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

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

Can Twitter’s Big Data Influence The Music Business?

Twitter is a vast repository of all sorts of data on trends and users, but that data isn't always easy to delineate, even for Twitter. Now a new venture with former Warner Bros top exec Lyor Cohen's new 300 label intends to take advantage of the social network to discover new music trends and artists bubbling under the radar.

Under a joint agreement announced at the recent MIDEM conference in Cannes France, 300 (who’s name was derived from the movie of the same name) now gets to organize Twitter's music data, including some that's not available to the public, like location tags that shows from where tweets are sent. The company also plans to develop software around the information that might also be useful to musicians, record companies and publishing companies.

The venture is important for the Google backed 300 (Google is its largest investor), but it’s also important for Twitter as well. Just the fact that it’s accumulated a treasure trove of data over its seven years of existence isn't doing the company much good at moment, but having a partner make new use of it in one sector could give it ideas on how to repurpose other data specifically for other industries as well. 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.

No Talent? You Can Still Make Money On Spotify

For those who think that streaming services like Spotify can't be gamed, think again. A guy cranking out off-the-cuff improvised songs without a hint of production made $23,000 last year by thinking outside the box and providing titles just interesting enough to have lots of people click to listen.

In fact, Matt Farley has recorded more than 14,000 songs that have made their way onto Spotify and iTunes under a variety of names that range from The Toilet Bowl Singers to The Detroit Sports Band. The songs range from birthday songs (with different names in the title to get you to click on your birthday) to topical commentary about celebrities, musicians, politicians and anything else in the news. His Spotify playlist is 11 hours long!

Basically what Farley is doing is flooding the market with songs that trigger thousands of keywords. Do a search for a song using a keyword, and it's likely that one of his songs will pop up as well, and even more likely that you'll take a listen out of curiosity.

Farley records on some dated and inexpensive digital equipment, then snail mails a CD to CD Baby for digital distribution. He's done this approximately 500 times, which must be some kind of record for an individual artist. Obviously, production is not an issue here.

He's also discovered some rather obscure rules that most musicians and aggregators aren't aware of because they don't deal in the volume that Farley does. For instance, iTunes limits the number of songs on an album to 100, and most distributors will not take an album from a band that blatently posts its contact information on the cover.

This is so creative in its own way that you have to give the guy props. Sometimes ingenuity transcends talent. Read more about Matt Farley in this excellent article by Ryan Walsh.

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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 Most Watched Artists Online

We're now beginning to see some interesting music industry numbers for 2013 become available, and some of the most interesting is the artists that were most watched via online video services like Vevo, YouTube, etc. The chart below has a number of surprises, including K-Pop star PSY leading the pack at more than 2.2 billion views.

Artists with American top 10 hits are overwhelmingly present on the chart, with the exception of Gummibar (children's music) and Super Junior M (a K-Pop boy band). Electronic music is also present, represented by David Guetta, Avicii and Skrillex.

Still, after looking at the chart, one has to wonder - which came first, the video views or the top 10 airplay?

rank	artists	est. plays
musicmetric.com
1	PSY	2,211,525,973
2	Bruno Mars	1,998,568,878
3	Rihanna	1,562,276,049
4	One Direction	1,543,221,692
5	Justin Bieber	1,226,750,959
6	Gummibär	1,130,446,514
7	Miley Cyrus	1,078,063,309
8	Nicki Minaj	1,058,762,304
9	Eminem	921,595,163
10	Ryan Lewis	876,041,240
11	Super Junior-M	875,604,056
12	Pitbull	851,054,277
13	Katy Perry	805,537,588
14	David Guetta	798,744,318
15	will.i.am	746,419,305
16	Skrillex	679,730,499
17	Avicii	652,465,634
18	Ne-Yo	642,956,631
19	Chris Brown	634,537,325
20	Drake	601,346,518

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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.

Has The Superstar Torch Been Passed To Bruno Mars?

For a number of years now, those in the higher echelons of the music business have worried about a lack of upcoming superstars who might be able to sell out stadiums for decades to come after the current legends stop touring. Of course, there may not ever be another Rolling Stones or Eagles, but one still wonders if recent big hit recording artists like Taylor Swift, Katy Perry or Kenny Chesney have the long-term longevity that the concert industry needs to sustain into the future.

Perhaps the one with the brightest future is Bruno Mars, who just capped off a winning Superbowl half-time concert that brought him a level of exposure that could hasten his already accelerated race to the top. In a scintillating performance, Mars showed the craft and confidence that could well cement him as a superstar for years to come.

To some degree, Mars (real name Peter Gene Hernandez) was a both a stretch and a risk for the National Football League. After years of presenting well-established stars like Paul McCartney, Prince, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Madonna and Beyonce (who graced the stage last year) for their Superbowl half-time shows, having someone who hasn’t quite attained such legendary status caused some to question the wisdom of the NFL’s choice. In order to hedge their bet, the league added California funk-rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers to the bill for one song. This actually turned out to be a fit since Mars has credited them as a major influence in the past, and their music, while more agressive in nature, meshed well with Mars. 

Still, Bruno could have easily carried the show by himself, as he proved with his excellent high-powered performance. After selling 10 million albums in just a three year period (quite a feat in this new music business we currently live in), with four #1 records, 18  Grammy nominations (!!), more than a billion YouTube views, and a well-earned reputation as an spectacular performer, the NFL should have stuck to their initial plan and let the man do his thing sans guests. 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.

Tips For Sending Gig Reminder Emails

Many artists and bands are often uncertain about the correct procedure for sending emails about a gig or show to their fan base. How many is too much? How few is too little to get enough bodies to the show? Here's an excerpt from the Email Newsletter chapter of Social Media Promotion For Musicians that provides some effective guidelines for reminding your fans of your show.

"Gig reminder emails fall into a different category in that they can be a lot shorter and a lot more frequent. While the email sequence below may seem like a lot of emails, remember that for true fans, you’re doing them a favor by keeping them informed, and you’re marketing yourself for other things at the same time. A potential reminder strategy is:

• The day a show is announced or tickets go on sale. As soon as you know that you’re playing at a venue, send out an email. This could be to the entire list if it’s announcing a tour, if it’s the monthly schedule for a cover band, or if you believe that people will travel to see the show.

• A week before the show. Send out a reminder but concentrate more on the band, regarding a new part of the show, new songs, a music video, or something that you want to the fan to see.

• 3 days before the show. Send out a reminder and include more information about the club and who else is playing.

• 1 day before the show. Once again, remind the fan about a a different feature of the show or the music that’s unique and won’t be seen or heard any other way than attending. You can change the headline to “You don’t want to miss this,” or “See our new show tomorrow night.”

• The day of the show. Send out a short reminder in the late morning to just the portion of your list in the general area of the club. Use a headline like, “Can you make it tonite?”, or “Last chance to buy tickets!”

• The day after the show. Send an email with backstage pictures, pictures of meet and greets with fans or just fans in the audience, as well as links to videos. This is a nice shout-out to those that were there, and a prod for those that weren’t not to miss you next time you’re in town.

Of course, if you’re lucking enough to have sold out your show, you won’t need to send as many reminders. That said, you might send one headlined “Sold Out!” that either announces another gig or another way for the fan to hear your music or buy your merch. A contest for two last minute tickets (put them on your guest list) also works well.

TIP: In every reminder be sure to include all the pertinent gig information, including the name of the venue, the full address, the phone number, the time you’re going on, and other acts on the bill. Consider including a map or a link to one as well.

Artists and bands are sometimes timid about sending out so many gig announcements, but fans that ordinarily would attend really do forget. Remember, you’re doing them a favor by reminding them.

TIP: When sending out multiple emails in a short space of time, be sure to continually change the headline and the email contents."

To read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians or 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.

A Victory For The Boss Becomes A Disaster

Bruce Springsteen wants to sell you live recordings of his concerts. On the surface this sounds like a giant win for the Boss, since fans have long been clamoring for official recordings of his shows. But execution is everything, and it looks like Team Springsteen really missed on this one at least at first, but are trying their best to make it right. The only question is if it's in time to avoid some bad blood within the fanbase.

It all started when the Boss's management announced that in order to buy a concert recording you'd have to buy a $40 wristband with a USB flash drive attached to it. After you received it, you then had the privilege to purchase a single concert within 48 hours, using the flash drive as an encryption key.

This sounds to be on the expensive side, and considering that the concerts are available in MP3 format instead of a lossless format like FLAC, it really is. The Springsteen community was outraged, since Pearl Jam, Mettalica, John Fogerty, et al, only charge $10 for an MP3 and $15 for FLAC file. To make matters worse, you were also charged $8.95 for postage, unless you purchased the wristband at the show.

The good news is that as a result of the public blowback, Team Springsteen has now relented, dropped the wristband idea, and rolled back their prices to match those of other artists.

The sad part of this is that Bruce's common man image has taken a hit from this. You can't be for your hard-working fans when you're trying to gouge them. Everyone knows that Bruce is wealthy well beyond what the vast majority of his fans will ever be. Trying to wring a few extra bucks out of your fanbase never sits well them.

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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.

Spotify Streams Soar After The Grammys

It used to be that an appearance on the Grammy's was a sure way to sell big loads of vinyl or CDs the following week. That's no longer the case, since large amounts of streams have taken the place of sales. Spotify provided some early numbers for those who appeared on the show on Sunday night.

• Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" up 205% (estimated at over 300,000 streams)
• Chicago's "Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is" up 150%
• Metallica's "One" up more than 125%
• Beyonce's "Drunk Love" up 52%

But in many cases, an artist's entire catalog actually got a boost from the Grammy exposure.

• Paul McCartney's catalog up 126%
• Kendrick Lamar catalog up 100%
• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis up 65%
• Taylor Swift catalog up 65%
• Lorde's up 46%

But perhaps the biggest winner of the evening is one of our greatest musical icons. Stevie Wonder's "Another Star" was up a whopping 635% as of Tuesday.

I'd say these numbers prove that streaming is here to stay (like we needed any proof already).

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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.

Who Were The Most Pirated Artists In 2013?

Piracy is way down since the mid-2000's but it does still happen. Here's a list of the most pirated artists on BitTorrent in 2013, according to MusicMetric.com. I think you'll find few surprises in terms of the most popular artists.

rank	artists	est. downloads
musicmetric.com
1	Bruno Mars	5,783,556
2	Rihanna	5,414,166
3	Daft Punk	4,212,361
4	Justin Timberlake	3,930,185
5	Flo Rida	3,470,825
6	Kanye West	3,199,969
7	Eminem	3,176,122
8	Jay Z	3,171,358
9	Drake	3,139,408
10	Pitbull	3,138,308
11	One Direction	2,920,445
12	Maroon 5	2,857,652
13	Zed	2,828,764
14	Nicki Minaj	2,681,177
15	Adele	2,594,275
16	Avicii	2,562,151
17	David Guetta	2,441,235
18	Linkin Park	2,352,385
19	Pharrell Williams	2,336,996
20	Katy Perry	2,318,740

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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.

Free Social Media Basics Video Course

Learn how to promote your music online with my lynda.com video course Social Media Basics for Musician and Bands. Watch it free through February 7 when you “like” the lynda.com Facebook page:

1) Visit the lynda.com Facebook page: www.facebook.com/lynda

2) Click on the “AUDIO free course” image at the top of the page

3) Click Like at the top of the page

4) Enter your email address to keep up with lynda.com news

5) Click Watch course now

6) Share this free course with your Facebook friends—and enjoy!

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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.

Grammy Performances: Hits And Misses

I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but I come to praise the Grammy Awards Show, not bury it. It’s easy to criticize the Grammys, and I’ve done my share in the past, but if you take into consideration what this show is trying to accomplish, it’s amazing that it comes off pleasing anyone, let alone the vast majority of viewers. Can you imagine trying to present a show with such a wide constituency of musical genres, many of which are diametrically opposed? Long-time producer Ken Ehrlich does a great job of walking that tightrope every year. 

Still, there are always hits and misses and this year’s production is no exception. Let’s look at them.

The Hits

Image Dragons and Kendrick Lamar rocked the house and were a perfect combination together. Perhaps they put on the best performance of the night.

Daft Punk with Pharrell Williams (a big winner on the night), Nile Rogers and Stevie Wonder were also a good match, but what were the Daft Punk robots doing while the band was playing? It sure would have made me feel better about them getting so many awards if I saw either one of them playing an actual instrument.

Sara Barielles and Carole King were magic together, as both were in top form. Of course, Carole is a pro and she elevates everyone around her, as she did in this case as well.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Trombone Shorty and Madonna worked as well. One of the things I like most about Macklemore is that I can understand what he’s rapping, which goes a long way towards enjoying the genre.

Paul McCartney was his usual great self with Ringo looking a little lost on the drums. As a friend once commented, “It’s like watching Beethoven.” That said, perhaps the best part of the performance was the bow that he and Ringo took at the end. 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.

Spotify Now Sells Your Merch

In another bid to outflank the hype from the newly launched Beats Music, Spotify announced that it will now sell allow musicians and bands to sell merchandise on their Spotify profile page. Not only that, they won't charge a fee for it either.

Artists will be able to display images of T-shirts, vinyl, concert tickets stickers or anything else that they sell, which will then link back to the site where the merch is available for sale.

This is actually a joint venture between Topspin and Spotify, so it means that you need a Topspin ArtistLink account to begin showing your merch first. ArtistLink is free, and you can sign up here.

Since this move doesn't cost you anything, I'd say it's a no-brainer, especially if you're an indie act.

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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.