How Location Apps Help Touring Bands

I read a great article by Jonathan Ostrow on Mashable called "10 Ways Touring Bands Can Leverage Location Apps." In it he discusses how geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places can be extremely helpful to any band on the road.

Here are a few of the items from the article that caught my eye.

1. Discover "Hidden Gem" Venues. Tap into your location network to unearth these hidden gem venues and reap all of the benefits that the local scene has to offer. If you find a great venue, be sure to leave a tip for your followers as well.


2. Get Venue Details Ahead Of Time. Location apps offer the perfect opportunity to test the waters and leave tips about bass boominess, the lack of sound check time, or how to get a particular audience really cranked up about a show. 

3. Sleep for Cheap. Use your network to discover and suggest the best deals in every the city — those comfortable, safe and cheap spots for a good night’s rest before the next gig.

4. Emergency Instrument Repair. Each potential store or repair shop has its own specialty, so use your network to quickly find the most recommended shops and get everything fixed before it’s time for the sound check.

5. Target You Audience. Before you book the gigs, use your network to learn which venues cater directly to your genre of music and your target audience. Which venues have paid off for other bands? Your geosocial connections should point the way.

6. Drum Up Local Support. Many businesses that support local artists may be willing to post a show flyer or let you perform outside or in the lobby. Each city or town has at least one hang-out with a supportive public that might be willing to endorse upcoming events.

8. Snag Good Cheap Food. By using a network of location-based tipsters, you can tap into that local knowledge and get fed better while on the road, without busting your budget.

9. Find Cheap Parking. There are many advertised parking lots that come at ridiculous prices, but city natives may know of some secrets — the parking space that a neighbor rents out for cheap, or an empty block that doesn’t charge. 

10. Find Auto Repair. Before you hit Google or the phone book, check your location networks for a recommendation.

There's somewhat of a backlash against geolocation services lately as some people DO NOT want others to know where they are, but I think that number is in the minority and decreasing every day. That being said, you can do some of the same things with Facebook if you have friends in the area that you're traveling, or Twitter if you know how to reach out or search.


Bottom line is that social networking apps have changed how musicians travel. Gone are the days when it was all too easy to be stuck in a town without the local knowledge to solve a problem (I have too many of those memories that I try to forget). We can all be thankful for that.

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Your Music Is Your Marketing

It's about time for another excerpt from the Music 3.0 Internet music guidebook. Here's a bit from Chapter 4 about how your music has now become your marketing.

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The major marketing tool for the M30 artist is the music itself. It’s no longer the major product that the artist has to sell, although it still is a product, so has to be used differently and thought of differently as a result.

Perhaps recorded music was never the product we were led to believe it was. In the M1.0 and M1.5 days of vinyl records and CDs, the round plastic piece (the container that held the music) was the product. The artist never made money when a song was played on the radio (the songwriter always did, although the artist might soon get their due depending on the status of current legislation), and the artist only made a small percentage (10 to 15% of wholesale on average) of CD or vinyl sales. The artist made the most money on concert tickets and merchandise while touring.  There was a cost involved in the manufacturing of the the container that transported the music (physical material costs, artwork, etc.) that had to be recouped as well as the production costs of the music. But if you look at music in terms of the advertising world, you see music in a different light.

If you’re selling a soap product for instance, the production for a commercial to broadcast on television or the radio is a trivial cost. It’s the total ad buy (the agency purchasing the radio or television time for the sponsor) where most money is spent.  Even then, it’s considered part of the marketing budget of the product, which might be about 3% of total sales.

In M30, if you consider the music production costs as part of the marketing budget in the same way as a national product, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Since the music is considered the major marketing tool for an artist, it should be considered a free product, a giveaway, an enticement. Give it away on your website, place it on the Torrents for P2P, let your fans freely distribute it. It’s all OK. Since most millennial’s feel that music should be free and have lived in a culture where that’s mostly so, don’t fight it. Go with the flow! Just as it was during the last 60 years, the real money in the music business is made elsewhere anyway.

Plus, just because you’re giving it away doesn’t mean that you can’t charge for it either at the same time or sometime in the future. There are numerous cases where sales have actually decreased for an artist’s iTunes tracks when the free tracks have been eliminated.

One is Corey Smith. After 6 years, Corey’s has built his gross revenue to about $4.2 million and free music has been the basic building block of his tribe. You can buy his tracks on iTunes (he’s sold over 400,000 so far), but when his management experimented by taking the free tracks down from his website, his iTunes sales actually went down as well!  The free music allows potential fans to try Corey out. If they email and ask for a song that’s not available for free, he just emails it back to them. He’s tending his tribe!

Of course, you can charge for your music with box sets, compilations, special editions and other value-added offerings. But the initial releases for an artist on any level (except for the already-established star) must be free to build a buzz.

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Is Twitter Becoming Facebook?

On Tuesday, Twitter rolled out a new interface that incorporates more multimedia and a few new features that are similar to what you'd find in Facebook.

The new features include embedded photos, videos and many dashboard functions, all available without the use of separate utilities like Tweetdeck or Hoostsuite. What's more, Twitter has partnered with Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi (formerly TweetPhoto), Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube to put content from the people you follow right into the middle of your tweet timeline.

Some users will see the new interface right away, but Twitter suggests that it will slowly roll out across its entire user base over the next two weeks.

So why is this update important? First of all, what Twitter is trying to do is pull users back from using 3rd party utilities so they spend more time within the app itself in order to give more viewer impressions to its advertisers. This would improve their revenue stream, which they really need. The second thing they're trying to do is pull people away from Facebook by giving the app a feel closer to what Facebook provides. Facebook is vulnerable right now because of the way they've handled privacy issues, and it wouldn't take too much of a push to make some of their disgruntled users change their allegiance.

There's some speculation that some new features will be available from a Twitter "Pro" subscription account, which would be another income stream for the company. While most casual users might not be tempted to sign up for a pro subscription, any company, artist, band or brand may be open to paying a monthly fee if it helps them communicate with their followers better, if it does come to pass.

The new features are just a few more reasons why a Twitter account is nearly a necessity for an artist or band. Used well, Twitter can be an extremely valuable social media tool for keeping in touch with your tribe in this Music 3.0 world.

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

Katy's Overexposed

If there's ever been evidence that the old paradigm of the music business is over, it's Katy Perry. Despite having what some are calling the "song of the summer" with her "California Gurls" and being plastered all over the media everywhere, her new Teenage Dream album managed to sell just 192,000 copies the first week out, and only a bit under 39,000 the second week. 10 years ago it would've been a couple of million.

The reason? For one thing, Katy's over-exposed as she's literally everywhere. She's in the news, she's on cover of magazines, she's on the radio; you name it, Katy's there. If you're not a huge fan, you're sick of her. But while that used to be a recipe for massive success in the days before Music 3.0 and was the way that major labels did business, today it's just a blip on the radar of a stratified audience.

Katy is a singles artist, which means she'll have no longevity after her flavor of the month passes out of favor, if her album sales are any indicator. It's true that she sold 259,000 digital downloads of her latest single "Teenage Dream," but that just doesn't bring in a lot of dough these days. It's albums that are the big moneymakers, and like Rihanna and Ke$ha, big singles sales and lots of exposure doesn't necessarily turn into the album sales that pay a label's bills.

It appears that the formula of the major labels is no longer the key to music success, even on the Katy level (although we knew that already). Maybe we are making some progress after all.

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Eminem's Pivotal Royalty Battle

In March of 2009, I wrote a post on my Big Picture blog about a court battle between Eminem's FBT production company and Universal Music Group (UMG) that had huge implications for the music business.

FBT sued UMG over what amounts to the definition of ownership of a digital file. FBT claimed that UMG owed them a lot more money for each download sold because a digital file sold by iTunes or Amazon MP3 is actually a license. UMG insisted that regardless of whether it's a CD, vinyl record, or digital file, Eminem's music is part of their distribution deal.

So is it licensing or is it distribution? That's what the court had to decide.

There was a lot of money at stake here. If the court decided that selling a digital file is a licensing deal, then the record label and the artist would split the proceeds 50/50 and the artist would be entitled to about 35 cents per download. But if they decided it's distribution, then the original recording agreement would still be in force and the artist would make about 15% (more or less), or about 10 to 20 cents on every download instead.

FTB claimed that, since there's no manufacturing or packaging costs (which are covered by the record label), and only a single copy is delivered to the digital download companies, then it should be a license, since that's what occurred in licensing deals of physical product for years. UMG argued that a sale is a sale regardless of how it happens.

In the original ruling, the court sided with UMG and the whole music industry let out a huge side of relief. If the ruling had gone Eminem's way, every record label would owe their artists a huge amount of money, effectively bankrupting the music industry.

Last week, an appeals court ruled against UMG and ordered them to pay FBT a full 50% split of all royalties, instead of the 12% that they were getting before.

This ruling will be worth millions of dollars for FBT, but it could mean that the music industry will be on the hook for hundreds of millions, even a billion dollars depending on who you talk to, in back and future royalties.

If you thought that the music industry was really changing, you haven't seen anything yet. This may be the tidal wave that finally sweeps the music industry as we know it away for good.

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Pandora And The CD

Regardless of the trends towards online digital music, CDs are still important. Sure, you may sell a few, but it's the hidden advantages of the format that everyone overlooks.

Take Pandora for example. I came across the following section on their submission FAQ.

To submit music to Pandora, you'll need these items:

1) a CD of your music

2) a unique UPC code for that CD*

3) this CD to be available through Amazon as a physical CD (and not just as MP3s)**

4) the legal rights to your music

5) a standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this submission

6) MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD

Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music to Pandora for consideration here: http://submitmusic.pandora.com/.

Take notice that the only way to get on their playlist is to have a physical CD for sale.

It's the same thing if you want your music reviewed. It doesn't matter if it's on a blog or traditional media, you're not legit until you have a physical product that you can send to the reviewer. I saw this exact situation for myself a couple of years ago when I was producing the first SNEW album. I was all for releasing it digitally but the band insisted on a CD and they were right. Even though the music was released online months before the CD was available, they couldn't get a single reviewer interested until the physical CD was released. As soon as that shiny plastic disc was available, they were perceived as a viable entity and received more than 100 reviews (almost all of them great, by the way). For their recently released CD, "We Do What We Want," there was no question that it would be available on as many formats as possible, and once again we've been rewarded with at least as many reviews, band interviews, and a ton of airplay. I'm convinced that it wouldn't have had nearly the success without the physical product.

It used to be that pressing CDs was a pain since you had to not only pay for them up front, but keep them in inventory and distribute them as well, but even this isn't much of a problem these days. Services like Kunaki not only allow you to press CDs on demand, but they'll drop ship them as well. They look like a million bucks (as long as your artwork looks that way) so that old worry at the "CD-R look" doesn't apply.

So while there's no doubt that the music world is more digital than ever, the CD is still a useful distribution tool. Ignore it at your own peril.

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15 Email "Don'ts"

Yesterday we looked at the 15 "do's" of sending out an email blast. Today we'll look at the 15 "don'ts," once again from clickz.com.

Here are 15 things you should never do (or at least don't admit to them):

• Don't assume something works
• Don't convert print promotions directly to e-mail blasts
• Don't overcomplicate your e-mail creative
• Don't overmail your list
• Don't undermail your list
• Don't make subscribing – or unsubscribing – too complicated
• Don't try to say too much with a single e-mail
• Don't silo e-mail – remember your other channels, both offline and digital
• Don't forget about the landing page
• Don't assume what worked yesterday will work today, or tomorrow - keep testing and evolving
• Don't ignore your reports and front line
• Don't badger the lifeless (by overmailing your non-responders)
• Don't say everything in the subject line
• Don't be clueless (by having no call to action)
• Don't forget to be timely

This is some excellent advice and well worth following. Once again, you can find the full text to the post here.

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

15 Email "Do's"

There's no doubt that email is an important part of an artist's social strategy, but sometimes a poorly thought-out mail can be worse than none at all. The following comes from clickz.com, and are worth checking out before you hit the send button on your next blast.

Here are 15 moves every e-mail marketer should include:

• Know why your consumer should sign up for your e-mails
• Use intrigue versus incentive
• Build up "reverse preferences" (track what people do and don't do)
• Run subject line tests
• Use social media to drive up open rates
• Test
• Analyze
• Use Web designers
• Use clear calls to action
• Keep important content/messages above the fold
• Respect image blocking and the preview pane
• Render tests
• Create an iron-clad e-mail production process with tasks, individuals, and days of the week associated with each milestone
• Run a test with every send – and (this is key) share your results with your stakeholders for short-term visibility; archive them for long-term learnings
• Ask yourself these three questions:
1. What is this e-mail about?
2. Why do my subscribers care?
3. What do they do about it?

If you keep the above in mind, you're email blast will always have a purpose and get the results you're looking for.

Once again, you can find the full text to the post here.

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

Email Is Not Dead

It appears that reports of email's demise are untrue, according to a recent survey of 2,200 adults in the US and UK by Harris Interactive. Despite the rise of social networking, we're still addicted to it and we're not letting go. Here's what the survey found:

• 72% in the US and 68% in the UK check their email during their time off.

• 19% of Americans check email in bed

• 50% check their email while on vacation and during off-days

• 46% of American respondents check their email to ease their workload

• 37% are afraid that they'll miss something important

• 27% check work email at home because it's expected of them

• 26% check email on vacation because that's the only way they can handle the volume

• 21% of men check email in bed but only 16% of women do

• 31% of 18 to 34 year olds are more likely to check their email in bed than 35 to 54 year olds (15%)

The data shows one of the best reasons to maintain that email list. People do check their mail and it's still important to them. It's up to you to send it.

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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.

3 Pillars of Effective Social Networking

This is a repost of one of the earliest Music 3.0 blog posts in honor of Labor Day.

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Here's a great post from the Networlding blog called The 3 Pillars of Effective Social Networking. It's not referring to digital social networking however, but to real physical social contact - as in one-on-one personal interaction.

This blog violates a number of digital social marketing principles though, as all I know is that the author's name is Melissa, since there's no background about her anywhere that I could find. It seems that she assumes that you know who she is already, which can be a big mistake.

Good post though, about the 3 R's (recognition, referrals and revenue) and the 3 C's of making a referral:

"People love recognition, referrals, and revenue.

Make a referral, but hope you get back:

1. Credit (for the referral, especially when other people use your contact for their benefit, they should give you public credit for the introduction)

2. Contacts (that can help you and your business)

3. Compensation (If and when appropriate)"

Great advice that applies online or good old-fashioned person to person.

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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.

Ping For Artists By Invitation Only

While yesterday's announcement of iTunes Ping seemed like a boon to artists and bands, now comes word that there's no way to create an artist profile on the network. When Apple was asked about the process, a spokesman responded that artist profiles are only available on an "invitation-only" basis. This is a giant bummer for most bands that could really make use of this new social network.

The same spokesman points out that any iTunes user, be it person or band, can create a profile, but that doesn't help the artist much if he can't push content to the fans.

That being said, Tunecore stated today that it's working with Apple to get all of their bands and artists signed up in the near future. Stay tuned.

Another disappointment is the fact that Ping only displays the albums that your friends have purchased and not the albums that they're currently listening to. This would not only help in music discovery but be a boon in data measurement for any band or artist. Let's hope that Apple implements this feature soon.

One of the cool things that Ping does do is provide a Facebook-like news feed that shows a recent activity stream from the people that you follow. Artists will be able to post updates to this news stream, which then will be directly sent to fans. This is very cool and a potentially big deal.

Clearly Ping is a work in progress and doesn't meet many of our initial expectations. That being said, it's only been online for two days, so expect the kinks and bugs to be worked out eventually.

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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.

6 Reasons Why iTunes Ping Is So Important

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Steve Jobs and Apple has done it again yesterday with the introduction of iTunes 10, which now contains the music social network Ping.

What is Ping? Jobs explained it this way, "It's like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes." Although Apple is promoting Ping as a music discovery platform where artists and fans can interact, it's a lot more strategic than that. Until now Apple has mastered technology and content, but Ping gives them the one piece that they never had before - people, the most important of them all.

But Ping will be very significant for artists and bands too.  Here's how:

• 1) There are already 160 million iTunes users. That doesn't mean that they'll all use Ping, but it provide a huge base of people already on the network.

• 2) iTunes has a direct connection to your content that other social networks don't have. This should make an impulse buy easier.

• 3) Ping is about all music, unlike other social networks (sorry MySpace, you don't count anymore). At least in the beginning, there won't be any other distractions.

• 4) iTunes users consume content. They're used to buying, and they already have credit cards on file.

• 5) Ping is about music discovery. Discovery is still the Holy Grail of the music industry. Ping provides discovery on your own, discovery through friends, and discovery from other fans, and anything to help people find your music is a good thing.

• 6) Ping has a direct connection to buying tickets to gigs. With their database of over 17,000 shows and concerts (provided by LiveNation, by the way), it'll make it easier for a fan to purchase a ticket without ever leaving the network.

There's also a lot to be said for Apple's traditional ease-of-use, that could play a part in the development of Ping into something larger than intended.

Look for an announcement soon of how you can claim your artist page on Ping (check Lady Gaga's artist page out as an example). Then be sure to do it right away. Although it may be too early to tell, there doesn't seem to be a downside, unless you like being undiscovered, of course.

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