How to Write a Band Bio If you are a working musician – or aspire to be a working musician – you need to be able to sell yourself and your music. At some point you may have to present your work to a record label or publishing company and you will be competing against many other artists for a label representative’s attention. Believe it or not, it is very similar to applying for a job: your band needs a resume and it needs to stand out. This is accomplished with two key pieces of information – a bio and a factsheet. A bio and factsheet are useful for many different reasons. A record labels A&R representative will use your bio and factsheet to determine if your band is a good fit for their label – likewise radio stations look at your bio/factsheet before they bother to listen to your music, there’s only so much time in the day and if your bio doesn’t sound like you fit with the station then they won’t even crack the case on your album. There are two primary ways to go about creating a bio and factsheet.
6 Essential Elements Of A Music Digital Press Kit [Musician Website Quick Fix #9] Guest post from musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle. When creating your website, you have to think about the different kinds of people that will be visiting it. These can be your current fans, potential new fans, as well as media and industry people. For that latter group, they’re likely looking for different information than your fans are, and you have to be sure to make it easy for them to find it. This can best be done by adding a Digital Press Kit to your website. 6 Essential Elements for your Digital Press Kit 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Where to place a Digital Press Kit on your Website A digital press kit is an important element of your website, so create a “Press” or “Press Kit” section and include it as part of your main menu navigation.
Creating a Perfect Pitch - Laser Focus Your Message We had Music PR superstar Ariel Hyatt as a guest here a few weeks ago, announcing Bandzoogle's sponsorship of her Music Success in 9 Weeks Blogging Challenge. The Challenge is in full swing, with many old and new Bandzooglers taking part... among others: Jennifer Grassman, Hudson K, J Ammo, Sean Wright, Core Zero, Jacknife Stiletto, Atlas Take Aim, Brett Barry, Ed-O, Gord Yelich, Jay Trainer, Jordan Martyn, From Chaos, Maura Jensen, Meghan Morrison, Nicholas Howard, Agenda Red, Saturn, The April Maze, (wheeew... and more... let us know in the comments if we forgot you). After setting some goals, Week 2 was all about creating a pitch about your band or solo act. We liked the advice so much that we asked Ariel if she would re-blog that chapter here and she gracefully accepted. The Internet is full of messages only the ones with Laser Focus will stand out. A pitch has many names. Creating Your Pitch Take out a clean piece of paper, or open a new doc on your computer and: 1. Still not sure?
How to Make Sure A Potential Fan Never Comes Back to Your Website “But wait – don’t I want them to come back to my site?” Yes, you do. All the time. It’s 2013, and the web-surfing public has lost nearly all patience for things on the web that don’t work/look/act right. Here are some things that might give people a great reason to run screaming away from your site, vowing never to return. * Flash intros. * Not being mobile-ready. * Hard-to-read text. * Your site’s design is from the Stone Age. * Rampant grammar/spelling errors. * Too many ads/overlays. * Auto-playing music or video. * Bad nav. * Lack of updates. * No social sharing. What are some of the things that make you instantly dislike a website? Creating a professional author or musician websites takes a matter of minutes with HostBaby — FREE for 30 days! [Picture of ARRRRG!
Call to Action! 10 Ways To Grow One Gigantic Mailing List This guest post was written our very own Jon Ostrow, Cyber PR®’s publicity director, who can be reached by email or on Twitter! Email addresses collected from your fan base is an invaluable marketing tool. While social media’s real-time centricity remains it’s own beast of burden, email addresses allow you to target specific fans and then contact them directly, at any given time. A well-executed email marketing strategy can mean increased loyalty, increased engagement and ultimately an increase in revenue made from your fans, be it through recordings, ticket sales, merch, or other wise. So obviously, the act of collecting the email addresses from your fan base is vital to your success and therefore you need a strategy that maximizes the chance of your fans actually giving you their email address. This is not something you want to leave up to chance. The key is to make the offer that is high in: Desirability Don’t be afraid to ask fans what would make them excited and keep them interested.
e-Journal - Press Release Headline Do's and Don'ts Press Release Headline Do's and Don'ts Before a writer or editor will read your press release, he or she must have a reason to look it over. A good headline and subhead combination can make the difference between a press release that gets read and exposed ... and one that gets ignored. Nowhere is this more true than with online press release postings. Take a look at mi2n.com/news/bands -- where bands and record labels post hundreds of PR notices. All you see is a listing of short headlines and slightly longer subheads. Here are some examples of headlines from the mi2n.com site, along with my thoughts on what works and what doesn't: Headline: Tito Puente Jr and His Orchestra Subhead: Tito Puente Jr Orchestra Ready for the World Comments: The best headlines succinctly spell out the essence of the news story. Headline: Marillion 'Anorak in the UK Live' Subhead: Marillion have delighted in attacking musical conventionality and have succeeded in forging a distinctive identity back | top
Music Industry News Network Ideal for artists and labels, as well as supporting promoters and agencies, Mi2N Music PR service provides guaranteed press release placements through a network of newswires, eGroups, blog communities, boards and forums, as well as MP3 and video distribution. In addition to guaranteed PR placement, the packages provide exposure through the Mi2N website and daily newsletters sent to over 24,000 music professionals across the globe. Order any Mi2N Music PR package and receive 3 months of All Access membership on Musicpage.com, a secure online community built to promote musicians and music professionals to the music industry. You will be able to choose a Music PR package for your PR in Step 3 of the submission process below.
A No-Cost Back Door to Getting Your Music On The Radio Today I’d like to share a resource with you guys that only came to my attention recently. It’s called RadioGuestList.com and it’s essentially a no-cost back door to getting radio publicity and exposure. In a nutshell, RGL is a service that connects radio show bookers, podcasters, talk radio show hosts and even television producers with expert guests to fill their shows. So how do you qualify as an expert guest? First the obvious one: You are likely a recording, performing, and all around professional musician and therefore an expert on the subject. But that’s fairly straight forward. Getting any kind of publicity (radio or otherwise) is going to be hard if you are only looking for publications that want to share the latest rock, pop, or hip hop artist with their listeners/readers. To use myself as an example, here are a few areas that have strongly defined me as a person over the last few years. Here’s an example… • Be informed – This is obvious but it’s needs to be mentioned.
How to Write a Music Bio The following article is a guest post by Julia L. Rogers. Julia helps me behind the scenes at MusicianCoaching.com. As an artist or band, you’re going to be repeatedly forced to explain yourself. The most important thing to remember is that your artist bio is not a rambling autobiography or the introduction to your future memoirs: Your bio is a professional sales tool. If you want to be taken seriously as an artist, you have to have promotional material. The following are some tips for writing a riveting bio that will make people want embrace you and your music. Clearly define your mission statement. Above all, remember that your band bio needs to have a positive tone, be straightforwardly enlightening and filled with positive comments – and even second-party quotes — about you.
How To Write An Artist Bio That Really Stands Out - TrackHustle.com I’m always surprised to see how few artists have quality bios. What I often find is a (seemingly) quickly patched together paragraph or two that ends up communicating little or nothing about the band’s history or the sound and style of their music, and even more sadly, most bios provide the reader absolutely no context for which to listen to the music and get a sense of the artist. When I was a major label A&R man, I always looked at the artist’s bio to get some basic information about the artist I was checking out. And while I trained myself to have low expectations in regard to bios from independent acts, very few gave me even the most basic information about the artist that I wanted. A well-done bio is essential. Think of it as a window into your world - your bio is a direct introduction of you to writers, booking agents, and industry people that you want to pay attention to your music so you can get the opportunities you’ve been dreaming of. A Bio Consists Of: 1. 2. 3. 4.
FutureHit.DNA | The Site of Author, Jay Frank How many e-mails do you get from musicians? How many of them do you actually read? How many do you respond to? While many digital music experts constantly talk about the importance of the valid e-mail list to a musician, they seldom discuss what should be IN those e-mails. Given the messages I’ve gotten in the last few weeks, it’s clear that very few artists know. In an admittedly unscientific approach, but fun nevertheless, I examined the 63 emails I got from artists in the last two weeks and found some very common ground. By far, tour dates are the #1 thing musicians put in their emails, with nearly 60% doing so. I get it. Chances are your phone has the ability to record video. Why do so many music biz people know Bob Lefsetz? If I combine every email that mentioned a fan contest, a Kickstarter campaign, a Stageit webcast, and the like, it still came out to less than 25% of the emails I received.
6 Social Media Tips for Music Producers & DJs (pt 2) | Point Blank Blog In Part 1 of our social media tips for music producers and DJs we looked at having tidy profiles, snappy biographies and a defined strategy. Now we look at some of the biggest mistakes to avoid and a simple way to stay ahead of the pack… 3. Chat, don’t broadcast. It’s quite easy to simply shout about how great your last gig was or how amazing the new track is sounding. 4. Likewise, harvesting ‘likes’ by forcing people to ‘like to win’ or ‘share to enter’ competitions is in direct breech of Facebook’s terms and conditions (even if you do see some big labels and artists pulling this trick regularly). 6. Search results - m31music - Dark Canyon Records Mail