Facebook's New Embedded Posts Feature

In an effort to keep up with Twitter, Facebook has introduced a feature that not only allows its content to be more accessible outside it's network. This allows anyone to embed public FB updates like photos, videos, hashtags, or posts from other people or pages on their own websites.

It's also possible for viewers of this embedded content to like or share it, as well as like or follow the person who originally posted or authored the content.

The new embed feature unfortunately isn't available to everyone yet, as only a hand full of news outlets (CNN, Huffington Post, People Magazine among others) have access to it.

When it's available, the embed feature will be part of the drop-down menu on the right (see the graphic on the left). When selected, it will generate the html code needed to embed on a site or blog.

You have to hand it to Facebook, they really do keep on trying to improve, and that's being reflected in their stock price, which briefly topped their offering price yesterday. Embedding has been a missing piece for Facebook, which was fairly irrelevant when it came to breaking news. This will only strengthen the network going forward.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

How A New Royalty Could Change Radio For The Better.

North Carolina Representative Mel Watt (D) has announced that he’s going to introduce new legislature before the next Congressional recess that will require broadcasters to pay performers a royalty on all the music that they play. Unbelievably, terrestrial broadcasters in the United States are not currently obligated to do so, thanks to the strong lobbying effort of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Broadcasters in most parts of the world already pay these royalties, and US broadcasters on the Internet, satellite and cable do so as well.

Terrestrial radio is a different beast though. Right now radio pays only the songwriters, not the performers, for the songs they play. That means that the writers of a song like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (the most played song in the US in the 20th century) get paid for every one of it’s more than 8 million plays while the Righteous Brothers, the recording artists of the song, never made a penny from any of it.

Read more on Forbes.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

5 Tips For Connecting With Music Supervisors

One of the biggest income streams open today to artists, bands, musicians and songwriters is getting your song placed in a movie or on television. The good thing is that there's a constant need for new material in our 200 channel cable universe. The bad news is that there's a lot of competition, since everyone else is aware of this avenue as well.

Here are some suggestions from music supervisors in how to get your music in front of them.

1. Take advantage of YouTube, Soundcloud and music blogs. They're the go-to way supervisors find new music these days.

2. Have a great song, but have a great story too. A story lets you rise above the competition.

3. Be specific in your pitch. Find out exactly what kind of music each show is looking for. It wastes everyone's time to send alt rock songs to a show that's looking for electronic pop, or vice versa.

4. Use IMDBPro to figure out what producers and supervisors are working on.

5. Be persistent, but don't cross the line. Be friendly and to the point, but don't be a stalker. Also don't take it personally if no one gets back to you initially, so don't stop submitting either.

Music supervisors are your key to television placement, but it takes time to cultivate those contacts. Be patient, because if you've got what they need, the doors will open.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Indies Labels Now Have 34% Of The Market

Once upon a time the music world was dominated by the major labels, who had the vast majority of market share. Today that's no longer true as the mid-year numbers from A2IM reports that indie labels now own 34.4% of the overall market share. This is based on the number of masters, not distribution, but it's still a radical departure from the days when the majors rules and such an idea would have been laughable.

It's truer than ever that you don't need a major label to get ahead in the music business. As an example, here's the top selling indie artists so far this year:

Mumford & Sons - 1.1 million albums (combines total of all their releases)
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - 670,000 albums
The Lumineers - 660,000 albums
Taylor Swift - 650,000 albums
Jason Aldean - 310,000 albums
Vampire Weekend - 275,000 albums
Alabama Shakes - 250,000 albums
Queens of the Stone Age - 150,000 albums

We are definitely in a DIY age. It's not just a dream anymore

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

5 Social Media Myths Busted

There's a lot of myths when it comes to social media, and most continue to be retold as truths. Let's bust 5 of the bigger ones. I've personally busted these with my own testing, but there's a lot of research to back them up as well.

Myth 1: Get as many friends/followers as you can. What good is it if you have 30,000 Twitter followers and only 30 care about what you're posting? The quality of these friends and followers is more important than the quantity.

Myth 2: The more you post, the better. Study after study has found that the less you post, the more effective it is. Once again, it's the quality of the post that counts, not the quantity.

Myth 3: You should focus on social media and forget about your website. If fact, your website should be the center of your online universe and all of your social media sites should point to it.

Myth 4: Broadcast any activity on one site to all your social sites. In other words, if you post a video on YouTube, you have the ability to automatically post that fact on your social sites as well. Yes, that's potentially a good strategy, but it's a better if you customize the post to each one. People tend to ignore mass posts.

Myth 5: Social media is all about your personality. Yes, personality has something to do with social success. People like dealing with other humans, but too much personality can also be a train wreck, as evidenced by celebrities and athletes everywhere who continue to put their foot in their mouths. When it comes to using social media to promote your brand, a mix of professional news along with personality works best.

Remember that using social media for marketing and promotion is a different animal from using it personally.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.