Music Business Advice

Eventually I’ll put a video of a music business presentation I did here

Marketing Online In a Few Items

  • Building a fan base online is incredibly simple, and unbelievable difficult.
  • Everything we do online is geared towards reaching new fans.
  • But what we really want are True Fans.
  • You need to decide your brand first.
    • What are you really going to market?
    • Who do you want to be?
    • Pick what you’re best at, make that your core business
  • Your website is the most crucial part of your online marketing strategy.
    • Pick a good domain:
      • [yourname].com is ideal
      • [yourname].org or [yourname].net are good too
      • [yourname]music.com or [yourname][yourinstrument].com are also alternatives
      • Avoid domains with underscores or dashes in them if possible
    • Get a good looking, easy-to-use website design: think simplicity
    • Gear content on your website towards conveying your brand
      • This also ties into your design
      • Does your design and domain name convey your brand?
      • Always ask yourself that before making changes or buying a domain
  • Update your website with new stuff frequently! (This is called Content Marketing, and it’s literally the most important thing anyone can do online.)
  • Use social media (facebook, blogs, twitter, etc.) to reach new people.
    • Share what you do with them, but don’t be pushy about it.
    • Be a real person
    • Make friends first, then turn those friends into fans
  • Constantly produce new content on your website that’s relevant to your brand. Share it with your audience via social media.

An Even Shorter List

  1. Decide What You Want to Be
  2. Build a Website Geared Tell People Who You Are (and What You Do)
  3. Share What You Create Online With Your Friends
  4. Keep Creating and Keep Sharing (for several years)

Recommended Music Business Reading

1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly was the one who first came up with the 1,000 true fans idea. This is worth the read.

Content Marketing 101 – by CopyBlogger
This article explains what content marketing is and directs you to some further reading on the subject.

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
This is the book to read about becoming a leader of a community. There’s not a lot of concrete advice, but it’s a good philosophical look at the concept of leading an online community.

Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
How to start interactions with people then turn those interactions in prospects. Just like the subtitle: turning strangers into friends and friends in customers. That’s exactly what I do on this website.

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
Trust Agents is a good guide for interacting online. It’s full of advice from two guys who make their living entirely online and by interacting with people. Some of it is geared more towards the average joe-businessman, but that’s easy to get past.

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
If you’re not excited about online marketing, this book may make you excited. I strongly recommend the audio book version.

Also check out the posts about music business right here.