Extra, Extra, Read all about it!

Todays front page news is…. Well? Do you know what it is?

Todays Front Page

In the world of websites, social media pages and online graphics and web design, independent musicians need to remember and recall the world of newspaper print. The todays front pages, the headlines, the taglines and the one liners.

These are the elements that will draw some one in to find out the details, but you have to start off with the brand tagline, the summaries and the short bios to bring people in to see the rest.

Though you are building a webpage for those that may know you, if your websites and social media sites are not set up for those that have no idea who you are, you are keeping people away. People that could have just stumbled upon you by accident that you now have inadvertently sent away, those that could have become fans and customers.

Never assume, todays front page web design has to have the basic content and not just your twitter, facebook and reverbnation links. Thing like that news paper front page headline and make the design fun, have that picture, but also have that headline, that summary and that band tagline.

This goes for all the other social media sites as well. Go and put that tagline in and make sure where it says about, that you have filled it in! Put in the bio, put in the other links and create a network of sites that all have your tagline, your bio, your links and your logos.

The consistency, the continuity, the uniformity and the familiarity of your band, your brand, your content and your images need to be stretched out across your networks. As a music consultant and college speaker, I like to remind independent musicians that this will in turn, help to push and promote their search engine optimization, the social media optimization and their consideration for both the existing fans as well as potential new ones. By delivering that quick headline, that tagline and that todays front page news paper effect that has drawn in people for centuries now, it will help to bring up your awareness.

So read all about it!!!! Or better yet, make sure that where ever a fan or new visitor lands, they have an instant and easy view to read who you are, so they will go to listen to you.

By staying connected to the technology and forward motion of today while keeping a respect and awareness to the past aspects of marketing, the combination will allow for the greatest optimization and results in the long run.

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com

Twitter Phishing

Twitter Phishing has been rampant lately on twitter and other social media sites. If you have seen those messages where some one says that horrible things are being posted about you or someone is spreading rumors about you or I cant believe this picture that was posted of you; more than likely it was phishing for your password.

People click through as soon as they see one of those messages and even though it looks like a gateway to twitter asking for your password and to log in again, you have actually just given away your log in and password.

Which now, in turn, these phishing people can use to send those messages to others. It is our nature, we don’t want bad things said about us and we want to see if bad things are said, but at the same time, you have to protect your self and your online secure information or people will use your identity to spam or say bad things.

So first and foremost use your head. Avoid twitter phishing scams by thinking beforer you click and looking before you reenter any log in information. The best way to stay away from this twitter scam is to make sure that if you are prompted for your log in, that you are logging in to Twitter and its real URL. Check and double check to make sure the real URL is being displayed is the first thing should do.

Other ways how to avoid phishing scams

Set your computer to only log in to secure sites or the HTTPS sites. This wont catch them all, but it will keep you away from many.

Last but not least, change your passwords now and then as well as making sure you have different passwords for different sites.

All these steps may not fully protect you or avoid problems all together, but they will help to reduce the risk.

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com

Sometimes speed and playing too busy can become a crutch in many ways. To really have the ability and knowledge of how you are tracking your progress and your ability, some times you have to lay on the brakes.

Tracking Progress

As a music producer, in preproduction, I used to have the bands play songs much slower than they normally would to see how solid things were when you take away the speed.

The same thing went for individual artists and their solos or separate parts. In many cases, playing a blazing fill or lick or whatever is all too often crutched by the speed. Many musicians work to be able to play things faster and faster as a benchmark, but how well can you play a part or even sing a part very slowly.

How well is the technique, especially with the new space that has been introduced? How confident does it sound? How clean does it sound? Does it sound in time for the time and tempo it is being played now or does it feel rushed? How are you tracking your progress when it comes to your playing?

Slowing things down is just one way to check out the technique but also see exactly what is there when space is introduced. It is a great practice tip and lastly, it will make your faster speeds be that much more precise, together and locked in.

On that same note, taking away instruments and listening to what something sounds like alone or what a song sounds like with out the bass, the drums or a guitar can help you really understand what is working and what might be a crutch.

Of course something would be missing, but how could a part be played a little stronger or maybe a certain line doesn’t need to be brought back because it is already clearly and strongly stated even with out that instrument there?

These are all great tricks to try in the practice room, in the studio or in the writing phases.

These same tricks can be applied to your promotion too when it comes down to your music marketing and the marketing mix of things. Sometimes artists get so locked in to either posting too much, posting too little, not looking to see the results, the conversions, the reactions or the adds, likes, retweets, follows and sales.

Slow it down, put up ads for shorter periods, make a posting plan for blogs, videos, song samples or special merchandise and then after the plan has been completed, take the time to look at what was working and what didn’t. This can help you see if you are viewed with a good reputation or if you are coming off as spammy as well as what is really effective and what isn’t.

Too many people take to social media promotion, marketing and advertising like they are just blindly throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and well, what sells. They don’t slow down to smell the flowers or better yet how many flowers bloomed and where.

By slowing down the tempo, you can find the strengths, refine the weaknesses and see a larger picture. You are able to really get a sense of not only how you are delivering the message, but even more important, how it is being received. Put time in to slowing down to find the best ways to speed up and grow your visibility, sales, fan base and networking in the music business.

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com

Unique Marketing – Really?

When it comes to the word unique or unique marketing, I always liked the quote by Margaret Mead. She said “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”

It is so true and even more so online today. Everyone wants to talk about their uniqueness, from their unique marketing to their unique branding to their unique promotions and promoting of the end result: The unique music that sounds like nothing you have ever heard before. It is new, different, innovative and has never been done before.

The only problem is that may too many other musicians are saying the exact same thing. Avoid using the words and descriptions that everyone else uses. Even if by the off chance, you are unique, new, different, innovative and don’t sound like anyone else, dont promote that, because it will just push you in a group of millions of others saying the same thing.

Work to find words and descriptors that will actually do the job in helping you stand out and be found instead of using the classics that everyone else is using.

This also goes for solicitation to managers, to agents, to labels and to music producers. Even as a music consultant, I hear at least once a week, how I need to check out this band and they have a totally unique sound.

First off that is not a good opener and second off, I very rarely if ever, recall hearing something that was as unique as it was claimed to sound or be.

Work to find the words, phrases and content to better describe your sound. Put in the effort to summarize and use those phrases to optimize online. Many will read about you before they hear you, so make those words count and stand out instead of just the quick and easy words that are all too often used.

A Cyclops Music Coach Video – I have never seen that before and even though that is unique, I would still go the direction of using any word except unique. But you also have to remember that any one with a mac can do the same thing. Just saying.

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com

One size does not fit all

When you are looking to find your personal answers and direction when you ask how to get in the music industry, you need to realize that one size does not fit all. One approach is not right and just because it worked for one person, the circumstances, music industry contacts, connections, budgets and many other elements could be worlds different. One size fits all in the music business? Not a chance!

A number of musicians that I have talked to explain how they feel the best move is to emulate, copy or imitate the way this big artist made it happen or how that big artist made it happen.

What is not considered though is that in most cases, this happened in another time, but even more so, a lot of these larger scale artists had a much larger budget to work with.

Even when artists take it to a more modest level and want to look to an more independent artist, they seem locked to an idea of what this person or that person did, and begin to try to do the exact same thing.

This comes in to play the same way with the bigger artist expect its not the budget this time, it is something else.

There are so many behind the scenes elements, actions, connections, experiences, opportunities and events that happen, that individualize results.

Now there are some overall patterns and overall steps that everyone should take, but lets say you have a friend that runs a studio and you did trade so that your album cost nothing, giving you more money to put in to marketing or a tour. Could someone who doesn’t have that connection or opportunity copy that approach?

What should a musician do in this one size does not fit all music business?

Try following the basic steps of….

Looking in to things a little deeper before committing to an action or approach.

Look at what you can learn from every experience and then how you can individualize it for your career.

Stay away from assumptions.

Stay away from second guessing and stay away from cookie cutter plans and approaches that deliver the one size fits all mentality.

Taking this route will keep you building a stronger path with a better direction to your individualized success.

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com

Promo Downloads

Promo Downloads – Are your logos and graphics easily available?

Promo Downloads of the core logos and graphics for Music Consultant, Music Producer and Music Coach Loren Weisman. Many of the logos below are in both PDF and Jpeg formats for easy use and application. This is text taken from my promo download page which is located at http://www.lorenweisman.com/promo-downloads-music-consultant/

For people that want to hire me as a college speaker or for an event and need easy access to promotional downloads of graphics and logos, they can go right to this page and grab what they need.

All too often musicians and bands only putting up pages on social media sites and do not have a download page, and for that matter even bands that have websites, they are lacking a promo downloads page too.

Creating a promo download page that includes your core graphics such as your logo, your font, album covers and even template posters can give you a leg up in your professional appearance. They also can give a leg up to some one that could use graphics from you and has the ability to access them easily.

The easier you make life for a venue, a booking agent or even a reviewer or some one from the press to be able to quickly download both print quality and web quality images, the more likely they will use your images and not just put text in a place where your branded images could go.

Be proactive, create a page that allows people simple access to your graphics. If you find a number of people asking for a similar size or quality of an image, an album cover or what ever, then add that to the page as well.

This will give you a professional look while saving time for someone from having to search out your images. Lastly, by being able to send simple links of an image or file, you are not filling up an email box with an oversized file and you are greatly helping your chances that some one will use your images instead of just text or their own.

(Promo Download Logo and Initials)

Music Consultant, Music Producer & Music Coach Loren Weisman works to help, assist & consult independent artists, musicians, bands, labels & managers to achieve sustainable success. For more on LW's speaking, music consulting, music coaching or other services, visit: lorenweisman.com