Creators' Freedom Project

5 MORE Things Keeping You from Being a Social Media Rockstar - ParagonParagon Digital Marketing

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:04:37 -0500

5 MORE Things Keeping You from Being a Social Media Rockstar - ParagonParagon Digital Marketing:

5 great points all creators should pay attention to while on concentrating on social media

Keeping Track of your audience

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:25:35 -0500

Why you should bitlify your links

One key part of growing your audience as an artist/band is finding out where your current audience came from, because most likely you will find a lot more fans where there is already a bit of buzz going. The problem is: Not every platform you or your band uses on the internet gives you all the statistics you need.

Take SoundCloud for instance, what you get (for free) is

How many plays a song gets

How often a song is downloaded

Who comments on your track?

But if you’re like me, you don’t want to dish out 29€/year to see who played it (if they are even logged in) or let alone 79€/year to get any geographical knowledge of your audience. YouTube does this way better; they give you statistics en masse, simply because they want you to be successful as it drives profit to them as well.

The tip I’m going to give you will not work for all occasions, but it can be used everytime you link to a song, video, download etc. from another page, say posting a SoundCloud song on Twitter. Before I go further into this, I’ll tell you how I learned this lesson “the hard way” (not that much was lost, but it was annoying none the less). If you just want to know what to do to get more statistics out of your links, just go ahead and skip the following chapter.

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Matt Duncan writes about lessons learned by his band The Astray & strategic use of bitly links to track & measure audience response

"By focusing on flexibility, openness, and collaboration, musicians can guide their expenditures of..."

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:44:57 -0600

“By focusing on flexibility, openness, and collaboration, musicians can guide their expenditures of time and money for maximum effectiveness.”

- Agile Marketing For DIY Musicians - hypebot

The Social Hour talks with the prolific Seth Godin about his...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:23:00 -0600

The Social Hour talks with the prolific Seth Godin about his Kickstarter-funded book “The Icarus Deception.” The interview is great to even learn just a bit about how users should be thinking of fan-fundraising services as engagement planforms instead of “just” for fundraising.

Another great interview on the Twit Network. (via The Social Hour 95 | TWiT.TV)

Minnesota theater intros ‘Tweet Seats’ to encourage audiences to engage and share:...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 19:56:27 -0600

Minnesota theater intros ‘Tweet Seats’ to encourage audiences to engage and share: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3812386/guthrie-theater-tweet-seats-section-twitter

"…a new business model for every piece of content you release."

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:39:09 -0600

“…a new business model for every piece of content you release.”

- BitTorrent is really thinking about the new opportunities for creators!

BitTorrent’s Matt Mason On Rethinking The Music Industry Business Model: ‘The Hustle Is Changing’ | TechCrunch

Pomplamoose’s Jack Conte talks with the Hypebot’s...

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:43:00 -0600

Pomplamoose’s Jack Conte talks with the Hypebot’s Upward Spiral Podcast on the artist’s successes and failures. It is a refreshingly honest conversation with an artist who is brutally honest about what works and what hasn’t for him.

While Jack importantly emphasizes that no one will work for all artists, he does talk about a number of strategies, like leveraging covers songs with videos, trying to plan ahead with search engine optimization, and knowing your result with data analytics. He talks about Pomplamoose “blasting all channels” with updates, with an emphasis on important and content-rich updates, on many different social media & email platforms as they can, while still knowing that they won’t reach everyone. As pioneers of promoting their video-song on Youtube, it was interesting to hear that for Pomplamoose, they consider their videos to be the promotion or “packaging” for their music.

There’s some great discussion near the end about electronic dance music, or EDM which Jack is very excited about — both as an music artist having a new “palette” to work from, and what its cost of creation could do to the music market.

Great work to Hypebot, Kyle Bylin, and Jason Spitz for a great podcast episode! Don’t forget to subscribe.

(via Triangulation 73 | TWiT.TV) Great video with Roberto Hoyos...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:16:00 -0500

(via Triangulation 73 | TWiT.TV)

Great video with Roberto Hoyos who makes speciality throw pillows that cater to his audience —geeks. Roberto talks about how fell into a popular product, took a chance, bootstrap-funded his products, engaged with fans especially via twitter (@throwboy) and podcasts, and stuck to it.

"I think people are naturally curious and want to know where the products they buy are coming from...."

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:48:00 -0500

“I think people are naturally curious and want to know where the products they buy are coming from. It is satisfying and fulfilling to have that relationship between the creator and the customer. That’s hard to achieve with a box sitting on a store shelf.”

- Cosmonaut stylus creator Dan Provost on how two guys make a living building hardware | The Verge

Hard Rock Cafe Announces Boutique Label: Four Lucky Bands To Receive $25,000 And All The Money They Can Earn

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:19:43 -0500

Hard Rock Cafe Announces Boutique Label: Four Lucky Bands To Receive $25,000 And All The Money They Can Earn:

1 year + $100K + booking agent + tour van split among four bands = very neat experiment.

Question: what will Hard Rock be doing to help the bands strategically build a fan base (and the demand for the band)? Or will the hype of being a Hard Rock band be enough to generate enough attention to sustain a band?

(via Watch this: Gotye remixes fan-made videos in...

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:25:25 -0500

(via Watch this: Gotye remixes fan-made videos in ‘Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra’ | The Verge)

A great example of a creator embracing and celebrating his fans — by remixing the Youtube cover versions of his original song.

"Because there is no such thing as a prime-time debut on YouTube, creators work their way up from..."

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:05:38 -0500

“Because there is no such thing as a prime-time debut on YouTube, creators work their way up from small audiences with whom they tend to interact directly on the site’s comments boards and who play a vital role in promotion. While this makes building an audience a challenge, it also means the audience actively and intimately creates its stars. Thus YouTubers constantly exhort viewers to “like,” to forward, to leave a comment.”

- On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro - NYTimes.com

(via Then vs. Now: The Path to Success for Artists | TuneCorner...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:11:04 -0500

(via Then vs. Now: The Path to Success for Artists | TuneCorner Music Blog)

Great debate raging this week — this infographic is just to get the conversation going. Make sure to check out the comments on the Tunecore Blog.

"Make it great Give it time Be a mensch"

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:19:22 -0500

“Make it great Give it time Be a mensch”

- Being Apptentive - How app developers should manage their relationships with bloggers

App developers are creators, too! The advice at Apptentive applies to independent developers as well as other creatives that engaging with bloggers to spread the word about their creative work.

Filmmakers: Tugg Helps You Screen Your Film When & Where...

Thu, 24 May 2012 16:51:00 -0500

Filmmakers: Tugg Helps You Screen Your Film When & Where Your Fans Want

(via Tugg combines crowdfunding and video-on-demand to let moviegoers program the theater | OregonLive.com)

I’m unclear as to the actual crowd-funding aspects to Tugg.com, instead it’s more like Eventful for filmmakers. It helps filmmakers organize screenings of films at numerous local theaters, based on the demands of the fans.

Are there filmmakers that have had success with this process? How about fans that have seen a film in this way?

I was forced to embrace this world and figured out how to use...

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:42:28 -0500

I was forced to embrace this world and figured out how to use it.

(via Conan O’Brien on the ‘symbiotic relationship’ of his audience and new media | The Verge)

A great read for creators to understand how to pivot and leverage their constraints.

"There is no marketing trick. There is human connection, and you can’t fake it. It takes time..."

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:31:35 -0500

“There is no marketing trick. There is human connection, and you can’t fake it. It takes time and effort and, most importantly: you have to actually LIKE it, otherwise you’ll be miserable.”

- How Amanda Palmer Built An Army Of Supporters: Connecting Each And Every Day, Person By Person | Techdirt

(via ‘Fez’ soundtrack pre-orders top Bandcamp...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:12:56 -0500

(via ‘Fez’ soundtrack pre-orders top Bandcamp charts, full preview now streaming online | The Verge)

Nicki Bluhm's Van Session Covers and the 1% Youtube Rule for Artists

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:32:00 -0500

What you’re seeing above is a great music video cover by Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers of the Hall & Oates classic I Can’t Go For That. The band has been recording from the dashboard of its tour van for some months, presumably between traveling from show to show. These great performances have been dubbed the “Van Sessions,” have been posted to Youtube and nicely curated into a playlist here. If you’ve seen it before, you’re in good company: This video hit the Internets on March 23, 2012 and has steadily been racking up views thanks to posts on Reddit.com, shares among friends on Facebook, showing up on Buzzfeed, thedailywh.at, boingboing.net and isnichwahr.de, among many others. You can see these stats (if the uploader makes them available) from video’s Youtube analytics, the little bar graph button under the video.

The 1 % Rule of Youtube Music Videos

We’ve talked about it before, but by 2010 analytics, Youtube is the number one place people discover music online. If you’re an music artist and your music isn’t on Youtube, you’re making it hard for listeners / viewers to find you, and maybe even frustrating your fans. In our Nashville Rock Your Net workshops, we’ve talked about ways for artists to… strategically use Youtube to attract attention and engage with an audience. How important it is to title and tag the videos properly, fill in the descriptions, and include links to places you wants fans to see.

Keynote speaker at many of our workshops, Gavin Mikhail, has had great success in his own music career with cover songs on Youtube — not only amassing hundreds of thousands of views, but “converting” those views into clicks to action. That action may be to come to a website, download a free song and signup for a mailing list, and even buy a song (or more). From his experience, he can count on about 1% of views to convert to action.

Not only has Gavin strategically chosen the songs he covers to raise the likelihood of higher views, but he’s also obtained compulsory licenses to sell the download of the recorded cover song (generally costing about $0.09 per song). This is money most artists leave on the table — providing a download of the same song that is in the video. If artists like Gavin can generate hundreds of thousands of views per song, that 1% adds up — and because the songs are forever searchable, his “old catalog” videos can continue to bring in clicks. Additionally, by Gavin taking the initiative to license the song for pay download, more money goes into the pocket of the songwriter, as well.

Setup Buckets to Catch the Drips

The series of Van Session videos had received tens of thousands of views, but at this point, none as many as the I Can’t Go For That cover. From March 23 to April 2, 11 days, while NBG’s H & O’s cover video was “going viral — collecting some 400K views,” its Youtube description matched many of the other Van Session videos, including general links to the bands website, links to social media, and a link to the band’s existing albums on iTunes, but nothing specific to the cover in the video.

Remember, the Internet is a series of tubes. Through those pipes flow the traffic of your fans — and with it their attention, eyeballs, and sometimes even their wallets. Artists must plan out what they provide on the Internet. Artists should try to funnel the traffic where they want it to go (by including trackable links to websites, social media, and stores), and always watch for opportunities to engage with those people along the way. Think of it as a plumbing schematic, making sure the spouts pour into the right funnels and that there are buckets are under the joints to catch any potential drip. For DIY artists, setting up these buckets is crucial because it’s the drips that add up.

React and Adapt

About a week after that one video began to increase its views, NBG (and its team?) added some new links in the descriptions of all the Youtube videos. Trackable links — using a great URL shortening services called Bit.ly — allows them to see when people clicked and went to web sites that are not their own website — like Facebook, iTunes, etc, so they could see how effective their efforts were.

On April 2, a new trackable link was added to the I Can’t Go For That cover which provided a free download of the mp3 song in the video, in exchange for subscribing to the band’s email list. This pop-up “widget” provided thru Topspin appeared over the video itself, not requiring the fans to leave the video just to add their email and download the song. Note: that in-page pop-up setup is important because the fewer steps the better — traffic analytics show that with every hoop you require a user to jump thru, fewer people will take the time to make it thru the next hoop toward your goal.

Since April 2, you can see the band’s click stats to the free mp3 download link here. As of 4/4/2012, there were about 3500 clicks to download the song for free. If all the people (not likely, but let’s suppose) who clicked the link actually downloaded (something that isn’t public, but the band would be able to see in their Topspin backend), that’s some 3500 names on their mailing list. Many may not be new, as surely some existing fans were signed up to the mailing list. They’d also know what subscribers as a result from this video were new from their Topspin data.

From April 2 to today, according to the provided Youtube stats, the increase in views of the video was somewhere between 100k to 200k. The clicks Bit.ly reports attributed to Youtube were about 1,350. That puts the clicks right around 1%, following Gavin’s 1% rule!

If 1% holds true, had the bucket been in place to “catch the drips” to add fans to their mailing list from day one on this video alone, that number could be 7,000.

Money Still on the Table?

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers did take advantage of the hundreds of thousands of views that their creativity warranted. Hopefully they’ve added some newly excited fans to engage with via email and social media.

But is NBG still leaving money on the table?

Youtube is running ads against their video, which may be bringing in some additional revenue. Others may also be paying attention, including Daryl Hall himself, as well placed ads for Live From Daryl’s House videos are popping up at the top of recommended videos.

But what if NBG went a step further to attain a compulsory license for this cover song — they could be offering it for sale (besides giving it away for free) and maybe even offer a compilation album of Van Sessions for all of their great Van Session renditions. Services like GreenLight Music can simplify the licensing process dramatically. Looking at the cumulative views of the 16 songs listed in the band’s Van Sessions playlist, well over 1.5M, if Gavin’s 1% rule held true, those drips certainly add up.

Flexi Disc Balloon Launch for Jack White - Freedom At 21 (by...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:06:09 -0500

Flexi Disc Balloon Launch for Jack White - Freedom At 21 (by OfficialTMR)

We talk a lot about artists needing to provide more one-off unique or “scarce” goods for their super fans. You can’t get more scarce than a flexi-disc sent via a biodegradable latex helium balloon.

It’s super unique, the balloon distributed discs will be a hot item when they’re eventually recovered, and the instructions on how to tell the rest of the world via social media will help to spread the word about the record since the actual release of the album is the next week.

hat-tip to Dave Delaney.