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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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.

John Lennon "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

Let's celebrate the holiday with a Christmas song from John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" was recorded in 1971 with the Harlem Community Choir as a protest song over the war in Viet Nam, but over the years it has evolved into a Christmas standard. We're all the better for it.

Happy Holidays everyone, and thanks for reading!

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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.

Beyonce Fights Back Against The Amazon/Target Boycott

If you’ve been following the marketing strategy used by team Beyonce on her latest self-titled album, you know that it’s been quite clever so far. To recap, the Beyonce album was released on the unsuspecting public without any advance marketing fanfare whatsoever, which caused a bit of a commotion as that fact was trumpeted far and wide by bloggers and news organizations (including me, I should add).

Of course there’s always more to the story and so it is here. The album was released as a digital-only product, with a one week exclusive going to iTunes. This didn’t sit well with retail giant Target, who refused to sell the CD when it was released as a result. A few days later, Amazon joined the boycott on the CD as well (although it still sells the download). 

Even though Beyonce set an iTunes record with over 600,000 digital album downloads, having the number 2 and 3 retailers boycotting your physical product could put a crimp in your long term sales. So what did Beyonce do? She went on a shopping trip to a Tewsbury, Massachusetts Walmart on Friday night, announced to everyone over the store’s loudspeaker system that she was there to buy her album, then gave out approximately 37 grand worth of $50 Walmart gift cards to everyone she saw in the store.

Most of the press covered the move as Beyonce being nice to a bunch of people she didn’t know, but there was actually a grand design behind the shopping appearance. One was a subtle reminder to her fan base that even if you couldn’t find her CD at Target or Amazon, it was readily available at Walmart. She also sent an unmistakable message to Target that said, “If you cross me, I’ll give all of my attention to your competitor instead.” 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.

Which Social Network Should You Focus On?

Let's face it, there are a lot of choices when it comes to social network marketing, and although you can be on every network, it's usually best if you concentrate on one at a time. But which one?

If you want to sell your music and merch, there are clear winners, as reported by the research company Kissmetrics. On the infographic on the left, you can see that YouTube beats Facebook when it comes to time spent on the social network per month, and pages viewed per visit, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

Here are some other points that the company found after analyzing data from 18,000 ecommerce sites.

1. Run your marketing campaign during the week. It's far more effective than on the weekend.

2. Focus on retaining your fans and bringing then back to your site. They're the ones more likely to buy your products.

3. A small community of 500 active fans frequently beats a large community of inactive fans. Focus on your core audience.

4. Facebook brings more revenue than Twitter. People may spend more time on Twitter, but it's not as effective when it comes to marketing.

5. 65% of ecommerce traffic comes from iPhone and iPad users. Don't ignore mobile users, but concentrate on iOS first.

Read more about this specific study that Justin Butlion of Yotpo authored.

If you want to learn more about online marketing and promotion (which includes your website, blog and newsletter), check out Social Media Promotion For Musicians.

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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.

Do We Really Need A Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?

The ballots have been counted and it’s been announced that this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be Nirvana, KISS, Hall & Oats, Peter Gabriel, Linda Ronstadt and Cat Stevens. While it’s hard to argue with the quality of work of these fine artists (they’re all well deserving of recognition), I still keep coming back to the same question - Do we really need a rock and roll hall of fame?

For one thing, the merits of the arts are nearly impossible to quantify. Many a movie, television show, album or piece of artwork that does big sales numbers may not have what’s widely believed to be much in the way of artistic merit, but then again, who’s to say? As the proverb goes, “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash.” What I might see as art might have you shouting it down as crass hackmanship, or vice versa. And when it comes to affecting the art of others, what influences you might have absolutely no effect on me.

So if you can’t quantify it or judge it by the moving target of influence, how about longevity? Here again, just because you’ve managed to survive in the business for 25 years (as is the requirement of all Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees) doesn’t necessarily mean that you were great, only good enough to survive. You may wind up being an influence based on a volume of work and the fact that you’ve grown or maintained your visibility over time, but does that qualify someone for any kind of hall of fame?

Actually hall of fames in general are fraught with problems and all are filled with controversy. Perhaps sports is best equipped to handle a hall of fame since induction can be based on performance statistics. In baseball, for instance, if a pitcher has 300 wins or a batter has 500 home runs in his career, his entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame used to be automatic before the steroid era skewed the numbers. Can you do the same with music? Not as easily. 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.

Big Music Stars Have A New Label

You won't be seeing artists like Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Radiohead on the Parlophone label anymore as its acquisition by Warner Music Group has now been finalized. Parlophone was one of the world's oldest record labels, having been founded in 1896, but had been part of EMI since 1926. It was also the British home of The Beatles during their 1960's heyday.

Just to show you what an interesting ride it can be for an artist, EMI was purchased was purchased by Universal Music Group in 2012, but in order for the sale to go through, UMG was forced to divest Parlophone to appease European regulators. In February of 2013, Parlophone was then purchased by Warner Music Group, which then had to gain approval of both European and American regulators, hence the delay before they could release titles by Parlophone artists.

Now that the ride through the major label roller coaster is over, Warner Bros Records will distribute new releases from artists like Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, and Eliza Doolittle, and catalog titles by Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Blur, Gorillaz, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Supergrass and Sinead O'Connor. Atlantic Records (a subsidiary of WMG) will distribute new releases from Coldplay, Tinie Tempah and David Guetta (although through his own imprint called Big Beat).

This story just goes to show that once an artist is signed to a label, he or she has little control over their fate down the line. If artists like Coldplay and Pink Floyd don't have the control over their own destinies, than what hope does an artist of lessor stature have? That said, the above artists do appear to be landing in a good place, as WMG is noted for having some great digital chops, and that's where the business is going.

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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.