These days, for aspiring musicians social media is a no-brainer. It’s pretty much the next step after settling on an awesome band name. But now that you’re all signed up, how do you best use each platform and what do you post about? Is that post about your socks really engaging the fans? It’s hard to know, but that’s why we’re here. Below we shed light on everything from user base differences to the best uses of each platform. Enjoy and post away.

Facebook
This IPO filing giant is simply too large to be ignored. Facebook’s numbers make it the most diverse platform by far. Virtually every group, gender, age, race, and location is represented.

Pros:
• With more than 800 million users worldwide, you can connect with fans in just about any country.
• Timelines make for visually interesting and highly personalized profiles.
• Facebook lets you do it all: create groups, post photos and videos, host events, and sell music and merchandise, all without leaving the site.

Cons:
• Comments, comments, comments they can be your best friend or your worst enemy if left unattended.

Best Uses:
Facebook is generally the first stop for fans after your website so the content should be similar. Post photo and video content regularly to give a personal touch to your background info. Take the opportunity to direct fans to music, merchandise, and events.

Twitter
Communicate with fans in an instant. Twitter’s users are young, extremely active, college educated, and generally live in urban areas.*

Pros:
• At upwards of 350 million, Twitter’s user base sits in a nice middle ground between the others.
• Twitter is the pulse of the people, your band can both build awareness and participate in on-going relevant conversations.
• Twitter allows for instant updates, comments on current events, and real dialogue with fans.
• From instagram to wordpress, Twitter has apps covered.

Cons:
• There are very few options for customizing profiles.
• Those same instant updates can backfire into a disaster. Take a second and think before you tweet!

Best Uses:
This is where that socks post goes, it’s a micro blog use it as such. Share exciting tour moments as they happen, quickly reply to fans, and most of all let people know you’re a real person with thoughts and feelings.

Google+
The new guy has potential. Not even a year old, Google+ is home to creatives and early adopters in tech, education, and artistic fields.**

Pros:
• Hangout with up to 9 fans in video chat.
• Seamlessly place your album in the Android market with a musican’s profile.
• Organize fans into circles ie: separate fans by region and post targeted content.
• YouTube integration

Cons:
• Google+’s user base is currently around 90 million making it the smallest of the three.

Best Uses:
Google+ is quietly the most feature-rich of them all. Take advantage of Hangouts: let fans interview you, livestream a studio session, or use them as a way to make the most loyal fans part of your digital inner circle by running song ideas and lyrics by them, the possibilities are endless.

* Pew Research Center Internet and American Life Project
**Bime Research

-V. Graham

“To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes” – H.R. 3261.

These words begin House Bill 3261 otherwise known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Defenders of the bill say it saves American jobs and protects intellectual property. While, opponents say the bill amounts to more than just Internet censorship, it has the potential to “break” the Internet. But what does SOPA mean for the music industry?

It depends. For bloggers, aspiring music professionals, upcoming artists, and fansites it could spell disaster. When aspiring to do or become something, the best advice is most often to just start. Want to become a music photographer? Take photos at local concerts and performances. A musician? Upload some covers to Youtube. The passing of SOPA could jeopardize many of these avenues into the industry due to copyright issues.

Established musicians, on the other hand, could benefit from the take down of illegal download links from websites in and outside the U.S. Record labels may see a sales jump as options for attaining music dry up, although it’s hard to predict just how fans would react to such a bill passing. There could be a huge backlash, gradual acceptance, or a third more likely option where piracy slows for a month or two until someone finds a way to circumvent the barriers put in place.

There is no doubt something needs to be done about the rampant piracy in the music industry. However, instead of looking to impose blocks on ways to pirate perhaps it is time to look at why people pirate in the first place. The real issue here is helping consumers understand and appreciate the value of content. Quite literally the billion dollar question is, how do we change the mindset of a steadily growing population of people that were raised not believing music is worth paying for?

*As of January 20, 2012 SOPA and PIPA have been suspended indefinitely. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) stated “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”*
-V. Graham

Last month, we touched on several tips for aspiring musicians, including the use of direct-to-fan platforms. Sites like Bandcamp, Topspin, and ReverbNation provide a host site, tools for promotion and marketing, real-time statistics, and a convenient way to sell music and merchandise. Recently, one of the three, Bandcamp announced some interesting statistics. In December alone, Bandcamp artists made more than one million dollars in music and merchandise sales. Great numbers indeed, but that’s not what’s most surprising. Bandcamp had been tracking the starting point of every sale that occurred on their site for a few months and found some very optimistic news about the industry. Fans were buying music they initially planned to pirate. Searches with keywords like “torrents”, “hulkshare”, and “FLAC” resulted in purchases when fans found links to artists Bandcamp pages in the search results.

You can look at this in a number ways:

• Music fans still believe in paying for music, provided there is a convenient way that provides a great user experience.

• Name-your-price music may be the way to go, as 40% of the time fans pay more than the asking price.

• Can direct-to-fan sites like Bandcamp provide a viable platform for publishing and distribution in the near future?

• As major labels consolidate and downsize, are we moving towards a D.I.Y. direct-to-fan future?

But, perhaps the most important item to consider is choice. The multiple formats Bandcamp provides for its users is staggering, including FLAC, Ogg, and Apple Lossless to name a few. Just by virtue of the many options they offer, they show up in the search results where pirates often look for tracks. That placement combined with a wealth of format options and a name-your-price model makes a Bandcamp purchase pretty tough to turn down. Either way you slice it, this is an exciting bit of information that one should keep in mind when planning for the upcoming year.
- V. Graham

2011 was an eventful year for music to say the least. We witnessed a social music explosion, headphones became a fashion statement, digital sales records shattered, and four major labels are becoming three. However, the cloud stole the show this year, not for its convenience nor its crowded waters but for the question it poses that will shape the future of the industry.

Access versus ownership, it will be the great debate of 2012 and maybe years to come. It questions the very value of music. After getting over the blow of iTunes’ emergence and its 99 cent price point with a la carte track selection, music executives are forced once again to consider this question by digital music start-ups like Spotify. Why own when for a small monthly fee you can have access from any place or device to millions of songs? That question is becoming increasingly easier to answer for most music fans.

With artists remaining undecided, as evidenced by the seemingly daily news of an arrival or departure from these services, it looks like it can and will take a year (or more) for the industry to come to a definitive decision. So, what’s next for 2012? A lessened importance on album sales? More brands as record labels? Cloud dominance? Who knows, one thing for sure is that we can’t wait!

-V. Graham

It’s a great time for aspiring musicians! Never has it been easier to let your sound be heard. Today’s technology is easy to use and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. With manufacturing and distribution costs drastically reduced in the digital age the barrier to making great music is as low as it has ever been. This would lead to over saturation in most industries but music is unique, in that it has a natural affinity for fresh talent that keeps fans eternally open to the next big thing. There is always room for great music. Below find five must-dos in this day and age for any upcoming artist looking to break in the industry:

• Upload original material and popular covers on YouTube. This is exposure to millions at no cost.

• Social networking puts you at arm’s length of your fans at all times. Facebook has even added tools to purchase music directly through profiles, without leaving the site. Take advantage.

• Make use of direct-to-fan platforms such as Bandcamp, ReverbNation, and Nimbit. They provide easy solutions to everything from selling merchandise to promotion.

• Provide free content such as downloads and mixtapes at regular intervals. They’re a great way to build a solid fanbase.

• Tour, no matter how small the venue! Social networking is a great way to interact with fans but nothing beats the connection formed at a live performance.

-V. Graham