New Music Strategies (or my life in a nutshell)
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the ways we can empower ourselves as artists in a world that offers all the tools we need but where little blips can get lost in the din.
Thankfully, the more I learn, the more i realize that I’m on the right path. Thank the gods for the internet and for all the blessed geeks that make it happen. I wanna be a geek when I grow up.
Great article on the interactive aspect of self/group promotion:
The following is a guest post by Aaron Hartley of theory 8 records. I asked Aaron his thoughts on services such as bandcamp, topspin, twitter, hypem, blip.fm, imeem, last.fm, purevolume, ilike, facebook, etc., and how these different services have changed the way he promotes his artists.
About theory 8 records:theory 8 records is owned and operated by Aaron Hartley in Nashville, Tennessee. Since August of 2000, the label has released over 14 albums, the majority featuring the diverse and talented underground rock scene of Nashville. Beginning in 2006 the label branched off to include a new management company run by Hartley including artists such as De Novo Dahl and The Nobility.
I constantly check my google analytics account to see how much traffic my website gets. First of all, I love my site. The design (by Michael Eades http://yewknee.tumblr.com and http://www.yewknee.com ) is beautifully designed and I want people to see it. Secondly, I constantly try to post information on my site about my artists and I know this…I still get very little traffic to my site.
How do I get more traffic?
My initial thoughts were rather old school: I could either advertise my site online and hope to get click through traffic or I could email my mailing list anytime I updated my site. The problems: I don’t have a lot of money to spend on online ads and secondly, a lot of people don’t even read emails they subscribe to if you aren’t a well known establishment offering something they really really want.
So my thought was this: how do I create a personal profile online as an artist manager and label owner that will increase traffic to my website? Most people only come to buy stuff from artist sites. I’m trying to change that with frequent posts, etc. But still, even if I post something every single day, how do I get people to know I posted anything at all? Many times I give away free music on my site but how do I tell people about it effectively? How do I cut through the noise and pass the word along in a way that isn’t obnoxious and that doesn’t make me feel like I’m spamming people?
I decided to branch out. I joined twitter at my wife’s suggestion. She is a mom blogger and networks with other mom bloggers on twitter. I didn’t get it at first, but now I absolutely love it. I then decided I needed a blog, something for people to read and get to know me, Aaron Hartley. On both twitter and tumblr I have a link to theory 8. After that, I started my own radio station on blip.fm. I have over 700 listeners. The main link I have is for theory 8. All three pages send constant traffic (albeit not a TON, but still, people are clicking the link and finding my site and my artists). Isn’t that the point?
I do my best not to abuse any of these platforms. I spend most my time updating twitter about non-label things. That’s why I’m not on twitter as theory 8 records. Who wants to follow a small label that you probably think will slam you with spam tweets about their artists all day? Instead I make it personal where I discuss my job, my kids, going shopping, watching movies, etc. And that engages people. And then, when there is news, I’ll just tweet “check out theory 8 news blah blah blah”. I actually gave away a free digital sampler last Christmas and posted on twitter that I was doing it and several people re-tweeted the info and even a few hosted the link on their sites which I was very grateful for.
In the middle of all of this promotion though, I really started enjoying the interaction I was having with people. I love twitter because I can follow what my friends are doing all over the world. And I like to think they enjoy knowing what I’m doing too. I decided right away I wanted to use twitter not as a promotional tool for theory 8, but just a way to interact with people. I’ve met so many new people through twitter.
Same thing with my tumblr blog. I actually heard about tumblr through twitter. I signed up immediately because I’ve wanted to have a personal blog for months but couldn’t find the right platform. Then I stumble on tumblr and realize there is an entire social aspect in the dashboard function that lets me interact with people. I have actually made friends from tumblr. I’ve had coffee with friends from out of state who follow me on tumblr. That is amazing. It’s more than a blog, it’s a network of friends now.
And when I post something about my business, people repost it and that means so much to me. I don’t post things on there in the hopes they will repost it, I just blog about it because I’m proud of my label and artists and enjoy seeing other people pass along the information to their friends too. But again, my tumblr blog is about my life, hence the title, hartleymanages…life. It has pics of me DJ’ing, favorite albums, songs I like, books I’ve read, pictures of my kids, etc. Blogging about theory 8 on tumblr is an aspect of my life, not an end marketing goal.
On Blip.fm, I’ll “blip” all of my favorite songs and people give me props. On occasion I’ll throw in a song from one my artists (Blip.fm gave me the right to upload songs from my bands into their site so I can blip them properly) and people listen to them. And they will give me “props” on the song. I’ve spent hours on this site playing music, not because I want people to hear my artists, but because honestly, deep down, I just love playing music. I worked at radio station in high school and this is an online equivalent. I’ve earned people’s trust with my music taste so when I do blip a song by an artist I work with, they honestly give it a fair listen.
All of this is to say, if I just posted something on theory 8’s site, MAYBE 50 people would see it (on a good day) by accidentally stumbling on the site. What I’m doing is being proactive and making the news more available in a respectful way to people I know and letting them decide whether or not it’s worthy enough to tell someone else either through a retweet or reblog or whatever. It’s virtual word of mouth. That’s what it is.
Here is the biggest lesson though…I spend hours online doing this and I really enjoy it. I don’t really watch TV anymore, there’s nothing there that interests me. Instead I get online and just spend time on my sites, having fun interacting with people who are becoming my friends over time. And if by doing so, they decide to check out one of my artists and buy a song off itunes or order a 7 inch, that’s just a bonus to the friendship established.
I’m hoping to take some of this even further…I just bought a Flip video camera that lets me record video footage, dump into my computer via usb connection and edit video for online viewing. So now I’m taking it to shows to record my artists for their youtube pages. I’m also interested in podcasting, learning how to create them for theory 8. I want to make them for my releases.
I want to be proactive online. I want to create things for people to read and interact with. By just “having a website” I’m not accomplishing much. It just exists. I want to expand my reach online in healthy and positive ways to allow people to know both me and my company. Any artist can do the same for their music. That’s what fans want. They don’t want to buy a CD, they want to buy an experience. They want to know what you’re doing and where you’re doing it. They want to remix your songs or record you playing live and upload it to youtube. They want to email you and ask you questions. But you have to be available and that takes time and patience. It’s what I’m working on for my label. Maybe artists will consider doing the same?
Aaron Hartley (his tumblr and twitter)
theory 8 records
