Report: Facebook Plays a Relatively Minor Role In Music Discovery…

The industry’s addiction with likes, friends, and followers is reaching junkie status. So maybe this is a step towards recovery.  Or, at least a little more balance: according to a new finding from NPD Group, social media’s role in music discovery is actually minor compared to other formats.  In fact, far stodgier platforms like AM/FM radio, TV, and simple person-to-person recommendations tower in importance over crafty Facebook campaigns.

Check out this breakdown from NPD Group researcher Russ Crupnick, who decided to ask music fans a fairly simple question:

 

“How did you first hear about (whatever song) you wanted to hear again?”

 

These were ‘highly-engaged music fans,’ not disconnected, casual listeners.  Yet Crupnick still found that old-school radio played a stunningly disproportionate role in discovery.

 

 

Crupnick was far from dismissive of social networking platforms, but noted that this space is ‘a little bit overhyped’.  But could it be that Facebook is actually wildly overhyped, totally overblown, and not as effective as we thought?  Over in concert-land, Digital Music News recently found entrants like Songkick having little impact on concert attendance, despite creating more awareness than ever before.

But wait! Critics blasted that report, saying it’s just too early to judge – and there are significant lag-times at work.  Perhaps inside the bubble, Facebook-connected apps and alerts are in full swing, but in reality, there’s still an upward curve.  Which is why when Crupnick asked these same consumers what it would take to get them to buy more music, many said ‘more Facebook alerts‘!

Huh?

 

(actually, the right side of this graph goes on with even more reasons, which you can see here).

SOURCE:
Report: Facebook Plays a Relatively Minor Role In Music Discovery…

5 Non-traditional Ways to Promote Your Music BY Simon Tam

Artists tend to be creative people. We write music, create dazzling visions of art, and express sentiments in the most unique ways. However, when it comes to promoting our art, something else happens. For one reason or the other, most artists fail to express any creativity in their business endeavors.

Here are five easy (non-internet) ways that you could promote your band. I hope that more than anything else, they get your brain going and inspire you to create ideas that work specifically for your art.

1. Teaming Up with Local Food: Do you frequent a local restaurant or know someone in the restaurant business? Offer to come up with a new recipe. On the menu, write “created by ______” (or however you want it phrased). In return, you’ll help promote the restaurant by encouraging fans to order the dish: through social media, on the back of your business cards, maybe a flyer or coupon. What restaurant wouldn’t want a local band promoting their food for free all over town?  You could do the same thing with a bar as well (designing a signature drink).
2. Coast with the Local Watering Hole: Speaking of bars, many of them also need coasters (they’re often supplied for free by beer or spirits distributors). Why not design some coasters and drop them off at your favorite place? You could design a cool logo, offer a free download, and link with a QR code to your music right there. Coasters are only a few cents to custom imprint, why not? Maybe your fans would want some, too.
3. At the Car Wash: I drive by an intersection that has car washes nearly every weekend. I’ve seen sports teams, church groups, and rehab centers, but I’ve never seen a band out there raising money for an album or tour van. Why not? Car washes are actually a great way to make money fairly easily. You could get friends and fans to help out, have a performance or sell CD’s, etc. In fact, you could even offer a free CD with a $10 donation or more for the car wash. You’d probably make more money in one afternoon than your typical dive bar gig.
4. Consignment: Consider selling your music or merchandise via consignment at places outside the normal record store. For instance, my band (The Slants) has a strong connection with the anime/comic book world so I set up displays and sell music at comic book stores around the country. We often offer to come in and do a performance, help promote the store, and only ask for a percentage of each sale in exchange for having the store feature our music. Music can be bought/sold anywhere, just look at Starbucks creating their own record label. What kinds of stores do you have a connection to?
5. Charity Fundraisers: There are many fundraisers that are looking for live entertainment. You might have even played some yourself. But have you also participated as a fundraising team for a cause that is important to you? Most fundraisers use a website system called Convio where participants can set up a personalized fundraising page and the top fundraisers are featured.  If you also participate as an active fundraiser, you’ll have much greater support (and recognition) from the organization, its staff, and volunteers. You can also give away free music in exchange for donations (makes a great tax write off) as well.

These are just some initial thoughts. I hope that they inspire you to think outside the box with all areas of your music career and how you can inject your own creativity into the process. What are some interesting things that you have done?

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5 Non-traditional Ways to Promote Your Music

The world’s hottest digital markets: a music map By Robert Andrews

Record labels’ new-found enthusiasm for ending their iTunes dependence has created an opportunity for new digital music services.

I picture the market like a game of Risk. Every week, the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Deezer are racing in to new countries with a new model — unlimited subscription access to millions of songs.

But, as the services embark on this VC-funded globalisation, which are the world’s most competitive, most lucrative and most digital music markets? Our clickable map has the details…

Takeaways:

• In China, digital music sales are a high proportion of the total (73 percent) because CD piracy is rife, unmonetised, in Asia.
• The UK is the world’s most competitive market, with 73 licensed digital services operating.
• Some Latin American countries have few music services, making iTunes Store, which recently rolled out there, influential.
• CDs still sell well in Germany and France, thanks partly to high sales of classical music.
• In the U.S. now, a majority of trade revenue from recorded music comes from digital – a globe-topping $2.2 billion.

Data sources: IFPI Digital Music Report 2011, Pro Music (Mar 2012), and services.

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The world’s hottest digital markets: a music map

Top Tips To Get Your Music Placed In Movies, TV Shows, Video Games & Commercials by Clyde Smith

Recently both Hypebot and Music Think Tank posted a number of interviews with music supervisors and related industry figures on getting your music placed in movies, tv, video games and commercials. Here are the top tips and insights from those posts organized into five categories. The names of the supervisors are featured with a link back to each post which will have additional information of interest.

The key concepts are to understand how the process works, to present your work in a manner that music supervisors prefer and to make sure you have a visible audience and a strong web presence.

Do Your Research

Sarah Gavigan

“You need to do some well thought out research. Find a show or brand that you like and work backwards. Look up the Music Supervisor online, and learn a little bit about them before reaching out. Are you thinking of a certain brand you think your music might be good for? With good research, you can find the name of the ad agency, and then the name of the music producer or creative director at that agency that works on that brand.”

Gary Calamar

“To get onto one of my TV shows, do music that’s appropriate for one of my shows…do your homework to see what kind of music I use on these projects and to pitch music to me that is appropriate.”

Josh Kessler

“Read trade magazines and blogs, as well as developer and distributor websites. Production timelines for games are very long, so keep in mind music decisions are usually made about 8 or 9 months before the game is released.”

Find Intermediaries

Thomas Golubic

“The smartest way in general is for people to reach out to licensing representatives, because licensing representatives will do specific searches based on specific criteria we will send out to them, and they themselves become filters.”

Sarah Gavigan

“Join music libraries that can help distribute your music to buyers in the licensing market.”

James Alvich

“Start making relationships with the different music houses, libraries, and sync pitching agencies out there. Let them represent your music, but you still retain ownership of all of your stuff. This way they can send your music to agencies, editors, and producers for consideration.”

Josh Kessler

“You can also link up with a pitching company with a proven track record of pitching songs to game companies.”

Go Where They Like To Be Found

Andrea von Foerster

“I go to a lot of music conferences and festivals…Every time I get invited to an event, I go because I want to meet people who pitch music on the label side, development side, agency side, management side, the artists themselves.”

Chris Mollere

“Hit me up, definitely. They can go through my website and just hit submissions. I check those all out.”

Be Organized & Give Them What They Want

Chris Mollere

“Make sure to put in a link that doesn’t expire. Sometimes it’ll take me a month to get back and download from a link I’ve been sent.”

Andrea von Foerster

“Never never never never never send an mp3 to somebody’s inbox without asking them first. We all get a lot of emails and that many people sending you mp3s will just clog up your inbox. I like things that don’t expire: ftp sites, box.net, Dropbox, Yousendit.”

Chris Mollere

“One thing all artists should do is to include metadata in their MP3 files, so that when I press Apple-I to check it out, I can see your phone number or email address. Gracenote your CDs, it makes it a lot easier to track artists down, especially because the track names don’t always transfer.”

Andrea von Foerster

“I don’t need an entire press kit. I don’t need a bunch of pictures. What if I think you look kind of silly but I love your music? I really just want to know who has the publishing, who has the master, where are you from, and are there any samples.”

Build an Audience and a Strong Web Presence

Sarah Gavigan

“You need to create an audience and create buzz if you want major music supervisors to notice your music. You want to use Facebook and Twitter to help you to establish your brand.”

Liza Richardson

“The best way to get on my radar is to be a great band and to get somebody excited about you. I try to pay attention to what people are digging.”

Gary Calamar

“Sometimes I’ll hear of a band three different places in one week. I start to think, ‘Oh, I’m starting to hear more about this band. It sounds like they’d be worth checking out.’ I’ll go ahead and check it out.”

Thomas Golubic

“Hype Machine is great. Music blogs in general are great. In many ways, I find more music that way than I do through some of the resources I reach out to.”

Sarah Gavigan

“We usually head to social media channels once we know about an artist to see what the buzz factor is. If I have heard a song of an artist and I want to know more I will Google their name and visit their Facebook & Twitter profiles to see how large their audience is.”

Josh Kessler

“Build an audience and demand for your music commercially is the best way to get noticed.”

Sources:

• Music Supervisors Explain How They Find Indie Music For Movies And TV [Part 1]
• Music Supervisors On How They Find Indie Music For Movies & TV
  [Part 2]
• Music Supervisors On Finding Indie Music For Movies & TV Shows
  [Part 3]
• Q&A: Getting Music Placed in Advertising
• Q&A: Getting Music Placed in Video Games
• Ariel Hyatt: 7 Questions For A Real Live Music Supervisor Sarah Gavigan of Get Your Music Licensed

SOURCE:
Top Tips To Get Your Music Placed In Movies, TV Shows, Video Games & Commercials