“Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.”― Leo Babauta

We don’t usually believe in over-statements. However this Holiday season, we wish there was any better advice to cut through the clutter.

As we end 2016 with so many surprises like PPAP, we have curated this article with trends that transformed into tactics in the current music industry. Read on to exactly know how to identify your essentials and which to eliminate.

First things first…
Ensure that you optimise your Online Presence to boost Online Sales with a website which has:

  1. An unique story to tell about your work
  2. Embedded Video for richer & longer audience engagement
  3. A mailing list sign-up to build/boost your subscriber-base
  4. A digital press kit to facilitate information for those who could help with gaining exposure
  5. A festive Sale with limited-period pricing on your music & merchandise with discount codes sent as gifts 

Album covers are passé – Hail SERPs & SEO Tags!
How do you usually release an album trailer or any other sample of your work to the world? If the answer is only various Social media platforms and friend recommendations, then there is an entire Organic pasture you’re missing out on. Just imagine what you’d do after listening to a track you liked. Chances are you’ll probably search its lyrics, or the artist or any info about its creators or its guitar chords, in case you’re only hooked to a haunting lead.

Now if any of such searches about your music yields inadequate results, do you think your potential fan would be able to discover you with Telepathy? This is exactly where Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tags create the discovery platform. The more accurate and optimized content you provide them – the more they engage with your work – further increasing the chances of turning into admirers, if not fan-boys on first impression.

So this Holiday season make sure that your music/band features on Google Search with at least:

  • An SEO optimized official website or even a blog with detailed info about your work and creators
  • YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, Beatport, iTunes and other social networking profiles
  • A dedicated Wikipedia entry
  • A knowledge panel with links to Google images 

When it’s in the Air, you can’t stop breathing it
No matter how digitally empowered or advanced the world becomes, the Radio audience has always impacted music world over. This is mainly due to the fact that radio forms a human connection between your music and an engaged audience.

To say the least, you just can’t ignore Radio because:

  1. Music Curators/Publishers have depended on this medium for over decades to source new talent. So getting noticed or being popular here increases the chances of your work being monetized.
  2. You can reach niche audiences with the huge variety of radio stations differing in terms of medium, listenership and demographic reach. College or University Radios or Community Radios are the bases on which the super-structures of Commercial or Online Radios are still made.

This holiday season, strike the chords of success with Radio by:

  • Researching your target-audience and short-listing their favorite stations to start with
  • Move on to creating a Radio-edit of your most popular number/s
  • Try connecting with your local audience over a Phone-in talk show

Man is a SOCIAL animal. Musicians are NO exception!
Some auteurs still expect that their work will solely gain traction based on how good it is. Those are the dinosaurs who think Social Media is only for bragging. However, if you dare to dig deeper beyond the evils & clichés of the fastest growing Virtual Medium, you discover hacks like these:

  1. Don’t just make page on Facebook to share your YouTube videos or gig pics. Rather do these… or just these:
    1. You cannot improve something you cannot measure. So create both short & long-term objectives and measure them periodically in terms of pre-decided metrics or industry standards.
    2. Use the Page Insights tool to know your audience base inside out. Your worries about ‘where to find audience’ and ‘what could actually work’ would be spelled out by DATA no one could DENY.
  • Use Facebook LIVE to its full potential while also maintaining the rarity of such occasions.
  1. Twitter is neither the Pandora’s box of all online controversies, nor a nexus of trolls on a mission to defame. The thousands of verified musician Twitteratis rather use it for:
    1. Engaging in meaningful conversations & topics with unique #Hashtags while finding a new audience as a bonus
    2. Live-tweeting events to keep the followers feeling updated and close to heart
  • Paying due diligence to undiscovered talent by promoting other musicians & bands
  1. Instagram is not a ‘me-too’ version of Flickr or Tumblr or any such photo sharing website. A recent Nielsen study has revealed that Instagram users spend 42% more money than the general populous and 90% of them stream music. Most of these users are regulars at live events & concerts and are twice as likely to pay for it. So the next time you wonder why & what to click & post with a dozen hashtags, try these for a change:
    1. Shots inside the studio of either rehearsals or recording and of course some proof of the fun behind the scene, like those green room antics
    2. Touristy images on the road while touring for gigs
  • Glimpses of the hard work which goes into writing lyrics and composing dilemmas
  1. YouTube being the 2nd largest search engine makes it indispensible for both solo musicians and bands. It was not long ago that we had curated the 4 Ways Musicians Can Make Money Through YouTube. However, for the Holiday season we saved these Spring Cleaning strategies:
    1. Always optimize your videos for search with unique tags, titles & descriptions.
    2. Enable Channel Recommendations for new users to stumble upon your work after watching something related.
  • As the video plays, lure viewers with Click-bait annotations to your other videos or any specific landing page.

I would love to know your views, comments & queries about this cheatsheet. This fall, hope you save the Comment boxes from freezing without words.