The panel is called “Give Your Fans a Reason to Buy; Make Direct-to-Fan Work”.  It will be held in Room 15 at the [...]]]> So it’s been a little while since the last update, but our SXSW panel was accepted and I will be speaking this week at SXSW, the nation’s largest music conference!

The panel is called “Give Your Fans a Reason to Buy; Make Direct-to-Fan Work”.  It will be held in Room 15 at the Austin Convention Center this Friday, March 16th at 2pm. You can add it to your official SXSW schedule by clicking here.

I was fortunate enough to get a couple of crazy people to agree to answer my questions for an hour in front of a live audience, and I’m incredibly excited about our panel.  I was able to pick what I believe to be a great mix of perspectives from some truly bright minds.  We have a fantastic artist manager (Emily White), the DIY #1 funded Kickstarter musician (Julia Nunes), a direct-to-fan platform CEO/Musician (Benji Rogers of PledgeMusic), and a full-time Direct-to-Fan strategist (Nicole St Jean of Topspin Media).

I was also interviewed by The Noise Room about the panel, which you can read here.

And lastly, I created a quick website for our panel in order to post resources and more information about our panelists.  The site is http://makeDTFwork.com.  This was also my first “responsive” website, meaning the website’s layout responds to your screen size, making it readable and optimized on mobile phones, tablets, and computer screens alike.

I hope you join us for the panel on Friday! If you are unable to attend, I will do my best to grab whatever recording we can. Keep an eye here or on makeDTFwork.com

“Social Media” is a very broad term, and I have [...]]]>

Click to Enlarge Image

I was recently asked to create a list of all the digital services and tools an artist can use for social media, as it’s often overwhelming to comprehend all the tools online when you’re trying to focus on making good music. So here it is.

“Social Media” is a very broad term, and I have included tools that should be essential to your digital strategy, but may lie outside of the “social media” definition.

It’s nearly impossible to be comprehensive in a list like this, but hopefully my own take on the following tools for artists is helpful for you.  The other catch is that this list will surely become outdated quickly, as the ever-changing nature of the social world exists. Feel free to voice your additions in the comments below, and I’m sorry if I left out your favorite service!

Here’s an important tip: Don’t go just sign up for each of these sites. The key to social media is to only use the networks that you can use effectively.  If you don’t have enough time to maintain and make effective use of 5 separate services, then don’t.  Focus on the ones you can manage, and be effective there.

This year I took the time to organize and submit a panel idea that I am passionate about, I would love to see [...]]]> March 2012 feels a long way away, but SXSW is closer than you think!  Starting today, you can browse and vote for proposed panel ideas for the Music, Film, and Interactive festivals.

Click here to vote for our panel!

This year I took the time to organize and submit a panel idea that I am passionate about, I would love to see happen at SXSW.  You can help make it happen by voting for it!

The panel is called “Give Fans A Reason To Buy; Make Direct-to-Fan Work”.

Here is a small description of what our panel will cover:

“Whether they stream it or steal it, the day has come where fans can listen to your music without paying you directly for it. Give your fans a reason to spend their money on you. Learn how to create a compelling story with products and bundles to engage your fans, gain new ones, and sustain your career.”

Our amazing panel consists of:

• Moderator: Brendan Moore (@webmusicguy), Founder of Receptive Music
• Emily White (@emwizzle), Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment
• Benji Rogers (@benjikrogers), Founder + CEO of PledgeMusic
• Nicole St. Jean (@stnic), Artist Services Producer at Topspin Media
• Julia Nunes (@julianunes), Musician

I work with a lot of people in the digital music space, and these are some of the absolute brightest minds out there when it comes to Direct-to-Fan and helping artists make money.  We’ve got a great mix between a fantastic artist manager, the most successfully funded Kickstarter-musician, and two platforms that help artists make money everyday through Direct-to-Fan.

These aren’t just people that claim they are experts; they have the actual experience and day-to-day knowledge of how artists can succeed.

Read more about our panel here and vote for us by giving a little ‘thumbs up’ if you’d like to see the panel happen at SXSW 2012! Thank you in advance for your support!

Here are some of the best [...]]]> I love doing these types of lists, because I always discover a lot of artists that weren’t previously on my radar. Definitely the case in this list as well! (See Also: Top Albums in 2010 from Music Industry Professionals).

Here are some of the best albums of 2011 (so far), chosen by people who work in music everyday:

What albums did we miss? Put your favorite albums in the comments so we can check them out.

I was at a [...]]]> This post is the final post in a 3-part series on Easy Pas­sive Income for Artists.  
Read Part One on iTunes Affiliates here, and Part Two on Amazon Affiliates here.

Click Here to Apply to YouTube’s Partner Program

I was at a digital music event earlier this year, and was shocked to find out how many people had not heard how easy it is to monetize your YouTube channel through Ads.  YouTube will pay you for doing what you already do! Take your money!

Here’s how it works.….

YouTube offers revenue sharing for their ‘Partners’ through advertising that they show on your videos and pages.  You are eligible (in fact, they want artists!) to become a partner by filling out the Partner Application.

Please note that you cannot become a Partner if you cover songs on your channel!  You need the global rights to all video, images, and audio used on your channel.  Just don’t use anyone else copyrighted content and you will be good!

The main benefits of being a YouTube partner:

• Gain advertising revenue
• Advanced channel branding and design (Customize Top Banner and Side Box - See Example)
• Access to YouTube’s Content ID, which lets you track, monetize, or block any uploaded videos using your songs

Two main types of Ads that can show…

InVideo Ads:

- Small banner pops up on bottom of screen 5 seconds into your video (users can close it)

- 300x240px Banner off to side of video

InStream Ads:

- 15 second YouTube video shown before your video

InStream ads will most likely annoy your fans, but generate good money.  If you’d like, you can disable InStream ads, so that your page and videos only show InVideo ads, which are very commonplace in the YouTube user experience, and not as disruptive to your fans.

Bottom Line:

You’re most likely already sending your fans to YouTube.  If you’re looking for an easy way to get passive income off the traffic you receive on your YouTube videos and channel, apply to the Partner Program.

For more information, check out YouTube’s description of benefits and qualifications here.

Otherwise, click here to go apply!

Crowdbooster — The Best Free Social Media Monitoring Tool I’ve Seen So Far by Clyde Smith | Hypebot.com

“Crowdbooster, which has a free basic account option ideal for DIY’ers, offers a dashboard for keeping up with how well you’re doing on Twitter and [...]]]> Some items you shouldn’t have missed from this past week:

Crowdbooster — The Best Free Social Media Monitoring Tool I’ve Seen So Far by Clyde Smith | Hypebot.com

“Crowdbooster, which has a free basic account option ideal for DIY’ers, offers a dashboard for keeping up with how well you’re doing on Twitter and on your Facebook Page. Crowdbooster also gives recommendations on when to tweet for best results. Though there are a lot of social media tools out there, Crowdbooster’s the best free tool in this area I’ve checked out to date.”

If you continually follow new people on Twitter, you will quickly get a couple hundred (to thousands) of people you are following, and your Twitter timeline will [...]]]> If you ever wonder how someone following 10,000 people can possibly keep up with their timeline, they either: 1) Don’t, or 2) Use some of the tactics below.

If you continually follow new people on Twitter, you will quickly get a couple hundred (to thousands) of people you are following, and your Twitter timeline will move way too fast to stay up-to-date with.  Worse than that, you will have lost context of who all these people are that you decided to follow.  Here’s how to stay organized:

1. Each Time You Follow Someone, Add Them to a List

Twitter’s List feature was created to help you organize your followers.

• Unfamiliar with lists? View Twitter’s guide for How to Use Lists

Each time you follow someone, add them to a list based on why you followed them (friend? co-worker? industry expert? celebrity? colleague? funny?)

2.  Use Formulists

If you already have a chunk of unorganized followers (like me), there is a powerful free tool called Formulists that will  organize lists for your account.

• You can create self-updating lists that will continually organize your followers into specified Lists based on your criteria

• Examples: Create a list of all my followers who.…

• Live in Austin

• Talk about ________ (the music industry? a certain band? graphic design? web development?)

• I mention the most

• Talk to me (@reply me) the most

• I retweet the most

• Retweet me the most

• Etc, etc, etc.

3. Use TweetDeck

TweetDeck is another powerful free tool that is a twitter client (meaning you can use TweetDeck to use Twitter instead of going to Twitter.com)

The best feature of TweetDeck (in my opinion) is the column view, where you can setup multiple columns that display different timelines of tweets or users.

For example, I have a column of all people that mention me or my company in their tweets, so that I can easily see and respond to them. I also have separate columns set up for each of my Twitter Lists, to easily and visually see my followers organized.

You can also setup a column to collect any tweets talking about a specified keyword.

• For example: If you are an artist that sounds like Jason Mraz, you could set up a column for anyone tweeting about Jason Mraz, and start talking to them.

• Note: Use this tactic wisely, or it will work adversely! Don’t spam people. Be genuinely interested in creating a conversation with them!

For one, I don’t really understand why Spotify has been buzzing so heavily, when very similar services such as Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, and Grooveshark have been available for a long time.  Probably the biggest hype [...]]]> Marking the most hyped music-service launch of the year, everyone’s talking about Spotify launching in the U.S. today.

For one, I don’t really understand why Spotify has been buzzing so heavily, when very similar services such as Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, and Grooveshark have been available for a long time.  Probably the biggest hype coming from Spotify?  It’s “free”.

Here’s why the “free” version of Spotify isn’t as great as you think:

• You can only stream a song 5 times. Total.
• You can only listen to 2.5 hours of music a week (that’s less than 22 minutes of music a day!!)
• You have ads. Annoying ads (images with audio).

These limits come on after 6 months.  Do yourself a favor and cash out $4.99/month (no listening limits or ads, but no mobile access) or $9.99/month for all features and enhanced sound quality.

For me, I’ll play with Spotify’s interface and see if I like it. But I’m 100% happy with Rdio for now.

What are your thoughts on Spotify?  Which streaming service are you choosing?

The organization sets up free music studios full of [...]]]> We’re proud to launch a site we’ve been working on with Notes for Notes, a fantastic non-profit that provides youth with free access to music making environments so that music can become a profound influence for positive change in their lives.

The organization sets up free music studios full of equipment (called ‘MusicBoxes’) and allows free access for kids to come in after school and learn how to play guitar, piano, record, DJ, sing, anything they could want.  There are currently 3 MusicBoxes in Santa Barbara, CA, and 2 more coming in Nashville, TN.  Notes for Notes really has music outreach down to a science, and there have been some great success stories thus far.

Notes for Notes came to Receptive wanting a dynamic site that they could frequently update with blog posts, images, video, and music.  Utilizing technology from WordPress, YouTube, Soundcloud, Facebook, Vertical Response, Paypal, and some elbow grease, this is what we delivered: http://notesfornotes.org

More sites are currently in the works for Receptive.  We will let you know when they are live!

We are proud to announce that Receptive Music’s headquarters are now based out of the Live Music Capital of the World: Austin, Texas!

Well-known for being home to SXSW Conference + Festival, as well as the incredible Austin City Limits Festival, Austin has a vibrant and [...]]]>

We are proud to announce that Receptive Music’s headquarters are now based out of the Live Music Capital of the World: Austin, Texas!

Well-known for being home to SXSW Conference + Festival, as well as the incredible Austin City Limits Festival, Austin has a vibrant and thriving climate for technology and music companies, and we are now proud to call it home.

The City of Austin is also frequently highly ranked in categories across the board, such as:

• #1 City for Small Business Creation + Development, On Numbers, 2011
• #1 Market for Young Adults, Austin Business Journal, March 2010
• #1 for Job Growth Potential, NewGeography.com, April 2009
• #1 City for Job Growth, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2009
• #1 City in the U.S. for Best Economic Recovery, Forbes, March 2010
• #1 City for a Career, based on growth, unemployment rates, average salaries, cost of living and commute, WomenCo., May 2009
• #1 for Healthiest Housing Market, Builder Magazine, October 2009
• One of the Ten Greenest Cities in the U.S., The Mother Nature Network, July 2009
• One of the Eight Ideal Places for Foodies to Retire, Where to Retire, May/June 2009
• 2nd Fastest Growing Metropolitan Area between 2007 and 2008, U.S. Census Bureau, March 2009
• #2 out of the nation’s top 40 economies, Businessweek, September 2009
• #4 in the nation’s top economic performers, as ranked in the Best Performing Index, The Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners, January 2009
• #7 on the list of America’s Top Tech Centers, American Cities Business Journals, May 2009
• 8th place on Best Places for Business and Careers, Forbes.com, March 2009
• #9 on the American Fitness Index among ‘Fit’ cities, The American College of Sports Medicine, May 2009
• (Thank you to Bazaarvoice for the rankings list!)

If that’s not enough to get you to come visit, we’ll buy you some BBQ.  See you at SXSW.