are excited by its potential. The average click-through rates within the Promo Exchange are nearly 10 times higher than the industry average.

In addition to the free Promo Exchange, ArtistLink now offers a Paid Advertising service for you to buy ads across different music services and sites. You can use it to generate more exposure and awareness for your campaigns. The new service includes retargeting where you can advertise to potential purchasers who have previously visited your website or engaged with one of your Topspin widgets. It can be an effective way to upsell your existing fans and promote your new music, film, shows, or merch.”

Many musicians got used to the fun of Turntable.FM to play music for fans, creating a lasting bonding experience that was impossible before this cool piece of technology. Sadly since they announced they will be shutting down this experience looked to be gone, but thankfully Plug.DJ is here to fill its void. While not exactly the same as Turntable, Plug allows you to even DJ YouTube videos.

If you have never read Stuff You Will Hate, you’ve been missing out on some seriously hilarious stuff on the state of youth culture and music today. On a much more serious note, they do a smart and awesome podcast and I was lucky enough to be on to discuss a lot issues about how young bands breakthrough, creativity, punk ethics and a whole bunch of other stuff, including the free, live streaming course on mastering that we’re doing for CreativeLIVE. 

YouTube has gotten quite gracious with their latest offering FanFinder. If you make an ad for your channel they will promote it to viewers they think may like it. Hope on this fast since the competition will grow every day.

The indie duo Matt & Kim are no strangers to doing cool marketing tricks and this holiday season they definitely hit the jackpot of great ways to bond with your fans and give a few a really special surprise. Check out this Secret Santa contest they did:

“1. You make a bad ass Xmas list. What have you been dying to have all year? Is it a Samurai sword like my brother has for the last 20 years. The longer the list the better. You’ve been eyeing that new flat screen, huh?… put it down. You’ve been eyeing a new bike…throw it on there. You want a new Bugatti…. well we aren’t doing THAT well so perhaps leave that for next years list.

2. Send us your list! You can either email us or old school style “snail” mail that list to us. Shit, your list could end up on our fridge!!
Email it to: screamteam@mattandkimmusic.com
Physical mail it to: Matt and Kim, 40 Wooster St, 3rd Floor NY, NY 10013
You can even Tweet, Instagram or Facebook it and include the hash tag #MKSecretSanta

Now here is the IMPORTANT PART!! Make sure you get us your Christmas list BEFOREDecember 6th. On December 10th Matt and I will announce three winners. Those three will get an item that was on their list -AND- a special holiday package that we have personally put together. Guys, I don’t want to brag but I am really good at putting together Xmas packages so you’ll be stoked on what I picked out.”

Musformation reader Mark Costa wrote in to ask :

“I’m one to cut corners BUT is it wise to send press releases out individually or is it acceptable to send 1 press releases to numerous blogs in 1 email.” 

I have run a lot of blog pitches–I even did one this week where I wrote to about 150 people–and here is what I find time and time again.

• If you mass mail if you even get a response from 1 out of 100 you’re going to be lucky. 
• If you personalise them a little if you get 5 out of 100 to write about you you’ll be lucky.
• If you become a big follower of a blog, comment, interact on social networks and really make yourself a part of a community you can get written on 1 out of every 4 blogs.