Passive Promotion

What Artists Should Know About Earbits

Brian Hazard — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:41 +0000

Earbits is a personalized streaming radio site focused on independents, with no ads or subscription fees. Like Jango, Last.fm, and Grooveshark, they sell airtime packages to artists. At around a penny a play, it’s a relative bargain, especially since they only charge for songs played past the 30 second mark. Put another way, $50 buys you a bare minimum of 42 listener hours.

That wouldn’t matter if there weren’t any listeners, and there wouldn’t be any listeners if Earbits were overrun with suck. Fortunately, the staff reviews and approves every artist (you can apply here). Judging from the music I’ve heard, the bar is pretty high.

On the listener end of things, the radio experience is engaging. The only “advertising” on the page relates to the band you’re listening to. A high resolution photo fills the screen, with play controls at the top and share buttons on the bottom. A bio and comments are a click away, and artists can craft a slide-out ad with whatever text they want. I’ve been linking to my free song downloads, but touring bands can target specific geographical regions to help sell tickets.

Earbits integrates with Facebook on many levels. Beyond sharing, liking, and commenting, you can invite friends to listen along with you, and your play history appears in your Facebook activity stream.

As of this writing, Earbits’ average numbers across all bands are:

1.2% Facebook fans conversion (best performing band 2.7%)
2.4% clickthrough ratio on the slide-out ad (best performing band 8.1%)
1% conversion of mailing list signup (best performing band 3.3%)

For every 1,000 spins, Earbits’ bands average 11 Facebook fans, 24 clicks on their slide-out ad, and 10 signups on their mailing list.

I’ve spent $270 on back-to-back airtime packages since December. Because of changes in the way data is collected, my stats during the beta period are unrepresentative, but my results have been consistent over the past couple of months (click to enlarge):

For every 1,000 spins, I’m getting 13 Facebook fans and 33 clicks on my slide-out ad (the mailing list signup feature is a recent addition). I’m beating the average, but I’m nowhere near the best.

Looking at the data from another angle, I paid about $100 for 16,590 spins ($0.006 per spin) when you factor in plays less than 30 seconds. Since Earbits doesn’t charge for those, I’m getting 1/3 of my plays for free!

My $0.27 cost-per-click compares favorably to Facebook ads, which have ranged from $0.13 to $0.33 CPC. Even if I have to pay a little more, a click made while my song is playing is much more valuable to me.

Some people dismiss any form of pay-to-play as a scam, and consider it payola. Earbits is not a scam. You can submit your music and get free airplay – just not as much, and without the perks like slide-out ads and licensing opportunities. If you’re willing to pay for text ads on Google or Facebook, you might as well get the plays thrown in at about the same price.

Normally I’d make a few suggestions to improve the service, but things are changing by the week. Earbits just added the option to swap out the slide-out ad for a mailing list form, which I’m trying out. Soon they’ll add “layers” to the slide-out ad. For example, after a listener signs up for your mailing list, they’ll be presented with another opportunity to interact with the band.

I’m pretty sure they’re working on this, but I’d like to see my stats broken down by song, and for the best performing songs to be played more often. Taking that a step further, ideally the best performing songs would be played most often to first-time listeners, and the deeper cuts to returning listeners.

As you can tell, I’m pretty excited about Earbits, and I plan to continue using it. You can help me do that by signing up through this link or via the banner below. I’ll get 1000 free spins and you’ll get a 10% bonus on the spins you buy. In return, I’ll keep you informed with my results and any new wacky uses I come up with, like I have with Jango (four articles over three years).

Share your stats and strategies in the comments!

Brian Hazard Interviewed for M3 Event

Brian Hazard — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:09:30 +0000

M3 Event is a music conference focused on the future of music distribution, to be held in Maastricht, Netherlands on May 30. This series of lectures, talks, workshops, and discussions aims to generate some rational and intelligent debate about where the music industry is heading.

My interview with conference organizer Kez Whelen went live this morning. We discuss promotion strategies, the significance of the album, and piracy, plus I geek out explaining why the iPhone is my preferred listening medium.

Read and comment here.

7 Steps to Finding a Music Publisher

Helen Austin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:00:54 +0000

Back by popular demand, I’m proud to present another guest post by friend and music licensing veteran Helen Austin. -Brian

I’ve had songs with several publishers, from large instrumental libraries to publishers promising me Coke ads. I now write exclusively for pigFactory and get songs regularly placed in ads and on TV and movies (click here for a list of my placements).

I get quite a few emails asking me either how to find a publisher or how to know if someone who has contacted them is legitimate, so I assembled this list of ideas to explore:

1. Is your music ready?

This is so important. You need to critically listen to your music and ask yourself if it can realisitically be placed. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to include your music in a playlist with other successful music in your genre to see how it flows, both in sound quality and writing. If it sticks out like a sore thumb, focus on getting your music to a place where is stands the best chance of getting placements. You only get one chance to make a first impression!

2. Educate yourself!

It’s natural to get excited by the first publisher you encounter, but you could end up learning the hard way if you sign an agreement before learning the rules. It’s far better, if a little painful, to educate yourself in the field of publishing first. I recommend reading The New Songwriter’s Guide to Music Publishing by Randy Poe. It’s a lot to take in, but well worth your time. There are many other great books out there including Robin Fredrick’s Shortcut books - a great education in writing.

3. Google is your friend.

I’m always surprised when I get emails asking me things that are so easily found by using Google. Whether you’re looking for a publisher or want to know more about a specific one, Google them. But you have to look at all the info critically. If I believed everything I read on the internet I would never have ended up using Taxi which, by the way, is a great way to find a publisher. Other places that publishers put out a call for music on are Sonicbids, Broadjam and ReverbNation. There are others and these are all easily googleable.

4. Pick up the phone.

If you find yourself in the position of considering a certain publisher, talk to them. You can glean so much more from an actual conversation than from an email. This is the person who may be controlling your music, so it’s extremely important to have more than just a text relationship with them. Fifteen minutes on the phone can give you a feel for the person and company.

5. Use your gut.

Instincts are there for a reason. If you really want to sign an agreement but just don’t feel right about it, listen to that voice. These agreements can last a long time so it is worth holding out for the right person/company.

6. One song, one publisher.

Don’t sign the same song with more than one publisher, even if it’s a non-exclusive agreement. Music supervisors don’t like that. I have been told by both publishers and supervisors that if they get the same song from more than one publisher, they will not only pass on the song, but blacklist the songwriter (see #2). You can avoid this by writing a lot and having a bunch of songs to sign with different publishers to test the waters. I did this for a while before signing an exclusive agreement.

7. Find a lawyer.

If you find yourself with a contract to sign, find a good music lawyer. A recommendation is the best way to go. It may be expensive initially, but will most likely save you money and heartache down the line. It also gives you peace of mind because, if you’re anything like me, you’ll fall asleep reading the contract and may miss something.

Connecting with a publisher is a lot of hard work, but for those of us who are driven to make music, it’s worth it. Good luck!

For more information on music licensing, see Helen’s previous article:
4 Steps to Film and TV Placement

An Argument Against “Pay What You Want” Pricing

Brian Hazard — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:00:31 +0000

Lady Gaga shot to the top of the sales charts upon the release of her last album, in part because it was deeply discounted on Amazon. Radiohead pioneered the “pay what you want” approach, with most downloaders opting to pay nothing at all. Last week I asked my fans which pricing model they prefer, and received dozens of enlightening and thoughtful answers. The discussion continues, but as you’ve already deduced from the title of this article, I’ve made my decision.

I tried both approaches over the past two months, with two full-length rarities sets. Both consist of material already released on USB key, so the audience is relatively limited. I sold the first set for $5 with a discount code, and made the second set name-your-price. The latter features more recent recordings, and is clearly the superior release, so there’s little point in comparing sales numbers directly.

Name-your-price certainly has a lot going for it:

It provides a legal alternative to piracy
It generates far more downloads, which can boost your mailing list if you require an email address
Anyone can “own” your album, even in countries with weak economies or rampant piracy (a decent percentage of my downloads were from Russia)
People are more likely to share a link to a “free” download with their friends
Potential fans can download first, and decide if they like it later

But in my opinion, those pros don’t offset the cons:

“You get what you pay for” is a deeply embedded mental shortcut that holds true in most cases. By that maxim, free music is worthless. Yet when we pay for something, we’ve already at some level decided we’re going to like it. Which perception do you want to reinforce?
It means less money per download. A lot less. I averaged $2, with 70% of downloaders opting to pay nothing.
It forces every fan to tell you what your music is worth to them.

That last one is a dealbreaker for me. Each of my fans knows that when they enter a dollar amount, I’m going to see it. Some even follow up with an email to explain their thought process. This creates a lot of unnecessary friction. While it may compel some to opt for a higher price, the decision can be paralyzing, as Color Theory fan Simon Lewis describes in the comments:

I spent too long pondering how much to pay that I missed my chance. I don’t want to rip off the artists (especially ones I care about) but I also want to get stuff cheap (who doesn’t love a bargain?). Then I listened to the ep several times because I could and, although I really liked it, felt I didn’t need to download it yet. I would opt for having just samples up there to tempt me into buying it all. I should have just bought it for the price you put on the first one (but is that enough?).

Even if you set a minimum price, the option to pay more can be a stumbling block. Of course, those who don’t care what you think will enter the minimum and download away, but are those the fans you want to cultivate?

Here’s my 3-step plan for next time:

Keep in mind that I don’t have the time or resources to create an elaborate collector’s edition or ancillary merchandise, so a tiered approach isn’t an option. Nor do I perform. All I have to offer is the music itself.

Three weeks before the release date, I’ll give away a free song in exchange for an email address (via my Bandcamp site).
Two weeks before the release date, I’ll start taking pre-orders at $5. I’ll post a single 2-3 minute audio teaser with 30 seconds each of 4-6 songs.
On the release date, the price will go up to $10 and the entire album will be streamable.

What do you think? Will this provide the best experience for the fans?

What Artists Should Know About Headliner.fm

Brian Hazard — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:54 +0000

Headliner.fm is a platform for trading recommendations with other artists on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. You “buy” recommendations using a virtual currency called band bucks, which can be purchased outright for real money or earned by recommending other artists.

Creating a promotion is deceptively simple. You start by writing the recommendation and adding a link:

I say “deceptively” because I managed to botch my first one, to the tune of 48,043 band bucks. You’re supposed to put your link in the URL box and then click “shorten URL,” which appends a bit.ly link to the message. I wanted people to see where the link went, which makes it more likely to be clicked, so I didn’t shorten it.

My heart sank when I saw that my first recommender’s status update was missing the link. I immediately withdrew the promotion, which only removes it from the pool of promotions artists can accept. I still had to pay for every pending recommendation, even though some were scheduled weeks ahead!

The rest of the options are relatively straightforward. Choose your networks, genres of artists who can recommend you, and any particular artists you’d like to add. To restrict the promotion to a certain city (US only), start typing its name and hope it appears in the drop-down box. You can set the campaign to run for 3, 7, 14 or 30 days.

Surprisingly, you can’t choose how many band bucks to allocate to a promotion, which makes it difficult if not impossible to split test multiple campaigns. Weak!

My Results

I’ve run four promotions over the two months I’ve been using Headliner.fm. The first three are identical (beyond the missing link in the first), hyping a “best of” set I made available for free download through Christmas:

Depeche Mode and Postal Service fans, grab this Color Theory best-of album now, while it’s free! http://bit.ly/ctbohl2

The fourth references a fan favorite from my Depeche Mode tribute album:

Color Theory covers the Depeche Mode classic “But Not Tonight” http://bit.ly/zUbjk8

In total, I reached 111,318 “new fans,” as Headliner.fm optimistically refers to those who could potentially see the status update. Those 111K exposures generated 67 clicks, 8 likes, and 1 comment.

You read that right: out of 122 status updates recommending my music, potentially reaching 111,318 people, exactly one person commented. I would expect dozens if not hundreds of comments, even just “thanks for the link” or “not my cup of tea.” And eight likes – that’s it?

What are these artists’ recommendations worth when their fanbases are so disengaged?

The overall clickthrough ratio of my four promotions was 0.06%. Contrast that with a long-running ad I’ve had on Facebook that’s pretty much identical to my fourth Headliner.fm promotion. It’s averaging a CTR of 0.16% (at $0.16 CPC), and each one of those clicks is a like on my Facebook page!

Based on my results, I don’t think Headliner.fm is worth paying for.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to!

Simply by connecting Headliner.fm to SoundCloud, I got a six month pro account for free. I have yet to receive my monthly 300,000 band buck allowance, but I started out with over 100,000 band bucks! Check out all these bonuses (click to enlarge):

It’s a lucky thing too, because to put it nicely, I’m not finding many artists on Headliner.fm that I can genuinely recommend.

Suggestions

I know I’m coming down hard on Headliner.fm, but I really do love the concept. Here’s what I suggest:

Measure influence accurately. One small tweak to the formula would account for the all too many artists with artificially inflated like/follower counts: The band bucks an artist receives for a recommendation should be equal to the number of exposures multiplied by the artist’s Klout score, expressed as a percentage. For example, if my Klout score is 50 and I recommend an artist to 10,000 of my fans, I earn 5000 band bucks (10,000 x 0.50).
Let us cut our losses. If a promotion isn’t delivering the results I hoped for, I should be able to cancel it, effective immediately. Watching my band bucks drain away on that first campaign, due to – let’s face it – a design flaw (accepting a promotion without a link), made a lousy first impression.
Review every promotion. I’m often asked to post a status update saying “check out my new song” – with a link to someone else’s song. Amateur mistakes litter the requests feed, making it even harder to find acts to recommend.
Make campaigns flexible. Why limit them to 3, 7, 14, or 30 days? Let me set a daily, weekly, or monthly budget, or set a band buck ceiling. How about “set it and forget it campaigns” that continue running until they’re cancelled?
Dump MySpace. This one’s a no-brainer. It’s hard to take any MySpace partner seriously in 2012. If you want to include a third social network, make it Google+.
Tailor updates to individual networks. Nothing screams “spam” like Twitter hashtags on Facebook. On the other hand, a Facebook or Twitter update referencing a big name band (using @bignameband) exposes my promotion to a vastly larger audience. Let us customize our promotions using each network’s API, to maximize our reach.
Embeddable players. Make a Facebook-embeddable player a la Bandcamp with a prominent “buy” button, that measures plays (partial vs skips), shares, and mailing list signups. People are more likely to listen if they don’t have to click off-site.

Until some of these changes are implemented, or I get my promised 300,000 monthly band buck allowance, I’m done with Headliner.fm.

Have you had better luck? Any other suggestions? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

Why I Still Use Jango

Brian Hazard — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:00:21 +0000

Jango offers free Pandora-style internet radio. Type in an artist’s name and it generates a playlist of related songs. Jango Airplay lets artists buy their way into the recommendation engine, promising guaranteed airplay alongside your pick of big names.

I’ve been running Jango campaigns pretty much continuously since the service launched in March of 2009. My songs have been played 270,000 times, 23% of which were unpaid “organic” plays. It cost me $1841.50 out of my own pocket, plus at least that much in affiliate earnings from my previous articles on the topic.

What’s my return on that investment? There’s no way to know.

Jango reports 25,000 likes and 9800 fans, but those terms have little meaning. A like on Jango is a simple thumbs-up that has nothing to do with Facebook, and most of those “fans” are unreachable. An average of one email address per day has been shared with me since that feature launched in early 2010, but those 700 email addresses alone don’t justify the expense.

The reason I stick with it is because I’ve seen so many Jango listeners become genuine fans. They friend me on Facebook, reply to my email updates, comment on my YouTube videos, and yes, buy my music. With the possible exception of Facebook Ads, I’m convinced Jango is the best passive promotion out there.

Others are skeptical. This site’s top Google search term is “jango airplay scam.” Some suggest that while the service does what it claims to do, any form of pay-for-play is payola (I address that argument here). Conspiracy theorists claim that the entire service is a fraud, and that the comments and realtime listener feed are faked (despite the fact that many comments clearly apply to a particular song, and that you can message listeners directly from the feed).

Jango could go a long way towards dispelling these concerns by finally fixing the weakest aspect of the service: artist-to-fan communication.

When I send out a mass email to 9800 fans, I typically get only one or two responses. With a response rate of 0.0002%, it’s natural to wonder if anyone is really out there.

The problem is that the listener’s inbox is tucked away in a drop-down menu. The vast majority of Jango users almost certainly don’t realize they have an inbox.

I suggest Jango eliminate all social networking features and share new fans’ email addresses by default, unless a box is unchecked. Then add a full-featured fan management system like ReverbNation’s FanReach, with an export function and full analytics including open and clickthrough rates.

While I’m making suggestions, I’d love to see a percentage of likes for each song, which would make it easy to tell the hits from the misses, and simplify running a focus group.

To their credit, Jango has added plenty of new features since I first wrote about it. Highlights include:

1. Custom promo module. You can now choose exactly what listeners see when your song plays. I’m using the “Facebook Likes” module, which connects directly to my Facebook page. It also includes a custom text link, plus icon links to web profiles and stores (you can see it at the top of this post).

2. Band Central. A new mini-site showcasing Airplay artists, sorted by genre, geography, or “popularity.” You’d think popularity would mean the number of fans, but it’s actually based on PopScore: a much-maligned metric of quality algorithmically derived from fan response.

3. The Jango Airplay Blog and how-to support links. The staff is much more accessible and social, and the site’s inner workings more transparent, than when the service first launched. The blog and how-to’s are full of tips and strategies, plus contests and weekly top 10′s. For example, one post walks you through creating a spoken audio intro for your songs. Great idea!

4. Royalties. This isn’t exactly a feature, but after much speculation I can now confirm that Jango does pay royalties. I received a whopping $13.23 from Jango via SoundExchange last quarter. Based on that low figure, my guess is that they only pay royalties on free “organic” plays, not paid plays through the Airplay program. Hey, it’s more than I got from Last.fm!

Though there’s still plenty of room for improvement, Jango is better than ever. I’ll continue to report back with my results, recycling all money earned through my affiliate link into plays.

For more information on Jango and similar services, see my previous articles:
The Jango Focus Group
Is Jango Payola?
What Artists Should Know About Jango
Is a Last.fm Powerplay Campaign Right for You?

What Artists Should Know About ReverbNation’s Promote It

Brian Hazard — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:00:49 +0000

Running a Facebook ad campaign is confusing. You bid for ad placement, but the price you pay bears little relation to your bid. What’s the difference between reach and social reach, connections and clicks, CPC and CPM? More importantly, is there any way to tell how many people played, downloaded, and shared your song, or signed up for your mailing list? (answer: no, there’s not)

ReverbNation’s new Promote It tool addresses those shortcomings, and then some. You pick a song, photo, and budget, and it automatically generates dozens of optimized Facebook ads based on past Promote It campaigns, and continually optimizes your campaign based on the performance of those ads. New fans click through to customized landing pages that track not just clicks and likes, but plays, downloads, shares, wall posts, and mailing list signups. As I’m quoted as saying in the press release, “It’s the ultimate ‘set it and forget it’ fan-making machine!”

I was invited to try it out and provide feedback during the beta period, and I’m flattered that some of my suggestions made it into the final product. So far I’ve run six campaigns. Let’s walk through the creation and performance of my latest and most successful one.

As of this writing, there are two types of campaigns available: promote a song, and promote your Facebook page. Soon you’ll also be able to promote a show or release. Most of my experience is with promote a song, so let’s continue with that:

Setting up your Promote a Song campaign requires nine simple inputs:

1. Which Song Would You Like to Promote? You should pick one that grabs the listener in the first 5-10 seconds. The song I chose starts right in on the first verse, with no instrumental introduction whatsoever.

2. Pick 5 Similar Artists. Since I was promoting a Depeche Mode cover song, I picked the band and its members’ solo projects: Dave Gahan (lead singer), Martin L Gore (songwriter), and Alan Wilder (long-departed yet still beloved keyboardist/producer) – plus Erasure, since half of that duo was in the original line-up of DM.

The product manager for Promote It told me that artists who have between 50,000 and 500,000 likes work best, and my results bear that out:

The Dave Gahan ads performed so well that they completely crowded out the rest. Perhaps it’s because Depeche Mode has millions of casual fans, but only the most serious ones keep up with the lead singer’s solo work, and are therefore more motivated to check out my cover.

3. Write Ad Text. You can choose to author one of the ads yourself, or let Promote It generate them all. Since my custom ad was outperformed by the auto-generated ads, I won’t bother sharing it with you.

4. Choose Picture. Your choice here can make or break the campaign! My previous campaign was identical to this one, except I used a close-up of yours truly. The results were pathetic. It should come as no surprise that a photo featuring 1) a world-famous band and 2) an attractive female does a better job of catching the eye.

5. Geo-Targeting. Choose between local (your state), national, all English-speaking countries, or global. Theoretically you should get the best results from global, but national did just as well for me in my limited experience.

6-8. Name Your Campaign, Sync with Facebook, Start Date. Pretty much self-explanatory.

9. Budget. Choose between $25, $50, $100, $250, or $500 on a one-time, weekly, or monthly basis. I recommend you experiment with successive $25 campaigns until you find a winning formula, and expand from there.

My $50 campaign lasted six days. Here are the results (click to enlarge):

I was most pleased with the 44 mailing list signups, but 57 likes is nice too. There’s sure to be some overlap between those two figures, but in any case, that’s a lot of new fans who will be hearing from me on a regular basis.

How does Promote It compare to running Facebook ads directly?

It really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you just want to boost the number of likes on your page, direct ads have a serious advantage: you can structure them so that a click is a like.

But if you’re looking for the kind of things we musicians tend to care most about: song plays, downloads, shares, and mailing list signups, there’s no way to know which is best. Facebook doesn’t provide that information.

And no, you can’t just take the best performing Promote It ad and copy it over to Facebook. ReverbNation doesn’t share the text of its auto-generated ads with you, perhaps for that very reason.

But who says you have to choose? I use both.

How is Promote It working for you? Please share your results in the comments. To see it in action, check out this short video.

How I Got 96 Album Cover Designs for $145 (and why I’ll never do it again)

Brian Hazard — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:44:18 +0000

Quality graphic design is expensive. I paid $500 just to license the cover image for my last album, plus $600 for the rest of the design. That’s fine every couple of years, but now that I’m releasing songs individually, I need a cover design every month or two. I decided to give 99designs a try, and the results far exceeded my expectations. For $145, I got 96 custom designs from 33 different designers. Sure, some were amateur, but a solid half were usable, and a handful were excellent.

Sound too good to be true? Yes, it does. In fact, I hesitated to write this article. More on that later.

Contrary to what you might expect, 99designs doesn’t have an in-house design team. They host a design contest on your behalf, in which anyone can participate. As with any contest, there are winners and losers. That’s right – only the winner gets paid, though you can buy extra designs by selecting multiple winners. In my case, 95 of the 96 designs were done “on spec” i.e. for free. And you thought the music industry was cutthroat.

It takes all of five minutes to launch your own contest:

Choose what you want designed. Prices start at $95 for a Twitter background, all the way up to $495 for a web site. “Print & Packaging Design” starts at $195, but since I only needed one image for digital release, I selected the “Other Graphic Design” category, starting at $145.
Write the design brief. This is where you spell out to the designers exactly what you’re looking for (see mine here). I made it clear that my contest wasn’t intended to be a one-off gig, but the start of a working partnership. Perhaps that’s why I got so many entries.
Set your price. There are three tiers to choose from: gold, silver, and bronze ($595, $295, and $145 respectively in the ”Other Graphic Design” category). You can also name your own price, as long as it’s above the bronze package minimum. Presumably, the more money you offer, the better designers you’ll attract.
Choose your preferences. Several other options are available. You can make the contest blind, so that only you can view the entries. You can guarantee the contest, ensuring designers that the prize money will be awarded. If you don’t, you’re free to back out at any time for a full refund. Finally, you can pay extra for a shorter than 7-day contest, or for extra visibility on the site.

Within a few hours, the designs started rolling in. I planned to just kick back and revel in the artistic brilliance, but corresponding with 33 designers quickly turned into a full-time job. Here’s how to keep your contest running smoothly:

Eliminate hopeless causes. Some designers simply aren’t up to par, and though it seems cruel, you’ll be doing them a favor by eliminating them outright. I was seriously racked with guilt over the amount of work people were putting in, and figured the least I could do was provide plenty of feedback. That only encouraged them to try harder, which was ultimately a waste of everyone’s time.
Steer the process. Provide ongoing feedback for all the designers on the main contest page. Believe it or not, I had to remind everyone that album covers are perfectly square (or at least in iTunes). After receiving dozens of entries featuring hands, I declared that theme officially played out. In retrospect, I should have insisted that designers get my approval on rough designs or photos before proceeding.
Check for copyright violations. I used TinEye reverse image search to see if potential contenders matched other images on the web. If you’re the least bit suspicious, ask. If you’re not happy with the answer, eliminate. The best design in the world isn’t worth a lawsuit. Stock photos are acceptable, if clearly presented as such.
Screen the designers. Grab some clues from their 99designs profile and Google away. Do they have a dedicated site hosting their portfolio? Look them up on Flickr, deviantART, Facebook, even Twitter. How responsive are they to your feedback? Is this someone you’d hire again?
Get outside feedback. 99designs has a slick polling feature. You can create as many polls as you want to gather opinions privately, or solicit them publicly on your blog, Facebook, or Twitter. My fans made it abundantly clear which design they wanted, and as luck would have it, I was leaning that way anyway! Even if your mind is pretty much made up, a poll builds awareness of the release and gives fans a chance to participate in the creative process.

Why wouldn’t I do it again?

Shortly after launching my contest, two graphic designer friends voiced their disapproval, claiming that 99designs and other crowdsourcing sites erode the basic fabric and cost structure of the industry. One thing’s for sure: the format is absurdly inefficient. I shouldn’t be able to pay $1.50 per design, should I? That’s why I hesitated to write this article.

On the other hand, it’s a free market economy. If the risk isn’t worth the reward, don’t enter the contest! How is it different from pitching a song for a tip sheet, or entering a remix contest?

Then there’s the whole outsourcing angle. The winning designer in my contest is from Romania, where $145 is a decent week’s salary (EDIT: turns out they only receive $100, but the point remains). Should I pay four times as much to keep the money here in the US?

Tough questions for sure, but for now, I’ve got no reason to launch another contest. I’m happy to hire the winning designer, or several of the “losing” designers, first. Click on one of the thumbnails below to view their contest entries, and feel free to contact them directly. If you decide to launch your own contest on 99designs, please use my affiliate link.

Prescreen Your Future Fans with Twitter

Brian Hazard — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:00:59 +0000

Two months ago, I began implementing Ariel Hyatt and Carla Lynne Hall’s strategy to increase my Twitter following, as laid out in their book Musician’s Roadmap to Facebook and Twitter. The basic idea is to follow potential fans in the hope that they will follow back. I discovered that the more selective I am in choosing who to follow, the more likely I am to connect with people who may become genuine fans. I’ll share my process and results below.

Optimize your profile. Every potential follower will first scan your profile to figure out who you are and why you followed them, and decide whether or not to follow back based on what they see. Be sure to include a short “elevator pitch” that accurately describes your sound, a link to your site, and a reference to a related band or two. I describe my music as “electronic indie piano pop for fans of The Postal Service, Depeche Mode, and Owl City.”

Follow related bands’ followers. In my case, that means finding the official profile of The Postal Service, Depeche Mode, or Owl City and following their followers. With any luck, they’ll click through to my profile, spot my reference to the related band, follow back, and maybe even take a listen.

But I don’t just follow anyone! I prescreen each potential fan to ensure they meet the following criteria:

1. At least 20 followers. I learned this the hard way! After my first indiscriminate following session, I received several direct messages asking “do I know you?” People with low follower counts are likely tweeting only to close friends. The idea here is to get noticed without invading anyone’s privacy.

2. No approval required. Along the same lines, I don’t send follow requests to users who keep their tweets private. It strikes me as rude. If I click on the follow button and see “pending (cancel),” I immediately cancel. Perhaps someone more bold than me will experiment with a request-only strategy and share their results.

3. Last tweet less than one week old. There’s no point in following inactive accounts. While our main goal is to attract potential fans, we might as well narrow our focus on people who can help spread our message. That means active Twitter users with public tweets that reach a respectable number of people.

4. No egg icon. While we’re on the topic of respect, no self-respecting Twitter user keeps the default egg icon as their avatar. If they can’t even bother to upload a profile photo, they’re not worth following.

5. Following 30-300. If a user follows less than 30 people, they won’t follow me. If they follow more than 300, they won’t notice me.

6. English speaking. I realize that users who Tweet in other languages could very well speak English, and even spread my message in their native language. Still, it’s disingenuous to follow someone when you don’t understand what they’re saying.

7. No businesses. Businesses are on Twitter to promote their brand and services. Even if they happen to follow related bands, they’re not likely to evangelize. Stick with personal accounts.

8. No back-scratchers. Many profiles state something along the lines of “follow and I will follow back.” My mission is to find new fans, not to artificially inflate my numbers with people who don’t care about my music.

9. No Beliebers. Justin Bieber takes up 3% of all Twitter traffic. If I see him mentioned in a user’s profile or tweet stream, I immediately unfollow. Beliebers have a nasty habit of retweeting anything even casually Bieber-related, including desperate pleas for the little man to follow them back.

These are guidelines, not rules. If I come across a person that interests me, I’ll follow them regardless. If someone meets the criteria but rubs me the wrong way, I won’t. Go with your gut.

I keep at this until I follow 50 new users, which takes about 20 minutes. To check my progress, I use the find function in Chrome to search for the word “following” on the current page until I see 53 hits (three instances of the word appear naturally on the page before you start following anyone).

Unfollow non-followers. After two days, I use JustUnfollow to unfollow the users who aren’t following me back, usually about 40. This step is crucial because 1) Twitter only lets you follow 2000 users unless a higher number follow you, and 2) high following counts coupled with low follower counts look amateur. After unfollowing, it’s right back to following related bands’ followers, ad infinitum.

Beliebers or no, your Twitter stream will quickly become cluttered. To counter this, create a list of users you actually want to keep track of, and bookmark that page. While it’s important to interact with your new followers, it’s tough to stay on top of more than 150. I have Twilert send me email updates that mention me, my band, or my latest album at 4 pm daily, so I don’t miss out on anything of direct concern.

Hey look, it works! On March 18, I had 700 “organic” followers, the natural result of using Twitter since December of 2008. Eight weeks later, I’m approaching 1000.

On the flipside, I’m following almost 400 users, four times more than when I started. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a chore. 20 minutes every two days may not seem like much, but it sure ain’t passive promotion.

If you’ve got any ideas to further refine the process, please share them in the comments! And if one day you discover I’m following you on Twitter, I hope you’ll recognize the high honor it confers and follow back.

A Mastering Engineer’s Guide to Final Mixdown

Brian Hazard — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:00:02 +0000

“Garbage in, garbage out” is a common saying among mastering engineers. The quality of the source material limits the quality of the final product. Most of my clients have no problem following my simple preparation instructions, but they stop there. They figure once each mix sounds as good as they can get it, they’re done. In fact, there’s a higher level of refinement that pays huge dividends. I’ll break it down in this mastering engineer’s guide to final mixdown (which I promised in an interview back in January – sorry for the delay!).

1. Choose a reference. Find a major label track with the tonal balance you’re looking for – ideally something that hasn’t been totally decimated in mastering, since you’ll be comparing it to your unmastered tracks. If you followed my earlier advice on using a reference during the mixing process, you’ll want to use the same track here.

2. Load in your tracks. I’m assuming that you’ve already rendered all the tracks for your release as stereo 24-bit or higher .wav or AIFF files, with no processing on the master bus, and that they peak under 0 dB. If they hit 0 dB, that means they’re clipped. Lower the gain on the master bus by 6 dB and try again. Once you’ve got clean mixdowns, fire up your DAW and put each of them and your reference on separate channels, like so:

My reference track and six mixdowns

3. Trim each track down to a representative clip. We’re going to use the loudest section of each track as a stand-in for the entire mix. In most cases, this means trimming all but 15 seconds or so of the chorus. Be sure to solo each channel before you hit play so you don’t blow your ears out! In fact, turn down your reference track by 12 dB right off the bat, since it’s already mastered. You’ll end up with something like this:

A representative 15 seconds of each track (note the timeline at the bottom)

4. Match volumes. Bounce between the reference and your mixdowns, adjusting volume levels until everything matches. Be sure to make the gain adjustment at the clip level, not on the channel, so you won’t lose your settings when we…

5. Line up all the clips onto a single channel. Alternate between reference and mixdown, like so:

Reference, mixdown, reference, mixdown...

6. A/B compare your mixdowns and reference. Hit play and close your eyes. How does each mixdown sound immediately after the reference track? Bright? Dull? Muddy? Boomy? Take plenty of notes, and keep fine-tuning the volume of your clips.

7. Back to the drawing board. Use your notes to make adjustments to your mixes. Import your reference track into each of your projects if you haven’t already. If a mix is too bright, an easy fix is to lower the hi-hats. If a mix is too bassy, ensure the low end is rolled off of non-bass instruments and/or turn down the kick and bass (I detail the process here). If a mix is too muddy, look at cutting some 200-400 Hz, raising some rolloff frequencies, or thinning out the arrangement. Don’t forget to scan the entire track for consistency – not just the chorus.

8. Render, remix, repeat. Open back up our project, shuffle the clips around, take more notes, and keep adjusting your mixes. When they sound consistent, remove the internal reference track clips and shuffle them some more. Eventually you can eliminate the reference track completely. I can’t stress enough how important it is to take frequent breaks! Continue to fine tune your mixes until they match to the best of your abilities, preferably over the course of several days.

Reference, mixdown, mixdown, mixdown...

You may be wondering, “Did I just master my album?” No, but you made your mastering engineer’s job a lot easier (easier still if you passed along the final volume levels of each of your clips). You minimized the amount of EQ your ME needs to use to create a consistent tonal balance, which means less phase coloration. It means that instead of correcting problems in your mixes, your ME can focus on finding the density and punch that best serves your music on a broad range of playback systems. It means no nasty surprises when you hear your mastered release for the first time, because your ME didn’t have to cut 10 dB off the highs to tame that hi-hat you couldn’t get enough of. It means better sound, and ultimately, better sales.

For more mixing advice, see my other articles:
Spectral Management
Tighten the Low End of Your Mix with a Frequency Analyzer
Keep Your Mixes Consistent by Using a Reference