Grow Your Audience
Seven things I learned from fifteen years behind the wheel at spinme.com
When spinme.com launched in 1997, we thought it would grow up to be Pitchfork. It hosted “Daily Digital Opinion,” J.F. Parnell’s album review mailing list, and our original discussion forums. What a precious logo we had when we launched: While “J.F.” got headhunted away to a series of larger media companies, I chased conversations in [...]
Build an Affordable, Essential Website for Your Band
Over the years, I’ve had plenty of arguments with musicians and with music management professionals about the importance of maintaining a website under your own domain. Their responses often included: * 1996: I don’t need my own domain. AOL gives me free web page hosting, and I’ll always have my AOL account! * 1998: I [...]
The Concert Photographer’s Manifesto
A recent post about concert photography on Australian website The Vine resulted in feedback from an anonymous concert photographer who left a so-called manifesto in the article’s comments. The Vine republished the photographer’s manifesto on its own page, in which the photog remarks that fan media have harmed both the business and the culture of [...]
Sharing sacrifice with your fans.
Al Lewis launched into a Wall Street Journal essay on the economy with the phrase: Shared sacrifice follows every disaster. It’s only a matter of deciding who shares it. Thinking about some of the choices Lori and I have been making in our own household, it’s not surprising that there’s a huge slump in ticket [...]
What’s the value of entertainment?
Hollywood’s going nuts this weekend, because of a deal between Lionsgate, Groupon, and Fandango, to pack theatre seats for the premiere weekend of Matthew McConaughey’s new movie, “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Here’s how the deal works. In most cities, it costs $11 to see a first-run movie. Lionsgate and Groupon offered a deal for $6 tickets [...]
Would you really want to be the next Rebecca Black?
Rebecca Black made it into the iTunes Top 100 this week. While Jay Frank’s analyzing the songwriting mechanics that make Rebecca Black’s “Friday” a chart success, I’ve been getting lots of e-mail and DMs about a new wave of song sharks using the viral video bandwagon to convince parents to sign their kids up for [...]
My @SproutSocial Experiment: Setting Boundaries on Social Media
I’ve been teaching some workshops on social media lately, and one of the questions that comes up very often involves how to keep Twitter and Facebook status updates from taking over your life. In the new edition of Grow Your Band’s Audience, I updated my advice about staying accessible and available. To stay focused on [...]
How microfunding sites like Kickstarter can stifle success.
Michael Epstein suggests that microfunding better suits a label model, where funders on a Kickstarter-type campaign can invest in a slate of projects rather than in a particular artist. Scott Andrew notes that sites like RocketHub encourage some acts to put the cart before the horse, raising money from an audience they haven’t yet cultivated. [...]
Finding the Twinsumers in your perfect audience.
I love reading the monthly briefings from the Trendwatching team. This year, they called out “Twinsumers” and “Social-lites” as part of their 11 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2011. Grow Your Band’s Audience charts a course for finding “your perfect audience.” That’s not the audience in your scene, your family, or your neighborhood. Your perfect audience [...]