5 YouTube Tips From Big Brands

The top 10 YouTube brand channels like Red Bull, GoPro and Playstation (according to the Touchstone Video Index) all do the same things to stay there, so it's good to take a look at their techniques. Here's what we can learn that can be successfully applied to a music brand.

1. Publish content regularly. It's the key to increased viewer engagement, views and subscribers.

2. Convert your views into subscribers. Subscriptions are gold and much more important than views. The average is 2,276 subscribers per million views, so if you're not reaching that number then there's something wrong with your content.

3. Send people back to your channel. Most views are not made on the channel itself, so try to link the viewers back to your channel so they can subscribe or leave a comment.

4. Treat YouTube as an engagement platforms. Comments matter more than ever in Google rankings, so be sure to respond to all questions and comments.

5. Don't allow trash talk. Don't be afraid to delete and block inflammatory comments that lead to flame wars. Critiques are okay, but taking the conversation into the gutter kills your audience. You wouldn't allow it to happen at a party, would you?

Also remember that your video views should be evenly distributed. You're in trouble if one or two videos get 80 to 90% of your total views, as that means that the quality of your content is uneven.

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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.

Iron Maiden Stock On The Rise

One of the premier metal bands is also a premier company with an excellent performing stock. In a recently released report by the London Stock Exchange entitled 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain, Iron Maiden LLP was named as one of the UK's fastest growing music firms.

Maiden has long been at the forefront of using their avid fan base as a springboard for both major tours and independent releases. The band has a huge global audience, especially online, where their fan base grew by 5 million from their touring of South America alone. In fact, it's estimated that Brazil may be the strongest market for the band overall, despite the heavy torrent use in that area.

I profiled Maiden's management in my Music 3.0 guidebook in the section titled The New Masters Of The Domain because in many ways they set the tone for the music business as we know it today. Here's an excerpt.

"In 1979, Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor discovered and then managed the legendary metal band Iron Maiden. They subsequently named their management company after the band’s song “Sanctuary” and expanded their roster to include similar bands of the genre. 

Soon afterward, Sanctuary Management had a brilliant idea. As managers of “heritage acts,” which had long-term appeal and large fan bases but no record deals, the company decided to independently finance CD releases for the bands themselves. After all, the audience was built in and rabid. They’d buy anything the bands would put out, so why not release it themselves if a major label wouldn’t? The bands were going to tour anyway, so they might as well have a product to sell. Little did they know at the time, but this was the beginning of the new business model where the tour sells the recording instead of the recording selling the tour, as it did in M1.0 to 2.0. 

In the past, if an act would get hot as a result of local radio play, they would then tour in that location to take advantage of the energized interest. The record sold the tour by virtue of the airplay it received. The record was selling the tour. If the record flopped, there would be no tour. 

But in the new Sanctuary model, since the act had a strong enough fan base to support a tour anyway, why not have some product to back it up? With these new economics of self-financing the release, the act could now make more money than ever on fewer units sold. And since it was cheaper than ever to create a release (since by then most musicians had studios at home that were more powerful than The Beatles ever had during their heyday), the stage was set for taking advantage of both the technology and the consumer environment. 

For a time, Sanctuary Records and its artists succeeded wildly, to the point that the company expanded into a full-fledged record label (and a subsidiary of Universal Music) with traditional M2.0 staff and infrastructure. Soon afterward, however, it collapsed under the weight of that traditional infrastructure. The company had ventured beyond its original concept and comfort level, and eventually paid for it. Sanctuary essentially ceased to exist as a record label at the end of 2007, although it’s assets have since been sold to BMG. 

Sanctuary started the trend of an artist self-releasing a record during M2.0, way ahead of the curve and way ahead of what's commonplace today. Without knowing it at the time, the company paved the way for artists living in our current music generation, where self-production, promotion, and distribution are not only commonplace but the norm."

Some of the things that Sanctuary pioneered include:

   * The tour sells the recording, not the other way around

   * The CD becomes just another piece of merchandise

   * The artist markets and sells directly to his fanbase

   * Self-releasing can be more profitable than having a label

   * The artist can make more money on fewer sales

Iron Maiden LLP was actually just one of the music companies honored by the London Stock Exchange. The others include the music app company Shazam, distributor Kobalt Music Group, and music library Audio Network.

You can read additional excerpts from Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age or my other books at 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.

Enough With The Apps Already!

I hate most iPad and iPhone apps. There, I said it. In this world we live in where jumping on the bandwagon is expected in order to keep up with the competition, every company or artistic project seems to be working on an app. And it’s not a good idea.

For one thing there are too many available already. In October Apple announced that there were one million apps available in the iTunes Store and a total of 60 billion had been downloaded already. Shortly before that, Google announced that there were 900,000 available from Google Play and over 50 billion Android apps downloaded. That figure has no doubt increased to match Apple’s by now. 

Besides the fact that we’re already inundated, the real problem is that most apps (except for games and utility apps) don’t work as well as the website they hope to replace. I’ve gotten to the point where I just use the browser on my tablet and phone instead of most apps that I’ve installed, which leaves the tiny programs taking up space in the background (I have to get around to deleting them soon).

Sports is a great example, with dozens of apps for every individual genre, and for the most part, every one that I’ve tried is frustrating. I keep on going back to ESPN on the browser for game updates. In fact, even ESPN’s own app isn’t as good as its website. 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.

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.

How To Embed Sound Clips In Your Photos

Did you ever want to add audio to a picture but didn't want to mess with hassle of importing it into a video editor? Now you can do it easily with a new service called Shuttersong that allows you to embed sound into your jpeg images.

Shuttersong allows you to take a photo when immediately add sound from your phone or music from your library. You can also take existing images from the web and add audio as well. The soundtrack is limited to 15 seconds, which is more than it seems.

Although many will use it with music, it could be really useful to just describe the context of the photo, especially for a pro photographer. Consider a sort of audio metadata.

The app fills the gap between Instagram and YouTube. The app was just launched in October and already has nearly a million users. Give it a look at shuttersong.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.

Branding Your YouTube Channel

YouTube Websites and Social Media Links

Just like your Facebook and Twitter profile pages, a YouTube channel page is another opportunity to reinforce your musical branding. There’s less flexibility in how you can brand that channel than there used to be, but there are still places where you can get creative. Here's an excerpt from Social Media Promotion For Musicians that provides some tips on branding and design of your YouTube Channel.

"There are a number of areas that are available on your channel that enables you to emphasize your own design or brand. Let’s look at them:

• The Channel Art: The channel art is the banner at the top of the page where you can display a customized graphic. YouTube suggests this graphic be 2560 x1440 pixels so that it works on all types of televisions, tablets, smartphones and computers, but what YouTube will show on most computer browsers is 1546 x 423. This is known as the “safe area” and is where you should place any critical graphics information since anything outside that area might not show up on a device with a smaller screen. The graphic can be up to 2MB and in either a JPG or PNG format. The Channel Art upload section is accessed by clicking on the pen icon on the top right of graphics box, as shown in Figure 9.1. You can access a template for the channel art, as well as a design tutorial, by clicking on “How to create channel art” at the bottom of the upload pop up box.

TIP: Your channel art should be attractive and consistent with your brand, but don’t be afraid to also feature any of the personalities, characters or content of the channel.

• The Channel Description: You access your channel description from the About tab underneath your channel name. After the About box pops up, select the pen icon on the upper right to edit. From here you can enter or edit the description. Be sure to include all the information about your channel in the description, such as what to expect from the video content as well as who’s involved (like the members of a band).

• Website and Social Media Links: The website and social medial links are accessed in the same manner as above; through the pen icon on the top right of the box. Here you can add links to websites, blogs and social networks (see the graphic on the left). The first weblink you entered will appear on the lower right side above your channel art, as will the social network icons. The others will appear in the About box. 

• Featured Video/Trailer: Another thing that you can do is feature a particular video or trailer at the top of the page when someone who is unsubscribed visits your channel. Simply select the pen icon on the top right of the box, select a video, then hit save. You can see what both subscribers and non-subscribers see by toggling Unsubscribed trailer and Subscriber view next to the edit icon.

• Playlists: YouTube allows you to create multiple playlists, which can have a great influence in how your fans consume your content. If you have a fair number of videos, you might want to create different playlists for different parts of your fan base, since each may have a different desire of what to watch. While your superfans will want to see everything you upload, your casual fans may be more selective. You can select the order and layout of these playlists, or create a new one, by selecting the edit icon on the top right of the playlist box.

Read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and other books at 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.

Outside The Box With "24 Hours Of Happy"

There's not much that can grab us anymore when it comes to music videos. We've seen big budget productions come and go and come back again. We've seen fan generated videos, lyric videos, full album streams over a single graphic, comic videos, serious videos and everything in between, so it takes a lot to capture our attention. That's why Pharrell Williams' "24 Hours Of Happy" is so unique.

If you've not seen it yet, "24 Hours Of Happy" is really a 24 hour video that takes place on the streets of Los Angeles with a wide variety of people dancing and lip synching to Williams' song "Happy." It was actually shot over 11 days with over 400 people over 8 miles of LA streets.

It's a catchy song, an interesting concept, and thinking outside the box. Here's a video of the first hour.

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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 Lie That Fuels The Music Industry’s Paranoia

We’ve heard it for a decade now. “We’re losing more than half of our music sales thanks to digital piracy,” says the music industrial complex. The problem is that the music industry has freaked itself out so continually over hyped-up numbers attributed to music piracy that it can’t tell the facts from the reality anymore. The truth of the matter is that while music piracy was a real live problem at one point in the past, today it’s just a distant memory.

Don’t believe me? Let me give you a couple of data points:

• A study released earlier this month by networking company Sandvine on Internet traffic trends found that peer to peer traffic is now below 10%, down from 31% five years ago and 60% eleven years ago. Less P2P traffic equals less piracy according to a report from Envisional.

• Meanwhile, a combination of Netflix and YouTube now account for more than 51% of all Internet traffic in North America. YouTube is now the go-to platform for consuming music for US teens according to Nielsen’s annual Music 360 report, with more than 64% of teens consuming their music that way.

Here’s the bottom line - people don’t pirate songs anymore because they don’t need to. They can get whatever they want for free online via YouTube or a streaming service like Spotify.

After all, what’s the point of clogging up your hard drive with songs that you rarely listen to when you can have access to literally millions more any time and any place you want, and a lot more conveniently too? And why try to steal a song from a Torrent when you’re not sure if what you’re downloading is the original song or if it’s encrypted, corrupted or spoofed? You can waste a lot of time just trying to find a usable song to listen to. Who needs that? 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 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.

Black Friday For Music 3.0

Another Black Friday is upon us and I thought it would be fun to include a short list here. You can find a more complete version over on my Big Picture Music Production Blog. Here are a few items that are perfect for the musician, engineer, songwriter, producer, artist or band.

Social Media Promotion For Musicians - If you don't have the online presence or response you think you should, then this book's for you. Covers Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious, your website, blog and mailing list. Take 20% off  on the print version today only by using code 2HJQXWBT (the Kindle version is already discounted).

Shop Amazon - Black Friday Deals in Electronics

Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In the Internet Age - The book the blog is named after. If you want to understand what's happening in the "new" music business, this book's for you. Explains who's in control, who's making all the money, and how to get ahead as the business transitions into a new age.

Lynda.com - Have you ever wanted to learn a piece of software, but hated the "how-to" videos you found on YouTube with bad audio and lighting and people that barely know what they're doing? Try Lynda.com, with more than 1500 courses with super high production values by experts and in small digestible bites. Check out my courses, and get 7 days free of unlimited access to lynda.com.

Shop Amazon - Countdown to Black Friday Deals in Musical Instruments

Recording And Music Production Books From Bobby Owsinski - For every musician who records at home, The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, The Recording Engineer's Handbook, How To Make Your Band Sound Great, The Studio Builder's Handbook, and 14 others are the perfect gift.

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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 Music Industry Holiday Shutdown

Thanksgiving is a time for family gatherings and banquets, but it also marks the beginning of a time of year that those in the business of music either love or hate - the Holiday Shutdown.

The Holiday Shutdown is the toughest time of the year to do business because the execs that can greenlight a project begin their extended vacations, so they're rarely in the office. It begins Thanksgiving week (some leaving on Monday rather than Wednesday), and really continues until about the second week in January. Oh, they'll be back in the office between now and then, but they're usually so backed up with work that if you're not on the top of the pile you'll be pushed to next year.

One of the reasons why record execs leave is that the release schedules for the year and even into the first quarter of next year are set in stone. The Christmas releases are out by now, and while there may be a record that might drop in the first week of December, it's a rarity. It's a slow season work-wise, so why stick around?

On the other hand, agents and managers are still working as they line up fill-in dates for the end of the year and work on tours for the new year, merch vendors are still working because it's a prime time of the year for retail sales, and publishers are still getting payments and working on synch licenses for television shows and movies (although many of the producers have also left unless they're still in production).

This is also the time of year where bands may still be negotiating for a New Years Eve gig, which may be the best paying, but the worst gig of year, as the audience tries too hard to have the good time they think they're supposed to have.

With all that being said, it's a good time of year to get your marketing in order for 2014, since there's bound to be some downtime in whatever sector of the business that you're involved it. We'll review that more in an upcoming post, but in the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving and don't eat too much turkey!

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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.

9 Steps To Stop Annoying Your Twitter Followers

It's important that we observe proper online etiquette no matter what platform we're using in order to continue to engage fans, but it's especially true with Twitter. Here are 9 steps for better Twitter etiquette from the Twitter chapter of Social Media Promotion For Musicians.

"Twitter is a fairly simple medium, but there are certain unwritten rules that attempt to keep people from annoying one another. Despite this group etiquette, you’ll still no doubt run into situations that may make you want to scream, but keep in mind that it’s probably bugging others as well. Rest assured that sooner or later the offender gets the message and either mends his ways or leaves. Let’s take a look at what you should know.

• Don’t use all caps. One of the things that netizens universally hate is someone COMMUNICATING IN ALL CAPS. This is considered the equivalent of shouting, is more difficult to read, and just plain impolite.

• Don’t be rude. What’s rude in real life is rude on Twitter as well. The problem is that people are more easily offended online because they can’t see any facial expressions or body language, and as a result, what you consider to be a rather harmless tweet can kick up a firestorm. The way around this is to think through every tweet before you send it and stay away from any provocative language.

• Don’t use an affiliate link in a tweet. Links in a tweet are a good thing, but it’s bad form to include one that’s blatantly trying to sell something or make money.

• Don’t ask someone for a favor publicly. Just like doing it in a crowded room, it’s uncool. Better to ask in a private conversation. Use DM instead.

• Don’t auto-DM. It’s possible to set up an automatic direct message welcoming someone when they follow you. Save your time and money as this is considered bad form. If it’s not personal, an auto-DM can do more harm than good.

• Issue a high volume warning. If you’re going to be tweeting more than normal (like from a show, conference or event), tell your followers in advance. No one likes their Twitter feed to be controlled by one person.

• Don’t be negative. Nothing turns off followers faster than negative commentary. If you can’t say something nice and be positive, don’t say it at all.

• Don’t provide too much information. Twitter isn’t a place for details. There’s not enough room in the limited number of characters that you have, which means that you have to resort to more tweets, which puts you into the realm of over-tweeting. As with most things online, less is more.

• Pause between tweets. Another thing that makes people crazy is a big volley of tweets one after the other. Take a break before your next tweet. Give other people a chance to get their tweets seen as well.

Following these online etiquette rules will not only help you keep your followers, but will keep you in good Twitter standing. It’s just a little bit of courtesy, but well worth it."

You can read more from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and other books on 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 20 Highest Paid Musicians In 2013

It's always interesting to see who are the most successful music celebrities of the moment. Frequently they're not who we think they are since the ones making the most money are necessarily the hottest at the moment. That's exactly what you'll see in this year's Forbes Highest Paid Musicians of 2013.

1. Madonna - $125 million
2. Lady Gaga - $80 million
3. Bon Jovi - $79 million
4. Toby Keith - $65 million
5. Coldplay - $64 million
6. Bruce Springsteen - $62 million
7. Justin Bieber - $58 million
8. Taylor Swift - $55 million
9. Elton John - $54 million
10. Beyonce/Kenny Chesney - $53 million (tie)
12. Diddy - $50 million
13. Paul McCartney - $47 million
14. Calvin Harris - $46 million
15. Jennifer Lopez - $45 million
16. Roger Waters - $44 million
17. Muse/Rihanna - $43 million
19. Jay-Z/One Direction - $42 million

Of course, these numbers and positions will surely change by the end of the year, but it's still fair to say that the 1% of the music business are still making a lot of money.

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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 and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Marketing Bob Dylan All Over Again

Bob Dylan - 1962

By now you’ve probably at least heard about the latest video to capture our collective online hearts - the first official video of Bob Dylan’s most famous song “Like A Rolling Stone.” The video has caused a sensation not only because it’s interactive, but mostly because it’s based around the concept of doing something we all do probably too much of; watching television. On this video, the viewer can change between different “channels” that represent a cross-section of what we have available today (16 in all), meaning news, reality, sports, game shows, a children’s cartoon and finally a vintage of live video from 1966 of Dylan and the The Hawks (later to become The Band) performing the song.

What’s disconcerting is that each of the television scenarios has the actors lip synching the song, but acting as they normally would on their prospective channels, so there’s a big disconnect between the song lyrics and how the actors are saying it. The interactive part where the user can change the channel is a tribute to technology as the each channel stays in perfect sync regardless of where during the song the channel change is made.

Forget the phenomena of the video for a moment and think about the marketing that the video represents. As brilliant of an artist as Dylan is, he peaked a long time ago and has been mostly irrelevant for at least a few decades. That’s no knock on him, as the same thing happens to all but a few artists. Sometimes it’s the market that dictates it, while other times it’s the artist him or herself that pulls away as the ability to enjoy the fruits of one’s success grows. Either way, the man doesn’t have to push himself anymore as he’s earned his freedom to do whatever he desires.

That’s exactly why I don’t believe that he’s the driving factor behind this video, but that fact is almost irrelevant. There’s some brilliant marketing that we’re witnessing.

First of all, the video revives a hit from 1965. Think about that for a moment. This isn’t a remake or a duet with a new hot artist, it’s the original song, which as great as it is, is still 48 years old! Read more on Forbes.

Join the conversation and let me know how Bob Dylan impacted your life. Share a lesson learned from Dylan below, and please share this post if you know others who’s lives were touched by Dylan.

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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 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.