We all have things to say. Many of us have opinions we want to express or stories we want to tell. Not only that but we all like discussing our idea's and our views about certain topics, possibly about music, arts, a show we have just seen. Of course many will also be political in nature. Whichever it is there used to be some difficulties making our thoughts generally known.
Many people kept diaries and such great diarists as Samuel Pepys have been a source of knowledge, and of course amusement over a long period. There were also letters to the editor of different publications, usually to express an opinion at some article they had published. The first few pages of Time Magazine and The Economist, not to mention large sections of newspapers are devoted to this form of personal expression.
But much of this has changed forever and is still developing at a furious pace. With the rolling out of the internet there are now a myriad of ways to go about making one's voice heard. The first and most obvious way is in the comments section of online newspapers and magazines. Click through any article and, where allowed by the editors, there will be a discussion. On some controversial topics these contributions may run into the thousands.
A slightly out of date way, and also unlikely to get much exposure are the chat rooms. Many chat rooms are open discussion groups but when they are unstructured are usually pretty pointless and are often dominated by one or two people with the others in the room being ignored or worse.
Facebook and other social media are open and free. But the only people who are likely to see your opinions and arguments will be your online "friends". Most of the postings on Facebook are only a few entries long as time brings more contributions to the fore so postings age very quickly.
One can join a forum. There are many forums and one can find many that will allow one to open one's own "thread" to which the other members of the forum may or may not contribute.
The best way, however, is to open one's own blog. A blog is a contraction of the words Web log and started life as a chronological listing of one persons thoughts and opinions, with the most recent being displayed first. Pretty soon however most blogs started to allow contributors to express their opinions. Unlike chat rooms but somewhat like forums these tend to be archived so a topic may remain "live" with contributions and discussion points being added for an extended period.
Many people would not know how to start a blog. Actually the process is quite easy. Perhaps having a look at my own personal blog will provide guidance, tips and a detailed description of the steps one has to take to start, open, host, advertise and maintain a blog.
Running one's own blog is a hugely satisfying thing to do and provides a useful focus point to keep one's opinions and ideas focused and to the point.
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Image via CrunchBaseWith the ever-increasing rate of Xmas approaching, it's time to prepare for an extended absence from both my internet activity and recording activity. At this point there are few certainties time-wise. What I do know is that my children will be spending Xmas day with my ex-wife. Due to the fact she's a Nurse and works shift-work, this will be the first time in quite a few years that they will spend with her.
On the flip-side, at this point it is unsure if my younger brother has his kids Xmas Eve or Xmas Day. If he does have them Xmas Eve and Xmas Day, this will entail myself and my parents spending Xmas Eve at his house. (How this works out is a mystery to my brother and I).
The aforementioned activities were to put you in the picture for the real purpose of this blog.
Between now and Boxing Day when I pick my children up to have a 'second Xmas' at my place there are quite a few 'plans of action' to put into place online which will allow me to skip the internet for the entirety of my children's visit. When my children are here for 2-3 days, it's no big deal but their trip up on this occasion will be an extended one and I don't want to be feeling the need to update anywhere.
After my recent highly successful and rapid-fire 'Xmas Shopping Blitz'I had a day messing around with a few tracks from my upcoming. On paper the the album looks half-completed but in reality I would say that it's about one-third of the way through. The album, when it eventually surfaces, will be initially released on Bandcamp where I currently have two albums and three singles. Bandcamp will always be the cheapest online store for my releases. Two-three weeks after this, the new album will be released oniTunes and then Amazon mp3. The only major reason that I have my material on iTunes and Amazon is purely for their 'reach' as far as searchability is concerned.
As far as Facebook is concerned, I shall simply be leaving a Xmas greeting on both my profile page and the Bob Findlay Music Page.
The most pre-Xmas work regarding my online presence will be getting my Twitter page 'loaded' using Hootsuite. With a Klout score of 51, I'll be interested to see how successful my pre-scheduling will be. There is one thing that I do know, it will have no effect on Tasmania Today. I have now got "Tasmania Today" running smoothly and enough 'backed-up' material for it to run for some time on its' own. It can be viewed at the bottom of this entry.
I have between now and Thursday to make these preparations but having said this, who knows what 'surprises' may appear by the deadline?
This may be last blog entry before Xmas so I would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your support, friendship and laughter in 2011 and wish you and those close to you a fantastic festive season.
Image via CrunchBaseWith the ever-increasing rate of Xmas approaching, it's time to prepare for an extended absence from both my internet activity and recording activity. At this point there are few certainties time-wise. What I do know is that my children will be spending Xmas day with my ex-wife. Due to the fact she's a Nurse and works shift-work, this will be the first time in quite a few years that they will spend with her.
On the flip-side, at this point it is unsure if my younger brother has his kids Xmas Eve or Xmas Day. If he does have them Xmas Eve and Xmas Day, this will entail myself and my parents spending Xmas Eve at his house. (How this works out is a mystery to my brother and I).
The aforementioned activities were to put you in the picture for the real purpose of this blog.
Between now and Boxing Day when I pick my children up to have a 'second Xmas' at my place there are quite a few 'plans of action' to put into place online which will allow me to skip the internet for the entirety of my children's visit. When my children are here for 2-3 days, it's no big deal but their trip up on this occasion will be an extended one and I don't want to be feeling the need to update anywhere.
After my recent highly successful and rapid-fire 'Xmas Shopping Blitz'I had a day messing around with a few tracks from my upcoming. On paper the the album looks half-completed but in reality I would say that it's about one-third of the way through. The album, when it eventually surfaces, will be initially released on Bandcamp where I currently have two albums and three singles. Bandcamp will always be the cheapest online store for my releases. Two-three weeks after this, the new album will be released oniTunes and then Amazon mp3. The only major reason that I have my material on iTunes and Amazon is purely for their 'reach' as far as searchability is concerned.
As far as Facebook is concerned, I shall simply be leaving a Xmas greeting on both my profile page and the Bob Findlay Music Page.
The most pre-Xmas work regarding my online presence will be getting my Twitter page 'loaded' using Hootsuite. With a Klout score of 51, I'll be interested to see how successful my pre-scheduling will be. There is one thing that I do know, it will have no effect on Tasmania Today. I have now got "Tasmania Today" running smoothly and enough 'backed-up' material for it to run for some time on its' own. It can be viewed at the bottom of this entry.
I have between now and Thursday to make these preparations but having said this, who knows what 'surprises' may appear by the deadline?
This may be last blog entry before Xmas so I would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your support, friendship and laughter in 2011 and wish you and those close to you a fantastic festive season.
One way that musicians and bands can supplement their income is to have a blog. They are surprisingly effective if carried out properly and professionally. All you need is a laptop, be it be a rental or otherwise and a little time on your hands. No additional software is required. You can drive traffic to your blog in numerous ways.
I shall discuss here what I consider to be the most effective and (probably) obvious ones. I won't cover the basics as you already know them but there are some points that I'd like to share with you. I do hope that you find them both interesting and helpful.
How much traffic you want can vary. If you want to make money blogging you need traffic in millions of page visits. A percentage of those (outrageously small) will either click your ads or buy your products. Having said this however, even if you don’t blog for money you still need traffic to come to your blog. From the traffic you get comments and potentially more traffic.
To get traffic to your blog, people have to know about you. You need to get indexed by Google to get organic traffic and there are countless articles which show you how to do that, using strategic linking so I won’t go into this through fear of confusing you with my own 'organised chaos' routine.
Practically every entrepreneur I meet these days is on Facebook. With over 62 million users and a 'sharing' popularity which has just surpassed 35% of the market, Facebook can’t be ignored for exposure and driving traffic. I have been on Facebook for some time and for a while I’ve hesitated at putting my business/music activities on my personal Facebook profile. After more than a little humouring, research and great advice (very important if you're serious) I set up a Facebook Fan page for my musical endeavours and it has reached almost 1,500 signed-up members in 12 months. No other sharing or comercial music site has come even close to this rapid increase. Facebook Fan Pages are pages you set up for your business profile. Fan Pages allow for great interaction between members and Page owners, a great if not the best business asset.
Personal Pages have a limit of 5, 000 friends whereas Fan Pages have no such limits. They are completely separate from profile pages, so you can keep the two separate if you wish.
You can import your blog posts with RSS and a lot more. If you want exposure and potential traffic for your blog Facebook Fan Pages are worth a second look. They are also indexed by Google. Keeping ones' Fan Page Wall updated with fresh content is of key importance.
Through Twitter I inadvertantly discovered Mari Smith. Mari has published an excellent article (in fact several articles) on her blog Why Facebook? She also has an excellent video tutorial on how to set up Facebook Fan Pages. They are completely separate from profile pages, so you can keep the two separate. You can import your blog posts with RSS and a lot more. If you want exposure and potential traffic for your blog Facebook Fan Pages are worth a second look. They are also indexed by Google.
For driving traffic to your blog Twitter gets a definite thumbs up. After initial reservations, Twitter traffic to my blog has increased exponentially. Twitter is fast becoming my second biggest source of referral traffic. On Twitter you register and select people to follow. After a while people will follow you and it grows from there. It does fluctuate and I have observed that having too many niche markets isn't the way to go. I'd suggest two or three and certainly no more that four, unless you have a system that pays your wage (yes, they do exist) while you're busy keeping people in each niche updated with exciting content. Irrespective, you will soon create an audience, or audiences, interested in what you have to say.
To use Twitter effectively, however, (in fact any Social Networking Site) sharing useful information, resources, networking, and aiming to build relationships are the key things to keep in mind. It does require patience and work. If you only ever tweet your own stuff, people will be less than impressed and you won’t gain much.
Find and share information in your niche or niches and jump into the conversations and it becomes a two-way street. I am slowly (and predictably) finding that that people don't fall for the "get-this-free" routine. I am, however, finding that people are much more interested in a venture that is new, unique, and accessible to them for a discounted price, in favour of gimmics.
Whenever you do a new blog post, you can "tweet" about it on Twitter – giving you more exposure and traffic over time. You can even have your posts re-tweeted if someone finds them interesting enough and wants to share with their own followers. It's imperative to let people know what you're tweeting about. Just putting the link or TinyUrl isn't particularly enticing. Be inventive. We all need relevance and continuity. I make a distinct point of using hashtags for my music-related tweets. My other tweets are generally humorous, off -the-wall one-liners that do pertain to what is 'behind' my tweet, ie: what one can (almost) expect.
Driving and increasing traffic to your blog is part of marketing your blog. If you don’t market it, it doesn’t matter how good it is, no one will know you exist. So if you’re not blogging, get out there and introduce yourself.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, all one had to do to listen to music was switch on what was called
a radio. Admittedly the reception wasn't always the best and the selection of music left something to be desired but it was all we had and were happy with it. It has become blindingly (and deafeningly) obvious that we weren't.
The next great leap forward was the record player. People were now able to pick and choose who they listened to and when. The tape deck soon followed, making it possible to not only store larger amounts of music which was increasing in diversity faster than technology at the time but to transport around with us almost everywhere we went.
One morning I woke up and discovered that the aforementioned sound-players had been trampled almost to death by 'things' with names that still make no sense to me. CDs were but a dream. Admittedly I am middle-aged in years but I have never viewed myself as being middle-aged in mind. I guess most people my age don't. I have something of a minor mental dilemma with the speed at which technology is advancing today and my reaction to it and the speed at which it was advancing a generation ago and middle-aged peoples' responses to it then.
My parents speak first-hand about the invention of the television. There's no mention of confusion about the event. Quite the opposite. They tell me that my grandparents were the same. They also speak first-hand of 'Beatlemania' and how The Rolling Stones arrived as the bad boys of the scene merely because of their supposedly long and unkempt hair. Imagine how two groups of English guys playing music seemed to have more of an effect than the television?
Slightly earlier in the United States Elvis Presley caused something of a stir with his adventurous hip-swivelling. It was hardy the work of Satan but certain parts of American society at the time made enough of an issue about it that he was only filmed from the waist up on The Ed Sullivan Show. This merely served to increase his popularity. (I wonder if those people are still around?).
Now that music has become so easy to access it's difficult to take in. One certainly can't take in all of it and even taking in what you like would be more than a full-time occupation. Irrespective, record companies, internet sites, companies producing sound devices and a string of other interested parties are doing their darndest to force-feed their 'products' upon us. By 'products' I refer to anything to do with you listening to a song. The band, the individual artist, the record label, the merchandise, the sound device, the box-set DVD, the speakers, the earpieces and so forth.
I still have no idea what 'mp3' actually stands for. I know that it's a type of sound file and the type of sound file that my music is stored in. I know that an iPod plays mp3 files. I have only a vague idea of what a 'Blackberry' is. I assume that it's a 'fifty-billion-devices-in-one' affair with another
ninety-billion apps. I know that an app is an application and in the computer world it's something that's added on which makes something do more.
As a musician you may wonder why I'm so ignorant about these things as they are part of what I do. I choose to remain ignorant, not as something to boast loudly about as do (far too) many people who think inverted snobbery is cool (man). I do so because I don't need to know. I don't need to know how many Mbs a song is. I do need to know at what bit-rate it's processed at for various sites. These are things that I have picked up along the way through necessity. This very laptop on which I'm typing can do 90% more than it does but I don't need it to, just the same as I don't have any need to learn rock-climbing.
I'm on Twitter as scotsbob. That's a funny sort of thing. I was rather enjoying it until they got rid of FutureTweets. The only reason that I go on there now is that, for what ever reason, it does well in the Google search engine. Really well, infact. I only have to think about Twitter and an alert comes up. It's a bit beyond my scope of knowledge or great interest, but I'll take what's there.
I deliberately mentioned Twitter as a segue into percentages.
As an independent musician it's all about percentages. For those of you reading who are independent musicians, sit down and have a
shot of something strong. You're not going to like what you hear initially but ideally it will spur you on, as it has me, to keep chiseling away without waiting for every day to be 'the day' or to lose faith in yourself.
The hit rate for the independent musician is approximately 0.1%. This figure is pretty consistent across each individual set and thus, obviously, them all combined. One sale per thousand supporters. It doesn't sound good, eh? There is an upside. I have found that this one sale per thousand transfers somehow. It may not be the same person but it does seem to transfer. Any independent musician who gives astronomical percentages should be signed by Columbia Records or the likes as it is such figures that attract such companies. Either that or their family and friends are buying multiple copies of their material.
As for supporters, such a small percentage is partly to do with 'cross-supporting,' that is supporting an artist on different websites. This gives a falsely high reading and should be accounted for. There is also the sincerity factor. In the age where one can type compliments to an artist the actual sincerity of it may be questioned. On the flip-side it can be argued that a compliment doesn't need to transfer in financial terms to be sincere. I enjoy many genres of music but I don't purchase it.
This leaves the independent musician with a few punches to roll with and some rough calculations to do. I don't believe that there is such a thing as too much advertising. I do, however,
believe that there does exist advertising which is too aggressive and inappropriate.
Spreading oneself far and wide is all very well but it should be calculated, weighted and timed. I'm not one for putting every song that I have recorded on every website that I'm on. I only put a few on each site, generally a similar collection but not identical. I have recently taken to making each single available for download as soon as it is released. I use the same message on each of my sites and run a brief 'coming soon' campaign. I also make it clear on each site that they are not available on iTunes as some sites deceptively give the impression. I discovered through experience that once I had paid my fee for an album I basically vanished into a tiny silver button. Not at all handy for promotional purposes.
I have been distributing digital downloads via Nimbit for some months now using their free account and can't speak highly enough of them. I have been reliably informed by numerous people that the download process is a smooth affair and the fact that they offer PayPal as an option is a real bonus to those who have downloaded. For the artist they also provide outstanding tracking statistics, an easy website install with individual codes for each storefront to track performance and their MyStore can be added as a tab on both Facebook profiles and pages.
I have also been using Audiolife for some time as they cater
for physical CDs. Again, their digital downloads are an easy affair and CD delivery is prompt. I would suggest using the cheapest option as this option took 14 days exactly to reach Tasmania from the date of purchase. Audiolife is also now in partnership with ReverbNation whose store utilises Audiolife software.
If you are an independent musician who is reliant on music as a an income, as I am, prepare yourself for stress and be patient. many people say that hope is over-rated. It's only over-rated if you become totally reliant on it.
To become totally reliant on hope is detracting from your primary focus in the industry. You are a musician first and foremost. The remaining factors are necessities but one has to have a song to advertise, show off, and so forth. Keeping ones eye on the song and not the dollar will reduce stress no end.
So, am I a grumpy old musician? You bet.....but not really.
Image via CrunchBase
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