john

Meh. Reps are only in bars after they do their homework. Who are other people paying attention to? What are their stats? How many people follow them? What level of engagement are they getting? Apart from that, they correlate activities already arranged with gigs and showcases of artists they have shortlisted. The currency of the music industry has always revolved around lists!

Some used to do that on mp3.com, then MySpace.com… so some no doubt spend some time on Spotify and YouTube. That said, these things have always been hierarchical in structure. Now they have added playlist curators and influencers, and they will also be hierarchical. Press and media work like that as well. That is just working smart when confronted with so many. Ah the old Payola. It never really goes away. It is still that way on radio. Still, YouTube is the top platform for discovery these days there is a well established influencer industry on YouTube to help you skip ahead. You can still breakthrough on YouTube without skipping the queue but I reckon without leveraging an existing presence or paid influencer you are looking at about 12-24 months of hard work to break through on YouTube… that is knowing exactly what to do and still using music influencers, just unpaid.

Modern social media is not ideal for many uses. This is especially true for bands and artists. From individual posts being missed and content you are interested in being buried beneath a pile of posts that you are not interested in, through a lack of people with suitable knowledge and skills, to not being able to find a vital piece of information posted 2 weeks ago and the lack of moderation making communicating frustrating, there's a long list of the shortcomings of modern social media. Fear not! Music forums to your rescue! Here is a list of 20 reasons why music forums are better for songwriters, bands, and producers to connect with each other than using social media. Focused Community: Music forums are designed specifically for musicians, songwriters, and producers, which means that you'll be connecting with a community that is passionate about music and has a deep understanding of the craft. Niche Conversations: Music forums allow you to have focused conversations about specific topics related to music production, songwriting, and performance that may not be as easy to find on social media. Sharing Music: Forums offer an easy way to share your music with others who are interested in the same style or genre. You can post links to your music, receive feedback, and connect with other musicians. Anonymity: If you're not comfortable sharing personal details on social media, forums allow you to remain anonymous while still being able to connect with others. Professionalism: Music forums attract a more professional and serious crowd. You'll be interacting with people who are committed to their craft and are serious about creating quality music. More Focused Interaction: Social media can be overwhelming with the sheer amount of information, ads, and posts, forums are more focused and allow you to hone in on the discussions that matter to you. Longevity: Threads and discussions on forums can stay active for years, which means that you can join in on discussions that are still relevant and continue to learn and engage with others. Better Organization: Most forums are organized by topics, which means that you can easily find discussions that are relevant to you and not have to wade through a bunch of unrelated posts. Learning Opportunities: Music forums offer a wealth of knowledge and learning opportunities for aspiring musicians. You can learn about new techniques, discover new software, and ask questions to experienced musicians. Constructive Criticism: Forums offer a space for musicians to give and receive constructive criticism on their work, which can help improve their craft. Support: Forums offer a supportive environment where musicians can connect with others who understand the struggles and challenges of the industry and offer emotional support. Networking: Music forums allow you to connect with other musicians, producers, and industry professionals, which can lead to opportunities to collaborate or work together. Sense of Community: Forums create a sense of community among musicians, which can be difficult to find on social media where there are often too many distractions. No Distractions: Music forums are designed specifically for discussing music-related topics, which means that there are no distractions or irrelevant posts to sift through. No/Few Ads: Forums are generally ad-free, which means that you won't have to deal with annoying ads popping up while you're trying to engage with others. Less Trolls: Because music forums have a more focused and serious community, there are typically fewer trolls and people looking to cause trouble. More Privacy: Music forums typically require registration, which means that your discussions and personal information are more private and less likely to be seen by strangers. More Depth: Because music forums are designed for more in-depth discussions, you can expect to find more detailed and informative discussions than you would on social media. More Time for Replies: Music forums offer a slower pace of discussion than social media which can allow users more time to formulate thoughtful replies and engage in more meaningful discussion. Better Searchability: Forums often have better search functionality than social media, which can help you find specific discussions or topics that you're interested in more easily.

No need for a bad mood. Yes, shocking. I appreciate this is a very sensitive subject for you, but your lack of understanding of the basic mechanics, says a lot about "the gurus" you were working with. It gets me really annoyed on your behalf. I suspect that you, from the little I know about you, weren't desperate to learn about marketing, etc, but loads of musicians feel that way. Of course, for the less scrupulous, such a lack of knowledge is an open goal they cannot resist (Which is why I talk of empowerment and the absolute need to arm yourself with knowledge of at least the fundamentals of whatever you are engaging 3rd parties to do). Really, even doing it for you as a service I would have expected a marketing professional to make sure you were not wasting your money. The fact that they took your money without you having that stuff in place, never mind understanding it, shows a shocking attitude from the people you trusted to put a campaign in place. If they did know, it was a shocking level of callousness. If they didn't know, it shows a shocking level of lack of professionalism and complete disregard for the well-being of others, and either way they completely failed in their duty to their customer, you.

This is a board topic, not just a conversation between you and me. I am sure Mahesh was commenting on what I had said meant to him. I can't advise you about someone to do the work for you right now. We are about to launch courses on how to do these kinds of activities but it is you that would do the work. You will learn a lot by doing this, as everything we do is about empowerment. I understand it isn't for everyone, however, the days of being able to say "here catch" are largely gone, but most definitely not advised. There are far too many sharks in the water. You absolutely need to understand what is going on, even when you engage a 3rd party to do it or you. Later in the year, we do plan to launch PR services as part of RC7 PR, but we aren't ready for making this publicly available yet. When available, artists will be able to apply to be added to the roster of our clients. I have to admit I was shocked upon reading your reply: Totally shocking. I am happy to offer what advice I can, and I am not looking for your money. In learning some basics you will be able to engage people with much better instruction and be able to monitor their activities. That automatically puts you in a better situation.

Targeting is often at fault, but, so can the entire concept. There are so many parts on a marketing funnel that need to be tweaked for optimum performance. I generally don’t think ads landing on a store is good, or on low priced items…. Unless your strategy is based on whole of life customer value. In that model you anticipate a small loss on the front end, maybe breaking even, but then repeated sales are possible from that customer with negligible Ad costs. That latter option is only possible if you collect email addresses and have optimised your marketing and sales flows. I asked earlier, do you know what campaign model you were running? Who did you use for email and autoresponder services? Did you ever do direct sales from your website? It looks like it, but your website isn’t responding atm. I’d be interested in following through your ad chain, through purchase and beyond, just for interest. Did you run pipeline sequences? What about onboarding? That is critical for musicians.

I entirely believe you. There’s a load of poor advice for the simplest of reasons. For example getting you to advertise at scale when it is losing you money. That shouldn’t happen. If you don’t mind me asking, what type of campaign were you running on the FB platform? Brand awareness is often used in music, especially for labels with big budgets. For smaller artists it works with the right targeting, on a limited budget in conjunction with another, more direct retargeting Ads on YouTube and Google plus another non-brand awareness add designed to recoup your entire Ad cost. Losses should be kept minimal during early stages by limiting budget. Your campaign should evolve using A/B tests keeping costs clamped very low until ROI is 1 or above… ie breaking even or better. Only once you are above 1 should you consider increasing budget and careful, controlled scaling. Anything else is just them being utterly reckless with your money. Your experience really sucks. No wonder you are pissed off. Whatever you do in future, keep it close, under your control. As a rule, take no chances. Take calculated risks based on accurate data. You should absolutely know your ROI before substantial money is spent. The trouble for most indies getting advice from music industry types is that most Ad campaigns they use are big budget, high risk, brand awareness campaigns. Internet marketing based marketers use much more accurate data based marketing. Personally, I think a “best from both worlds” approach is the best approach, choosing strategies, tactics and tools because they work. I also put my faith in good design, rigorous testing and accurate data. I always go with the knowledge I cannot afford to lose money. It promotes a good, cautious approach.

Hi and welcome to Songstuff. It’s a journey of exploration, for sure.

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Elleborn! Good to have you with us.

There are many reasons for using Ads on any platform. There are a bunch of different purposes and campaign types that tie up to that campaign type. However, if you match up the wrong purpose to the wrong campaign; type, or execute the campaign poorly, you are as well burning your money, for all it’s lack of benefits to you. Most platforms provide poor targeting. This makes them only really useful for Brand Awareness advertising, and even then if your targeting isn’t great, even that Brand Awareness isn’t great. With Brand Awareness Ad and overall media saturation level is important. That means it works best if your brand is displayed to them in different places on different platforms, not just in Ads either.. for example in articles and interviews. Brand Awareness Ads are pretty impossible for effective tracking of ROI. They rely on a long tail of audience memory and work best when working in concert with other promotions, letting you achieve a good saturation, and produce a high presence in the audience’s awareness. Facebook does, in my opinion, offer much better audience targeting than Twitter. However, as I said, there are a number of different scenarios to place Ads, Brand Awareness Ads being one of them. Facebook at least allows you to create and manage different campaign types… but it can still be contaminated by your overall existing social reach, depending on your targeting criteria. Without diving into Facebook Ads in detail, for artists, there are a limited number of suitable ways to use Ads. Post boosts are pretty useless, especially if your normal audience is the wrong audience (ie built on follow-for-follow and related tactics). With Facebook you do get access to improved targeting criteria by having a full Ad biz account. There are so many different issues you can run into that will trash your ROI. That isn’t just Facebook specific. There are a bunch of campaign types, and you need to use the right one, no matter the Ad platform. Of course you also need to execute your campaign well. Pick the wrong campaign type or execute the campaign poorly and your money is gone. That aside, you can do everything right, but you need the right back end for the campaign type to effectively recoup and hopefully get a good ROI. It is entirely possible to do everything right but actually Ads on Facebook was a really bad idea. ROI lost. My point is, at the right place and time, with the right campaign for your need, with the right campaign execution, with the appropriate back end for your campaign and you should get benefit from it…. But it is not guaranteed. Indeed, there are many things that can go wrong, and read that as “there are many ways you can lose your money for little or no gain”, and that really sucks. There are a lot of people advising you to place Ads where it is a major component in their business. That is a difficult one. It is hard to trust their advice. You have to be so careful in making sure that their latest and greatest Facebook strategy is appropriate for your needs. Overall, if anyone suggests large spends from the get go…. Avoid it like the plague. I won’t go into the details of Ad campaign designs here, but I will say to start at a dollar a day budget. You then hone your process using A/B testing so that you evolve your Ad process on a very manageable budget. You only scale when that is breaking even at a minimum, and double Ad spend to $2 a day and so on. Rinse and repeat. That way losses are manageable and quickly your Ads evolve into profit. Obviously you want a better ROI than your money back, but scaling should not scale if your ROI is less than 100%. To do otherwise is a major roll of the dice and should be avoided. In essence, there are a ton of risks in music. Our aim is to manage risk and to maximise gain in everything we do. If the risk is high, find ways to minimise risk or remove it completely. Thoughts?

No, talking about the algorithm(s) that run in the background profiling absolutely everything we do. I can’t remember the exact figure on Facebook, but they have tens of millions of data points per user, and that was about 4 years ago. Every interaction with their platform, captured and used to filter new content they show you, including posts, ads, recommendations etc. This topic started with Twitter, and it’s who I was focusing on… Out of interest, I see people regularly talk of users being shadow banned, ie the practice of the platform isolating your account by letting you make posts, but only you or a very small number of other accounts actually see your post. This way you think your account is live, when it isn’t. To you it just looks like people aren’t replying. Of course they aren’t replying. They can’t see your post! What people are less aware of us that they can effectively shadow ban themselves, without additional interventions by Twitter/FB/Insta etc. The algorithms spots and amplifies trends. If your post is getting interactions, it shows it to more people. Virality depends on that simple principle. Yes it is more nuanced than that, but that is the basic model. However the opposite is also true. If you make posts and you get very low levels of interaction, it shows it to less people. Not only that, your next new topic will be shown to less people. It creates a spiral downwards. So, if you have stuffed your follower list with other artists who are not interested in your music or posts, you can be in a situation where you have 100k followers but you get 5 replies to a new topic. Facebook et al spots this and your next new topic is shown to 20 followers (ok it takes a few dud topics to get to 20). Depending on how that 20 responds depends on how many other followers get to see your post. The days of all followers being shown your post has long, long gone. Especially (on Facebook) if you are interacting as a FB page. Out of interest, this is also designed to get companies to pay for ads. The “boost your post” campaign seems to largely focus on exploiting this kind of frustration with reach. Back to shadow ban… such isolated accounts effectively shadow ban themselves with content shown to less and less people, and a large percentage of who does see it are people who are highly unlikely to interact with your topic… you effectively shadow banned yourself by growing the wrong audience. I don’t think there is a better descriptor for an audience of artists grown through follow-for-follow tactic. While there is a situation you could consider the use of that tactic, it is very limited and should be used very, very carefully, for a short period…. or avoided completely. I’ll not dive into Facebook or Facebook Ads more in this topic. I will start a new topic on the subject where we can all talk about it. Note, not to trigger you Buckoff, but because these are all subjects Artist can and should talk about. Awareness is everything and can save a lot of time and money.

It doesn’t really explain why the account is being closed down by the artist, but you mentioned commingling… and the numbers ring alarm bells. So does some of what the artist says. If it is a personal and artist account, mixed together, that is a really bad idea, for a number of reasons. There’s a bunch of good reasons, but chief among them is “the algorithm”. First you have to appreciate that the algorithm is important to artists and why. You could work your ass off trying to extend your reach, but if the algorithm decides to park you in a dead end, you will need to make fundamental changes to turn it around. Meanwhile if the algorithm A-lists you, you will be buried in the right activity from the right people. So, to say it is important understates it by a long way. The second thing to appreciate is that all your account activity, including how others interact with your account and your activity, is used to train the algorithm. This means the longer that misleading behaviour goes on, the harder it is to turn your account around, and the more radical the intervention has to be. The trouble is, while your friends, colleagues and family members might like you, that doesn’t make them real fans of your music. That makes their interactions misleading. All of them. Now add in artists mixing a fan facing account with an artist facing account. The number of artists that artists unaware of “mislead training” connect with is astounding. Artists sometimes rapidly try to grow their social accounts by follow trading. Activity trading too. This all skews the algorithm. All this and then some buy follows, comments, shares, likes. The one thing all this activity has in common is that it comes from a wide array of very diverse social account profiles. This means that if the social platform, in this case Twitter, does send you some traffic, it will be the wrong people…. People who are unlikely to be interested in your music because they are based on a profile built on people who are not real fans. Add to this, the platform sees the artist regularly posting things like new releases that fall pretty flat. Even the artists they have connected with are not really interested in your music. Sure, a small cadre of friend-artists might be but they are often first interested as friends. All this further skews the algorithm. I could go on, but the quick summary is, it is a very bad idea. Co-mingling, in this context, could be more aptly named cross-contaminating. Actually, larger indies do get those figures. True, few by comparison. It’s not unknown for indie YouTubers to get 1M+in genuine followers.

Pick a reference track, in the same neck of the woods that you would like your track to end up. Pick something you are familiar with, have enjoyed in multiple environmentsListen to it. Run it through a spectrum analyser. Now tweak your track, shaping it into a similar space. This is a mix of exact measurement, using your ears and using your mind. Out of interest, did you consider a 3rd party mastering service? I master my own demos but use 3rd party for finished tracks.

Real people in real bars? I think you are kidding yourself. I wouldn’t suggest that any artist or writer goes entirely real world or virtual world unless they really have no other option. If they truly have no aspirations for their music it doesn’t make much difference, does it? Each world provides both benefits and drawbacks, dead ends and opportunities. Each has it’s crooks and scams, and each offers fantasy delusions-a-plenty. People can be false, tired, jaded, overwhelmed, distracted, drunk, hostile, negative, patronising, insulting, anywhere. People can blow smoke up your ass in both places too. They might feel more enabled on the internet, but they are largely the same people with the same underlying natures. People want stuff for free everywhere. Companies rule everywhere online and real world. The real issue is showing up ANYWHERE with a view that doesn’t match reality. Artists and writers have been, and will be, taken advantage of, everywhere. For an artist to get anywhere in music, real world or virtual, they need a fan base to want their music. We all start with a fan base of zero. You can grow that fan base online. You can grow that fan base offline. Either way, or both ways combined. If you don’t work at building your fan base somewhere, you’ll go nowhere. We can moan, but sitting passively complaining about it isn’t going to improve anything. I am pretty sure the world will just run right over the top of us without noticing. What’s that saying… the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You are a creative person, who said you HAVE to do the same old thing… in the same way… in the same place etc. Be creative! No one said there is only one way of making money using music. Sure, there are standard ways… but they are not the only ways. As for the poll there are many reasons members are not taking my poll. You are making a lot of assumptions about why few have responded. Lack of interest is a bunch of reasons in itself. Another is that I did very little to promote it. Once upon a time, on a very busy forum, that was enough. It isn’t any more. And this place is nowhere near as busy as it once was either. Truth is, if I ran my poll at a rehearsal studio or recording studio, or music shop, I wouldn’t expect any great uptake either. You do touch upon a couple of things though. People have changed. Their wants, needs, motivations, have all changed. How and where they express them or want them satisfied too, and how much they expect to pay, if at all. Understanding this can help you adapt. When you mention real people in bars you are talking about connection. Connection is a vital component between Artist and listener. There are very real differences in how that connection is made online and offline, but it’s far from a one-sided argument. Online has many advantages that are not immediately obvious. I struggle to recall a positive response from you, to anybody, about anything remotely related to the business side of music. You might have, but sitting here I can’t think of any. Saying everything is bullshit is not an argument, it’s just shouting things down.

Why is a fan base a problem? A lack of a fan base is a problem. Just like singing in bars, you start with zero fans, and you build your fan base. Singing in a bar is just one way to put your music in front of a very small audience at a time (say, in comparison to your reach on the internet). Why do you think it is better to sing in bars? As far as the strip mall analogy goes, you don’t do anything with “the internet” any more than you deal with “the world”. You deal with specific places on the internet

Not really. It takes a lot of time and effort to build your fanbase. What you are suggesting is a typical attitude by independent artists, but it is problematic. After all once you are happy with your music you will most likely be champing at the bit to get it released ASAP. At that point most artists just dump their music with no prep at all.

… it’s going to be a real long time without votes lol

Hi Come visit our twitter page https://www.twitter.com/songstuff, follow us, and say hello! Drop a link to your artist page in a new tweet and @songstuff to have your artist link included in our next newsletter! Cheers John

Hi Joseph! Welcome to the Songstuff music community What sort of music are you making?

Hey Laura Welcome to Songstuff. I’ll go check it out. Cheers John

Hi Drop by, say hello on the https://www.facebook.com/songstuff. Please leave a review! Drop a link to your artist page in a new post! Cheers John

Hi gang Please take part in the poll…. It would be interesting to know the results. Cheers John

Hey Cian Welcome to Songstuff! It’ll be nice to hear some Welsh language songs, though I would ask you to post up an English translation of the lyrics? Looking forward to hearing your music. Cheers John

Very mellow and Vangelis-y

Looking into it. On mobile I can close it, but it takes a while (about 60 seconds after load). I will try a couple of things and report it to the company that creates the core forum software… it was their addition for compliance with data laws in various countries/states. Sorry for the inconvenience.