Twitter for Musicians Workshop in NYC – August 29th 1-3pm – FRIEND DISCOUNT!

“Twitter for Musicians” is the next workshop that I’ll be presenting in NYC on August 29, 2009 in NYC. The regular price is $40 for this workshop, but this handy dandy blog post gives you access to the FRIEND DISCOUNT of $30 (See below!)

Twitter for Musicians Workshop – FRIEND DISCOUNT

If you’re not using, or haven’t gotten the hang of, Twitter yet, it’s a great social networking tool that enables you to get your point across in 140 characters or less.

Did you know that you can use Twitter to:

* Build your fanbase
* Book gigs
* Sell your MP3s
* Meet and communicate with other musicians and music fans
* Get new visitors to your website, MySpace, etc
* Contact music industry professionals
* Learn the latest indie music news and trends
* Get your point across in 140 characters or less!
* Play Strip Twitter (okay, just checking to see that you were paying attention!)
* and more!

People who are unfamiliar with Twitter often get bored before they see the beauty and opportunity of Twitter. If you’ve given up on your Twitter account, or want to learn how you can use it to build your music business, this workshop is for you!

Twitter is a fun way to meet and communicate with other music lovers, as well as build a buzz about your music. This workshop will include case studies of twitter musician success stories, as well as video presentations and handouts. You can bring your laptop if you like, but you will not need a computer to enjoy this workshop.

Registration is limited to 30 attendees. As mentioned, the regular fee is $40, but FRIENDS (and their friends) can attend for only $30! Feel free to forward this special link to save $10 of the regular registration price!

To reserve your FRIEND DISCOUNT via PayPal, just click:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7602430

After your payment is confirmed, you will receive the address of the Midtown Manhattan conference room where the workshop will be held.

If you have any questions, email me at moxiemaven64@hotmail.com.

Thanks!

Carla Lynne Hall
Musician & Music Marketing Coach
http://RockStarLifeLessons.com

Music Publicity Blog

Here’s a baby music publicity blog at Music Publicity.

HTML Code for Musical Notes

Aren’t there times when you want to burst into song while you’re typing along in Twitter? Well, here’s the html code so you can sing along:

[Note: Use the characters within the quotation marks, and remove the spaces in between the characters]

“& # 9 8 3 3 ;” produces ♩ (quarter note)
“& # 9 8 3 4 ;” produces ♪ (eighth note)
“& # 9 8 3 5 ;” produces ♫ (beamed pair of eighth notes)
“& # 9 8 3 6 ;” produces ♬ (beamed pair of sixteenth notes)
“& # 9 8 3 7 ;” produces ♭ (flat accidental)
“& # 9 8 3 8 ;” produces ♮ (natural accidental)
“& # 9 8 3 9 ;” produces ♯ (sharp accidental)

Says Uncle Fredo at Grapefeed.com, “This code may show up as boxes or question marks on some browsers, but they appeared fine for me in current versions of Internet Explorer (Windows only), Firefox (Windows & Mac), Safari (Windows & Mac), Opera (Windows & Mac), and Camino (Mac only)”.

Book Your Own Gig: Have a House Concert

Performing often is important to keep your stage chops in good form, but some artists are unable to do shows as often as they would like. In some cases, there might not be enough venues in town that showcase your style of music, such as hip-hop or bluegrass. Or perhaps you’re under 21, and are too young to perform in places that serve alcohol. Or perhaps you need to build a larger audience before you can get a club gig. If you fall into any of these categories, there are still ways to get yourself out there: have a house concert.

What’s a house concert? Basically, it’s a performance that you give in someone’s home. I’ve done a couple of house concerts myself, and I’ve found them to be a lot of fun. The host (you or another music lover) chooses a date, and invites friends over to hear you play. The friends pay for entry (or at least donate to a tip jar if you feel weird about that), and they have the option to buy your CDs and join your mailing list. Great, huh?

House concert audiences are fantastic because they’re there to actually listen to your music. An intimate listening room vibe is created, and there’s often a lot of love in the room, which we performers need 😉 People sitting on couches, the floor, or at a picnic are relaxed and receptive. They also have the opportunity to really hear your lyrics, as well as experience your personality. Afterwards, the event becomes a party where you can connect with your listeners for as long as you want. That’s my kind of gig!

I was reminded about house concerts when I came across an awesome article about house concerts by Madalyn Sklar. Madalyn is the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest and largest online community of indie women musicians (“cuz chicks rock!”). Among other things, Madalyn is a music business coach & consultant and blogs at Madalyn’s Music Biz Blog, which is where I found inspiration for today’s blog post.

Additional inspiration came from a video from a teenage singer named Sara Niemietz, who started a “Living Room” series of performances on YouTube. She sounds great in a living room, and I’m sure that her voice will sound awesome in a club. But for now, she’s winning worldwide fans from her home. Below is a clip from one of her house concerts (notice audience members sitting on the staircase!).

One of my favorite parts of this video is at the end when a family member says to the camera: “The Living Room Series is getting bigger! Now there are people in the living room!”

Sara Niemietz – People Get Ready – LIVE @ The Living Room

For even more info on House Concerts, you can also check out
The Complete Guide to House Concerts by Nyree Belleville

How Can Musicians Benefit From Twitter?

Have I mentioned that I LOVE Twitter? This micro-blogging sensation enables you have multiple conversations with people in 140 character spurts. By keeping your “tweets” focused, you can communicate with lots of people.

For musicians, this tool gives you the opportunity not just to meet people, but to find and make new fans. To not only tell people about your new CD, but send them your iTunes links.

Wired.com’s recent rant about celebrity musicians wasting their Twitter opportunity was interesting because it made the point that famous people often have someone else twittering for them, whether it’s a publicist, assistant, or fan.

Whether you’re using Twitter, Myspace, or your own website, your fans want to get to know YOU. Says Wired.com’s Scott Thill:

“If I wanted to know where a band was every minute of the day, Twitter would be worth more than oil, or at least natural gas. But for anything other than product placement, tour updates or other release-related urgings, Twitter is totally useless when it comes to music.”

Perhaps Scott has a point, but I’ve noticed a few indie musicians on Twitter using it to keep their friends and fans in the loop. Here are some sample tweets from the New Jersey band Thursday (@thursdayband on Twitter):

http://twitpic.com/7kpj – Already tracked keeper drums and bass for the first song.. Tim used a jazz bass and it sounds way more aggressive.

A crazy day. Bass and drums done for three. Guitar and keyboards on another. Tonight we kick back and listen to The Gutter Twins.

Leaving for Fredonia New York in 12 hours to start recording the next record. So excited.

These kind of “tweets” are great because they let casual followers know what’s going on with Thursday without getting hit over the head. I haven’t even heard one guitar lick yet from this band, but still I want to know what they’re doing!

So run, don’t walk, and sign up for a Twitter account. And when you tweet your posts, give your fans what they want. YOU!

Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians: Finding Your SEO Keyword Niche Part 2

Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians: Finding Your SEO Keyword Niche Part 2
by Carla Lynne Hall

In Part 1 of “Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians: Finding Your SEO Keyword Niche”, we learned about a bluegrass musician from South Carolina participating in the Thirty Day Challenge. During the Thirty Day Challenge TV Show on Day 12, “Mr. Bluegrass” (as I’ll call him here) asked Ed Dale if he could try the niche “bluegrass south carolina”. Ed thought it was fine, but a few enterprising Challengers in the internet TV show’s found the search numbers too low. So what does Mr. Bluegrass do now?

After last night’s internet show ended, I immediately started a case study to find a way for Mr. Bluegrass to get better search numbers. In addition, I worked out a SEO strategy that can be used by musicians and other creative types. This strategy will be featured in a future article here (or maybe even a video if I’m really cooking!), but for now, I just want to send a helpful lifeline to a fellow musician in South Carolina.

For the sake of simplicity, and future visitors to this blog post, I am using Google search numbers for my research. If you’re a lucky participant of the Thirty Day Challenge, the Market Samurai research tool will provide even more results.

First, let’s start with Mr. Bluegrass’ original choice of niche: “bluegrass south carolina”

Remember, according to the Thirty Day Challenge guidelines, a keyword can be a market when it gets 2400-3000 searches per month, and has less than 30,000 competing webpages.

If you do the Google search first, you’ll see that there are only six competing pages on the exact phrase. Having only six competing pages sounds great, right? But then I went to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, and found that there were an average of 390 searches on Google per month. While 390 searches a month on “bluegrass south carolina” is good, a keyword with 2400-3000 searches a month would be better. How do we find a compatible keyword niche for Mr. Bluegrass?

For today’s strategy, I simply entered a musical category for my Google search, and drilled my way down til I found possibly compatible sub-niches. While “bluegrass music” gets 60,500 Google searches each month, which is too large for our purposes, there are attractive sub-niches. I have listed my favorite bluegrass sub-niches below (along with suggestions):

“bluegrass gospel music”
3600 average monthly searches/816 competing websites
If Mr. Bluegrass plays in a bluegrass gospel band, that would be perfect, as he can blog about his band and others ’til the cows come home. Otherwise, he could just start a blog on his favorite bluegrass gospel bands.

“country bluegrass music”
2400 average monthly searches/ 899 competing websites
This is a good generic sounding keyword that can be used. Remember, it doesn’t matter that you or I may never refer to bluegrass music as “country bluegrass music”. What’s important is that a large group of people are using that term in search engines each month, so it’s valid.

“bluegrass music festivals”
1600 average monthly searches/816 competing websites
Since Mr. Bluegrass would be interested in this topic anyway, he could start a blog about bluegrass festivals around the US, being sure to also include stories about his own band, and their experiences.

“Bill Monroe music”
1600 average monthly searches/13,500 competing websites
Bill Monroe is a famous bluegrass musician, and bluegrass fans would enjoy visiting a tribute blog.

Interestingly enough, “bluegrass north carolina” also came up in this search:
1900 average monthly searches/1520 competing websites
According to these numbers, people think more about North Carolina when they think of bluegrass music. Perhaps Mr. Bluegrass could create a North Carolina vs South Carolina bluegrass blog: Who can fiddle the fastest? Whose band has been around longer?

Using the Thirty Day Challenge guidelines, Mr. Bluegrass can add two of the larger keyword niches to his original choice, and be on his way to dominating the online bluegrass world!

Left Side Blues Video

Left Side Blues
Written by Carla Lynne Hall
Performed by Carla Lynne Hall
Recorded at The Cutting Room, NYC, 2005

Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians: Finding Your SEO Keyword Niche Part 1

Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians: Finding Your SEO Keyword Niche Part 1
by Carla Lynne Hall

For the Thirty Day Challenge, many musicians and other creative types may have a bit of difficulty finding a niche for themselves. During last night’s Thirty Day Challenge TV Show (Day 12) with Ed Dale, a guy asked if he could try the niche of “bluegrass in south carolina”. Ed, being a musician and passionate vintage electric guitar collector himself, loved the idea. While looking up this musician’s niche, I found the search numbers for “bluegrass in south carolina” too low for my taste. So what’s a bluegrass musician in South Carolina to do?

Since last night’s show, I’ve been spinning ideas in my head to find a related niche for Mr. Bluegrass. By the time I went to bed last night, I came up with a strategy that can be used for musicians, artisans, and other creative types.

What’s the big deal, you ask? In the past, when Ed Dale or any other internet marketing person talked about finding a niche, I would scratch my head. I mean, as a performer that promotes myself anyway, I already have a niche: ME, also known as “Carla Lynne Hall”. As far as I’m concerned, “Carla Lynne Hall” is a damn good niche. My musical style has been described as “Norah Jones meets Sade for tea on their way to visit The Beatles”, so what’s not to like about that niche, right?

But alas {insert deep and heavy sigh here}, in the search engine world, there are not enough people searching for “Carla Lynne Hall” to consider my name as a keyword niche market yet. According to the Thirty Day Challenge guidelines, we should choose a keyword that receives 2400-3000 searches a month. In other words, we need to choose a keyword phrase that receives 2400-3000 searches within a month’s time. If “Carla Lynne Hall” only gets 50 searches a month in Google (which I’m quite grateful for, by the way!), does that mean that I should give up music and pursue “mosaic crafts”?

Heck no! This just means that musicians and other creative types need to be strategic when participating in the Thirty Day Challenge. In addition to being the world’s expert on YOU, dominating a niche related to your art/music is another great way to bring traffic to your site.

More importantly, by becoming an expert in a related market, you’ll attract new fans. To use myself again as an example, I’m known for my music, and also for my indie music marketing tips. People interested in either topic sign up for my Soulflower Newsletter, my fan list grows.

And growing your fan list is a HUGE piece of the puzzle!

Next Post: Thirty Day Challenge for Musicians – The Case Study

Music Management: Should You Ever Trade Up?

Yesterday’s Lefsetz Letter blog talks about switching music management:

“I’m fascinated by Usher firing Benny Medina and returning to his mother for management. The question arises…should you stay with who got you there, or switch allegiance to the big swinging dick?”

Lefsetz brings up a good point. Your first manager will most likely have tons of passion, which can make up for experience. But once you reach your goal of success, should you trade up for a Big Gun manager?

Thirty Day Challenge

Thirty Day Challenge, what’s that, you ask? Well, if you’ve been on Twitter, you may have heard about an internet marketing event going on called The Thirty Day Challenge (or #30dc) in which people learn how to make money online. Most specifically, they learn how to make their first dollar. And these lessons are offered for FREE!

As a musician, you may be wondering what does that have to do with you. Well, it means plenty! Musicians want to sell their music, and using internet marketing tools is an awesome way to generate sales and music publicity for your music.

My publicist, Ariel Hyatt at Ariel Publicity, specializes in Cyber PR, another term for online music publicity, and she recently asked me to speak at her Cyber PR Bootcamp to share my online marketing tips with her musician Bootcampers. While preparing for this talk, I realized that the methods I used to get online music publicity was directly influenced by internet marketers,  to the point that I even titled my talk “Everything I Needed to Know About Music Publicity I Learned from Internet Marketers”. Why? Because these methods are universal and can be used in any industry – even musicians!

So fast forward to the summer of 2008, and I start hearing about this free “Thirty Day Challenge” which is offered by an Australian guy named Ed Dale and his team, and I am instantly hooked. Ed’s goal is simply to teach others the various tools that are available to make money online. Each day for 30 days, Ed Dale and his team teach new online marketing tools that can be used by anyone, and I highly recommend this free online course for any musician serious about selling their music online. By the way, Ed is also a musician and passionate vintage electric guitar collector, and I can tell that he has a special place in his heart for musicians who take his course. Check out Ed’s intro video below:

Day 01 Thirty Day Challenge Introduction Video

My intention is to share the Thirty Day Challenge with musicians so they can take control of their own musical destiny. You can start at any time. Are you up to the challenge? Sign up today for the Thirty Day Challenge and learn how to sell your music while you sleep.

Tags: #30dc, thirty day challenge, indie music, music publicity