10 Best Facebook Practices For Artists And Bands

Facebook is one of the best social networks for artists and bands, but execution is everything in order to take full advantage of it. Mashable ran a great article about the 10 best practices for bands, and you can read the article here, but what follows is an abridged version with mostly my comments.

1. Reach out to other artists. Ask a band whom you’re tight with to post your new music video/track/album art to their wall with a link back to your Facebook Page, and remember to return the favor. This is one of the best ways to use the network to expand your audience.

2. Take your fans backstage. Everyone loves to see behind the scenes, but fans are especially interested. It might seem insignificant to you, but any kind of backstage access is a big deal to them.

3. Go beyond the music. As I've said many times before, music is your marketing, but don't forget to make available any merch or touring info. That said, don't try to sell to your fans, just make it easily available if they want it.

4. Ask for input from fans. Communication is a two-way street and fans love to be asked their opinion on just about anything. Besides, they're your fans so they know what they want.

5. Be visual. Music is an aural medium for sure, but either still or moving pictures add so much to entire package that you can't ignore them any more. Besides, it's so easy to take pictures these days or make movies, you can't use gear or expertise as excuses anymore.

6. Make everything an event. This is one of the secrets of multiple singles releases rather than full albums. Every release becomes an event. You can expand upon that idea in just about any direction, from gigs or giveaways on your birthday to your best fan's birthdays, to making every gig a special occasion. Use your imagination.7.

7. Don't just ask for things. Once again, communication is a two way street. You give some and you take some and vice versa. If you ask for information, give something away for free. This goes a long way in keeping your tribe happy.

8. Don't forget the basics. Bios, press kits, pictures, logos are still important so be sure to have links to where people can get them if needed.

9. Offer exclusive content. The way to a fans heart is through exclusive content. If a fan can get exclusive mixes or movies that no one else can, that legitimizes his or her fandom and makes them want even more. Alternative mixes, outtakes, interviews - these are all inexpensive and easy to make content that any fan would love to have.

10. Use some tools. Make sure you take advantage of everything that Facebook has to offer, but also check out apps like Bandpage or Reverbnation for their event, sales and music plugins as well.

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None Of My Teen Friends Use Facebook

Here's part of a guest commentary post on Mashable by Ruby Carp, a 13 year old from New York City who points out the various reasons why neither she nor her peers use Facebook.

This ultimately could be a problem for Facebook in that they need the next generation user in order to sustain, but those users are looking elsewhere for their social interaction. As you'll see, if you're trying to reach this demographic, Facebook isn't the way to do it.

"I’m a teen living in New York. All of my friends have social network— Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, etc. Facebook used to be all I could talk about when I was younger. “Mom, I want a Facebook!” and other whining only a mother could put up with. But now, at 13, I’ve been noticing something different. Facebook is losing teens lately, and I think I know why. 

Part of the reason Facebook is losing my generation's attention is the fact that there are other networks now. When I was 10, I wasn’t old enough to have a Facebook. But a magical thing called Instagram had just come out ... and our parents had no idea there was an age limit. Rapidly, all my friends got Instagrams. 

Now, when we are old enough to get Facebook, we don’t want it. By the time we could have Facebooks, we were already obsessed with Instagram. Facebook was just this thing all our parents seemed to have.  

This leads me into my next point: Although I do have a Facebook, none of my other friends do. My friends just thought it was a waste of time. I decided to get a Facebook just to see what it was all about. I soon discovered that Facebook is useless without friends. My only friend is, like, my grandma.  

Teens are followers. That’s just what we are. If all my friends are getting this cool new thing called Snapchat, I want it, too! We want what’s trending, and if Facebook isn’t “trending,” teens won’t care.  

All of our parents and parents' friends have Facebooks. It’s not just the fact that I occasionally get wall posts like, “Hello sweetie pie!” But my friends post photos that get me in trouble with those parents.  

Let's say I get invited to a party, and there’s underage drinking. I’m not drinking, but someone pulls out a camera. Even if I’m not carrying a red Solo cup, I could be photographed behind a girl doing shots. Later that week, the dumb-dumb decides to post photos from that “amazing” party. If my mom saw I was at a party with drinking, even if I wasn't participating, I’d be dead. This isn’t Facebook’s fault, but it happens there.  

Facebook is also a big source of bullying in middle school. Kids might comment something mean on a photo of you, or message you mean things. This isn’t Facebook's fault, but again, it does happen there. If my mom heard I was getting bullied on Facebook, she would tell me to quit right away.  

It also became a huge marketing mouthpiece. Facebook takes your interests based on what you’ve "liked" and put ads on your feed. No offense, but when I’m looking through my News Feed I don’t really care about Pantene’s new product. 

It wasn’t the Facebook it was when I was seven. It got complicated — it was just kind of like, "We liked it the way it was. Why are you changing it?"  

Is this an isolated case? Are your kids on Facebook? Read the entire post on Mashable.

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Top 10 Facebook Artists

This is kind of interesting. Thanks to Facebook's recent purge of Likes, there's been a realignment in the service's best-liked artists. And the winner is - Rihanna.

Not only has she dethroned Lady Gaga as the top female celeb, but she's also surged on other social networks as well, where she's second behind Justin Bieber on YouTube, and fourth behind Gaga, Bieber and Katy Perry on Twitter.

Here's the current top 10 chart, courtesy of Mashable and Starcount.

The only things I can say about this chart is that if you remember that Facebook has over 1 billion global users now, it puts these numbers a little more in perspective.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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5 Steps To Optimizing Your Professional Profile

If you're a producer, engineer, musician or just about anyone in the music business, it's important that you're clients don't forget you and potential clients can find you. That's why it's important to have a professional profile on as many social networks as possible. Here's a great list as to how to keep that profile fresh and up-to-date. The points are from a post on Mashable, but the explanations are mine.

1. Keep your profile up to date. Every time you get another gig, make sure you post it. It may not seem like something worth mentioning, but you never know when it might impress a potential client.

2. Refresh your keywords and specialties. What are the terms that best describe what you do? Make sure you find those terms and use them as keywords. Remember that a keyword works best as a phrase, not a single word.

3. Be everywhere. Don't limit yourself to just Facebook. All of the major networks are important, so not is it time to add a profile to Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ or even create a personal blog.

4. Get the recognition you deserve. Make sure that you post any awards or significant accomplishments. Now is the time to brag a little, but don't don't exaggerate, since people can usually see through it and it negates anything positive that you might get from the accomplishment.

5. Request a quote. The best thing is to get a quote from a client about either the work you've done or what it's like to work with you. That goes a lot further than most of the formal "recommendations" that many sites provide.

These 5 steps are fast and easy to do, but just like with most social media, the key is consistency.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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6 Crowdfunding Mistakes

Crowdfunding for music projects is a hot topic these days, especially with Amanda Palmer's ongoing success (a million dollars in 30 days!). Everyone wants to get in on the act, and I've certainly covered many of the strategies on how to do that here already.

But let's look at a different side of crowdfunding. Why do some campaigns fail? There was a recent article in Mashable that specifically looked at this,  and I'll quote their bullet points, but the explanations are mine.

1. Nobody Knows You. If you don't have a fanbase to begin with, you're probably not going to attract one on a crowdfunding site. Why should someone give you money if they don't know you, or even worse, don't trust you? You have to do the hard work first before you can ask anyone for their dough.

2. No One Can Tell What You're Talking About. Unless you can concisely describe who you are, what you want the money for, and what the contributor gets back in return, you're sunk. This is easy to overcome; just test it on some friends, fans or even some strangers. Their feedback will help you hone your pitch.

3. Nothing Sets You Apart From Your Competition. There are a lot of open hands out there, especially now that crowdfunding has become so popular. You have to communicate why your campaign is different and why the rewards are so valuable before they'll pledge some money though.

4. You Fail To Ignite, Engage, Or Connect. If you don't get the word out, or can't close a potential contributor when they get to the campaign site, your campaign will fail. A great video (see Amanda Palmer) can help people to understand what you're trying to do, but engagement through social media, email and your website is just as important.

5. You Don't Maintain Contact With Supporters And Backers. It's important to keep a running dialog with contributors through email and social media. They want to know how well the campaign is doing so they can feel good about their contribution. If they do, they may tell others that might make the difference in being a success or not.

6. You're Greedy Or Clueless About Fundraising Goals. Be conservative about your fundraising goals. If you aim too high, you may scare away potential contributors. If you're unrealistic in how much you need for a project (like $500,00 to just record an album), you can be sure you won't get it. Remember, it's a good thing to blow past your goal; bad if you don't reach it.

Keep these points in mind when planning your crowdfunding campaign. It's not an easy process (nothing good ever is), but you won't help yourself much by ignoring this advice. Read the entire article at Mashable.

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

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Do Google +1s Affect Your Search Ranking?

We seem to have solid evidence that posting a lot on social network Google+ affects your search ranking, which is no surprise since it is, of course, owned by Google. That said, just how much does a collection of +1's really affect your ranking?

According to a recent article on Mashable, there seems to be some evidence that Google +1s can at least indirectly lead to a better page rank. The problem is that it's a very indirect affect. The fact of the matter is that anything that leads to increased social sharing (like Facebook Likes) provides a potential jump in ranking. It's not a sure thing, just one of many factors that Google takes into account.

When it comes down to it, good SEO, link building, relevant keywords, and of course, great content seem to have as much to do with page ranking as endorsements like +1. The Google Panda algorithm is extremely intelligent and defies being gamed, so don't make the mistake of thinking that all you need is lot of a single thing to cause a jump in rankings. As with all things SEO, much more to it than that.

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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 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.

Fun Twitter Facts

Here are some fun Twitter facts that go to show just how powerful the platform has become, and it's future potential. The stats come from Mashable and cover to the end of 2011.

• 81% of users follow less than 100 people

• 42.3% of users are between 30 and 49.

• 47% of Twitter users have children.

• 30% have an annual household income of over $100,000.

• Males are most likely to use Twitter for work-related research and news.

• Females are most likely to use Twitter to keep in touch with friends and post status updates.

• 1 billion tweets post every 5 days.

• 5 percent of the users create 75% of the content.

• 20% of Twitter accounts are empty and unused.

• Tweets on Hurricane Irene outnumbered the war in Libya by 36 to 1.

• The 10 most followed Twitter accounts are mainstream celebrities. They are:

1. Lady Gaga - 13.8 million followers 

2. Justin Beiber - 12.9 million 

3. Barack Obama - 10.3 million 

4. Katy Perry - 10.1 million 

5. Kim Kardashian - 10 million 

6. Britney Spears - 9.7 million 

7. Shakira - 8.7 million 

8. Taylor Swift - 8.1 million 

9. Ashton Kutcher - 7.7 million 

10. Rhianna - 7.6 million

As you can see, Twitter is a platform that's still growing and can be an extremely powerful promotional tool. Overlook it at your own social peril.

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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 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 Pick The Right Band Name

Here's a great article from Mashable about ideas for that perfect company name. Okay, we're not talking company here, but the principles are the same when it comes to a band, so I've changed some of the language to better reflect the music business.

"1. Set the tone. Your band name sets the tone for all that follows. What’s the first thing you want a fan to think in regard to your band? The tone of your name can be playful or academic, edgy or professional. Just make sure it reflects what your band is and what you want it to be in the future.

2. Simple is strong. A powerful name is easy to spell, pronounce and remember. After all, what good is word-of-mouth if your fan tells a friend, “You really should check this band out. I think their name begins with an A…”

3. Do not use initials! We all know the business landscape has an affinity for acronyms, but try to avoid using initials for your band name. A random collection of letters doesn’t inspire an emotional connection. And you can run into legal and branding headaches by juggling two different business names (the initials and the name spelled out).

4. Watch out for language pitfalls. A word in English may have a negative meaning in another language or culture. And enthusiastic bandmates can be blind to awkward puns and double entendres. The best way to avoid creating an embarrassing or damaging brand situation is to test your name on your target audiences; they may see something you missed.

5. Give any new name time to sink in. It can take some time for a new name to feel right, and you may need to use your name for several months before it starts to feel natural. This is particularly true when a name is off the beaten path, which is often the case for some the industry’s most memorable and impactful names. Just imagine the initial reaction to the name “Google”  or "LMFAO." That said, a strong product can overcome a potentially ill-conceived name.

6. Don’t finalize too soon. The most important lesson is not to get too attached to any one name during the brainstorming process. When inspiration strikes, it’s all too tempting to start envisioning your logo, web design, album artwork, etc. But you’ve got to make sure that perfect name is legally available for you to use — no one wants to be on the wrong end of a trademark dispute."

By the way, if you're still stuck for a name, try the following band name generators here and here.

You can read the entire article with a business slant here.

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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 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 The World Uses Social Networks

Here's another great infographic from Mashable, this time showing how a few parts of the world compare in social media use.

There are a few things interesting about this graphic:

1) Except for Japan, Asian countries aren't indicated. I'd be especially interested in the numbers for China and Korea.

2) As you would think, Facebook is the most widely used social network in the world and comes in at #1 for all countries except for Brazil and Japan (where it doesn't even register).

3) But Blogger scores very high in most countries, which is a surprise. That shows that blogs are still a huge communication tool, even if you personally don't blog.

4) Where Twitter has caught on, it's widely used. It seems that either a country gets or it they don't.

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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 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.

10 Best Facebook Practices For Artists

Facebook is one of the best social networks for artists for artists and bands, but execution is everything in order to take full advantage of it. Mashable Social Media recent ran a great article about the 10 best practices for bands, and you can read the article here, but what follows is an abridged version with mostly of my comments.

1. Reach out to other artists. Ask a band whom you’re tight with to post your new music video/track/album art to their wall with a link back to your Facebook Page, and remember to return the favor. This is one of the best ways to use the network to expand your audience.

2. Take your fans backstage. Everyone loves to see behind the scenes, but fans are especially interested. It might seem insignificant to you, but any kind of backstage access is a big deal to them.

3. Go beyond the music. As I've said many times before, music is your marketing, but don't forget to make available any merch or touring info. That said, don't try to sell to your fans, just make it easily available if they want it.


4. Ask for input from fans. Communication is a two-way street and fans love to be asked their opinion on just about anything. Besides, they're your fans so they know what they want.


5. Be visual. Music is an aural medium for sure, but either still or moving pictures add so much to entire package that you can't ignore them any more. Besides, it's so easy to take pictures these days or make movies, you can't use gear or expertise as excuses anymore.

6. Make everything an event. This is one of the secrets of multiple singles releases rather than full albums. Every release becomes an event. You can expand upon that idea in just about any direction, from gigs or giveaways on your birthday to your best fan's birthdays, to making every gig a special occasion. Use your imagination.7.

7. Don't just ask for things. Once again, communication is a two way street. You give some and you take some and vice versa. If you ask for information, give something away for free. This goes a long way in keeping your tribe happy.


8. Don't forget the basics. Bios, press kits, pictures, logos are still important so be sure to have links to where people can get them if needed.


9. Offer exclusive content. The way to a fans heart is through exclusive content. If a fan can get exclusive mixes or movies that no one else can, that legitimizes his or her fandom and makes them want even more. Alternative mixes, outtakes, interviews - these are all inexpensive and easy to make content that any fan would love to have.


10. Use some tools. Make sure you take advantage of everything that Facebook has to offer, but also check out apps like Bandpage or Reverbnation for their event, sales and music plugins as well.

-----------------------------------

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 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 Discovery Channel Uses Social Media

Here's part of a great article posted on Mashable regarding how the Discovery Channel uses social media. There are a couple of points here worth noting.

First, the 4 goals of the network in regards to their social media strategy. Everyone who uses social media for business (hopefully your music is a business) needs to have a reason, and Discovery is very clear on theirs, although they're not that different from most company's goals.

The second is the fact that the company divides their social media group into two teams: an “art” side and a “science” side. I truly believe that this is an important message for anyone who hires outside help in their social endeavors. You can't depend upon the "science" team to do it for you. You've got to drive the bus and create the content, then let your web and social people do what they.

Here's a portion of the article. To read the entire article, go here.
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"Though the network launched Facebook Pages in early 2009, it’s only in the last 12 to 18 months that efforts on social platforms have been “as focused and deliberate as they are now.” Discovery is the number one non-fiction media company in the world and has a large base of obsessed fans, so the network is constantly incorporating social media as part of the overall strategy. “It’s part of everything we do, from our .com pages to our marketing plans,” Weiswasser says. “Our philosophy on social media is to use it as a platform that enhances the viewing experience and the relationship with the viewers.” She goes on to outline the social media team’s four primary goals:

• Build relationships and engage with fans
• Personalize the brand
• Strengthen fan-talent relations
• Drive tune-in

In addition to running 24 hours of programming on several channels — the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and more — the network produces a breadth of content for the web, including individual show pages, network pages, vertical pages and blogs. Discovery owns more than 70 Facebook Pages, with a footprint approaching 43 million fans — and getting 500,000 more each week — while its 120 Twitter accounts boast 2.4 million followers. As for that inevitable ROI question, Weiswasser says, “It’s hard to deny the value of such a huge group of fans, and its hard to deny the influence of all these people who have raised their hands and said, ‘I’m interested, I’m a fan.’” The fans’ enthusiasm on social has encouraged and fostered a very direct connection between the shows and the audience.

That enthusiasm is driven by an an exciting mix of content. Since Discovery produces TV content, it’s not surprising that video is expertly-produced and resonates very well with the fans. Other content includes blog post, sneak peeks, photos from the set, personal pics from a show’s talent and links that are related to a show’s premise (i.e. geology, cooking, etc.). You’ll notice that many of the links on Facebook and Twitter go to original content on Discovery.com — the network is good at integrating and promoting its content and not treating each platform as a distinct entity, but rather as one unit with many parts that build on and enhance the others.

But Discovery also excels at posting relevant content from all over the web, which keeps the conversation going. On the What Not To Wear Page, you’ll find links to articles about fall fashion trends, and you’ll find recipes on the DC Cupcakes Page.”We serve as a curator of topics for our fans,” says Weiswasser. “Content may not have anything to do with the show, but it is relevant to our viewers.”

The overall goal is to have the best content they can — they want people coming back because the content is interesting and engaging. Weiswasser says the Discovery team wants to make content as accessible as possible and doesn’t believe in like-gating. “We want the content to speak for itself,” she says. “If it’s compelling, people will want it — that’s how we got this footprint.”

The Discovery social media team is divided into two groups — an “art” side and a “science” side. The art side is part of corporate communications and handles content and tone, focusing on engagement and interaction with fans. Basically, they deal with the words and use the social web as a focus group from which they get real-time feedback. The science side is in the digital group, and that team focuses on analytics and metrics (fans, clicks, tweets, retweets, mentions, comments), optimizing pages to drive traffic to Discovery’s web properties. Crenshaw says his team is trying to do what all media companies are attempting — to determine the correlation between ratings and social. But sometimes it’s not just about metrics –”We can tell anecdotally if social is serving its purpose,” Crenshaw says. “We’ll post about a show, and someone will say, ‘Oh I didn’t know this was on tonight,’ or they’ll tweet asking what show to watch and we’ll tell them ‘MythBusters.’” The digital team also uses social media to identify and prevent crises, which can bubble up through Twitter and Facebook and be addressed and quelled before they become major blunders."

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Small Biz Social Media Use

Here's another great infographic from Mashable, this one on the social media use of small businesses. Though not directly related to the music business, artists and bands and almost every company except the major labels are "small businesses," which is why I thought the graphic was helpful.

I don't think there's much new here, but it does verify pretty much what everyone thought.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Music Subscription Faceoff

Thanks to Ken Rutkowski for pointing out this infographic from Mashable that provides the best overview yet of the current music subscription services. Expect these numbers to be quite different in six months if the initial buzz from Spotify continues to carry on though. It shouldn't take long before they're the new king of the hill.

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

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Making "Like" More Likeable

Danny Sullivan wrote an interesting post on Mashable recently about how Facebook "Likes" can help website and blog traffic. For example, Facebook says Like buttons get 3 to 5 times more clicks if:

• Versions that show thumbnails of friends are used.
• They allow people to add comments.
• If they appear at both the top and bottom of articles.
• If they appear near visual content like videos or graphics.

Facebook also stied that video site Metacafe placed a Like button above its videos, in addition to being below, as the arrows point to in this screenshot:

After doing this, use of the Like button and traffic from Facebook increased. Facebook reports that:

• The number of daily likes more than tripled, going from an average of 2,000 likes per day to over 7,000 likes.
• Daily referral traffic from Facebook to Metacafe doubled, going from about 60,00 to 120,000.
• Total Facebook actions (likes, shares, comments) rose to 20,000 per day.

The "Like" button is becoming more and more important in social networking, so it's worth incorporating into all of your online presence, if possible.

Read the entire article here.

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

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Turn Your "Likes" Into Gigs

Wouldn't it be great if you could harness the power of your fans to score some gigs? Now you can with an interesting fan management platform called WHOOZNXT, which rewards performance opportunities to the artists that amass the most fans during any given time period.

WHOOZNXT is part of a new platform from NXTM, a service responsible for the digital presence of acts such as Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake that was founded by former MTV executive Jeff Yapp. It debuted at this years SXSW, offering bands the chance to play on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as well as slots at Rachael Ray’s SXSW events.

According to an article on Mashable, bands can sign up for free and connect their WHOOZNXT profile to all their social network pages and profiles. The site then presents the band with analytics, courtesy of PeopleBrowsr, showing how many fans they have, how that number has changed over time and the band’s sentiment score. Artists can also see their most influential fans so as to connect with them accordingly.

Bands are then assigned a bracket based on how many fans they have, which determines what kind of opportunities they might receive. The top Platinum Tier includes artists with a total fan count more than 25,000 fans; the Gold Tier fan count is 5,000 to 25,000; and the Silver Tier is for artists who have fewer than 5,000 fans. Each month, artists are entered into a pool of opportunities and those who amass the most fans during that period are eligible for said gig opportunity. Just because you amass a lot of fans doesn't necessarily mean that you automatically get booked, since the venue involved has the final selection.

The site also provides artists with tools to help grow and manage their fanbase, including a band website builder, an e-store builder, a “publish everywhere” tool for all your content and a widget builder to create media players.

WHOOZNXT certainly has good intentions, and if it works as stated than it could be a boon to artists that are really increasing their social footprint. That said, ideas like this have a way of getting sidetracked along the way. Let's see how it works out.

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

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

How Mobile Phones Are Changing Social Media

Here's a great infographic from Mashable that was sponsored by Ben & Jerry's (which seems kind of strange).

A couple of statistics that are not in this graphic are:

1) Mobile users are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

2) 18 to 34 year olds account for 50% of mobile social networking usage.

3) Female usage of mobile social networking is higher than male.

I haven't drawn any major conclusions from this info except that it confirms that the phone is for more and more day to day business and pleasure, and it sure looks like that trend will continue.

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Follow me on Twitter 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.

Apple Ads That Launched Careers

I saw this article on Mashable recently and thought it would be good for a repost. Apple has had a great effect on a number of music careers thanks to the artist's songs being included in their television advertising. Let's look at a few.

• Jet - "Are Your Gonna Be My Girl." Used for the iPod campaign of 2003 and 2004, the band went from unknowns to selling more than 3.5 million copies of their Get Born album thanks to this commercial.

• Feist - "1, 2, 3, 4." Part of the iPod Nano campaign of 2007, over a half-million people searched Google to find out what the song was after it first aired. Her YouTube plays also jumped 1000%, and her digital downloads doubled. Here's the link to the music video.

• CSS - "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex." Talk about the ultimate in user generated content, British student Nick Haley made a fan-boy video for the iPod that caught the attention of some Apple execs. They then flew him out to the States to do the official version with their ad agency. Funny thing is that Microsoft used the same tune for a Zune commercial a year previous that did absolutely nothing. Of course, Google searches for the song and band were over the top as soon as it aired.

• The Ting Tings - "Shut Up And Let Me Go." Used for the iPod 2008 campaign, the band had already had some success in the UK, but the commercial was their breakthrough in the States. The song eventually hit #1 on Billboard's Hot Dance club chart.

There's a school of thought that says that exposure on television doesn't necessarily help your career, but these artists have found otherwise. Of course, the musical landscape is far different in 2010 than it was in 2003 or even 2008.

For more examples see the full Mashable article.

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Follow me on Twitter 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 Many Music Sales Equal Minimum Wage?

You probably can't read the chart on the left, but it truly is an eye opener. It was created by Stan Schroeder and posted on Mashable yesterday. The chart describes the number of sales of various music product required to make a monthly wage of $1,160, or the minimum wage that you'd likely make at Micky D's.

Let me outline what the chart says. For more detail, see it at Mashable.

To make the minimum wage for one month, or $1,160, you need to sell:

143 self pressed CD's (income $8 each)

155 CD's from cdbaby (income $7.50 each)

1,161 retail CDs with a high-end label royalty rate (income $1 each)

1,229 iTunes album downloads (income $.94 each)

1,562 MP3 downloads via cdbaby (income $.74 each)

2,044 MP3 downloads via cdbaby via iTunes (income $.57 each)

3,871 retail CDs, with a low-end label royalty rate (income $.30 each)

12,399 individual track downloads from iTunes or Amazon (income $.09 each)

849,817 plays per month on Rhapsoday (income $.0022 each)

1,546,667 plays per month on last.fm (income $.005 each)

4,549,020 plays per month on Spotify (income $.00043 each)

This makes working at McDonalds start to look like a wise career choice. Still want to try to make music for a living?

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Follow me on Twitter 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 State Of The Internet

Focus.com offered this great graphic that tells exactly who uses the Internet, what they do with it, and how often. Unfortunately, the graphic won't go any larger than you see on the left in Blogger, so you'll have to go to Mashable to see it in full.

Here are some of the interesting points that the graphic makes:

- Internet use is as even as it gets. 74% of men use it, but so do 74% of women.

- 93% of people ages 18-29 use it, 70% of people 50 – 64 are online, but only 38% of people 65 and older.

- The higher the income level, the more someone has broadband access.

- 94% of college graduates are online (that low?), while only 39% of people with less than a high school education are.

- Just like you'd expect, Internet use is up significantly in just the past five years. In 2005, 27% of people surveyed used the Internet “several times a day.” Now it’s 38% (once again, that low?)

- 58% of users have a desktop computer while 46% have a laptop.

- Ages 25 – 44 make up the majority of people who blog. Only 7% of people under 25 do but people 55 – 64 make up 14%.

- 54% of bloggers consider themselves experts on whatever it is they’re blogging about, 15% are "confessional" and 16% are "snarky." 41% are journalistic while 44% are "humorous."

- Norway has the highest level of Internet penetration, while the United States is in fifth place.

- Japan has the fastest Internet connections on average with the average speed at a whopping 61mbps!!! The US is 15th with an average of only 4.8mbps.

- The average mobile Internet connection is only about 700 Kbps, which is no surprise if you own an iPhone and you like to surf the web.

5 Superb Social Media Tools For Musicians

Zach Pentel recently created an interesting post over at Mashable called "5 Superb Social Media Tools For Musicians."

You can read the post for more details, but here's what he suggested:

1) Improve your Facebook Page with ReverbNation’s MyBand. MyBand allows your page to be more unique than the standard Facebook fan page.

2) Share Songs on Twitter with Twiturm. Twiturm lets artists and band share their songs right on Twitter without sending someone off to another site like MySpace.

3) Reward Increased Engagement with FanBridge. FanBridge does one of the things that I've been advocating in my Music 3.0 book, allows you to engage your fans from a single place. Makes your online life easy.

4) Build and Share a Digital Album Package with BandCamp. BandCamp is a publishing platform that goes beyond streaming and allows you to create a self-contained package.

5) Measure It All with Band Metrics. You don't know how well your doing until you can measure and Band Metrics is a measurement tool designed especially for artists and bands.

Check out Zach's post and check out Mashable, which is a great aggregator of all things social.