“There are plenty of millionaires who would pay millions to hang a Van Gogh painting on the wall, but hardly one that would have ever had the crazy nut over for dinner. I feel like the big companies are like that with musicians. They’ll say, “We love music! It’s all about the music!” — but if a musician shows up at the door, they call security.

The disconnect between the music, as a final product, and the musician, as a person going through an ongoing creative process is the most broken aspect of the music business…”

- Derek Sivers, founder of CDbaby.com, largest independent retailer of CD’s

We talk about Twitter a lot in relation to artists and promoting music. That’s because Twitter is still the top resource for getting awareness for your music next to Facebook and Youtube.

We’ve had great results for our artists who are using Twitter effectively, increased sales, followers who share the artists music with their friends and their followers, artists getting hired to perform on other artists albums around the world, and more fans, web traffic and general awareness about the artists’ music.

But as we’ve been observing artists Tweeting habits, we’ve seen that like many Twitter users, many of you are just literally tweeting ‘what your doing’ at the moment, or doing blatant self advertising…

However this is not an effective way to really use Twitter. It’s not enough to make your tweets cut through the noise of the heavily updating marketers, and millions of other Twitter users out there…

Instead of “get my new music here” “I ate something I shouldn’t have”, or “sick of work, this job sucks”. or “when is it going to get hotter?”, Try things like, “I just came up with a new melody for a folk pop tune”, or “just tried out a new guitar I’m thinking of getting” or, “rehearsing for my next show where I’ll be playing some new songs about….” or even, “what do you think a fair consequence would be for this oil spill?”

Be interesting! You all lead interesting lives and do highly intriguing things every day! Tweet about them! People want to know these things, your a creative, talented musician for God’s sake! Why are you tweeting the same stuff as everyone else? Your better than that!!

AND, very importantly, if you don’t know what to tweet that is interesting, you should be RETWEETING interesting tweets (look for them amongst your followers), and REPLYING to people’s tweets that you have any kind of response for. This creates reciprocal communication and connection with other people that if replied to, can get you exposure to hundreds if not thousands of followers! Our artists have had thousands of visitors to their website in one day by using this technique.
This may be even more important that tweeting what you are up to! It is very important and easy to do.

Lastly, write the same way you would talk to a stranger in person.
Would you walk up to someone and say “hi stranger, go buy my CD here”? NO! So don’t do it online, be a human being when you write anything online.
Using these techniques you can make the most of the time spent on exposing yourself to new fans. And doing it with a free power Twitter tool like Hootsuite can really make life easier, and allows you to manage large follower lists more easily and effectively.

And if you are having trouble getting time to fit Twitter into your schedule, contact us about setting up tweeting via text messaging from your phone so that it updates all your social networking profiles and your website, and how this can be a very powerful tool for your music promotion!

What progress have you made with Twitter using these techniques or others?

“You can’t make it in the old system anymore.

This ain’t about theft, this ain’t about copyright infringement, this is about opportunity.
For a new golden era. Where the artist sits at the top of the pyramid.

Are you ready to climb up and take control?

Then make great music.
Respect your audience.
Give people the tools to spread the word, never rip them off.
Know that growth will be slow. But that the edifice you’re building is solid, that it will pay dividends like the old record company pension plan, but now the beneficiary will be YOU, not the fat cats.

Believe in yourself. But don’t be delusional.

Is your record… lightning in a bottle?

If not, keep your day job.

Forever. ”
- Bob Lefsetz, 2008

We recently celebrated our first year assisting Do It Yourself artists with their music careers, representing them as record label and manager!

The occasion went by without much fan fare, we were too busy formulating up big plans for our future, and working hard to assist our artists! That is always our first priority, and we’re a small company without any investors or such to answer to, so we can focus our efforts on what matters most:
Helping our artists connect with existing and future fans in the most effective way possible, and assisting them in giving fans what they want, how they want it for a long-lasting and profitable relationship!

Thank you to all our artists, who endured with our growing pains, and pioneered this transforming industry with a whole new way of doing business.
Thank you also to our staff, particularly Roshena and Clarice, without which we could never have accomplished this first year milestone.

We’ve got bigger and better things than ever for our artists and for the company this year, stay tuned for all the news right here.

Blind faith is the belief in yourself and your music. The belief that it is good and it has value. As strange as it sounds, many musicians and artists lose it especially when their promotional efforts don’t yield the results they want, the media doesn’t respond favorably to their music and/or they don’t sell the amount of CDs or downloads they wanted. Regardless of what people say, whether they are in the media, the industry or they are music fans, you have to believe in your music and yourself. Too many times as artists we give more value to the negative responses than the positive ones. Ten people can say how much they love your music but if you get one negative email, you let it bother you more than enjoying what the ten other people said.

To find the blind faith that was once there, stop doing some of the following (I’m sure you can think of more!):

Stop comparing yourself to other artists! If someone doesn’t like one of the artists you compared yourself to, they won’t even listen to your songs!

Stop using genres to limit your audience. I recently spoke at a conference where an artist introduced himself and told me what kind of music he played. I told him I didn’t like that kind to see how he would react. He was stuck. He didn’t know what to do next. I told him music fans can react the same way. Tell them what’s in your songs and make sure not to use any clichés about the performances in the recording.

Stop telling people that your new songs are better than the old ones. Every artist, songwriter and musician evolves and grows. Their songs are different as time goes by. What would Beatles fans think if the band said, “Our old songs sucked. The new ones are much better. I hope you didn’t buy any of the old records.”

Stop limiting what you are capable of! You can accomplish more than you think.

The point is, you have to find the blind faith you once had and use it! The faith that made you write songs, record them and then go out and sell them. The faith in yourself that made you get up and play in front of family, friends, everyone you knew and complete strangers. It’s time to get rid of the excuses and limitations and once again realize the value you and your music have right now. Believe in what you have created and push us to listen to it and become fans!

Here we are in January, the start of a new year where every artist has great hope for new fans, better shows and a lot more sales to go along with achieving their biggest dreams and goals. Sadly, most artists’ careers will go backwards this year because they won’t change the ways they promote themselves or their music. With that in mind, let me give you an interesting thought to consider.

Sometimes a step back into classic promotion or using an “old school” method can yield you greater results in the short and long term.

For example, instead of just emailing and texting your friends and fans about your next show, call them! Calling and talking to them is more likely to get them to come and hang out with you. It certainly is a better way to explain the “benefits” of coming to your next show.

The time you spend on the phone could make a big difference besides just emailing and texting.

- By Tim Sweeney
www.TimSweeney.com

Our first year has been great so far despite the economic times we live in, we’ve been working with a total of 9 fantastic artists!

Here are some of our top blog posts of 2009 in order posted:

Tips from a successful DIY indie musician…

Music and the Mobile Phone

Automatically posting your blog feeds to Facebook etc.

How many ‘active’ fans do you have?

The new music business model – Connect With Fans!

Is Music for free really a good idea?

The 10 Commandments of Music 2.0

A brave new era of music self release…

How to get people to come to shows

DIY takes more time than many think

Thank you to all the artists we work with, you have made this a great year, helping us take the music business into the future!
In return, we hope expanding your career to new heights has made this a great year for you as well.

We’ve got some fantastic new things planned for our artists in 2010, and were looking forward to a great year!
Happy new year to all of you, all the best for the year ahead.

Director Jarome Matthew, and the Pro Soul Alliance Team