Is video essential?

Only if you want to build your career.
Why YouTube is the dominant player in today’s music industry

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YouTube is the #1 music streaming platform in the world. It’s the #2 search engine in the world. It’s slowly replacing radio, MTV, and many other platforms for music discovery. It’s become a serious revenue source for musicians too (some CD Baby artists have earned more than 40k from YouTube ad revenue). And that’s why YouTube is more important than anything else in your music career — besides the actual music, of course.

But these days it takes more than just a couple music videos to establish a YouTube presence.
Read more here!

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How to Made a Music Video Step by Step (full article is here)

1. Choose Your Song
Having a music video can help promote your band, through video sites such as YouTube and MySpace.

2. Get a Team and Equipment Together
However complicated (or simple) your shoot is, you’ll need a team of people.

3. Plan Your Shoot
The more planning you can do before hand the quicker you’ll be able to shoot.

4. Filming
On the day of the shoot be prepared and organized. Keep a record of shots you’ve made; it’ll make editing much easier.

5. Capture Live Footage
Filming the band playing live can provide you with great footage for a video.

6. Use Stock Footage
You can spice up your video by adding stock footage, but you need to be aware that, like music, almost all video footage is subject to strict copyright law.

7. Editing
Your footage might be great, but it’ll only become a great video through editing.

8. Get the Right Software and Hardware
These days cheap, or even free software can do a professional job of editing.

9. Be Creative
How many videos have you seen on MTV that consist of the band playing in a club, with the lights flashing whilst the audience jump up and down?

10. Tips for Making a Good Music Video –
Beware of Using Excessive Zoom
It may look cool while you’re shooting it, but in the final edit zooming often looks clichéd, and unless done with a very steady hand can often look amateurish.

Don’t Be Over Ambitious

A simple idea well executed is often more effective than a complex idea done badly.

And Ignore All I’ve Said

The most interesting videos are made when the rules of convention are bent, buckled and broken, so keep experimenting and above all else, make something interesting.

Many thanks to video director Arthur T. Flegenheimer (stage name) for his expertise!

 

Spotify

Are you doing everything you can to benefit from Spotify? Here’s a handy checklist to make sure.

10 steps to get the most from your music on Spotify

1. Get your music onto Spotify (and everywhere else)

Obvious first step: Your music needs to be on Spotify! And it should be available on Apple, Amazon, Google, Pandora, and all the rest, because if you have success on one platform, it stands to reason you’ll see some action elsewhere too. Plus, you don’t want to limit how and where someone can listen to your music. You need to be everywhere. CD Baby makes that easy, with no annual fees.

2. Be buzz-worthy (to create press and playlist interest)

In order for Spotify’s in-house editorial team to notice your music, you’ve got to make some noise. That could mean hiring a publicist. It could mean doing something so awesome that bloggers want to write about it even without much of a pitch. It could mean going on a big tour, or making an amazing music video, or anything else that draws attention, drives listeners to the platform to hear your songs, and boosts your overall Spotify presence.

3. Become a verified artist on Spotify

Once you’re verified as an artist on Spotify, you can customize your artist discography page, promote playlists, and access analytics (although a more robust version of that data is available and updated daily in the “Trending Reports” section of your CD Baby dashboard). Here’s how to get verified.

4. Create your own playlists

In order to grease the wheels of Spotify’s algorithm, which is on the lookout for songs gaining traction on the platform, you should build your playlist resume by creating your own themed playlists (and placing one of your songs in each playlist).

5. Educate and ask your fans and friends

Sometimes it helps to explain to your audience exactly how and why their actions matter.

Tell them how important it is for them to follow you on Spotify (you’ll have a better chance of your new songs being added to their customized playlists), or how the best thing they can do is add your songs to their own playlists (which is the factor that Spotify weighs most heavily when considering which songs are worth considering for further attention).

6. Try to get on some bigger playlists

This is, of course, the gold ticket that everyone wants to win. But it’s not a total crapshoot. There’s a strategy you can follow to increase your chances of being noticed by a prominent playlist curator. There are also streaming promotion services such as Streaming Promotions you can hire to build a playlisting campaign around your latest release.

7. Promote your Spotify successes to your audience

If you have a placement in a playlist, share the news. Of course the curator has put together the playlist out of a love for music (hopefully), but they also want your assistance building THEIR audience. Blast it out. Thank them. Keep in touch.

8. Use the data

Spotify really does provide a wealth of information to artists about users’ listening habits, demographics, and more. You can use this data on a daily basis to assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, make more informed decisions about your ACTUAL audience, and see where the biggest demand is for your music — which helps you better route tours, customize messaging, and design special region-specific products.

9. Release (less music) more frequently

First of all, people’s listening habits have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Playlists are the standard for arranging songs, not albums. So why put all your effort into making a 10-song masterpiece when half your listeners or more are only gonna hear the first track in a single sitting? Instead, spread out those ten songs into a series of single releases, or several shorter EPs.

The second reason to do this is it gives Spotify more opportunities to ping your listeners, either by sending an email to users about your new release, or by adding your songs to customized playlists such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar.

10. Be hungry for more tools, higher pay, and better access

Being successful on Spotify doesn’t mean you have to be either complacent or overly-celebratory of a service that could be improved. Stay informed so you can take advantage of new Spotify tools when they become available; remain active in the discussion about royalty rates and advocate for yourself and other rights holders; and make it known that you think it’s important for Spotify to continue being open with its user data.

Well, there’s your Spotify starter list. Do you have any items to add? Holler in the comments.

7 music marketing strategies

Ever wondered why some super talented musicians don’t get the fanbase and recognition they ‘deserve’, while other not as talented musicians get a lot more exposure and seen in all the right places? Well while there could be a number of different reasons for this, some of the most common are that successful person’s goals, drive & dedication, and ability to handle the business side of the music industry. More specifically, they probably know how to market themselves well.

Music marketing is that key piece to the puzzle many musicians simply never put into effect – Tweet This.

It’s because of this that many don’t get where they could have otherwise been, and why they struggle to make sales, get gigs, and generally move their music career forward in any meaningful way.

The good news however, is if you’re willing to put in the work, it’s possible to learn how to market your music.

The team over at Music Thinktank share their 7 strategies for music marketing success right here