The Number of Followers Isn't Important

There's too much emphasis on the number of friends, contacts or followers that one has these days. Regardless of whether we're talking about a social network or email list, to many, it's just a game and the one with the most friends wins.

In Music 3.0, that's not how it works though. The number of friends is really irrelevant. It's the quality of those connections that are important. Big Twitter follower numbers don't matter much if most of your contacts ignore your communication. They have to truly want what you have to offer for the connection to be worth much.

In fact, your focus should be on how often you connect and collaborate with your followers, since that's far more important than the shear numbers of followers that you have. You have friends and followers for a reason, and that's because they believe that you can offer something helpful or something interesting to them, or in the case of music, something they really want to experience. You are there for them, not the other way around.

Marketing To Your "Tribe"

An artist has 2 categories of fans - casual fans that may like you or your type of music but don't love you, and really passionate fans that love everything you do. Some call these your "true fans," "superfans," or "uberfans." Marketing guru Seth Godin calls them your "tribe."

Here's a brief excerpt about marketing to your tribe from my book, Music 3.0 - A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age.

"Be extremely careful about how you market to your tribe. Chances are your tribe wants everything you have to offer, but they don’t want to be hyped on it. Make an announcement about a new release or a piece of swag, but don’t oversell it. Tribe members don’t need to know that you think your new music is the greatest thing you ever did and it’s better than the Foo Fighters last release. They’ll decide for themselves and then sell it for you in their own conversations if they like it.

The way to market to your tribe is by simply presenting your product to them. Just make them aware that it’s available, and they’ll do the rest. You can take it a bit further by offering them information about the product - the more exclusive, the better.

Instead of a sales pitch:

• Give them a behind the scenes story about the making of the product.

• Tell them where the idea for it came.

• Tell them about all the people involved, especially other tribe members.

• Provide interviews with others involved in the project.

• Give them all the trivia involved in the project, no matter how small. True fans will eat it up. If it’s a new song, tell them where it was recorded, who the engineer and producer were, how many tracks were needed, how long the mix took, how many mixes you did, how the final mix compared to the rough mix, and all of the hundred other fine details that go into producing a song. If you just produced a new T-shirt, describe where the design came from, why you chose the manufacturer, what the shirt is made of, why you chose the color, etc. Get the idea?

Giving them insight that no ones else has makes them feel special, will keep them loyal, and will show mere fans and lurkers the benefits of tribal participation."

You can read more excerpts from the Music 3.0 Internet music survival guide and look at a table of contents on the Bobby Owsinski website.

The Music Industry of the Future

We live in a time when the music industry is in a state of flux. It's trying to adapt to the new while holding on to the past - some months more in the present, and other months still steeped in the old. One thing we know for sure is that it's changing quickly. Music 3.0 is here to stay and music 2.5 isn't coming back.

So what will the music industry of the future look like? There are 5 areas where it will change, as I see it.

1) Subscription Music - Industry pundits have been predicting for ages that digital music distribution will ultimately change from paid downloads to subscription, and they'll finally be right. The upcoming US introduction of the Spotify service will push the ball up the hill. The iTunes subscription service (which I predict will debut in 2011) will seal the deal.

2) Hybrid Record Labels - Even today most record labels are more concerned with selling music products than anything else. In the music industry of the future, the new hybrid labels will be more concerned with rights management than actual sales. Since it's so easy for an artist to produce and even market his own product (the traditional duties of a record label), they'll no longer need those functions. But they will need an entity that's expert in overseeing their digital rights in the variety of distribution streams that will exist, from streaming to download to subscription to licensing (supplanting the traditional publisher) to even physical product like CDs (while they're still around) and boxed sets.

3) A New Gig Model - A band dies if it doesn't gig. That's always been the way an artist made the majority of its income. It's pretty impossible to gig outside of an act's home area unless they have an agent, and the agent had a good relationship with promoters and venues. The new model would make it easier to connect an artist directly with venues, either eliminating the agent or as an adjunct to an agent. On the concert side of the music business, the agent is the middle man, much the same as a record label. Agents will have to change the same way that labels have.

4) The New 5th Beatle - Producer George Martin was always the uncredited "5th Beatle," since his input was such a huge part of their success. In the future, that person will not be a musician, but a web presence expert. It'll be a kid that's spent all of his time on every social network, learning all the ins and outs. The guy who just graduated from college who learned everything about web design and programming that he could just because he thought it was so cool. The kid who loves music, loves the band, can't play a lick, but can handle every aspect of their social media presence better than anyone in the organization. He's the guy that allows them to utilize Music 3.0 (the interaction with their audience) to it's fullest.

5) A New Media Package Replaces The Album - The album as a package was great for it's time, but that time is not now. At some point in the future a new multi-media package will combine audio, video, photos, text and interactivity into a new product that's fit for the time we live in. There are already a number of experiments that we'll soon see come to life (MXP4 is one technology; the major label backed CMX is another). Regardless of whether these catch on or not, it's inevitable that some combination package will.

In some ways, the future is almost here. We're starting to see the social media 5th Beatle pop up. Subscription music has been around for a while and growing, but still not at critical mass. Record labels are getting hipper to the needs of Music 3.0, a new gig model is brewing, and the rich media album is about to be born. The question is not longer if, it's when will the future get here?

A&R - The Movie

Here's another post along the lines of "The A&R Guy" from the other day. Too bad that it's so close to reality.

Once upon a time, there were some great A&R people out there, but that was back in the days of Music 1.0 (before big business took over the major labels) and 1.5 (at the beginning of conglomerate rule of the music business). As the music business turned into really big money and Wall Street became interested, everything began to change. Then came MTV, which pushed the mainstream industry down a path that it finds itself today.

Lucky for us all, Music 3.0 can be the savior, since an artist can easily reach an audience without the help of a record label. Record labels do have their place and can supply an artist with the needed infrastructure when it's time to take things to the next level, but letting them have a piece of all your income streams (as the animation suggests) isn't necessary or even realistic on their part.

The mechanics are now in place to do most of the work yourself that a traditional record label used to do. The difference is, you can do it better.

12 Social Media Tactics For Artists

Heidi Cohen at ClickZ recently had a great post regarding the 13 tactics to make social media work harder. I've adapted her post for Music 3.0, since her points are excellent, but I've found that only 12 of them apply. They are:


1) Understand how and why your fans use social media. This is the best way to make sure that you're interacting with the majority of your fans in the first place.

2) Develop content that meets your fans needs and interests. This shouldn't be too hard. They like you already and will probably want anything you give them. Don't be afraid to offer rough mixes, rehearsal and studio out-takes, and behind-the-scenes videos.

3) Use a variety of forms of content and understand the role that each plays in social media. Blog posts, video, forums posts, Twitter and Facebook posts are all important. Many fans prefer one over another, so it's best not to ignore any of them.

4) Encourage your fans to share content. The key to a healthy fan base (or Tribe" as "Seth Godin calls it) is not only their interaction with you (the artist), but also with each other.

5) Support and promote consumer-generated content. Mash-ups of songs and videos can be as important as your own releases.

6) Integrate product information into your content/story. Don't sell or hype your fans, inform them. They'll do the promotion for you.

7) Use content in social media to help build organic search optimization. Always think of SEO (search engine optimization) when developing content. Using the proper keyword phrases in your copy and metadata (even for videos) is crucial for being found, and therefore getting the word out.

8) Listen to, interact with, and recognize your fans. Communication can't be just one way. When they reach out, you must reach back.

9) Provide immediacy and nimbly react to events as they unfold. Social media is immediate by nature, so your fan base expects a more-or-less immediate response.

10) Participate in social media with a human voice. For social media to work well for an artist, the artist herself must participate. Certain communication can work through a surrogate, but fans can see right through a post that's supposed to be you but isn't.

11) Encourage band members and crew to participate in social media. The perspective of everyone involved with an artist is valuable to the fan, that's why it's important that everyone in the artist's circle should participate at least a little.

12) Track relevant conversations, responses, fan relationships, and sales across social media forums. The real key to effective and efficient social media management is measurement.

These are all great points and worth considering in your social media management.

The A&R Guy

This is a hilarious animation depicting an exchange between a stereotypical A&R guy and a remixer regarding some work. Forgive the language and crassness of the video for those reader sensitive to such things (if you're in the music business, you're certainly not), but it's so spot on that it's pretty funny.

Still No DIY Breakout Artists

The music industry news on the net has recently been abuzz with some comments that Tommy Boy Records and New Music Seminar founder Tommy Silverman made regarding the scarcity of DIY (do-it-yourself) breakout artists.

Tommy analyzed all 105,575 album releases from 2008 and found that only 225 had sales of more than 10,000 units. Of that, only 12 were unaffiliated with a record label, be it major label related or indie. Now this seems like a staggeringly small number but it illustrates a couple of points:

1) Just because distribution is relatively easy in Music 3.0, it doesn't mean that you don't need to infrastructure to get to the next level. Modern M30 music distribution, either physically or digitally, still requires specialists in promotion, PR, social media and distribution techniques to make an audience or potential audience aware of the product, then make it easy for them to consume it, then find something that the artist can monetize. While you're starting to see some indie acts breaking through lately (most visibly Vampire Weekend at number 1 last week), it's still an overwhelming job that requires a lot more time and expertise than a DIY artist usually has available.

Granted, Silverman is the longtime owner of a successful label so he's biased on the label side, but facts are facts. As it stands right now, DIY can only take you so far, then you need a label to take you the rest of the way. Except that there are a few companies on the horizon which might turn out to be the intermediary between DIY and label that will become an alternative for the artist. Stay tuned for more news as it becomes available.

2) Just because production is so easy it doesn't mean the music will be any good. It's easier today to make a recording than ever before. The simplest, lowliest, least expensive recording package has more horsepower than the Beatles ever had at their disposal in their prime, yet you can't say that we're in the golden age of music at the moment. I've had an ongoing debate with several of my contemporaries about whether this is a musical, social, economic, or cultural phenomena, but whatever it is, we've had periods when music was far more vital than what we're living through at the moment. One thing you can say about Music 1.0 through 2.5, the labels were great gatekeepers and you really had to be good to get by them, and they usually just took the cream off the top.

Once again, just because it's easy doesn't mean it'll be any good. If you don't put in the time (the 10,000 hours to genius as Malcolm Gladwell would put it), you just can't develop the skills, and today's songwriters, musicians, producers and engineers have far fewer opportunities to develop that skill than ever before. Fewer studios to apprentice at, fewer venues to play at, and fewer teachers who really know how to make a record to learn from severely limits someone just starting today and it reflects in the music.

Keith Barr, one of the founders of Alesis, once complained to me that he thought that his ADAT digital tape machines would cause of revolution in music that would bring about new artists every bit the equal of The Beatles, Stones, etc., but unfortunately that never came to pass. That's continued into the current day of DAWs, but you can't blame today's musicians, it's just the unfortunate hand they've been dealt.

We really need a revolution in the music business. One that takes everyone by the ear like we know it can be done. We're in a transitional period in Music 3.0, but the new dawn is just around the corner. We can all feel it.

What Really Makes Up The "Music Industry?"

Chris Castiglione wrote a thought provoking article over at Music Think Tank the other day regarding what really makes up "the music industry."

Chris cites a number of articles regarding the demise of the music industry as we know it, but postulates that the death of the industry depends on how you look at it. Until Music 3.0, the music industry revolved around the major and large indie record labels and their subsidiaries, with their trade organization (the RIAA) leading the way. The RIAA has long been the propaganda arm for the majors and those in the know would take their missives with a grain of salt. The further we get into M30, the more totally out-of-touch the RIAA (and hence, the majors) becomes with their pronouncements. That being said, it's foolish to believe that this is the totality of the music business.

In fact, there's more music being consumed than ever before, according to several recent studies, although it's being consumed in different ways and forms, which doesn't fit into the old Music 2.5 model at all. We all know it - everything has changed. The difference is that some of us change with the times and others (the major labels) don't.

So what is the music industry today? Certainly the major labels are a big part of it and still sell an enormous amount of product both digital and physical goods. That number is declining like  crazy (at least 10% a year) so the "industry" as we knew it isn't central to what the industry is today. Publishing is doing as well as ever and even growing a little (a fact hardly ever publicized) so that's not a factor either way. But parts of the industry that were just a rounding error a few years ago now have a significant impact on its overall strength.

The live concert business is growing slightly in revenue, but having a tough time selling tickets lately. Live Nation (soon to merge with Ticketmaster) and AEG have gone into the management and promotion business, cutting deals directly with the artists and bypassing agents and smaller promoters. That's become a bigger part of the industry than days past.

Music licensing is a bigger business than ever even though the individual fees have decreased. There are a lot more revenue streams thanks to the ever increasing number of cable networks.

Brick and mortar record stores and traditional broadcast radio have declined in importance in the "industry", but Internet radio and online music stores like iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and Spotify continue to grow. They're now a big part of the industry.

But  perhaps the largest part of the industry is the one that's the most difficult to count, and that's the thousands and thousands (maybe even millions) of independent artists that now have the ability to deliver their music directly to their fans, who consume it in silence, oblivious to Neilsen Soundscan ratings. That's the core of Music 3.0. Even though we haven't had a huge breakout from this group yet, you can be sure that's it's coming.

So the music industry has gone from being built around the major labels to a much more diverse group of related businesses. No one sector dominates like before even though they may be formidable. But the leveling of importance between the industry sectors continues as we speak. Music 3.0 is about artistic democracy, and democracy always comes slowly.

Apple's new iTunes Play

One of my predictions about the music industry for 2010 was that subscription music would almost hit critical mass, with Apple's iTunes finally pushing it over the edge when they introduce their own subscription service in 2011. This prediction was based on the premise that Apple's purchase of Lala provided the needed infrastructure to create a subscription service that made it easier than building one from the ground up.

While this seems a reasonable supposition, industry pundits are predicting that Apple has something else in mind for the Lala backbone, and they'll spring it on us at the upcoming "big event" scheduled for January 27th.

The thought is now that Apple will do a sort of hybrid service, moving all of a consumer's purchases to the "cloud" (computer storage accessed via the Internet) instead of having a song downloaded on to your personal computing device (be it a computer or a phone or an iPod). In effect, you get the streaming function of a subscription service but it will still be only of all the songs you purchased. So in effect, you won't be downloading songs any more, you'll be uploading them! You can still have them on your desktop if you want, but you probably won't.

Indeed, the main benefit to the consumer is that you save all that room on your drive, especially if you have a large collection, and you no longer have to worry about high-quality versions of the songs eating up your hard drive. But the real benefit belongs to Apple. They still get to charge you 99 cents (or more) to purchase a song, instead of collecting a flat fee per month for access to unlimited songs. And they don't have to renegotiate any of the licenses with the record labels. The consumer gets a taste of what subscription music would be like, but at no cost benefit.

This doesn't sound like much of a deal at all, especially when the Spotify music subscription service is about to launch in the States soon. I still believe that this move is still a precursor to Apple eventually going subscription, but it's just a ploy to keep the status quo a little longer than had they gone directly to subscription.

Because once the consumer gets a taste of music subscription, there will be no turning back.

Top 10 Music Moneymakers Of The Decade

One of the more eye-opening stats about the recent and current music business is who made the most money during the 00's. Here's a list that combines concert ticket and CD sales. Yes, it will surprise you.

1. Celine Dion - $748 mill

2. Kenny Chesney - $742 mill

3, Dave Mathews Band - $738 mill

4. The Beatles - $627 mill (including Paul McCartney's and Ringo's ticket sales)

5. U2 - $610 mill

6. Toby Keith - $592 mill

7. Bruce Springsteen - $588 mill

8. The Rolling Stones - $570 mill

9. Tim McGraw - $551 mill

10. Britney Spears - $495 mill

What this list tells us is that our assumptions regarding the type of music that is hot may be all wrong. Even though Rap and Hip Hop seemed to dominate the charts during the decade, no artists from that genre cracked the top 10. Only Eminem came in at #14 with $419 mill and he was the only hip hop artist in the top 20.

Who would've guessed that Celine Dion would've been number 1? Or that Kenny Chesney would be number 2? Or Dave Mathews and The Beatles numbers 3 and 4?

The list illustrates just how little radio reflects the buying tastes of the general public, but it also shows that mainstream music artists with major label connections still partake of the biggest piece of the financial pie. That being said, the list is also a reflection more on the era of Music 2.5 than Music 3.0. Let's see what the next 10 years bring.

Social Media Tactics That Work

Excellent article today at eMarketer entitled "What's Working For Social Media Marketers?" It featured a couple of charts worth a look.

The chart on the left describes the marketing tactics that gather the best response on Facebook both B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer). There's nothing especially new here as it's all just best practices, but the order of success is a little different than expected. Survey's rate a lot higher in response that I would've expected.

This chart provides the most responsive tactics for Twitter. Once again you're seeing best practices in action, but it's interesting that the tactics work better between business and consumers in almost every action.

If you're not using these tactics yet for interacting with your fans, now is the time. The practices have proven to be successful.

The NAMM Show And Social Media

I was dumbfounded as I walked around the Winter NAMM 2010 show at the utter lack of awareness that manufacturers and dealers alike have for social media. Of the more than 1500 exhibitors, I only saw a single MySpace address, zero Facebook fan site addresses, Twitter addresses, or anything else remotely tied to social media. In fact, it seems that many companies were even lax with website info, if you can imagine that.

For all the attention that social networking has gotten in the last year, it's penetration isn't nearly as high as we're lead to believe, at least in this space. I do have an explanation, however.

1) Let's face it, everyone in a small company is overworked. Each person wears a number of different hats and it's pretty much impossible to do anything particularly well with so little time to spend on each task. Social networking is time consuming, and there's just not enough hours in the day to get it done, even if you're aware of the potential benefits.

2) Most PR firms are blissfully unaware of social media. The ones I spoke with told me about attending seminars to learn about it, so they're still neophytes themselves, but even they didn't have the time to get their arms around the discipline for their clients.

If the musical instrument industry, which is relatively hip, has these problems, can you imagine what other industries are like? The bottom line is that there's a real opportunity for a social PR company to take up the considerable slack that's being left by existing PR.

By the way, Jet City Amplifiers, a brand new amp company, is one of the few exceptions, with a pretty good Facebook and Twitter presence that has stoked their sales considerably right out of the box.

On another note, I did see one band that was thinking out of the box at NAMM. The Siloam band had one of the worst spots on the exhibit floor (obviously it was cheap) but they were touting their wares with a video and live performances. I don't know if NAMM is the right venue, but I do like the fact that they were trying something out of the norm.