Music Promotion and Marketing tips for Indie Musicians
Watch Christopher Weingarten’s Twitter rant here.
In the News: The RIAA wins it’s case, The New iPhone 3.0 is finally released and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor bows out of social networking (or so he says). This week’s episode focuses on a video by Rolling Stone music critic Christopher R. Weingarten. Click the link below to watch. As always, calls, emails and now tweets, from our listening audience.
Mentioned in this episode. Robert’s (AKA Chris Bolton) Storylife Podcast
Bruce Houghton (Founder of Skyline Music) is a long time industry veteran who has been booking music talent of all shapes and sizes for over 20 years. Â As the shift in the music industry became apparent, Bruce started a blog as a way to keep the artists on his roster informed on new developments in the business. Â His blog, called Hypebot, has grown in popularity and become one of the leading music business blogs that pays special attention to the growing indie music community, or as Bruce likes to call it, the musician middle class. Â His experience and insights make his blog a must read for the indie artist who is serious about moving their music forward.
Check out Bruce’s blog Hypebot here – http://hypebot.com
Pandora adds a paid subscription option with perks. Walmart gets rid of its DRM’d songs. Emusic moves beyond the indie market and stirs controversy. File-sharing is now a part of the Twitter-verse. The podcasters revisit last weeks interview with David Gray and discuss how pop music plays into the world of indie music for better and worse. Your calls, tweets, and comments. Plus in unexpected power outage leaves Kevin, Chris and Robert in the dark. They finish out the podcast in a battery powered fin-alley with lots of laughs.
Recommended in this podcast: Anvil: The Story of Anvil
David Gray has done it all. He’s been a musician, songwriter, publisher, producer, A&R rep and worked for some of the most renowned record companies in the world. Currently he’s head A&R for Simon Cowell’s Syco Records label. You’ve probably seen some of the music reality shows they produce like, “America’s Got Talent, X Factor, and American Idol.” After the show is over, it’s David’s job to continue the artist’s development and help them create their albums. In this interview, conducted by the president of CD Baby, Brian Felsen, David shares his experience as a musician as well as an insider in the mainstream music business.
Artists and musicians spend a lot of time communicating with their fan community, whether it be social networks, email, or just the music itself. With so much thought and energy going into fan communication, it funny how little time is actually spend considering the fan’s perspective. In this episodes, we hear from Nancy Baym, an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. She is an award-winning teacher on topics including the use of new communication technologies in creating identities, relationships and communities, interpersonal communication, and qualitative research methods. She has spent years studying online fandom to understand what communities like music fans a re really looking for. It might not be exactly what you think!
You can find more of Nancy Baym’s writing’s on here blog http://www.onlinefandom.com
Revisiting Tom Jackson’s interview, the Podcasters offer their own thoughts on the importance of developing a great live show. Many of our listeners have taken up the Twitter challenge and called our listener line with tips and tricks for using Twitter and Facebook, plus more calls, questions, emails and comments from our audience. Â Have you identified any “moments” in your show? Have you made a serious mistake you’d like to share? What’s your favorite move on stage?
iTunes introduces tiered pricing. Microsoft releases SongSmith, a program that makes anyone a musician. NIN gives away 400GB of HD video. Kevin, Chris and Robert discuss Twitter and how micro-blogging and social networking can enhance your music career. 
Plus calls and emails from our amazing listeners: That’s you!
In episode 41 Alex Steininger mentioned questions that he gives to artists and bands to help them write a better bio and discover some specific story lines. To see some of those questions, Just Click Here!
Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, YouTube and Flickr. Are you on these these websites? Do you know how to take advantage of their many features for self promotion and fan building? Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR and Ariel Publicity proselytizes that social networking is not just a quaint way of keeping track of your old high school buddies, but a critical element in finding success in your music career. Why? Because these are some of the most powerful marketing tools available and they are all free to use. Join us for this truly valuable interview with an expert in the field of marketing music online. Ariel shares all sorts of great tricks and tips. No matter if you are an occasional myspace user or seasoned social networker, Ariel has insights and strategies that we can all learn from. You may have to listen twice, just to absorb all the valuable advice!
Check out Ariel’s website http://arielpublicity.com
for more articles, books and resources for marketing your music online!