Top 10 Played More Than Ever Before

Many of us today think of music life centering around the online world, but that's far from the truth. The fact of the matter is that people still listen to the radio as much as they ever did, and it remains the top way for listeners to discover new music, beating YouTube (the online leader) by a large margin.

That said, the songs that reach the top 40 are played twice as much today than those ten years ago, according to Mediabase, a division of Clear Channel that tracks radio spins for all broadcasters.

For instance, last year's most played song was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," which aired 749,633 times in 180 markets. That comes out to 2,053 times a day on average.

In 2003 the top song was "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down, which was played 443,160 times during the year, or 1,214 time per day on average.

One of the reasons is that there are a lot more Top 40 stations than there used to be, with about 70 new ones created in the last decade in place of more specialized stations that played rock and smooth jazz (which was once heralded as the next new thing in radio programming).

Even on the country stations, the trend is similar, with the top hit of last year, Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel" receiving 229,633 plays. In 2003, Lone Star's "My Front Porch Looking In" received 162,519 spins.

The upshot is that even though people still discover their music from radio, radio has a much tighter playlist overall. It seems to be a case where the 1% of the music industry is profiting more than ever, while the 99% has a harder road to travel yet again.

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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 and Facebook 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.

My "Future Of The Music Business" Interview

Here's an interview that I did with my friend Slawek Blich regarding the future of the music business. If you read this blog frequently, you know that I'm very optimistic about where things are going, and this article points out why. The interview was originally for a Polish publication, but was also published in Forbes International, then AudioPro International.

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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 and Facebook 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.

You're On Spotify, But Will You Be Played?

One of the problems with getting your music placed on any of the streaming services is that it doesn't guarantee that anyone will care enough to listen to them. In fact, that's one of the complaints about streaming services in general for an artist.

From a listener's point of view, it's just the opposite. There may be millions of songs available, but most of them amount to musical spam, with an abundance of alternate, cover and karaoke versions instead of the real hits that we're looking for.

Of course, even if your songs are the "official" versions and no one is interested in hearing them, that doesn't do you much good. In fact, according to a site called Forgotify, Spotify alone has over 4 million songs that have never been played, not even once!

Forgotify wants to change that though, as it specifically targets those under-appreciated songs for listening, and excludes the rest. The cool thing is that it's a way to get some plays that might not have happened otherwise, and maybe have your music discovered in the process. Visit Forgotify and have a listen to some tunes that nearly no one has heard before (the picks are random).

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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 and Facebook 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.

The Secret Technique To Engaging Your Fans Online

Many bands, artists, managers, record labels and anyone trying to reach and increase their fan base with Facebook and Twitter sometimes face a dilemma - great posts that don't receive enough action or engagement. The fact of the matter is that exciting your fans enough to take action from your posts is more a function of the way you post, rather than the fact that you're posting in the first place.

If there's a secret at all when it comes to attracting your fans enough to read something, and then getting them to act on it, it's this information from the Social Media Promotion For Musicians handbook.

Make sure that every post:

• Includes a photo. Posts with photos receive 39 percent more interaction than ones without. That said, posts with videos receive fewer likes and views, mostly because people don’t want to commit the time it takes to watch an entire video. That’s not to say that you should stay completely away from posting videos, just remember that in this case, less is more.

• Includes a link. Always include a link to additional information, pictures, video, mailing list, or your website. If you have someone’s attention enough for them to read your post, it’s likely they’ll take action even further if given the chance.

That’s said, the type of link that you include does make a difference. Using a long URL can get you three times the engagement on Facebook, mostly because people trust it more than one that’s been shortened. What’s the difference? Take a look:

Long URL:http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com 

Shortened URL:bit.ly/vjgIUQ or ow.ly/eMLi2

Shortened URLs work great for Twitter when the number of available characters is limited, but always use the longer one for Facebook.

Basically, a photo is what attracts your fans to read the post in the first place, and the link gets them to take further action. It's a known one-two punch that works and works well. Try it and see.

To read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and my other books, go to the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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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 and Facebook 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.

The Hottest Social Network Today

If asked, most people would say that Facebook is the hottest social network on the planet today, and they'd be wrong. While it's true that FB has by far the most active users with more than a billion, the one celebrating the most rapid growth (with a whopping 23% in the fourth quarter of 2013 alone) is Instagram. But guess what? It's owned by Facebook, so by default, FB gets a boost as well.

Here's an infographic from research firm GlobalWebindex that shows the top 20 social platforms in terms of usage thanks to a recent study. I bet you won't recognize about a third of the names.

The study also shows that the vast majority of Instagram users are from 16 to 34 years of age (39% ages 16 -24), so if that's where your audience lies, then it's time to direct more marketing resources there.

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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 and Facebook 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.