Your content has to be good!

I have been travel lately, more than usual and seen so many good panels, keynotes, and masterclasses. The knowledge I and the other visitors are getting is phenomenal. I wish I would have these things when I started in the business. back then there was not even a school for professionals in the music industry in Sweden.

But all this advice and knowledge is useless if the content is crap. The problem is that it usually is. I can just look on my own vlog here. Content vise many time they suck. Sure some turn out great, but we are talking 2 out of 10. It's ok content and fun for the people that are in it. Still, it's not that good content and I know it. That is the reason I won't contact any Youtube firm to get it released or invest money to get it out to people. I know the limit.

And it's not easy to be on the top all the time producing content. In the end, also is all this content producing drag you out from your actual goal? in my case, it's extra to my real blogging that is here. A part of the blog that is more humor and more carefree. As an artist though?  If you doing videos about your videos where is your time to do the music that the video should promote? In the beginning, the video should promote the music now you to a behind movie about the video that should promote the music?

I have the same problem. Should I do vlogs to promote the blog that is written? Or just focus on the written part alone?

As an artist, you can go crazy about all these different opportunities coming from the industry. But there is no good answer what you should do, spread out thin or thick? I guess my best advice is going what you feel good with. I usually test everything but if it takes to much time or feels forced or not right I leave that thing pretty fast. Right now I like my vlog.

The modern DJ

The obvious mistakes

It's hard to get an audience. No shit Sherlock! To get an audience you need to be good. This is the ground for everything. Either you are really really bad or really really good, in between you are totally lost. The main problem is that most are actually in that midsection. I would even guess my blog is in the midsection. I try to make it as good as possible. But I know there are people writing really good that has the upper hand on this.

So what do I do, I try to make my blog coming up to that upper section. Not language wise I won't manage to do that, maybe in Swedish but not in English, I know my limitations. To know your limitations is also good. Too many try to reach things they can't reach in the way they think. No, I try to find ways to entertain people in my own way. see what works and not work.

Will I get out of the midsection. I guess with hard try I might do it when I find the right formula. A problem is that many people tell me the "right" formula. In the end, though I'm the only one who can make the formula works. You have to sort out what people are saying. Some you keep some you just forget. I guess the hard part is to know to do with what.

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I got a bigger fanbase!

I actually treat my blog as the way an artist should do their career. I try to get my blog post spread as much as possible. Same as an artist is trying to spread their art. I try to market smart on free things as much as possible, same as the artist. I now and then pay for promotion and do collaborations, just as artists.

In a way, I'm just copying the things I learn from my visits on conferences and use the tips to test out on my own thing.

And now I really got another thing going my friends let me publish some things in their newsletters and sites. Her I'm going to write a bit longer then I do in the blog. Also, the language is corrected so it will be nicer to read. So go ahead and start also get the newsletter of these since I won't post these improved ones here on my blog.

the first one got out last week on both.

Cashbox Magazine Canada
http://cashboxcanada.ca/10343/if-i-can-get-readers-you-can-get-fans

Record World Magazine
http://www.recordworldmagazine.com/blog/if-i-can-get-readers-you-can-get-fans/

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I can at least be nice.

We did a survey on a panel one time and checked how many that got messages from artists before the showcase festival started. This festival was at least 150 artists, but none of us got more than ten messages, or even five. I remember I was one of the ones that got more and had six.

It should really be more artists that contact you for meetings and invites to a showcase but the reality that it's not. Mainly I get invites from booking agencies or professionals. From the artist direct is usually one or two.

So why? I guess you don't want to intrude on people. or you think they get bombarded by emails from strange bands wanting them to sign them. Or you just wait until you have seen our panels to decide who you like and then invite them there.

Whatever the reason is it's actually our job to find new music in most cases.

And those who really contact me I really answer. I actually goes and check them out and try to answer. I stopped promising that I will see their show. I don't know the schedule suddenly the organizer might move me to a dinner or a meeting I have to attend. If I'm left to my own things then I put the artist in the schedule to at least see a couple of songs. I actually do that even if my impression of the links was that is nothing for me. Yes I will give them a second chance I can at least be nice if someone took the trouble to invite me to their show.

My guess is that people miss a lot of opportunity's just because they don't talk to people and being nice.

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Recognition, fueled by hate.

We all want our recognition. You create something that you are proud of and no one is even commenting or give feedback, really nothing. Then two weeks later the whole feed explodes by someone doing half what you did and get all the spotlight.

Of course, you feel enraged. Why the spotlight on this? You get angry and really want to tell the world that what you did is even bigger and better.

My whole career has been that way. I can create the biggest showcase on the biggest festival in the world and they expose some indie label that does bad DIY experiment in the next town. I placed music in the biggest commercials and movie for over five years, then they spotlight that one indie label got one placement in one reality soap in Denmark.

Then they had a panel about how to get on showcase festivals. Since I have done most showcase festivals, even been speaker and VIP guest on most of them and every year gives over 50 artists the chance to go aboard, wouldn't be interesting to have me on that panel. Hell no, instead they take five people that just place some bands on the Swedish showcase festival that got bankruptcy last year.

Or the speech about getting on to the radio. I had the most played indie song that year. They took a label that had a song on rotation for two weeks to speak.

In the beginning, I was really angry around this. The whole industry was more or less ignoring what I was doing. But I let my frustration going on to more creative stuff. I started to get on to bigger things, bigger meetings. Now when they still are on that low level it doesn't become me that much and I have created something that is bigger than life in many eyes.

I guess the recognition will come, but I guess by then I don't need it. the question if I'm strong enough to just say no when they ask me to get there?

This is what every artist will also get through in their career. I get so many parallels around it and it's part of it. You will never be big in your own eyes, and when you get that recognition it really doesn't matter. But one advice is to channel the frustration to do greater things.

Listen to your own songs, and recommend them.

It's kind of usual that artist not admitting that they listen to their own material. They don't look on their own videos. Mainly the excuse is that they have listened to the song so much in the making they got bored with it. Well, I have listened to my favorite songs thousands of times and I'm still not bored.

Another thing is that the artist is embarrassed to recommend their own songs. I have to kickstart my artist to do promotion of their next single.
In fact, you should recommend your songs, tell us about them, the process they are done. Don't just do it when you are doing it. Tell us later as well.

Don't expect everyone also to jump on and listen to a song just because you said it once. No, it takes a couple of times and some other things to get to the point to listen to a new track.

So don't be afraid to tell people to listen to your work.

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Act like it is a hit!

This one I got from my friend Jay Frank, he has a saying around a song "To have a hit, act as it already is".
Yes, this business is actually a lot around illusions. People are flocking around a thing just they think it's going somewhere. Many times the artist is a bit afraid to do this. You should never lie, but you should not tell the bad things.

We did a German tour in some small bars and on the way home we played at a gasoline station in Denmark.

Not so fancy.

We did a great European tour with several dates.

Much better. The trick is that all the other is doing the same so you need to keep up whatever the other people are doing. In fact what the industry is looking for is a thing that is larger than life. In reality, it won't really be that way, but keeping up appearances actually will get you to the place where you live someone else larger than life thing.

Yes, your next song is a hit, until it's given out and proven to not be a hit. Until then it is a hit. There are so many people that will tell it's not but hey those people said that The Beatles was too many.

In many ways it's what you build up before then you deliver that counts. So I'm off to release my trailer for my next Vlog, that surely will be a smash hit among my Vlog fans on Facebook.

The best time hasn't been.

I was home at my father apartment for a visit. And there were my mothers funeral speech. She had cancer and in the end, she wrote her own funeral speech. I read it again and reflected over how in that short ceremony she had to pick out the best times in her life to tell us.

Of course, there was a lot of music also, I guess I own my mother quite much of how to judge music she always played cool pop hits when I was young. One of the more funny thing is that she loved "I Will Survive" with Gloria Gaynor. But she thought it was too morbid to have on a funeral. I still smile when that song is on.

Apart from the music, you looked at the times she picked out. There were the young days when she was out and dance in Stockholm. You will remember your young years. A carefree time in your life.

The rest was through a lot of her free time. She was very active in an amateur theatre group lot alot came from those memories. The passages that weren't in the speech is her work. She worked my whole adolescence on the Swedish railway company. She even got a gold watch for her long years there. Then she worked as a secretary in different places.

What I want to get to, is that this just work. She worked to get money, but her passion was the theatre. I guess one of her favorite jobs was on Swedish Television where she was a secretary for some years. Still, even that was gone in the speech. So you make your career to what you want to. Will you write these years in your funeral speech? If not, change it to the times so you will remember it and want to put it into your funeral speech.

I have been out with many artists over the years all around the world. In the end, many of them come back and just tell memories of that time. I just wish they could keep on going to get even more memories. I guess everything has an end.

Still, salute to those who just keep on going and just create your life to a long long pearl necklace of cool memories. Keep on doing the things that really mean anything to you. Either you are living them, if not break free and create them.

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Make you stand out!

You need to create something to stand out. If you are in a room (a normal room with people) can they tell you are a musician? Does your project have a logo?

It's not necessary but it's convenient to have these kinds of things. And most of the time they are created in a hurry just because we need them now. So here is my tip-off to start thinking and create this stuff.

As you can see in most pictures with me on a panel I usually wear a t-shirt. yes, I'm a t-shirt guy and you only see me in a suite on the Grammy award. Still even if wasn't a t-shirt guy I would do this. The shirts I have is with the clean logo of with Live at Heart or Musichelp the two companies I work for.

This means everytime people take pictures and post them my logo is shining through. So do you have your logo on your instrument case?

Don't wear your merch on stage though, but on panels or interviews or stuff where you not given the chance to keep up with your stage look.

I don't know how many times people have come up to me seeing the logo and start chatting around interesting stuff just because they could figure out who I am.

But you need to be consistent. And it takes years to build that into the mind of people. And the logo has to follow a certain pattern so it keeps being recognized by people even if you tweak it now and then.

I just went into and searched fora picture of me. This got up first and do you know what, yes there is the logo of Live at Heart. The other two...well Live at Heart NF (Evan Murry) and then Lou Plaia from ReverbNation. It's in NYC this autumn.

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Artist friendly!

Time to time I get artists that are disappointed on the blog because they think I'm mean to artists. I usually ask them what they want me to write about? It's almost always that I should give them practical tipoffs or post looking from their angle of the industry.

The artist angle is though so very common. Every artist blog is just that. Also, I'm not an artist, so me writing about your struggle would be not correct at all.

I guess many are after that I should tell them about a magical page with a golden button that just kickstarts any career. Sure there are good places that I can make tipoff on. I do it inside the blogs all the time. I guess they want me to do readers digest and just take out the important parts in one post.

The problem is that every career is unique. These tipoff for everyone will be hard to keep up or totally wrong, a blog on that would be Aris Take. A nice blog but just around things for the masses. And quite frankly I guess Ari more famous for that then his music?

Still, I will try to write a post a week that more tends to go against the artist side, a smart tip or two that is hands on. To find these look for the tag artist friendly in my tags and you will find them and escape my usually nagging.

Also this year I will go harder against the industry. Time to reveal some really bad apples that you thought was good.

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Grow your fanbase.

It can seem to be hard to do that. In some cases, it just happens. And in those cases, the artist has that drive to keep the fans updated. Nowadays there are so many tools that can aid you in the quest. Here are three ideas I just throw out for you to use.

Look back on The old days. There the fans even created fanzines around their artists. Those were more alive then the home pages that took over. Today I hardly see even fan letters or fan pages for even very big names. I guess getting that done and treat certain fans with inside info could lead to a bigger fanbase.

Of course, touring is coming back. Live is the ultimate way to meet and grow a fanbase. Here you can take The help of the new tools and pinpoint fans to make them help to get to their town. This is also an old thing that was used before called street teams that worked very well in The 90s.

Even have a Q&A live on Facebook could get fans from just fan to superfan. Yes, you have to be persistent and also allow you to have just a small number of fans in The beginning.

Everything here is just to get The fans to be seen. That is all you have to do to turn them to superfans.

A Journey starts with a step. A fanbase with a fan.

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