The 7 Most Essential Bio Elements

A biography is an essential part of telling your story to your fans, bloggers and journalists that might want to write about you, and prospective clients.  That said, many artists, bands and musicians often have trouble creating a bio that really works. Here are the 7 most essential elements that every bio should have.

1. Just the facts

• No superlatives unless it’s a quote
• No personal info, only professional
• Stay with information relevant to music only

2. List your music skills

• Not everything, just the ones you use most or are noted for

3. List your significant milestones

• Who you played with
• Work with a significant musician, manager, producer or agent
• Significant credits

4. List your music and videos

• Your most recent releases
• Only the most significant that have received acclaim or great social engagement

5. List your online info (with links if the bio is online)

• Website address
• Facebook fan page
• YouTube channel
• Twitter handle
• Any other social network where you have a significant presence

6. Create two bios

• One long (3 to 5 paragraphs)
• One short (single paragraph - 3 to 4 sentences)

7. Update often!

A Note For Bands:

• Do a separate short bio for each member as well as a band bio
• Keep it on a single page if you think it might be printed

If you'd like to learn more about all of the things that you need to get to the next musical level, check out my free 6 Keys To Musical Prosperity Crash Course.

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Today's Teens And Their Networks

Research company Piper Jaffery just released a new study on teens and concluded that their tastes continue to change, although not as much as you might think. For instance:

Teen now consume music by:
  MP3 Player - 35%
  Pandora - 26%
  Local Radio - 21%
  CDs - 7%
  Streaming Media - 11%

If you listen to the media, you'd think that teens only get their music exclusively via streaming, but MP3 players and even CDs still are more widely used that expected.

When it comes to social media, the top platforms for teens are:
  Instagram - 30%
  Twitter - 27%
  Facebook - 23%
  Tumblr - 5%
  Google+ - 4%
  Pinterest - 2%
  Other - 4%
  Don't Use Social Networks - 5%

What's interesting here is that Instagram is now the top teen network, while a full 5% say they don't use social networks at all! Check out a PDF of the entire survey.

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Prince Comes Back To Warner Bros And Shows The Boundaries of DIY

The rallying cry of many musicians today is “Do It Yourself” or DIY, meaning that it’s now possible to do so much of the grunt work necessary to make it without the help of a record label. For instance, you don’t need a label to act as a bank to supply money for recording any more, since most every musician has a studio at home these days that’s far more powerful than what The Beatles used in their heyday. You don’t need the label to manufacture your product, since it’s now possible to print limited runs of CDs if necessary, and virtual products cost very little to distribute. As far as promotion, social media and YouTube play such a big part in getting the word out, and so much of that can be done directly by the artist.

DIY is indeed a viable option until the point where the artist rises to the level of star, then all DIY bets are off. In order to break on through to the other side of international superstardom, the marketing infrastructure provided by a major record label is almost a necessity. A DIY artist can opt to try to reinvent the wheel, or go to a label with experience and expertise to make things happen on a larger scale. 

This is exactly where superstar Prince finds himself, as his recently announced new deal once again returns him to the Warner Music fold, a surprising move that many industry observers thought could never happen. Warners was the label that originally launched Prince into stardom, but the falling out between the parties became so vile that Prince labeled himself a “slave,” then changed his name to that unpronounceable insignia as to create a new trademark that would not promote his previous Warner releases. Read more on Forbes.

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Social Media Can't Defeat The Law Of 250

It's been speculated that because of social media, we'll all have far more friends than ever before. This was expected especially of the Millennial generation, who have been far more connected in their lifetimes than all previous generations combined.

But a new Pew study has found that even for Millennials, the median friend count on Facebook is still 250, just like it's been for other generations.

250 has always been a magic number. People would like to invite 250 or so to a wedding, and an average of 250 show up to a funeral. In sales, 250 is seen as the number needed for a sales or business career. Joe Girard, who's been billed as the world's greatest salesmen, has long contented that 250 prospects or referrals are required for sales success. The number has cropped up time and again, but it was thought that social media would transcend it.

But it looks like despite all of our hyper-connectivity, we just can't get away from that 250 friend count. Sure, many of us are way beyond that number on various social platforms, but how many can we really count as true friends? My bet is that you're lucky if you get to 250.

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Are People Actually Using Twitter?

It's one thing to be on a social network, it's another to actually use it. That seems to be the case with Twitter, which seems to get a lot of people signing up, but only a small percentage remain as active users.

This is illustrated in an infographic put together by Statista using the data published by Twitter analytics firm Twopcharts. As you can see, of the 284 million accouts created in 2013, only 37 million were actively tweeting in February 2014.

There are almost a billion current Twitter accounts, but only a small number are active. There have been almost 2.5 billion Twitter accounts total over the history of the platform.

What does this mean to you for promotion? Some people get Twitter and some don't. If it feels comfortable for you and you find a lot of your fans are using it, it's definitely worth adding to your social arsenal. If it doesn't seem to fit, there are other platforms that you'll find can be more useful to your social promotion.

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