Music Career In A Rut? This Can Help!

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If you're career is in a music rut and you're not doing the things in music that you think you should be, then my 6 Keys To Musical Prosperity teleseminar might be just the thing you need to kickstart your career.

I'm inviting you to a free 60+ minute telephone seminar that I'm offering next Tuesday, January 14th with a group of my music industry friends like maga-mixer Dave Pensado and LA session bassist Paul ILL, who currently work with hit artists that have recorded some of the classic songs that you hear on the radio every day.

If you're not making enough money or working with the best musicians and people in the industry, it's time to find out how to overcome the common hurdles that block musicians, engineers, and producers from doing the things they've always dreamed about.

Together we'll teach you things that 95% of all musicians don’t know.

To register for this call, which is free except for your normal long distance charges, go here now:

http://www.bobbyowsinski.com/6-keys-teleseminar.html

Once registered (remember, it’s free), you'll receive all the details to join the call via return email. I look forward to "seeing" you on the call next Tuesday!

The Numbers Are In: Should The Music Industry Be Worried?

Billboard Magazine recently posted the Nielsen Soundscan year-end 2013 music sales numbers, and while they may not correspond exactly with the upcoming figures from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) or IFPI (International Federation of the Phonograph Industry), I don’t think they’re far off the mark. I’m sure music execs everywhere are looking at the stats and wringing their hands, and in some ways, they should be, because it’s the first year since iTunes was introduced that digital music has suffered a decline.

In what should be a huge red flag for the industry, 2013 digital track sales fell 5.7% from 1.34 billion units to 1.26 billion. Soundscan hasn’t yet released their streaming numbers for the year, but it should be clear to everyone that streaming is the reason for the downturn. In fact, it’s been widely noted that the digital download sales decline has been offset by the rise in streaming income, which we should see quantified when the numbers are made available.

Perhaps a larger problem is that the album, the cash cow of the industry (although less so than ever), has seen its sales decline for yet another year. Album sales for 2014 dipped to 289.4 million units, an 8.4% reduction from the prior year, although digital album sales fell a nominal 0.1% to 117.6 units from the previous year’s 117.7 million.

We’re in the era of the single song sale, as albums mean less and less to today’s consumers. It’s a different time where the attention span is much shorter, multitasking abounds, and there are more media choices than ever, which is less than ideal conditions for a medium that requires a long time commitment. Albums won’t die, but hopefully they’ll be altered for the times, with fewer songs and less running time. That’s not going to bring the format back to prominence, but it might slow its decline. This is one time where quality trumps quantity for sure. 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.

7 Website Killers To Avoid

It's great that you have a website, but you want it to be as effective as possible so that you can gain more followers, get better gigs, and sell more product. Here's an excerpt from Social Media Promotion For Musicians that outlines the 7 website killers to avoid to make sure that visitors find your site and want to come back.

"Here are a number of practices that are guaranteed to turn off your visitors. You know what they are yourself because you probably encounter them on other sites every day, but that doesn't mean you should emulate a bad practice. Not only do many of the following aggravate site visitors, but they're can mean site death when it comes to search engine optimization. If you want fans to find you, make sure these are avoided. 

1. A "splash" page. A splash page is an opening page with a movie or flash animation and no information. The whole "Enter Here" thing is so Web 1.0. There's no info for a search engine to grab and your visitors hate them. Avoid at all costs.

http://www.hail-stone.co.uk/

http://www.maninblack.org/

2. Flash animation. It looks cool, but sometimes people just want some info and not cartoons. Search engines can't read any of the info in a Flash movie so they're a waste of time and money. iPhones and iPads can’t display Flash, and most people hate it these days anyway.

http://www.atutiplen.es/

3. Frames. Again, so Web 1.0. Sites with frames went out a long time ago. Get with the times and dump these babies.

http://www.jimthatcher.com/csun2003/29.htm

http://www.jimthatcher.com/csun2003/31.htm

4. Pop-ups. It doesn't matter where they come from or if they're selling something or not, everyone hates them.

5. Pull-down boxes for navigation. Designers love them, visitors hate them, search engines can't read them. If your site isn’t that complex, stay away if you can.

6. Dead links. This is just poor website quality control. It happens to everyone at some point, but remember that both search engines and visitors hate them.

7. All graphics and not much text. Search engines love text. Visitors love text. Pictures are nice, but use them in moderation."

These rules aren't that difficult to implement, especially if you're updating your site. Chances are that if your site is still using the first 3 items, you really need an update anyway.

You can read more excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and my other books at the book excerpt 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.

Vinyl Sales Grow, But Albums Stagnate

We're starting to get the final music sales figures from 2013, and the biggest jump so far is with the vinyl album. As you can see from the chart below from Statista, the LP has been on a steady incline since 2007, but last year grew by 32% over 2012.

Albums in general haven't done so well though, as overall sales (including CD and digital) fell another 8.4% last year, slumping to 289 million units from 316 million in 2012.

That being said, remember that the big jump in vinyl still means there was only 6 million units sold! That's a drop in the bucket compared to the other music media.

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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.

Help Your Fans Help You Market

Social media can be such an instant communicator that it allows people to immediately share the good time their having with not only their friends, but the world. The problem is that artists and bands don't often take advantage of this during a show. Consider the following ideas for your next gig.

• Display a live feed. How about displaying a live Twitter or Instagram feed on a monitor near the stage. Even better, if you use a projector in your show, put up the feeds at specific times during your set. An even better time is before the show actually begins, since there's already built up tension as the fans wait for the main event.

• Have clear written instructions on what you want people to do. Your fans will engage since they're already on their phones, but you have to have a clear call-to-action so they understand exactly what they're being asked. Then they need the instructions easily laid out for them. They're at a event trying to have a good time and don't want to think.

• Collect the data. Be sure to collect and analyze the engagement data so you can spot any trends, such as boredom, excitement or an intense reaction for a song.

• Turn it into user generated content later. Pictures and videos can later be used as social media or YouTube content, just ask permission first. Most fans will be only to happy that you've chosen their material.

A live gig is an underutilized tool that with a little additional effort can turn into a social marketing event with the help of your audience.

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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.

Getting On The iTunes Home Page

iTunes Home Page

Almost every artist wants to have their song or album placed on the iTunes home page as that can make a big difference in getting a lot of buzz, exposure and sales. It's the equivalent of a CD display near the entrance of record store. The problem has always been finding a way to get there.

A recent article in Billboard interviewed various industry execs on the factors that get an act that sort of home page placement. Believe it or not, iTunes doesn't provide placement based on the artist's name, reputation or past sales. Instead, they look more at what the promotional plan is going to be, as well as the career arc of the artist.

This is actually pretty smart on iTunes part, in that they try to make sure that the artist will have an on-going relationship with the iTunes audience, and that the release will have significant additional promotion beyond the iTunes home page, which will also help the iTunes sales.

The problem is that most DIY artists don't have the wherewithal to develop the type of marketing plan that iTunes deems acceptable. That's one of the reasons that signing with a large indie or a major label can sometimes be an advantage, although an experienced management team could also make that happen. Just having music that people like is not enough.

One final item on the subject - it doesn't matter where you're placed on the home page, just that you get there. Apple has all the stats to prove that placement anywhere on the page is equally powerful.

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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 Says You Need Only One YouTube Channel?

Many artists and bands don't spend nearly enough time tending to their YouTube channel as they should, but even the ones that do may find that having only one channels isn't enough.

For example, a new study by Pixability shows that the top 100 global brands have a total of 1,378 individual channels with over 258,000 videos posted, and they attracted 9.5 billion views. 56 of those brands have 10 or more channels. The only one of the top 100 brands that didn't have a YouTube channel was financial giant Morgan Stanley (I guess their customers don't have time to spend online).

Which brands have the most channels? It might surprise you.
3M          43
Disney    41
Nike        41
IBM        41
Google    40
Samsung 34
Sony        34
Philips     34
Oracle     34
IKEA      33

Who produces the most videos? That might surprise you too.
MTV - 23,000+
Thomson/Reuters - 23,000+
Disney - 15,000+
Google - 12,000+
Samsung - 12,000+
Sony - 10,000+
Intel - 8,000+
Seimans -7,000+
Nokia - 6,000+
Cisco - 6,000+

Who are the top social video marketers? Try Adidas, Apple. Samsung and Sony, all tied at number 1.

What are the conclusions of the study?

• Having more targeted channels gets more views, but only if you regularly post on them. A targeted channel for a band might mean one that's dedicated to unplugged performances, or one that only has live performances, or one that's dedicated to the personalities of the band.

• The more videos you make, the better. And they can be different lengths and have different quality levels.

• The more you use social media to announce your videos, the more views you'll get.

You can see the slide show for yourself (there's a lot more data there) at Slideshare.

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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.

Have A Happy And Prosperous 2014!

To all the readers of The Big Picture Production Blog, Music 3.0 blog, my Forbes blog, or my books and programs, I want to thank you for a great 2013 and wish you a fruitful, successful, and most importantly, a musical 2014!

Let's remember the phrase "When I lift my brother, I lift myself" so together we all have the best year ever.

9 Out-On-The-Limb Music Business Predictions For 2014

As the current year slowly grinds to a soft and mellow halt, it’s a good time to gaze into the crystal ball to see what possibilities the music business might have in store for us in 2014. Here are nine predictions for the upcoming year (in no particular order) that are anything but safe, but are still based on the events that 2013 bestowed upon us.

1. The tipping point finally comes for streaming music. Users discover the convenience of streaming as more and more convert to paid subscriptions. New streaming services cause confusion in the marketplace at first, but there are clear winners and losers by the end of the year.

2. Spotify turns a profit. The company fights off advances from new and old competition alike as it expands its global footprint and increases its active users. The service finally becomes barely profitable by year’s end.

3. Musicians earn more, complain less. As the number of streaming users grow, artists and songwriters discover that those hundredths of a cent payments are actually adding up into real money. Plus, with new streaming services coming online, money flows from more sources than before, causing more smiles than frowns.

4. And they concentrate on YouTube. Record labels discovered YouTube as a revenue source in 2013, musicians and songwriters discover it in 2014, as they monetize their channels either manually or via multichannel networks, and post more videos in order to create a new revenue stream. 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.

15 Under-Appreciated Events That Affected The Music Business In 2013

We’re coming to the end of 2013, so now is a good time to look back at the music business happenings of the year to see the trends and events that affected it. The following 15 events may have been taken lightly at the time, but at least some of them will have a lasting effect on the industry.

The events are broken into three major areas: music distribution, artists and record labels, which all include tech and marketing related events to some degree. Here we go, in no particular order of importance.

Music Distribution

1. Spotify sets its mobile service partially free and expands into 55 countries, then licenses the Led Zeppelin catalog to help with the promotion. Time to get all the market share possible before the deep pocket competitors like Apple and Google hone in on the sector. 

2. Crying poverty despite 72 million monthly active users, Pandora tries to lower its licensing royalties by buying a terrestrial radio station. Royalty collection organizations, artists and songwriters decry the move as suits fly back and forth. Bottom line, Pandora still loses money.

3. iTunes Radio is unveiled amid much fanfare in September, reaches 20 million users in a month, then disappears from the public consciousness. Is the service a sleeping giant or just sleepy?

4. Beats Music and YouTube Music both postponed their launches until 2014. The streaming music services competition is stiff; they have to get it right out of the gate.

5. Twitter’s #Music lies dormant after few adoptions, which proves the point - just because you have a large user base doesn’t necessarily mean that users want to get their music from you.

6. Pirating decreases as users find that streaming is more convenient and efficient. Pirates are also found to be some of the most prolific music consumers, so is the decrease good or bad?

7. The first YouTube Music Awards show proves that it’s what seems like a good idea isn’t always so, as it draws shockingly few viewers. You can be the largest online music portal, but that doesn’t mean that users want to watch your event. 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.

15 Top SPAM Trigger Words

Everyone wants their newsletter to be opened but often it just ends up in your fan's spam filter. If you don't want that to happen, here are the top 15 phrases that are mostly likely to trigger that filter when used in your newsletter headline, according to Hubspot.

   1. Buy

   2. Buy direct

   3. Order

4. Cheap

5. Cash

6. $$$

7. F r e e

8. Save up to

9. Success

10. Wife

11. Medium

12. Avoid

13. Friend

14. Hello

15. Dear

You can find out a lot more newsletters, how to craft them, and how to build your mailing list in the Social Media Promotion For Musicians book.

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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 Most Influential Music Cities In The World

Atlanta - The most influential music city

When we think of music cities, the ones that most often come to mind are Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and London, but it turns out that there are smaller cities that actually have more influence on the music of today and tomorrow. A study called the Geographic Flow of Music shows that sometimes our perceptions don't always match reality. Here are the top 20 music cities in the US according to the study.

Most Influential Music Cities In North America
1. Atlanta
2. Chicago
3. Montreal
4. Pittsburg
5. Houston
6. Toronto
7. Philadelphia
8. Richmond
9. Columbus
10. Los Angeles
11. San Diego
12. Austin
13. Minneapolis
14. New York
15. Vancouver
16. Boston
17. Denver, San Francisco, Seattle/Portland (tie)

When it comes to indie music only, Montreal, Toronto and Los Angeles are the top 3 with Denver and Seattle (surprisingly) at the bottom. For hip hop only, Atlanta, Toronto and Chicago are the top 3 with New York, Portland and Austin coming in last.

In Europe, the differences are even more stark. Here are the top 20 most influential European cities, according to the study.

Most Influential Music Cities In Europe
1. Oslo
2. Stockholm
3. Hamburg
4. Dublin
5. Birmingham
6. Leeds
7. Paris
8. Berlin
9. Brighton
10. London
11. Madrid
12. Bristol
13. Vienna
14. Barcelona
15. Manchester
16. Milan
17. Munich
18. Istanbul
19. Cracow
20. Warsaw

What's interesting is that 7 of these cities are in the United Kingdom, and 3 are in Germany, but who would've thought that Oslo would be the most influential of all?

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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.