August 31st, 2011

20 ways to get more gigs for your band (part 1)

When you talk to musicians they all seem to ask one question, how do you get gigs? It is relatively easy to get bad gigs (pay to play etc) but getting decent gigs is still tough. It is hard pushing yourself without a booking agent but the only way to build your team (management/booking agent/PR etc) is by working to the point where you have a fan base and then these people will want to work with you. Playing live, alongside promoting yourself online is one of the best ways for you to build this initial fan base. The first step is getting some gigs, which can be frustrating. Here are some ideas for those either making that first step or looking to get more gigs:

  • Have an elevator pitch about your band – If you meet someone in a bar who happens to be putting on gigs how do you describe your band? Can you describe your bands music in one or two sentences? Most bands want to be perceived to be original but promoters need to know who and what you sound like so they can book you alongside similar acts. Also carry a CD of your band at all times, we know of a band who got Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin listening to their music just by giving him a CD while he was out shopping.
  • Find the venues on Live Unsigned - The main Live Unsigned site has a fantastic list of venues to play at, simply type in the name of the area you want to play in into the search box and off you go. If you need a standard email to send to promoters and venues it is here.
  • Make one person in the band “the booking agent” – If you’re all doing bookings it gets confusing. You can get double bookings if you’re all doing it and promoters prefer to deal with just one person. Then that person can slowly build relationships with the promoters and venues.
  • Think about why bars, venues and promoters book bands – Most venues book bands to bring in people or get people drinking more. So covers bands earn a living by entertaining the customers and getting them to drink more beer. Venues that put on original, interesting bands are also looking to bring in more people. So if you want to play there really push and promote your gigs when you get them. Metallica don’t get to play stadiums because promoters like them, it is because they bring the fans to the venue. If you don’t bring people you won’t get to play again. There is more information on getting fans to gigs here.
  • Choose your gigs carefully – OK so when you start the trick is to play everywhere so you get confident, but after that pick and choose. Only play places that will enhance your reputation.
  • Work with charities – Charities put on some interesting gigs. For example Oxjam is a month long event that runs in the UK through October with hundreds of gigs. People love to support worthwhile events so you have more chance of fans coming to the gig and helping a decent cause is always good.
  • Show promoters that you have fans – If you really want to impress promoters show them you have fans. Use real numbers such as Facebook fans, Twitter followers and the number of people on your email list. Send them links to your social network sites and tell the truth.
  • Be considerate – Don’t hassle promoters relentlessly, there is a fine line between persistent and annoying. Don’t even consider phoning them on a Friday or Saturday night when the venues are busy. Personalise any correspondence and research the venues so that you know they promote gigs in your genre. If you want promoters to want to work with you make an effort and be friendly, don’t expect anything. No one is entitled to anything in the music industry.
  • Over deliver on your promises – if you say you’re going to bring 15 people bring 30. Turn up early, remember people’s names and offer to help. Stand out by being harder working than anyone else.
  • Have some videos of you playing on your site – Promoters want to book bands that can deliver live, have a bit of a buzz about them and that bring fans. If you have a video of your band playing live in front of a big audience make sure you have that on your website on the front page.

In the next part of this blog post we’ll look at building your local community, borrowing ideas from others and how to stand out amongst all the other bands.

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August 25th, 2011

12 low cost promotional ideas for musicians

Times are hard for everyone at the moment, especially musicians. Unfortunately you can spend a lot of time signing up for free promotional sites online that will do nothing to raise their profile. Your time is limited, as are your funds so you need to focus on the free and low cost promotional opportunities that will really deliver. Marketing people say that you need to see the name of a brand between seven and nine times before you pay attention to it, so each of the below is another chance to get your name out there. Here are our recommendations for ways to promote your music for very little money:

  • Get Internet radio play – It costs nothing to send a link for a free download of music to an internet radio station. Ensure you customise your email to each station you send your music to, don’t send generic spam emails and try and say something nice about the station! There are thousands of internet radio stations and podcasts, get in touch with them. You never know who will be listening. Dandelion Radio is a good one, its mission is “to carry on the work of John Peel” and it has been recommended by Q magazine and The Guardian and has thousands of listeners. Because it is quite eclectic there should be a show there that will play your music.
  • List your gig on Live Unsigned – The Live Unsigned community are actively looking for gigs to go to from all over the world. Listing your gigs is easy and quick. An essential.
  • Get some flyers/badges/stickers – Still an effective, low cost promotional opportunity. For the price of an evening out you can get some stickers and badges to give out to fans, leave in venues and other places around town. An easy win.
  • Make a compilation – Often the key to getting people to listen to you is for you to listen to them and be part of their scene and community. It is better to interact and build relationships with a small amount of people than spam a lot of people. By making a compilation download you can bring together all the people in your scene that you are friends with. You can also make it specific, perhaps to your area or for a specific niche, perhaps 10 songs about a computer game or something along those lines. Try and tap in to fan culture.  If you can make the compilation appeal to a specific group of people you have more chance of people downloading it. If you make it available as a download via Bandcamp you can also set it so that you collect the fans email address every time they download it, helping you to grow your email list.
  • Stream a gig on Ustream – Another free service that actually allows you to connect with fans. Set up for your normal band practice and take a feed off the mixing desk. Use the camera on your laptop and you’re off. There is a full guide to doing Ustream gigs here.
  • Write a blog post that is useful to others – If you can create a blog post (or video or podcast) that is of use to others there is far more chance of them sharing it online and more people visiting your blog. Think about perhaps making some sort of post that shows people how to learn a specific skill, like perhaps a guitar lesson or how to make something. These posts will get people on to your site and once they are on there you can start to get them listening to your music. For example the band Georgia Wonder wrote an article about how to get a Wikipedia page for your band that has had 14.5K visits! Imagine how much that would cost if you were paying for hits via Google Ads.
  • Make friends with a blogger,journalist or industry person – The music industry is based entirely on who you know. That is why PR companies can charge a lot of money, because you are paying to have access to their relationships with magazine editors and TV producers. The best way to get exposure is to become part of the circles that influential people move in. You’ll soon realise that each genre’s scene is quite small with perhaps just a few people with a lot of influence, so be careful who you upset. Hanging out at gigs, club nights and bars where these people are will allow you to build these relationships. It is not easy but what you normally find is that you will meet one person who opens up connections with lots of people.
  • Ask for help – Find out if there are any photographers or film makers looking to get some work with bands on their C.V. Often people want to help bands out and feel part of the music industry (they don’t know what it is really like) so get them involved. Use Twitter, your email list and other social media to ask for help. The worst that can happen is people say no!
  • Flyer at another band’s gig – When the the big bands come through town flyer the queue. It is not really about handing out the flyers (they are often quickly forgotten) it is about shaking hands with people in the queue and meeting people. If you want people to go and see you play live you need to build a relationship with them. Build the fan base one hand shake at a time.
  • Design a T-Shirt and sell it via Zazzle – Zazzle lets you create your own t-shirts by uploading art to the site. They print the shirts for you on an ad-hoc basis and send them out to your fans via the post, you then get a small amount as a commission. A lot easier and cheaper than paying for a run of 20 t-shirts.
  • Do something remarkable to get people talking – Change your image, burn your guitar or run naked through the streets. Anything you can do to get people talking about what you do, do it. People rarely talk about Lady Ga Ga’s music but she is amazing at getting people talking via a series of outrageous stunts.
  • Ask your fans to tell a friend – Word of mouth is the best form of promotion and it is free. It is a fact that most people don’t trust advice from advertisements, they only trust their friends. Normally there is one person in the group who seeks out new music and shares their discoveries.

You can do a lot without spending much money although unfortunately it can be slow going. Hard work will ultimately bring rewards as long as the music is great, if you are working hard and don’t get much success try looking at the music and see if you can make the songs better.

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August 23rd, 2011

10 lessons DIY musicians can learn from Radiohead

Being an innovator in the music industry is never easy, but Radiohead have managed it both musically and in terms of their engagement with fans and labels. When the band started in the mid 80′s there was no Youtube, no Live Unsigned to post gigs on and no Twitter. Now you can do most of the things that Radiohead did much more easily and cheaply. Here are some things you can learn from Radiohead’s innovative approach:

  • Take musical risks – Every Radiohead album is different to the last, taking influences from experimental music, jazz, electronic music and lots of other places. If you want to keep your fans engaged don’t play it safe. Create music that is remarkable and interesting and be open to new ideas. If you really want to achieve word of mouth success, give fans something to talk about.
  • Support your causes – Thom Yorke has supported various organisations including CND, Amnesty International and Greenpeace. He shares his beliefs with the fans and they often respond to what he is passionate about. Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.
  • Don’t give up – Radiohead formed in 1985 but didn’t release a record until 1992. If you want to be good just keep going, trying new ideas, getting better live and writing better songs. So much of success in any given field is just turning up and putting the effort in.
  • Embrace the new business models – With In Rainbows Radiohead where the first mainstream band to offer their album as a “Pay What You Want” download. Aware that fans can download free via torrents they gave their audience the option of choosing whether to pay and how much they thought the music was worth. This got them vast amounts of free press and expanded their fan base. Always try and be at the cutting edge.
  • Ignore the critics – Radiohead’s debut album had terrible reviews and they were considered to be a one hit wonder with their single Creep, later in their career they received critical acclaim for albums like Kid A and OK Computer. They ignored the critics, went straight to the fans via the web and made the records they wanted to make. Never worry about what others think, make the music you love and want to make.
  • Do streaming gigs – Radiohead were one of the first bands to stream gigs from their studio. They did a series of webcasts including them playing live in the studio, them DJ’ing and some more bizarre material. Anyone can stream gigs now using Ustream. Radiohead were also one of the first bands to release stems of their songs for fans to remix.
  • Don’t be afraid of “illegal” downloading - Kid A, the band’s first US number 1 album was heavily shared online before release. The word of mouth from this unofficial download helped get the album to number one.
  • Split the royalties – All Radiohead songs are split 5 ways on the publishing, whoever wrote them. Quite a few bands do this, it means everyone gets paid the same and it avoids arguments. There is nothing worse than the main songwriter in a band pulling up in a new car when everyone else arrives by bus. This is even more important now that licensing is such a big part of a bands income stream.
  • Be amazing live – It is always the key and the Radiohead’s live concerts have been constantly exciting and different. Often the band swap instruments for each song making the concert more memorable.
  • Have a distinctive visual style – Virtually all of the bands artwork is by one artist, Stanley Donwood in collaboration with Thom Yorke giving them an overall unifying style on their website, merchandise and album covers.

The key is not to copy what Radiohead have been doing but to take inspiration and do something amazing and remarkable yourself.

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August 19th, 2011

How to get the most out of your band practice

Rehearsing can be frustrating when all you want to do is be up in front of an audience and getting out there and doing it for real. What happens on stage is directly related to what happens in the rehearsal room. Get it right here and you will have more chance of building a fan base. Here are some ideas to improve your practices:

  • Sort out the the sound – Before you start rehearsing balance the levels and make sure you can hear everything. Balance clean and distorted guitar sounds and ensure you can hear the vocals. If you can’t hear where the problems are during practice you can’t fix them.
  • Find somewhere decent to practice – Somewhere you can turn up as loud as you want (not your front room), that has a decent PA and ideally a mirror so you can see what you are doing. It is a worthwhile investment.
  • If you are using a backing track make sure the drummer can hear it – Make sure the drummer is locked in with the click, get them to practice along with it themselves on their own first. If possible try and simplify the backing track, try and keep just the essential parts to avoid it sounding like mush through the PA.
  • Practice often – Once a week isn’t enough if you want to get really tight. Practice as often as you can, get it so you don’t even have to think about what you are playing. Make sure when you walk on stage your are totally confident in what you are doing.
  • Writing, recording and practicing are very different things – The running order and arrangements on an album are not always the ones you will use live. Think about extending sections that work really well live and play to your strengths, so maybe double the length of choruses or get rid of long introductions. You often only get a small amount of time to impress the fans so make sure you think about how you want to present yourself.
  • Take Breaks – Every hour or so take a short break, otherwise your ears will become tired and progress will slow down. Obvious, but it often gets missed.
  • Keep a positive atmosphere in the room – Having a laugh is fine but picking on people trying hard to nail a part is a very bad idea. Putting more pressure on people is unlikely to yield better results, musicians learn at different rates, have some patience.
  • Focus on the rhythm section – Get your bass player and drummer to practice together alone to tighten up. Get the bass drum locked in with the bass and the whole band will sound instantly tighter.
  • Work on the weak spots – Try new songs and difficult songs more than the ones you really know. Work on specific sections of songs, the difficult sections that you need to get tight over the stuff you can play easily. Constantly review any areas of concern.
  • Work out arrangements in advance – You can save a lot of time in practice if the guitarists sit down together and work out their parts. The same goes for bands with multiple vocalists, if you can get harmony vocals perfect at home it is often easier than doing it in front of a band.
  • Avoid drugs and alcohol – If you can. They will slow you down. Not very rock ‘n’ roll but true. Some bands have a drink during the last few songs to celebrate a good practice.
  • Rehearse “as live” – Practice the between song announcements, tuning up and stage movements. It may well feel silly but it will prepare you for doing it for real. Work out your set list as one continuous piece, a set list is an overall composition. Split up songs that sound similar and try to avoid placing songs in the same key next to each other.
  • Think about how you present each song – If you really want fans to remember your band you have to win them over visually as well as musically. Will you present all the songs in the same way or do different things for different songs? Something as simple as a band member sitting down for a slow song can help to make your act more memorable.
  • Record your rehearsals and make videos – Useful for a few reasons. Watching your own performance you can see what looks and sounds great and what doesn’t work.  These videos also make great content for Youtube and your blog.
  • Work out what happens when things go wrong – Have something to fill gaps when an amp goes down or someone breaks a string. A short instrumental or some banter from the singer will do the trick.
  • Set a date – When your set is nearly ready to play live set a date for your first gig, this will put that extra bit of pressure on to get ready for that first performance. List it on Live Unsigned and start telling your friends, this will add extra incentive to tighten your set in time for that important first gig.

What happens in the rehearsal room is directly connected to how you will go down on stage. To create the best impression you need to really get things perfect in the practice room, this will give you the confidence to really connect with fans when you are up on stage doing it for real.

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August 16th, 2011

How do DIY musicians create viral videos?

When we think of viral videos we often think of cute cats, the Star Wars kid and free hugs. They are also an incredibly useful tool for DIY musicians to connect with a large audience. However it’s not easy to make a viral video happen, if it was everyone would be doing it. You can’t just make a video and say “we’re making a viral” and expect people to share it, rarely will people just discover it. You need to make videos so remarkable that people want to share them and make sure they are shared by influential people who have a large audience themselves. Here are a few viral video essentials:

  • Get the right content - Do something newsworthy or useful or shocking or funny. Think about something you’d want to share online, like something so bad it’s good (think Rebecca Black) or something useful that helps you promote your band. You playing a song on an acoustic guitar is not remarkable, unless your guitar is on fire or you are playing the song in the street while a riot is going on. The content you make has to make you go “wow, I must show this to my friends”. That is how viral videos happen. The key is to get influential people to share the content, then you have a chance.  Don’t forget the details like giving your video an interesting title and the correct keywords, little things can make a big difference.
  • Will it be featured on Stumbleupon.com/Digg/Reddit? – These sites are often where videos start to go viral. They are discovery engines based on recommendations from users, if your video is recommended by enough influential users you have more chance of your video featuring on the front page and being viewed by millions.  If you can find the most popular Digg users and get them to submit your content you’ll have more of chance of making this happen but once again it is very competitive.
  • Will it be shared on social media? – Twitter and other social media sites are amplifiers. People sharing and re-tweeting your links can make your video go viral if the people sharing the content are influential enough. Even some Twitter users with thousands of followers aren’t that influential, it is about how much the audience are interested in the Twitter user and how connected they actually are. So someone with a small connected, engaged following may be of more use than someone with lots of followers who don’t care.
  • Can you influence the influencers? – Its all about Bloggers with lots of readers, influential Digg Users and Twitter users with thousands of connected, engaged followers. The hard bit is getting your video to these people when they are constantly being bombarded with information from other people trying to get their videos to go viral. You need to build real relationships, over months and years. Comment on their blogs and reply to their tweets, regularly. Don’t try and connect with everyone, build relationships with a few key influencers and grow your audience from there.
  • It is not about one thing – Sure a tweet from someone with a million Twitter followers can provide the spark for a viral video but the way a viral actually spreads online is a very complex process. If all viral videos spread the same way it would be easy to replicate. All you can do is try to help that process along by networking with influential people and creating great content. One thing alone is unlikely to create a viral sensation.
  • Don’t chase viral success over everything else – Remember playing live, talking to fans on social media, listing your gigs on Live Unsigned and all the other daily essential tasks are going to do you more good in the long run than chasing viral success that may not happen. Often a spike from a viral video will be of less use to you in terms of growing your audience than you think, and those fans soon go away. If you want a career keep working everyday to build a long term fan base.

So essentially the idea is to make great, shocking, funny, newsworthy and remarkable content then get people with a great deal of influence on social sites, blogs and news sites to share your content. That is it. It sounds fairly easy but unfortunately everyone is trying to do it, everyone is trying to influence the influential people and get their content out to the world. The only way is to have the best relationships with these influencers (built often over years not weeks) and consistently make incredible amazing content. There is a lot of talk about how Web 2.0 has removed the old gate keepers (magazines, radio and TV) but in fact what we have is a new generation of gatekeepers spread across the web, some with an audience of 10 some with 10 million. If you want your video to truly go viral you need to reach the most influential people and that is why, now more than ever, it is all about who you know and the relationships you are building every day online.

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August 12th, 2011

How to promote your music using online forums

Online forums aren’t cool and they are not the most obvious place to promote your music. You are probably better off focusing on social media, blogs and listings on Live Unsigned initially. But Forums do have some things going for them, they are where the really keen, evangelical fans hang out. The super fans. The fans who go out and tell their friends. For some niche scenes the forums are the main place for music fans to discover new artists, the Dubstep scene for example is very much forum focused. If you can get people talking about your music on forums it can really help you to grow your audience. Here are some ideas:

  • Join two or three forums and visit them regularly – You need to build relationships with others on forums over months and years if you want people to listen to what you are saying. Posting one spammy “check out my music” post on hundreds of forums will just annoy people. Initially join up and watch what is happening. Reply to posts when you can add to the discussion and then later on slip in the occasional mention of your own music where relevant. If you went around in real life going up to people you don’t know and only talking about yourself and your own music people would soon find you annoying and a bit odd. It is just the same online.
  • Ask your fans to post about your music on forums – There is no way you can engage with every forum where you would like people to hear your music. Ask your fans to post in forums on your behalf, this will be far more powerful and authentic than you doing it yourself.
  • Only have your own forum when you know it will be busy – It is tempting to add a forum to your website but if you don’t have a decent sized fan base that will use it, it may look like you don’t have any fans. Wait until you have an audience then give them somewhere to talk. When your forum does start to get busy make sure all the band members use it and engage with fans.
  • Don’t feed the trolls (or be one) – Some people use forums as an opportunity to put others down and start arguments.  Most forums have these trolls (sadly). Just ignore these people and don’t ever consider engaging with them.
  • Fill in your profile – If you’re engaging with people and being interesting hopefully other users on the forum will want to know about you. Fill in your profile, have some quotes from others about your music and links to your website, social media and Live Unsigned profiles.
  • Pick your forums carefully – Look for forums of acts your band sounds similar to or that are for your specific musical niche. There are forums for all kinds of music from Dubstep to Metal to Singer Songwriters and folk. Ask your fans what forums they use if you are not sure where to start.
  • Have a link to your own music in your footer – In many forums you can add a small piece of text in your footer underneath every post you make. Add a small quote from someone saying how great your music is and a link to your music, there is a chance people will see it and click on it. It does work.
  • Look out for “promote your music here” threads – Many sites have a special thread where you can promote your music without people calling you a spammer. Promote your music here first.
  • Be your own fan – If you have difficulty promoting yourself on a forum some musicians who don’t have many fans create a fake profile and use that to promote there own music. If you get caught out doing this you will look ridiculous but some people choose to be their own fan until they have fans of their own. It is up to you if you decide to pursue this option, but be careful.

Forums are mostly about discussion and community, not self promotion. If you can get people talking about your music in forums you can get some of the most hardcore fans on your side, you just need to put some time in engaging with them.

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August 9th, 2011

A standard letter for bands to send to promoters

Getting gigs can often be a very competitive business, everyone wants the best slots. Often bands struggle to know what to say when approaching promoters via email to get the first few gigs. This is our guide to putting together a very basic, to the point, generic email to send to promoters to get you playing live.

The more you can personalise the email the more chance you have of connecting with the person you are emailing. If you can say something nice about the venue or the promoter or a gig you have seen at the venue it can open doors. Remember that promoters receive hundreds of emails from bands asking for gigs and you have to get to the point very quickly and create a good impression with just a few words, they are busy people. Always find out the name of the promoter and use it in your email, mention if you have a mutual friend as well, as this can sometimes open doors. The email below should help:

Hi (insert name of promoter here)

Hope you’re good.

My name is (your name) from (insert name of band here). We have a new (single/album/EP) out later in the year and we are currently booking some gigs to tie in with that. I wondered if you had any appropriate slots available? We are a 4/5/6/17 piece Metal/Prog/Punk/Salsa band from (insert home town) and our influences include Slayer, Exploited, The Libertines and Dub War (try and tailor the genre and influences so they are similar to the ones of the bands that are already playing at the venue, but also give an honest representation of what you do).  We may well be well suited to your (insert name of a club night here).

Recent gigs include playing the Astoria supporting the Damned and playing at Glastonbury festival (only include your best gigs in this line). (Add any additional information about your band here such as being played on the radio, getting decent press quotes, how many fans you can bring, if you have lots of followers on Twitter or Facebook and if you have a large mailing list).

You can hear our music here:

(include a link to your music on your Live Unsigned profile or Soundcloud or Bandcamp or the music page on your own website).

And watch a live video here:

(Ideally this should be a link to a fantastic Youtube video, don’t try and embed the video as HTML in the email as this can look weird in some email browsers).

You can download our press kit at:

(Include a link here to the press kit part of your website, more information on press kits here).

If you require any further information just let me know. I appreciate you having a listen.

Thanks

 

(your name)

(your band name)

(your website URL)

(contact telephone numbers)

If you don’t hear anything initially, follow your email up in a few weeks and see if the promoter received your email and ask if they need any further information, perhaps offer to do a last minute gig if another band drops out. Don’t be too pushy and ring or email the promoter all the time, this will just annoy them. Be patient.

Getting the gig is just the start, so start promoting your gig across social media and with a listing on Live Unsigned as soon as possible. There is lots more information on promoting gigs here.

Your first email to a promoter can start a relationship that can last for years. Promoters often know a lot of people within the industry and can be very useful contacts so make sure you treat them well, don’t let them down and play amazing, busy gigs.

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August 5th, 2011

Google plus for musicians

Google Plus is Google’s latest attempt at a social network. It is like a stripped down Facebook or like Twitter if you could use more than 140 characters, with a few cool additional features. You can post links, photos and videos as you can on most networks but you can also filter people you are following with Circles and do video chats.

Some people are getting very excited about it, it has the potential to be big but it depends on numerous factors including how well adopted it is, what features they add and what they can offer.  For what it is at the moment it seems to work pretty well, but because it is so new it is very hard to see exactly what will happen with it.  Also at the moment it is invite only and you need a Gmail account, although this changes from day to day, so by the time you read this it may be open to all. If you need an invite ask your fans on Twitter and other social media to help. Here is our guide:

  • Don’t start a page for your band – The opposite advice to usual, Google frown upon this as they have not yet confirmed what their offer for bands, businesses and organistations will be. There is a very high chance that your page will be deleted (yes this has actually happened), so just have a personal page and interact with people. Google Plus isn’t the place for the hard sell, just chat to people and build relationships. Be social! There are plenty of places you can post your music and create a profile – make sure you are on Soundcloud, have a decent website and have a Live Unsigned profile set up. These places actively encourage you to have a music profile, Google Plus doesn’t, yet.
  • Complete your personal profile page – Make sure the basics are there, information about who you are personally, some photos and a link to your music. Again, it must be for you as an individual not your band. Don’t start following people until you have your profile set up.
  • Try a Hangout concert or chat – Hangouts are a way for you to perform and interact with your fans via a multi person video chat. You can chat or play some songs, like doing a UStream concert but the audience can talk back to you. You can just use the camera in your laptop. As the amount of people you can have in a Hangout is limited (currently to 10) it is like a backstage pass for fans to chat to you via their video camera. You can share rehearsals, recording sessions or even give guitar lessons. As well as live streaming you can also send Youtube videos to your Hangout and you can all watch the video at the same time. The person organising the Hangout can choose to mute the other people’s mics if they so desire, so that no one else in the Hangout can hear them, very handy if someone is being noisy during your guitar ballad. You can also use a limited Hangout for band and business meetings. Hangouts are probably the most exciting feature of Google Plus.
  • It is all about conversations – Just chatting to people and interacting with them is the best way to build an audience on any social network. Spamming people and only talking about yourself and your band will just annoy everyone. Stop self promoting and start talking, then you can slip the odd link to your own music into the conversation.
  • Use the Circles as your filters – Circles allow you sub divide and organise the people you are following into groups and only share specific information with them. So you might have a fans Circle or a music industry Circle or a close friends Circle or a street team Circle and only share specific content with them. Always remember that nothing you post on a social network is ever really private, even if you are sharing it only with a specific Circle.
  • Share and create interesting content – Post any cool links you find, share any cool things your friends post and write interesting updates to start questions. Ask people their opinion, Plus is great for chats. You’ll find a lot of the chat on there is about Google Plus itself at the moment so try and be a bit more interesting.
  • Follow some interesting people – Have a look at who your friends are following or search Google Plus for people with specific phrases in their profile and follow some of them. You can create a specific circle for this purpose so you don’t get them mixed up with your actual friends.
  • Invite your fans – While the network is invite only at present when you join you have the opportunity to invite others to join. Ask if any fans need an invite via your other social networks and help them out. Then they will be more likely to share your content and help you out in the future. Look after your fans and they will look after you.

At the moment Google Plus is interesting but not an essential part of your marketing for your band. Google Plus is not the place to focus all your marketing efforts at present. This may well change and it could become really big, it is certainly growing very quickly. For the moment try it out, make some friends, have some fun, post the odd link to your music and work out your own take on this network that is evolving very quickly. In a few months Google Plus could be huge.

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August 3rd, 2011

How to organise your first national tour – part 3

In the final part of this post we look at street teams, budgeting, merchandising and avoiding strained relationships on the road. Here are some more things that you need to bear in mind:

  • Build relationships - Don’t be late or annoy promoters or behave like an egotistical rock star. In the early stages of your touring career the important thing is to build positive relationships with promoters, fans and anyone else you meet. You never know who is going to be the fan with ten thousand Twitter followers or the person who writes a really influential blog. Contacts made on your first few tours can last you for the rest of your career. Shake the hands of fans, sign every autograph, say thank you and make yourself available. Leave your ego at home.
  • Don’t fall out with the rest of the band – If you are just used to seeing your band mates a few times a week it is nothing compared to being stuck with them on a bus or in a van for long journeys. Little things like being polite, not hogging the stereo, remembering personal hygiene and not leaving solids down the toilet on the tour bus make a big difference. It may be worth thinking about your relationships within the band before your tour. Anything you find annoying about the people in the band will be amplified so make sure you have people you can get along with on the bus.
  • Work out if you can afford a crew – If you can rope in some supportive mates this is very useful. Ideally you’d have someone to move and set up gear, a sound person, a driver, a merch person etc. A large crew is expensive. Even If you are not paying them you still need to find them somewhere to sleep and feed them. Perhaps just one or two crew people/helpers is enough for the first tour?
  • Sort out the route in advance – Your designated driver needs to plan this in advance, don’t purely rely on your sat-nav or a smart phone, get a map and work out a route. If possible also check online for any problems in the area on the day you travel.
  • Rally your street team – This is the time to make the most of those contacts you have been building online. Ask fans to put up posters and hand out fliers weeks in advance and get their friends to come to the gig. Offer them access to the band or guest list passes in exchange for their help. Often fans love helping out, but give something back and don’t take them for granted.
  • Ustream your gigs if possible – Streaming gigs is getting easier than ever. Contact the venue you want to stream the gig from in advance, check they have a decent Wi-Fi Connection and see if you can set up a feed from the mixing desk and a camera. This gives you a chance to share your touring experience with your fans across the world. More information on Ustreaming gigs here.
  • Work out your budget – Don’t expect to sell lots of CDs or T-Shirts (and some venues will want 20% of your takings even if you do sell any merchandise), work out your budget so that even if you sell no merchandise you can still afford fuel to get you to the next gig. Work out your fuel cost in miles per gallon and get it on an Excel spread sheet so you know exactly how much you will spend on fuel. Remember some promoters are rubbish and won’t pay you as much as they said they would. Every time you go out and play gigs there will always be costs you don’t expect (like break downs, broken equipment etc.) so keep some funds in reserve for emergencies.
  • Check your merchandise inventory – Check to see how many T-Shirts, Hoodies, CDs etc. you have and make sure you have plenty of stock. Check clothing sizes to make sure you don’t have 10 2XL and no Large. Check how many CDs you have, 10 CDs per gig is perhaps a good idea. Base your projected sales on your previous gigs, but don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out to be the same. Merch sales are hard to predict but perhaps it is better to go higher rather then lower. It is very difficult to get merchandise sent out to you once you are on the road.
  • Get the promoters to sign a contract (if you can) – This can be difficult to do, but remember that if you have an agreement in writing you have more chance of getting paid, most promoters won’t want to do this however.
  • Keep notes on all the venues and say thank you – After every gig write down the names of the people you have met, how much you got paid, how many fans where there and what the venue was like. It makes it a lot easier to book your next tour if you can pin point the best venues. When you get home email all the venues you have played at and say thank you and that you enjoyed playing there. This will give you more chance of being invited back.
  • Split the work between the people in the band – If you don’t have a crew and you are touring as a completely DIY act then split the jobs fairly. Play to peoples strengths and share the workload. If one person is doing all the work this can lead to resentment so make sure everyone helps. Clearly delegated tasking will result in the jobs being completed more effectively.
  • Keep accounts, ideally via Excel – Remember the tax man is your silent partner in all this so record your merchandise sales, run a petty cash box and keep your receipts. Not very exciting but it will help you in the long run.
  • Check the door yourself – Believe it or not some promoters have been known to lie about how many people are coming through the door, if possible get one of your people to keep an eye on how many fans are coming in.

Every tour is different and these blogs are only the start of the things you need to do that are unique to your band and situation. Your first national tour is where you often start to feel like a “proper band”. Expect the unexpected, weird stuff will happen, you will end up meeting all sorts of bizarre, exciting and amazing people. Once your first tour is out the way you can start planning the next one, plan some dates abroad or in bigger venues or incorporate some festivals. When it is done well touring is addictive, you will often find you miss it and are desperate to hit the road again as soon as possible.

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