Yes, You Can Hire A Fake Crowd

Want to impress the press with a large crowd of screaming fans? How about having a big crowd for a video shoot? Maybe you want to impress a club owner with a big turnout?

All the above scenarios are possible (if you have the money) by using a company called Crowds On Demand.

Hiring a fake crowd may seem like cheating on some level, but it's actually been done for years. Going back as far as Elvis and The Beatles, management inserted ringers into every television audience to make the reaction larger than life. Yes, it worked very well indeed.

It might cost you $5,000, but if it pumps up the publicity machine the cost could be well worth it.

Many companies that have used Crowds On Demand for everything from fake protests to screaming fans at the airport, and have reported getting enough free publicity as a result to be worth the cost many times over.

The problem of course is that you need the money and the campaign strategy to make the utmost use of your fake crowd, something that most artists and bands find out of reach.

Still, if you're heading up the success ladder and need a boost, Crowds On Demand is just another tool in the box, if you can get around the ethical dilemma.

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Adele Sets A Record For Downloads

Who says that downloads are dead?

That's not the case for Adele's new song "Hello," which set the record for most downloads sold in a weekin the US  at 1.11 million. It's the first song ever to sell that many in week since Nielsen began tracking digital and physical singles in 1991.

Not only that, the song has set records for downloads, streams and airplay in the UK and Europe, so the girl must be doing something right.

Plus the song is already #1 in the US and 14 other countries around the world.

One of the more interesting facts about Adele's past and current success is that she continues to defy the punditry of music industry analysts who insist that physical and download sales will never sell in great numbers again.

Adele's last album 21 sold in excess of 28 million worldwide, while those in the business said that there would never be another album that would ever sell more than 2 to 3 million again.

The same was said for downloads, but yet "Hello" is being purchased in record numbers at the same time as it's being listened for free online and on radio.

Many claim that Adele's popularity is the fact that she's the "anti-Lady Gaga/Beyonce/Ariana Grande, etc", but she's also managed to cross over from the usual teens that buy pop music to a much older crowd as well. Sometimes lack of controversy works in your favor.

It should be interesting to see how well her new album 25 sells when it's released.

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5 Qualities Of A Memorable Post Graphic

When you post to Facebook or Twitter, your engagement goes up about 30% or more (depending upon the study you read) if you add a graphic. The problem is that most graphics aren't that compelling, so the effect is diminished.

It turns out that a picture isn't exactly worth a thousand words as the old adage says. In fact, it's worth exactly 84.1 words, which is the number of words it takes people to describe an image, according to cognition expert Alan F. Blackwell. That said, visuals are much more memorable than words, which is why it's best to take care when choosing one.

There's a great article on thenextweb that describes this in more detail, but here are the 5 qualities of a memorable graphic in a nutshell.

1. Harmonious colors. Colors schemes that are natural and work together are the most memorable. 

2. People expressing emotion and interacting. Some objects can also be memorable, but landscape images are largely forgettable. 

3. Prior knowledge of the subject. Aesthetically pleasing images aren't very memorable. 

4. Infographics are memorable, but graphs aren’t. Musicians aren't likely to do many graphs though, and that's a good thing. 

5. Multiple images reinforces the point. In other words, a variety of images is better than just a single image.

The graphic on the left incorporates 3 of the 5 qualities just mentioned. The colors are harmonious, we all know what a brain looks like so there's prior knowledge, and there are multiple images (the brain overlaid with the skull x-ray). It's perhaps not the best example of the ideal graphic, but it does capture your attention.

This is something that I'm going to be placing more emphasis on in the future, and perhaps it's something that you should consider in your posts as well.

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How Radio Airplay Compares To Streaming

Many people have a difficult time getting their heads around the fact that a million streams or views just isn't that much in our new Music 4.0 age. A minor hit starts at around 50 million and a major hit is in the hundreds of millions.

1 million isn't that much when it comes to radio either, so take at traditional terrestrial radio for a second and see how it stacks up to streaming.

There are 15,730,000 people in New York City, and Artibitron estimates that a station like Z100 (currently the #1 station in the market) reaches at least 0.01% at any given moment (it's probably 5 times that actually). That's 157,000.

If the station plays a song 5 times a day (not uncommon for a song in rotation), that's 157,000 x 5 = 785,000 listens a day.

If the station plays the song for 2 weeks, that's 785,000 x 14 days = 10.99 million listens from just this one station.

There's probably at least one other station in the market playing the song, so that's 10.99 million x 2 = 21.98 million listens.

If the song is playing in New York, it's probably playing in the top 25 markets as well, which means 21.98 million x 25 = 549.5 million listens.

That's the equivalent of almost 550 million streams, but unlike streams, the artist didn't get paid for a single one of the radio listens (the songwriters got paid though).

Keep in mind that the number of plays above aren't even for a big hit (double the number of plays per day at least) and don't include the ratings for the number 1 station (at least by a factor of 5 in New York City).

You can see why our perceptions of a million are a bit skewed. When it comes to sales, yes, a million is a big deal, but it's not the same scale when judging plays, streams or views.

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Superstars Account For Less Than You Think

Most of us think that only the top 1% in music, the superstars, make most of the money.

Well, they certainly do when you take touring and merch into consideration, but not when you look at sales and streams, which will surprise many industry naysayers.

Rockonomic did a recent study based upon Nielsen's 2014 music report and found the following:

• The Top Ten CD albums account for only 6.624% of total CD Album Sales.

• The Top Ten Digital Tracks account for only 3.759% of total Track Sales

• The Top Ten On-Demand (Stream) Tracks account for just 0.98% of total Track Streams.

If these figures hold true for this year as well (and there's no reason to believe they won't), it shows that when it comes to streaming, the average consumer's taste goes beyond the hits.

It seems that the music business is a lot more democratic than we give it credit for. Artists and bands should take heart in the fact that there appears to be plenty of room for other music besides what comes from the superstars.

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Last Days Of British Bands Touring America?

For most British artists and bands, America is is where they want to be. You may be a hit in England, but you really haven't cracked it until you tour America.

Unfortunately that's getting tougher and tougher to do these days, and we may soon see less of the Brit artists and bands we love, according to an article by John Robb.

It seems that high visa costs and long waits are making it financially challenging for those acts with marginal success. Of course that applies to new artists and bands trying to break in the US, but also to all the "classic" artists of yesterday who still tour.

A US work visa now costs upwards of $7,000, and the wait time is so long that making advance travel plans become impossible, thereby jacking up the costs. It's even worse if you book the tour and then have to change plans at the last minute in fear of not having the visa issued.

Some Brit musicians used to get away with this by applying for a holiday visa, but it seems that immigration officials have now caught on, sending violators right back home and even banning them from entering for up to 10 years.

Apparently there's also a 30% tax on every dollar earned while in America, which hardly seems fair but isn't all that surprising.

American artists face no such trials getting into the UK, as a mere 50 bucks secures a work visa, and they're quick to get as well.

So see that British band while you can the next time they tour the US. You may not have another chance.

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Billboard Introduces A Chart For Lyrics

Billboard already has over 100 charts, so you'd think that there wouldn't be a need for another one. The company found room for a couple more by introducing a new US and International LyricFind Charts, which show the songs with the most search queries for the lyrics.

The charts are based upon the data mined from LyricFind, the market leader for lyric licensing, synchronization and reporting.

The company has issued lyric licenses to more than 100 services already, including Amazon, Pandora, Shazam and Yahoo. It specializes in taking the burden of licensing and collecting royalties for lyrics from publishers, who generally choose to spend most of their time on other parts of the business with a greater royalty payout.

While on the surface one might wonder the need for such a chart, it's actually pretty interesting in that so many consumers regularly search for lyrics, in many cases almost as much as the actual song itself. It's no surprise that the chart closely mirrors the Hot 100 chart in that it's mostly populated by the most popular songs of the moment.

In our data-driven Music 4.0 world, the LyricFind Chart is just another useful piece to help frame the success of a song. It's been a long time coming.

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London Mayor Launches Plan To Save Music Venues

Live music everywhere is facing a crisis, as venues continue to close left and right. In some cases, the real estate is too expensive to sustain a club or bar, and in other cases, it's the neighbors complaining about the noise. In many other instances the club struggles to draw enough of a crowd to stay in business.

Whatever the reason, there are fewer and fewer places for artists and bands to perform, which robs them of the opportunity to hone their chops in front of an audience.

London mayor Boris Johnson is taking action though, alarmed at the large number of music venues that have either closed or are facing closure in his city.

The Mayor has set up a task force to work with venues, musicians, the Ministry of Culture and just about anyone else that's interested in an effort to keep London's music scene alive and well.

Whether the task force will be successful is yet to be seen, but it's an admirable attempt to even recognize the problem in the first place. It would be great if US cities would do something similar, but don't hold your breath, as its low on the list of priorities for most US mayors.

You can read the Taskforce's report here.

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YouTube Will Cut Labels Off If They Don't Sign Up For Red

If you're a record label or an artist with a large YouTube following, you may find your videos are no longer available to view if you didn't sign up to be part of the network's new Red subscription service that will launch this week.

YouTube sent a letter to content creators a few weeks ago telling them if they didn't sign on by the October 22nd, their videos would be hidden from non-paying viewers as well as well as Red subscribers. Even if they're not hidden, they won't be available for monetization.

According to YouTube, 98% of content creators have signed on so far, but there are many holdouts, among them Disney and many indie labels.

These holdouts, like many of the creators who have signed on, claim that the 55% payout from YouTube is insufficient compared to virtually every other service (who pay at least 70%).

In fact, it's been estimated that the total monthly royalty payout from Spotify is 3 times as much as YouTube, despite having a tenth of the user base.

YouTube Red launches tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see what the reaction will be. Regardless of how the public feels, you can be that content creators will continue to be unhappy.

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Spotify’s Victory Records Flap Shows How Complicated Digital Music Royalties Really Are

A growing controversy regarding the transparency of digital music may have come to a head with the latest situation involving Spotify and indie label Victory Records. The network suspended streaming all of the label’s songs after the digital monitoring company Audiam claimed that Spotify hadn’t paid publishing royalties on 53 million streams from over 2,000 of the label’s songs going back as far as 2012.

Audiam reported that it contacted Spotify and requested payment several times, and that the company agreed to pay but later reneged. Earlier this week, the streaming music company unexpectedly made the label’s songs unavailable to users of the service. Victory or Audiam claimed that they didn’t request that Spotify stop playing the songs, and say they are unsure exactly why the company chose to do so.

Spotify has since offered to terminate the existing license agreement with the label in favor of a new agreement, but the company is said to have declined. Although no official reason was given, it’s reported that the terms were less favorable to Victory.

Digital Royalties Are Complicated

While Victory Records, their publishing arm Another Victory, and Audiam claim that some of the publishing royalties haven’t been paid (the remaining 819 songs in the Victory catalog were fully paid), Spotify has been steadily paying the main sound recording royalty on the many streams from the company. 

The fact that it took an outside company to track down unpaid digital royalties illustrates why this area of the business leaves many artists, managers, and even label execs confused and bewildered over the entire process.

Inherently digital music royalties are complicated, with many payment layers that change with the streaming service, tier selected, country and even market share.

It begins with the fact that there are two types of streaming services. The first is a non-interactive or webcast service like Pandora or Slacker where the user listens to a radio-like stream and can’t actively select a song. The second is an interactive service like Spotify or Apple Music where the user can select exactly what they want to play. Each type of service pays at a different rate, which varies from service to service, with non-interactive paying a much lower rate. Read more on Forbes.

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YouTube Red May Not Be Attractive To The Exact Audience It Seeks

YouTube finally announced its new subscription service today, and although the new Red service is somewhat different than last year’s beta test of Music Key, the basic concept still holds true - you now have the option to pay for something that’s widely available for free.

YouTube Red is slated to launch on October 28th, and will bring ad-free viewing at a cost of $9.99 with a free one month trial period. Red will only be available in the US at first, with a world-wide rollout to come in early 2016.

Getting people to pay for something that they’ve been trained to get for free may not be easy though, if my small sampling is any indication.

During a presentation I gave to a class of about 40 college students yesterday, I asked them how they consumed their music. Just about all of them said via YouTube and Soundcloud (Spotify and Apple Music had only one student subscriber each). 

When asked how many would pay if it were ad-free, the group erupted into laughter and indicated with a no-doubt-about-it “no” that they wouldn’t consider paying for the privilege anytime soon (to be fair, one student did say that she might consider it).

If that’s any indication of the widespread feeling of the age group, then Red may not be much of a player with the exact demographic that it’s aimed at, at least when it comes to music. Read more on Forbes.

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3 Steps To Creating The Perfect Custom Thumbnail For Your Videos

It's surprising how influential the thumbnail graphic is when it comes to getting people to click on your video. That's why it's much better to choose your own thumbnail when uploading to YouTube or Vimeo, rather than letting the service pick one for you.

Here's an excerpt from my Social Media Promotion For Musicians book that explains how to create the perfect thumbnail image in three steps.

"One of the easiest ways to get more views is by having an appealing thumbnail image. 

When you upload a video, YouTube usually selects three screen grabs from which you can select the thumbnail. The problem is that it’s likely that none of these provide an image that instantly tells the potential viewer much about your video. 

A customized image can now be used as the thumbnail instead of the selections made by YouTube or Vimeo. Here’s what to do:

1. Find the perfect still shot. Search through your original video (the one you had before you uploaded it to YouTube) until you find that one shot that perfectly describes what the video is all about. This might be an action shot, or it could be a close-up of a face or product, or it could be anything that grabs the viewer’s attention. Whatever it is, make sure that it’s relevant to the video. When you’ve found it, export it as a jpeg or PNG image, or even take a screen grab.

2. Add text. Use an image editor like Photoshop, Pixelmator or GIMP to add text to identify the video. Make sure that the text is large enough to read easily on a small screen found on a smartphone. The file size should be less than 2MB.

3. Click on the Custom Thumbnail icon and upload. This can be found on the Info and Settings page, which is accessible from the first icon (the first one) at the bottom of the video viewer. Viewers will now see your custom thumbnail."

You can read more from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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