​New market

I was checking the music news yesterday (25.01.2020).

I see a post at Rolling Stone about Lizzo.

I think “marketing people found a new market of obese people.
respect, respect.
wait, but, there are also so many skinny people. why not target them also with somebody?”

And then 30 min later I read a post at Variety
“Taylor Swift Opens Up About Overcoming Struggle With Eating Disorder”.

Snap!

Respect.

#marketing

Engagement

Acknowledge that your fans exist, talk and listen to them. It is mega important. One simple "thank you" or "nice to meet you" does a mazafakin magic. Not only in person but also online.

On Saturday I discovered the music of Des Rocs on Spotify. Listened to one song. Great song. Loved it. Who's Ded Rocs? I check Spotify. 1 million monthly listeners. Featured in many playlists. All info is top: good description, photos, etc. Same with social media. Quality shit. Signed to a good label.

Clearly the guy is a pro. So he should dig engagement.

Question: How soon he or his team is going to respond to my message and what he says?

Instagram 14,5k followers. Not that many, so chances are higher, but many bands don't respond in general.

I send him a message to one of his stories “Discovered your music today. It is fiiiiire. Keep it up!” at 18:18 and he responded at 19:58 saying "THANK U 🔥 welcome to our twisted little world".

Awesome. Quick response, caps and a welcome to the club. A perfect message.

Either he wrote it, copy&pasted it or his team did that, it doesn't matter, cos he made feel acknowledged and a part of something unique.

Top shit.

#marketing #engagement #instagram

More about engagement

I checked out “Social Media Content Study” by Social Insider (link below). They analysed 100m posts and blabla. They don’t give the details of the research, but anyways.

Here’s what’s useful for us + my comments from what I see on my pages and online in general:

Highest engagement rate: Instagram. - I agree.

Users with big followings get less engagement. - Counterintuitive, I know, but makes sense with a FB mindset. The algorithm should limit the “engagement friendly users” so that you would buy ads.

Posts with questions get less engagement. - Not sure about it. Don’t know how the research was made. Gonna check it out.

20.7% of all posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter include emojis in the caption and they have higher engagement rates per post. - Not sure again, but I see emojis quite often. Depends on account type. Gonna experiment with this one. Might be that algorithm favours such stuff, cos teens love emojis and they are a potential new audience.

Posts about contests and giveaway are still top performers. - No shit, mate! I agree. Especially with ads.

When posting links, single images, statuses, or videos, people need more information. - They mean a longer caption. I agree cos it looks more human, i.e. that you care about what you write.

If you’re planning on posting for the Holiday, Christmas posts only perform well on Facebook 0.35% - I agree, cos there are so many posts on holidays, it’s really hard to break through without ads.

#marketing #facebook #fb

YouTube

Thou shalt not forget about YouTube. It’s the easiest way for a general audience to discover new music.

The features that bands should use are YouTube Stories and Posts.
Yes, everything now is a platform where you can communicate with your audience. And, yes, everything has a Stories feature. Old news. But not many bands are using them, so again it’s a bit easier to be noticed.

Example: Mary Zimmer (the singer of Helion Prime) has a YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ8Imf-grdfjccLUcPLCSeA/community

#youtube

​The Box

Now I have The Box on my website. Read the details there.

https://www.interceptorbeyond.com/the-box/

Booking gigs

I doubt that there ever be a good database with all venues, agencies and promoters in Europe. Reverbnation.com has a decent list, but just use it to find venues and don’t book gigs via the service. Most of the time you’ll have to find the gigs on your own.

Make a list of 10 bands that are similar to you in the way of:
1. Style of music played
2. Talent levels
3. Fanbase size
4. Area based

Search for these bands online, check FB events to see where they performed and the size of the venue. Usually, you can see who is promoting the event on FB and approach the promoter.

Choose smaller venues over big ones, i.e. it’s better to have it packed than to leave a big one empty and therefore disappointing the promoters.

Ask people for venues and promoters in FB groups of that country/city in advance.

#gig

TikTok

TikTok, you’re actually a beast. Signing licensing deals left and right. Opening offices and the LA HQ. Testing Spotify alternatives in India.

TikTok is definitely here to stay, especially with all that sweet Chinese ¥¥¥¥¥.

If you’re not a teenager or a celebrity, TikTok looks weird at the moment. But it’s just for now. ByteDance (TikTok’s sugar daddy) has some serious plans. I won’t be surprised if they buy a couple of some weird start-ups and make something completely different out of TikTok. Who knows, maybe something radical like an alternative to YouTube Mobile or something. Definitely, something with music.

For now:
Secure your username on TikTok while you can. I did mine some time ago.
TunerCore, DistroKid and others allow submitting your music to TikTok. Do it. It’s better to cover all streaming platforms. You never know.

#tiktok

Album art

The latest cover art was just made public.

I did the pencils and the inks for Scream of the Butterfly band.

Buy their stuff when it’s out.

Release strategy

I watched interviews with musicians from the NAMM (the National Association of Music Merchants). Lots of good stuff there.

Everybody agrees - including me - that bands when deciding on a release strategy should go the “Singles” way that ends with a full album release.
It solves the problem with content creation, gets more exposure, better ad spending and in general, more flexible.

#album #marketing #planning

#youtube #promotion #marketing
Vlogging

If you decide to go the vlog way - which I think is a good promo way - remember that you don’t have to constantly post only your original content. You can have a nice mix:: covers, song break down, comments, tips, live streams etc.

Btw, you can monetise those vids. Later I gonna calculate how much money you can make with YouTube vs Spotify.

A nice example is Nik Nocturnal (200k subs):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhcQ0bBZTLipRJ7D42Riow/videos

Booking gigs (Part 2) #gig

The best way to book the gigs at your local venues is through bands with whom you’ve established a relationship. You can put a show together with them and approach the booker with a package.

Write a short email to the booker with the names of the bands (starting with the most established band at that venue), date range, the expected turnout number and a bit about how you’re gonna promote the show. If you don’t hear anything from a booker in one week, send a follow-up email. If you don’t get a response after a while, give the booker a call. When the show is booked, send the confirmation email with all the details that you agreed on, i.e. date, city, venue, door time, drink/food deal, etc. The confirmation email will work as a contract at small venues.

Don’t forget to add links to your social media pages and your music.

YouTube $$$ #youtube

You know that you can monetise your music on YouTube, right?

Your music has Content ID. Youtube scans its database for your stuff and if it’s been reposted somewhere you will get the money from the ads. But you need to apply for it, otherwise, somebody else is taking your money.
All distribution services already have this option.

Check examples under this post (press da buttons)

Music Marketing Budget #marketing

It's the beginning of the year. Time to make plans.
Here's a ready made marketing budget for you to check out.
Press the button below and it will take you to google drive, mate.

House concerts #gig

Invitation-only concerts held at somebody’s place.
Turns out there a services that connect artists and hosts.
I’ve registered at one of those services and downloaded a free guide.
Later gonna say what I found out.
Below is a free guide.

​#Spotify Soft Update

After the recent desktop update, we can’t see the monthly listeners of the Playlists. Monthly listeners feature was more important than a followers count. I knew playlists with 500 followers, but 20 monthly listeners.

My Playlist looks cooler though.

​#stats

The Jackets (a band from Switzerland) is going on a USA / Mexico tour. Notice Mexico there.
It’s an example of checking your streaming stats, finding your audience and choosing the countries/cities for the tour. For sure they used more info, but still.

For the newcomers to #Telegram:

1. Nobody can see who likes/dislikes the post. Which is good, cos I need your true opinion.
2. You can write a comment at “open comments”.
3. You can ask me directly @intensedude
4. You can save messages. Just “forward” them to “saved messages”.
5. You can use bots. For example, I use @AximoBot to read News with RSS.
6. You can follow cool channels like Netflix https://tttttt.me/netflix
7. You can use telegram on your computer.
8. You can edit sent messages.
9. Stickers are dope on telegram.

#Giphy

A small update.

If you wish, you can use all my gifs on giphy. Later, the account gets the "brand" status (verified) and you will be able to search for them on Instagram and everywhere else. For now you need to use the link:
https://giphy.com/channel/interceptorbeyond

#MusicVideo

One thing that I absolutely despise in music videos is having unconnected electric guitars. It immediately destroys the magic.

The guitars should be connected to an amp. Or a cable should go somewhere off-screen or into something like a tree, rock or ground.