SONG CONTEST BLOG

Live Nation, the world’s largest producer of live concerts and the leading purveyor of the mega-deal (or 360 music deal), has become a music industry powerhouse and, as result, drawing and signing the most lucrative artists in today’s live music market , a la Nickelback and Madonna.  The LA-based live music behemoth sells more than 45 million concert tickets each year and, in music industry standards, considered a promotional sure-fire.  In many respects, the company operates as a music label should: developing professional artists of every caliber by providing a financial pipeline into every aspect of the artist’s ‘portfolio’.   In 2008, Live Nation organized and produced 16,000 concerts for 1,500 in 57 countries.

If you Google – myspace music marketing – you will find a medley of useless tips on how to add more friends, write enticing messages, customize your page, and do more of what approximately 3 million active musicians on myspace are already doing, most of whom are still not getting any more attention than they did when they first joined.  Don’t get me wrong, I love myspace and I believe that myspace music marketing is absolutely essential.  Actually, I hate myspace but I do believe it’s essential and, now, a music industry standard.

Forget about robots for your myspace music marketing strategy.  And don’t worry, labels are no longer counting the number of friends and plays on your profile (it’s hard to believe they ever did!) so you need not spend all day and night adding friends aimlessly.  Start thinking about a targeted myspace music marketing approach whereby you only contact ‘friends’ you truly believe will take an interest in you and your music.  After all, online social networking answers to the same principles as day to day networking: you may work the room, but you don’t go into business with everyone you meet.

If you’re eager to raise your profile, dig deeper.  Rather than thinking about your number of friends, think about the ratio of friends vs. plays.  For example, If you have 1000 friends and 1000 plays, that should raise a big red flag: your friends accepted your invitation, listened to your music once (on average), and never came back.  For a truly effective myspace music marketing approach, keep your outreach to a minimum and focus on the folks that listen to your brand of music, attend live shows by artists with mutual musical qualities, and are likely to show up to your next gig.  If you don’t play outside of Nevada, why badger someone in Minnesota every other day?  Keep your myspace music marketing initiatives user-specific, short, and to the point.  Spend less time marketing to everyone and more time marketing to a small group of truly potential fans.  Before you know it, your myspace music marketing campaigns will be powered by your fanbase, a more potent and authoritative music marketing force than just you.

The digital media age has brought about a new breed of music marketing professionals armed with next-generation music marketing tools and savvy.  Cheap and, often, free online music marketing solutions are at the disposal of anyone with an internet connection.  However, today’s music marketing leaders are not your average Joe’s.  Dare I coin the term: music marketing Joe 2.0?

Budding young marketers are spending more time finding and sorting through information online – looking for patterns, clues, leads, characteristics etc. – that will help them learn more about their target audience and build relationships on behalf of their clients, as opposed to wining and dining with label executives.  Sad really, but music marketing is a different game now.  A decade ago, artists were still ‘enjoying’ the luxury of a label financed focus group and the gut feeling of the music managers at the top.  Today, they’re either getting feedback themselves from social networks or fortunate enough to have a music marketing wizard on their team to do the dirty work for them.  In other words, independent artists have been forced to become promoters and professional artists (i.e. financed artists) outsource to music marketing specialists as opposed to relying on old school record industry tactics.
Although the revenue pyramid still looks the same – a handful of megastars at the top,  a long tail of independent artists at the bottom – new digital media has leveled the playing field and empowered fledgling artists with music marketing solutions only the megastars had access to but a decade ago.

Next Big Sound, a site developed by four students at Northwestern University and described as a cross between MySpace and American Idol by The New York Times, has come to fruition last August as yet another platform for independent artists and fans to come together in a digital environment of discovery and competition.  Better described as another player in the realm of Sellaband and OurStage, The Next Big Sound looks great and promises adventure in role-play A&R for music fans and, with any luck, an opportunity for independent artists to raise their profile.

The site boasts 2000 “moguls” that have “signed” 9000 acts to date.  The business model surrounding the idea is not yet clear but, if it takes off, I imagine that there will be plenty of opportunities for the company, participating artists and, of course, moguls (music fans) to monetize a piece of the proverbial action.

Overplay, the independent artist platform for music promotion and discovery, announced today that they have given their website a facelift and added some exciting new interface features.  To celebrate this re-launch, Overplay are accepting free entries for their international song competition, “Play & Rate”, for which I have been a member of their song competition panel for some time now.

Since 2003, Overplay has been providing independent artists and fans with communication tools and promotional incentives with a one-stop-shop platform.  In addition to a variety of awards, sweeps and the “Play & Rate” international song competition, Overplay empowers fledgling artists to sell their digital assets and merchandise directly to their fanbase.

The record industry, worth approximately $31 billion globally in 2006, is a large slice of the much broader and more than three times larger ‘music industry‘, worth more than $130 billion.  With record sales dipping and alternative revenue streams coming into significant play, a broader view of the music business, namely the live, gaming and film/television licensing, and publishing sectors, is warranted for budding professionals.  In spite of the bad rep, the record industry remains to be one of the most creatively oriented sectors in media with 20% of its revenues invested in the acquisition and development of new talent.  This is a staggering figure for R&D investment in intellectual property.  Although this investment is still being recouped from record sales, revenue goldmines are being discovered in other media sectors which are increasingly more prominent than the traditional retail sources. Recorded music has become a key influencer in the mobile industry and a pivotal consumer offering in $100 billion worth of broadband subscriptions in 2006. The live performance sector is growing rapidly and its promising, future effect on music merchandising and sponsorship remains to be seen.

While the record industry appears to be an exclusive club, every artist recording and, in one form or another, publishing music is, in fact, a part of it.  As music converges with other media, so does the record industry with other industries.  As such, as more and more artists produce and publish great new music, more opportunities arise for monetizing their copyright without the dependency on actual record sales.

Songlines Magazine
Songlines Magazine covers the world’s most exciting music from traditional and popular to contemporary and fusion, featuring artists from all around the globe, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from Miriam Makeba to Mariza, from Gilberto Gil to Gogol Bordello.
http://www.songlines.co.uk

Monolith Festival
For today only, Monolith Festival is giving you $5 off your submission. By submitting, you will have the opportunity to share the stage with this year’s amazing line up at the incredible natural amphitheatre, Red Rocks. Monolith alumni include The Flaming Lips, Justice, Cake, Band of Horses and many more.
http://tinyurl.com/6ks6el

Songwriters Circle
The New York Songwriters Circle Loft Series is a monthly gathering designed to support a thriving community of musicians at all levels and abilities through education, information, and peer-to-peer interaction.
http://www.songwriters-circle.com

We Are Listening & MTV
Two months after We Are Listening panelists selected Tim Mahoney as winner of The Singer/Songwriter Awards, We Are Listening, together with Tinderbox Music, secured Tim’s music on MTV’s hit television series, “The Hills”. In addition, Tim closed an attractive digital distribution deal with IODA and is looking forward to additional licensing opportunities currently in the works. “Companies like We Are Listening are the reason why independent artists make it”, Tim wrote to We Are Listening, adding, “Talking with the founder, Lior, and shaping a custom television placement campaign was the best prize I could have ever hoped for. I was impressed.”
http://www.wearelistening.org/about_contest.php?type=ssa

Band Camp
Bandcamp, a free publishing platform for bands, provides artists with the most relevant content management and social marketing tools, with a super clean interface and friendly user management system.  Bandcamp update.
http://www.bandcamp.mu

Montreal band, Mobile, two months into their second album and on their first leg of a tour with Chris Cornell, received a message from MySpace regarding their profile URL:

Greetings MySpace member,

We are in the process of making MySpace better which requires the use of the URL you have chosen. MySpace will reset your URL within 48 hours of receipt of this email. After it has been reset, you will be able to choose another URL. The reset of your URL will not affect your profile at all. Should you have any questions, feel free to reply back and a MySpace representative will assist you in this process.

Thank you for your time and understanding!

The MySpace Team

MySpace made this move due to their launch of a new mobile platform:
www.myspace.com/myspacemobile

Needless to say, MySpace can not have a band URL compete with a service URL.

After 2 years on MySpace, the band, Mobile, will lose their identity on MySpace, a catastrophic event that is likely to occur again and again as MySpace continues to unveil new services with names that match that of member artists on their site.

This is a silly, technical hitch that could have easily been avoided had MySpace used sub domains in the first place (i.e. www.myspace.com/artist/mobile instead of www.myspace.com/mobile)

Beware! Any artist/band with a name that may be conjured up by MySpace as a future service is a risk.