How Can We Help? 2/21/14

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Wanna get your DIY music promotions questions answered and promote your music? Do you have questions about promoting your music or building a fanbase? Leave it in the comments and we promise to get back to you or even write a post featuring you that answers your question. If we think your question would benefit our readers we’ll post a YouTube video of your song on top of a post that answers your question. No matter what, you will get an answer this week as long as you leave an email address (so we can let you know when we answer your question) and a YouTube URL for your video. All we ask in return is that if we answer your question, please help us spread the word about our book, Get More Fans: The DIY Guide To The New Music Business.


What You Can Learn About Social Media From Lorde

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I am admittedly obsessed with Lorde lately, so reading her latest Rolling Stone interview I was taken by her advice on social media. She talked about how if she used #hashtags and followed many of the social media rules that gurus advise these days and I was reminded how true this is. I keep thinking about how the best advice for social media is to just write the most interesting honest and relevant thoughts you have a let your audience identify with them. Posting your lunch and doing #hastags for people to find your music is the opposite of this. Sorry for the ran, but this feels like great advice and check out Lorde’s feed for a great example.


You Longer Need A CD To Upload Your Music To Pandora.

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pandora logoFor years, you needed a CD with a UPC code to be sold on Pandora in order to uplaod your music there. While this was pretty laughable even in 2011, nevermind 2014, they have finally gotten hip and wised up their game. You now need very little to get your music to them.

  1. Provide us with your basic contact information
  2. Give us details about your submission including your name, release information and links to your tracks
  3. Ensure that you have legal rights to your work and it is available on iTunes (US only), Amazon.com/MP3, CD Baby or Bandcamp
  4. Verify your account

You can find the submission form here.

(via Hypebot)


How To Get Your Music, Merch, Concert Tickets And Info On Beats Music

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Beats_Music_LogoToday marked the launch of the long-awaited Beats Music service as a competitor to Spotify, Google and Rdio’s music streaming services. While you may wonder why we need another one of these services, the most exciting parts of the service is how friendly it is to musicians. Using TopSpin’s ArtistLink service you are able to sell merch, concert tickets, music and keep your profile up to date for everyone who listens to your music on the service. Coincidentally, this is the same service that you can use to put your merch on Spotify as well. This means you have all the more reason to get a profile and start promoting your music with this service.

 

If you want to read more of my thoughts on Beats Music, I wrote up what I think of the service for Property of Zack.


Spotify Adds The Ability For You To Sell Merch For Free

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spotifyIn case you haven’t noticed, tons of short-sighted-music-biz-know-it-alls have been attacking Spotify. Because of this they’ve been on a musician charm offensive. Because of this Spotify has been opening up the doors to being more artist friendly, which tells us why today they announced they will team with Topspin to allow musicians to sell merch through Spotify. Musicians will be able to claim an account and sell up to three merch items through Spotify, by joining up with TopSpin’s free ArtistLink service. As well, TopSpin is offering a discounted rate to those looking to sell merch through their service, but this isn’t necessary to be able to sell. Take advantage of this big news. Get started here.


Jesse Is Teaching A Free, Live Streaming Class On Mixing Rock And EDM

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JesseCannon_MixingRock_Email_Blog_561x280After the immense success of my last course on DIY Mastering, that I did with the amazing service CreativeLive, we decided to do another. This time I will be doing a class that will explain both the fundamentals and some “hidden” knowledge on how to get great mixes in both rock and EDM. You can check it out on 2/12/14 @ 12PM EST. I will go through all the mixing tools, techniques and theories I have used to mix records for the past 15 years. Even if mixing isn’t for you, check out some of the great music business courses and recording courses that CreativeLive has been doing.


The Big Secret: Record Companies Are Making More Off Streaming Than CDs

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spotify_logo1Jay Frank has a great blog post up discussing a Wall Street Journal article that states,

“Data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed that one major record company makes more per year, on average, from paying customers of streaming services like Spotify or Rdio than it does from the average customer who buys downloads, CDs or both.”

Seems like some skeptics are going to have to start re-thinking their ways. 


Help Us Make The Next Get More Fans Even Better

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GetMoreFansBookRenderI would first like to thank you all for supporting this blog and our book. Because of how much support and kind words we have received from it, I am happy to announce a second edition of updated and new information is coming soon. In the next few weeks, we’ll be putting the finishing touches on the second edition of Get More Fans: The DIY Guide To The New Music Business. However, before we put the icing on the cake, I want to make sure we give you all everything you’re looking for. So if you have any ideas for the following, please let us know in the comments. If you have any thoughts on the following things, we would especially like to know -

  • Are there any subjects we could have covered deeper?
  • Did we miss anything?
  • Is there anything we can add that could be helpful to you? 

Thanks so much!