Music Industry + AM

C

cocoa

chocolate affiliate
Jul 8, 2010
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I have had moderate success doing affiliate marketing over the last 2 years, but my dreams are much bigger than just sitting behind a computer making money. Here is my idea and I am asking you guys for any thoughts you might have on my venture.

My girlfriend has an amazing voice and I want eventually want to break into the music industry as her manager. She has won a few talent competitions at our university and I wouldn't actually pursue this if she sounded like...
YouTube - Michael Jackson - Beat it (hilarious)

I am doing a lot of ground work here at our university so she is already pretty big in our little town, but its time to expand to the masses :music06:

I already have her singing covers to songs on Youtube but I want to be more creative in utilizing the internet. Not trying to get her to push acai berries with her voice or nothing but I do want her to have her own niche that would make her unique. What methods of affiliate marketing would you guys use to get traffic/fans to her now at the early stages of her career? Any advice or insight would be appreciated!
 


Hey dude,

Nowadays - as I'm sure you know, it's all about DIY. Promoting yourself, releasing your own records etc.

Social media is massive, Facebook, Reverb Nation, Soundcloud are some good ones for music. Just look at what sort of music you're making, and see where others this market promote and sell their music.

Don't plan on getting the "big break out of nowhere". It does sometimes happen, and will maybe happen to your girl, but primarily, look to hustling yourself.

If you would like a further chat - drop me a line.
 
i'm going to try to dig up this article i read on this canadian singer who has a team of im'ers behind her and they've basically created lives for themselves. she's talented. she's not a genius, but she is talented, and she has an im management team that pushes her career, and in return they get a kickback and everyone's happy. i thought it was a good story.
 
and it's really about a song. lada gaga knew that well enough to hunt down talent and attach herself to song creators. a lot of people can sing. help her find a song or songs and build out.
 
Social media. One fan at a time man.

If you have a good song I would suggest promoting it and use a cpc/epc measurement ratio to just make sure you break even and get some fan data in the process.

If you can have her sing something cool that's topical like Obama Girl did then maybe that is the ticket.

Other than that, just build one fan at a time. Interact with the youtube comment posters. Give them a free download for an email address or a tweet follor.

You can use CASH Music for simple free software to do that. Bandcamp also has a decent setup for it as well.

Good luck
 
Facebook fanpage + Youtube channel + domain name IMMEDIATELY.

Then think about the rest from there.
 
Music industry

You say your girlfriend has won some local competitions. Great, but can you, or she, define what is special about her singing?
I only ask because an acquaintance of mine stated her singing career by winning local competitions. She sings mostly well known standards and even though she has had a 20-year singing career and has worked with some really great name musicians, she never really broke out, so to speak.
She made records, and now sells CDs on her own website, but pretty much she's always one gig away from being unemployed, know what I'm getting at?
She has a good voice but there's nothing really special that she brings to the material.
What I'm suggesting is that a singer needs material that makes her/him shine. Lots of people sing well but they're not memorable.
To become well known, or sought after, you have to be memorable. People have to want to hear you over and over again. You need to have a special quality that comes through...a gift for phrasing, songwriting, a unique voice, a stamp of individuality.
Find what that is, develop it and you have a reason people would want to pay to hear her, either on cd, radio, video, or in person.
All the best!
 
Music industry

You say your girlfriend has won some local competitions. Great, but can you, or she, define what is special about her singing?
I only ask because an acquaintance of mine stated her singing career by winning local competitions. She sings mostly well known standards and even though she has had a 20-year singing career and has worked with some really great name musicians, she never really broke out, so to speak.
She made records, and now sells CDs on her own website, but pretty much she's always one gig away from being unemployed, know what I'm getting at?
She has a good voice but there's nothing really special that she brings to the material.
What I'm suggesting is that a singer needs material that makes her/him shine. Lots of people sing well but they're not memorable.
To become well known, or sought after, you have to be memorable. People have to want to hear you over and over again. You need to have a special quality that comes through...a gift for phrasing, songwriting, a unique voice, a stamp of individuality.
Find what that is, develop it and you have a reason people would want to pay to her sing.
All the best!
 
Hi again. I apologize that I did not address my reply to your question. After I reread your post I realized my suggestions didn't really go to the heart of your question.
You want to utilize the internet to promote her.

Here's a thought..a couple of the sites I frequent play theme music and one in particular has a theme song that I really liked. Every time I visit the site I am drawn into the song playing. It's an original and I became a fan of the artist. I looked up the artist to find out more about her and her music and how I could buy it.

Maybe you/she could partner with some sites that would be a good fit for her talents.

Also, look into your local film makers groups to see if there's a need for singers music for films in production. I belong to a local musicians group through Meetup and we just got an e-mail this week from one of the film makers groups here notifying us that local film makers were looking for original music, if any of us were interested.
 
I keep hearing pretty much the same thing from people. FB fan page, Youtube fan page, and creativity are essential and those are things I will be focusing on for sure.

I remember reading a self help book (can't remember which one) but there was a chapter that pretty much said find someone who became successful then copy there pattern to success with your own little twist. This is something I am trying to do because is seems realistic if we remain patient & persistent.
 
She needs a fresh, catchy as FUCK song. There is a reason they call the chorus the hook. Get people to sing the song to themselves after it's over and yo have something to promote the shit out of.

Example:
YouTube - Rebecca Black - Friday (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

This song is FUCKING TERRIBLE. I watched the video because of that. That's how it is being promoted. However, after watching it I found myself thinking "Friday, Friday." I was like WFT? You know what it means? They are fucking winning. Girl reminds me of selena gomez so that plus bullshit song with a simple as fuck hook with the right kind of promotion for the song means someone is making bank because of this.
 
For now, focus on building up her credentials. Have her cover popular songs, get them on youtube and promote them with social media. Don't think about money or major media attention at all. Stay away from original songs and stuff like that. What you want to focus on is a good amount of views, a good amount of likes and a good amount of positive comments.

What you're doing here is showcasing the raw talent, because that's what the industry is after. You ultimately want people at labels to hear her, but there are tons of people out there shopping demos. If you're able to tell them how well her singing goes over with the internet crowd, they've already got a nice little piece of market research that tells them she might be worth a shot.
 
Spelunking said:
She needs a fresh, catchy as FUCK song. There is a reason they call the chorus the hook. Get people to sing the song to themselves after it's over and yo have something to promote the shit out of
Click to expand...

That's pretty much it though. All the youtube promo isn't going to do much unless you have a killer song, or at least a killer cover song.

I've been in the record biz as a major label A&R person and an indie label owner for 15 years. I can tell you from that experience that no matter how much promo you do, it all comes down to the product.

But as far as internet breakouts go, you need a great song, and then if it's rock focus on getting coverage in the music blogs. If it's pop, R&B or rap then you need to get the fans one by one.

As I said before, other than buying ads and just focusing on breaking even, there's not much else that you can do that will change her fate in any material way.
 
ericchristopher said:
and it's really about a song. lada gaga knew that well enough to hunt down talent and attach herself to song creators. a lot of people can sing. help her find a song or songs and build out.
Click to expand...

Lady Gaga is the quintessential example of everything that's wrong with the music industry these days.
 
I'm big into music and am moderately informed with the industry. Obviously, Los Angeles is the place to be for in-person promotion and opportunities (Nashville for country). Alot of artists are getting noticed via youtube (Justin Bieber) or social media sites (Hollywood Undead). If you can find means to drive traffic to her videos, fan pages, songs, etc...you can likely find a chance to build a fanbase. As always, good songwriting is most likely to get noticed (whatever 'good' music is these days..lol). Lemme know how promotion goes; I still find ways to promote my music online.
 
She needs to have something more than just being able to sing though... Everyone who's famous does, you've got to have a way to differentiate between 2 people who can sing amazingly.

Justin Bieber got picked up cause he looks like he's 12, so girls can be pedo without being pedo, Lady Gaga got picked up for being interesting and odd, Adele (dunno if you've heard of her, she's big over here) got picked up for being a white woman living in a county filled with farmers who sings like a black woman....

It's all about the USP.
 
titanium777 said:
I'm big into music and am moderately informed with the industry. Obviously, Los Angeles is the place to be for in-person promotion and opportunities (Nashville for country).
Click to expand...

So far I have had moderate success just being at the right place at the right time. Being in LA or some other city that has tons of music going on, you run into people in the industry all the time. You obviously need to sort through the riff-raff who talk a lot of game but I have met tons of people out here who can help get music into movies, tv sitcoms, cartoons.

Another key to success is if you get some notoriety whether through youtube or song placement on tv, parlay it into something bigger. Dont just sit there and expect people are gonna come knocking on your door cause you got your song in Monk.
 
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