Beerkle - Music Business Degree Major Handbook

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Prepare for your dream job in the ever-changing music industry. The following lesson material

is taken from Berklee Online’s Bachelor of Professional Studies degree program in Music

Business. Want to learn more about earning a degree online? Contact us at 1-866-BERKLEE

(USA) / +1-617-747-2146 (INT’L) or [email protected].

The Three P’s

from Music Business 101 by John Kellogg

Working with PR, Radio, and Digital Mediafrom International Music Marketing: Developing Your Career Abroad

by Shain Shapiro

Demand Generationfrom Online Music Marketing: Campaign Strategies, Social Media,

and Digital Distribution by Mike King

Meet Instructor John Kellogg

How Berklee Online Works

Get in Touch

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By John Kellogg

Is there any one thing that ensures an individual’s success in this dynamic music business? Every profession has

its guiding principles. The medical eld has adopted the Hippocratic oath from the ancients. Successful conduct

in sports is guided by ideas of sportsmanship, including fair play and losing with grace.

Being an amalgamation of art and commerce, the music business has no ofcially sanctioned guiding principles,

but I offer the “Three Big P’s” as a roadmap which I believe can help guide your success in this industry.

The Three P’s

From Music Business 101

1. Powerful Product

A song, audio or video recording, live performance,

or technological advancement (e.g., app, site, etc.)

that has the ability to build and retain long-term

value and relevance.

An Example of a Powerful Product

In 1973, Atlantic Records producer Joel Dornrecorded the Grammy Award-winning, number-

one hit single “Killing Me Softly with His Song”

with artist Roberta Flack. The Charles Fox/Norman

Gimbel-penned tune had a unique theme and a

strong hook. The nal recording sounded great

-- Flack’s emotive vocal delivery, a choir-like

background vocal chorus, and an infectious groove

created with a displaced kick drum added to the

pulse of the backbeat. By all measures this wasa truly powerful product. To underscore this fact,

consider that the Flack record was covered in 1995

by the Fugees and went to number two in America

on the Hot Airplay chart. It also became a number-

one single in the UK, selling over one million

copies.

2. Proper Perspective

Creators of music must develop both an external

and internal perspective of the music business.

Externally, they must recognize that one of the

primary jobs of their record company is to maximize

the company’s value for the record company

owners. Even if the artist owns the company, one

of the company’s goals should be to generate aprot so that the company can stay in business and

be of benet to the artist. Internally, an artist must

recognize that any sustained success can only be

achieved through long-term investment of time

and money to build valuable assets -- the powerful

product.

An Example of Proper Perspective

The Grateful Dead are the most successful touringband in history. Their creative improvisational

ights, top-shelf songwriting, and high-delity

sound reinforcement were heralded by legions of

devoted fans. Recently, several books have been

published that expound upon the Dead’s innovative

attitude toward the business of music and the

cultivation of their fanbase. As Brian Halligan, co-



author of the book Marketing Lessons from the

Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn

from the Most Iconic Band in History *, puts it:

The fundamental assumption in almost every

band’s business model was that they were going

to make their money on album sales. The Grateful

Dead rejected that assumption. Their fundamental

business model was based on making money

from the concerts. Because of that change, there

was a cascade of decisions that fell from that. For

instance, each concert was completely unique night-

after-night, so there was a strong incentive to seethem for several nights in a row—this ultimately

led to fans following them around the country. In

addition, they allowed their fans to make tapes of

the concerts and freely spread them to their fans—

the more concerts they played, the more tapes

there were, the more people were exposed to the

music, the more people paid for concert tickets.

Today, the Grateful Dead release ofcial versions

of their historic concert recordings to fans. This

has become a protable enterprise because of

the thoughtful curation and superior sound quality

of the recordings (compared to many of the

recordings made by fans). Their constant focus on

the fan’s experience has paid off in ways that the

band couldn’t even have anticipated when they

were in their prime.

3. Professional Attitude

Participants in the music business must understandthat their everyday dealings with others must be

conducted in a professional manner that respects

all people with which they come in contact.

Whether the communication is a correspondence

with a president of a major label, his or her

receptionist, or a tweet to a loyal fanbase, it should

reect proper knowledge of the subject and

deference to the recipient.

*Meerman, Scott; Halligan, Brian. Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead:

What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History. Wiley Publishing, 2010.

The Three P’s

“



Working with PR, Radio, & Digital Media

From International Music Marketing: Developing Your Career Abroad

by Shain Shapiro

What comes to mind when you refer to one of

your favorite artists? Even if it’s their music, which

is the primary point of reference, there is always

a visual element that complements that—Björk’s

extravagant outts, Slash’s long hair, hat, and

sunglasses, and Daft Punk’s futuristic costumes are

but a few examples.

It is a fact that, when trying to build a successful

career as a popular artist, your public image—your

brand—plays a major role and ultimately denes

how you are going to be perceived by the public.

Any public performer has a public image associated

with their art and it’s very difcult to separate

them from each other. So, every time that art

gets exposed, the public image gets exposed

too. Therefore, the public image becomes an

inseparable part of the artist and, in some cases,

becomes art itself.

The Golden Rules for Drafting an Artist Bio

• Write a captivating press story that grabs

readers from the start.

• Talk about the music. Describe it. Make it

sound exciting.

• Avoid too many artist references/influences.

• Adjectives: don’t over-do it.

• Nobody cares about the band’s background,

such as how they met, etc.

• Keep it real: include quotes.

• Keep it concise!

• Be original.

Assets, Assets, Assets

So what are the assets your media pack needs to

contain? Here are the most common ones,

and remember, refer back to your checklist!

• Bio

• Press release

• Sales sheet (for the distributor)

• Promo photos (max five)

• Single cover

• Album cover

• Music videos (on average, three for everyalbum release)

• Video teaser

• SoundCloud links

• YouTube links

• Promo CDs



All assets need to be the highest possible quality.

Golden Rules of Contacting a Journalist

You only get one chance to pitch something, so

you need to be able to impress quickly. Be very

careful with what you choose to include in your

communication. Here are a few things to consider:

• Include the music link rst.

• Don’t forget to mention release and tour

dates.

• Embed a spectacular artist photo.

• Use an intuitive email subject.

• Use a few press quotes.

• Always be polite.

• Don’t demand coverage.

• Ask for their opinion (they love that).

• Give them time and pitch well in advance.

• Understand the editor’s point of view.

• Develop the relationship over time.

Understand that this is a two-way relationship.

Editors want page hits and visitors, so that their

website becomes popular and is able to generate

more advertising money. The content you are

offering needs to satisfy that need. Promo CDs

need to be sent to long-lead press (for example,

monthly music magazines) at least three months

prior to an album release.

Working with PR, Radio, & Digital Media

• Artist Manager

• Booking Agent

• Concert Promoter

• Tour Accountant

• Entertainment Attorney

• Music Supervisor

• Publicist

• Music Publisher

• Tour Manager

• Entrepreneur

• Public Relations Director

• Independent RadioPromoter

• and more...

Make Your Mark: Careers in Music Business



Demand GenerationFrom Online Music Marketing: Campaign Strategies, Social Media,

and Digital Distribution

by Mike King

Generating Demand and Building

Your Community

The rst step in creating an effective online

presence is to “get your own house in order” by

creating an optimized website, which acts as a main

focal point for your online promotions. Your own

site gives you full control of the visitor experience

and provides you with the ability to optimize any

conversion opportunities.

Once you have your site together, the next logical

step in online music marketing is to engage in

an external marketing campaign designed to

create demand (i.e., web trafc, awareness, and

attention) for your band and your products. While

the majority of trafc you get to your site will likely

come from direct trafc, links from email blasts,

and organic search (which is why search engine

optimization is so important!), the trafc generated

from a combination of other third-party sources

to your website is also signicant. Taken together,

outlets like Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube,

and other online third party outlets can also drive

signicant trafc to your site, if you are optimizing

these outlets effectively. Let’s start by looking at

some general techniques to draw fans to your band

from these external sites.

Demand Generation: The Four Major

Segments of Online Marketing

A“marketing funnel” is the concept of converting

the uninitiated into fans and consumers of your

products. As fans move through the funnel, they

are provided with additional incentives and higher

rewards to increase their brand loyalty. But before

consumers even enter the marketing funnel,

marketers have to create a reason for potential fans

to enter the funnel in the rst place. As Chris Stone,

accomplished marketer and cofounder of legendaryNYC- and LA-based recording studio The Record

Plant has said: “[without marketing] if you build it,

they will not come, because they will not know you

exist!” Simply put, the Internet and home recording

technologies like Pro Tools have made supply

abundant and demand scarce. Building up demand

for your product is more important than ever.

Demand GenerationDemand Generation is a marketing concept used to

describe the act of creating a focused and targeted

campaign that drives awareness and interest in a

company’s products and/or services. As Chris Stone

says, it is a crucial step in “letting people know

you exist.” Based on this concept, but adjusted

to work specically for online music marketing, it



Demand Generation

is recommended that artists organize their online

marketing campaigns across the following four

marketing channels:

• Permission Marketing

• Viral/Social Marketing

• Discovery

• Paid Placements

Permission Marketing

Permission marketing refers to the privilege (not

the right) of delivering anticipated, personal, and

relevant messages to people who actually want

to get them. This form of marketing accomplishes

several positive things: 1) it reduces clutter

and unwanted messages for consumers; 2) the

messages received by the consumer contain higher

quality, more specic information; 3) it improves

targeting precision for marketers. In other words,

permission marketing can be considered the Artist-

to-Fan channel. Examples of permission marketing

outlets include:

• Email Lists

• Twitter Followers

• Facebook Fans

• Instagram Followers

• Snapchat Friends

• YouTube Subscribers

• Fan Clubs or Street Teams

Viral/Social Marketing

Viral or social marketing is the utilization of a

marketing tool that gets people to pass a message

along to each other. Viral marketing is consideredan earned channel, where the fan considers content

worthy of sharing, on its own merits. Viral marketing

may require very little effort on the part of the

propagandist (that’s you), as the recipients of the

message become the primary agents who spread

it to other people. If it works, viral marketing can

be rapid and explosive. Viral marketing can also be

characterized as the Fan-to-Fan channel.

Many of the same tools that a band can use forpermission marketing can also be used by your

friends, fans, and followers to help spread a viral

campaign online, such as:

• Forwarded Emails

• Retweets

• Facebook Posts / Shares / Likes

• YouTube Posts

• Pinterest Pins

Discovery Marketing

Discovery marketing takes place when your music

is introduced to a completely new group of fans

through efforts that are not permission or viral-

based. Examples of discovery marketing outlets

could include:

• Search Engine Results

• Blog

• Online Radio

• Interactive Streaming Services (like Spotify)



Demand Generation

• Music Identication Apps (like Shazam)

• Film and TV

• Terrestrial Radio

• Live Events

• Print Publications

Paid Placement

The last channel of demand generation occurs

when an artist pays for access to potentially

qualied fans. Examples of paid advertising include

search engine marketing (purchasing keywords),

buying visibility on ad networks (such as those on

Google, Twitter, and Facebook), and banner ads on

blogs/music/lifestyle sites. It’s also possible (though

not advisable for all but a few artists) to purchase

ads on both online and terrestrial radio stations.

A Framework for Marketing Across

Different Channels

Let’s take an in-depth look at some of the more

popular third party sites for band marketing and the

specic techniques we can use to increase visibility

and overall demand generation. While the concepts

we’ll discuss are particular to these specic online

outlets, these overall marketing ideas can be

applied to a variety of other existing (and not yetexisting!) sites as well.

How Social Media Works:

a Conversation with Ian Rogers

Ian Rogers has been a key player in the

development of the Internet for musicians since

founding the Beastie Boys website in 1993. Ian

has worked as the GM of Yahoo Music, the CEO of

Topspin Media (a direct to fan marketing and sales

technology company), the CEO of Beats Music, and

as a Senior Director at Apple Music.

I try to break social media down into what the

actual physics of attention are. I think about

attention as this ow. We’re sort of naturally…

we click on stuff right? And we move around the

Internet in this way, and that to me is the overall

attention ow of the Internet. I try to put that

against what you are really trying to accomplish as

an artist.

The rst thing that you are trying to do is build

awareness, because no matter who you are, even

if you are Linkin Park, no one knows about your

new record until you tell them about it. So you

are trying to build awareness on some level. The

blessing and curse of the Internet is that anyone can

build a website but it’s not a ‘build it and they will

come’ world; just because you built it, doesn’t mean

anyone is going to know it’s there. So the rst thing

that you are always trying to do is build awareness.

If you are lucky enough to build awareness, then

you are trying to build fan connections. If you can

build fan connections, then you are trying to builda fan relationship and fan trust and to do that, you

need to communicate in some authentic way. Only

when you’ve done all that, can you sell anyone

anything.

So if that’s the model, let’s look at how social media

plays into that model. The interesting thing about

“social media” is that s kind of a catchall phrase

“



Demand Generation

that doesn’t really talk about what’s happening,

and what’s happening is that ow of attention. The

interesting thing about Facebook and Twitter is

that they are not sort of inherently viral. They arereally two different forms of marketing. One is direct

marketing, and that’s a relationship between an

artist and fan, and the other is what most people

call viral marketing, or fan-to-fan marketing. So I

would break it apart into those two things: so you’ve

got the artist to fan channel and then you’ve got the

fan-to-fan channel. If you are vending something

valuable, people want to share it with other people.

It’s the nature of human interaction and sort of

reciprocity among human beings.

So that’s kind of the physics of the space, and then

you ask, “Well, what is it for? What is social media

for?” I think that what you really want do with social

media, more than anything else, is be a part of the

conversation. The most highly leveraged thing that

you can do is to put good content out there, have

people care about you, have people actually follow

and pay attention to what you have to say, becausethen you have a way to talk directly to them.

I think it’s hard, having lived through it, to not look

at the example of MySpace and not want a little

more sovereignty beyond what Facebook offers.

You know, if you spent a lot time building up

hundreds of thousands of followers on MySpace,

those people are unreachable to you at this point

and that’s really dangerous.

When I was at Topspin, we worked with Linkin

Park. Linkin Park has tens of millions of fans on

Facebook and hundreds of thousands of people

on an email list. We still sell more products by

sending a message out on an email list than we do

by putting a message on Facebook, even at that

scale. So there is no question that email remains a

really efcient channel of direct marketing. There

is a not a gigantic value to the direct marketing on

Facebook. It’s good but not great. There is a little

bit of a fear of lock in, I would say. Do you really

want to hand all of your fan connections over to one

company who will go through its changes over the

coming years?

Overall, with social media you want to be a part of

the conversation, you want people to share what it

is you are up to on Facebook and Twitter; that’s themost important thing. So using those channels to

build fan connections, to put your own content out

there, and to share your own content. You might just

be sharing a thought that you had but that kind of

authentic communication is what builds trust and

can add to your artist persona and brand. So I think

it’s most important to be a part of that conversation.

Second to that is the homesteading part, where I

am going to have a really nice page on Facebook

and make sure people can hear my music. I’m going

to make sure people know where they can buy my

music and all that. You denitely want to have all of

that in place, but I think the most valuable thing is

being a part of that conversation. I certainly would,

as much as possible, grab email addresses, grab

mobile numbers, have my own website and be

a sovereign entity, which is going to live through



Demand Generation

whatever the Facebook of tomorrow is. There will

be one.

Remember that once upon a time, Netscape wasinfallible, Microsoft was infallible, Apple was a joke

that was for 5% of the population, the general

consensus on Facebook was, “why would anyone

use Facebook when we’ve got MySpace?” It always

changes; it is the one thing that is consistent, so you

want to own your fan outside of those entities rstand foremost.

John Mayer on Social Media and

Focusing on Your Craft

John Mayer, former Berklee College of Music

student, has come back to Berklee several times

over the years to give informative clinics to current

Berklee students. In his clinics, John provides clear

and concise advice on a variety of other topics,

including his experience in the music business, the

craft of songwriting and guitar playing, and general

best practices that he has learned from his years inthe industry.

In one of his recent clinics, Manage the Temptation

to Publish Yourself, John focused on social media

and the potential pitfalls associated with it. In

John’s words:

This time is a really important time for you guys

because nobody knows who you are, and nobodyshould. This is not a time to promote yourself. It

doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff

together. Promotion can be like that. You can have

promotion in 30 seconds if your stuff is good. Good

music is its own promotion.

John went on to say that in his own experience,

he found himself asking questions like, “Is this a

good blog?” or “Is this a good tweet?” When those

questions used to be, “Is this a good song title?”

and “Is this a good bridge?”

John Mayer has a great point. Similar to other

marketing verticals like press, radio, and retail

visibility, social media at its core is simply a set of

tools that are useful in amplifying existing efforts.Of course the level of connection between artist

and fan can be much closer with social media, but

without having great music, all the social media

visibility in the world is not going to get potential

fans of your music to become hardcore fans of your

music if the music itself isn’t amazing.

“



Demand Generation

Facebook

Overview

As Ian Rogers mentioned, one has to

look no further than MySpace to see how quicklyfolks can lose interest in an online social networking

site, but at the present moment, Facebook holds

the crown as the largest social networking site in

the world, by far.

The winds of change can move quickly, but

Facebook is denitely the premier social networking

site of the moment. 80% of all online social activity

happens on Facebook, and the average Americanspends 40 minutes a day checking their Facebook

feed. It’s also a popular destination outside of the

U.S., with more than 80% of daily active users living

outside the U.S. and Canada.

For all the reasons above, it’s important for

artists to understand how Facebook works from a

marketing standpoint. The rst step in developing

a Facebook music marketing campaign is to createyour “Facebook Artist Page” as opposed to a

standard “Facebook Prole.” A Facebook Artist

Page provides bands with more communication and

interactivity options than a standard prole page,

as well as the opportunity to introduce third-party

marketing and visibility tools.

Facebook Artist Page accounts are relatively simple

to create. A quick how to:

1. Go to the Create a Page area on Facebook:

facebook.com/pages/create

2. Choose “Artist Band or Public Figure,” then

select “Musician / Band” from the drop

down menu.

3. Choose Your Band Name.

4. Click on “Get Started”

5. Upload an Image and Provide Descriptive

Copy and Link.

6. That’s It!

Online Marketing Opportunities on Facebook

Facebook is a good example of a permission

marketing channel, as well as viral/social marketing

channel. The single highest converting Facebook

mechanism is the “send update” feature. Sharingan update (particularly if this update is interesting

content, like a photo, audio le, or video) can be an

effective way to reach fans that want to hear from

you. It’s also a good way to get the valuable fan-

to-fan channel happening. Through the permission

marketing channel, research shows that Facebook

generally accounts for low to mid single-digit

percentages of revenue for an artist’s campaign.

Best Practices for Marketing on Facebook

Similar to the rest of the Internet, Facebook is

working hard on curation – nding ways to deliver

the best possible content to its users. Because

it would be completely overwhelming for most

Facebook users to see all comments from all of

their friends all of the time, the Facebook “news

feed” is curated by Facebook in a very data driven

way, not unlike the way that Google returns searchresults. On average, 1,500 stories oat through

the news feed of each user. Each user is seeing

an average of about 100 of those stories per day,

which are controlled by Facebook’s engagement

algorithms.

For several years, Facebook’s algorithm for



Demand Generation

determining what content you see in your news

feed when you log into your account was called

EdgeRank, which looked at three main things when

analyzing a post:

1. Afnity: the relationship between the creator

of the post, and the recipient. If there is a

two-way communication street between

the creator and the recipient, meaning

that these two folks routinely comment on

each other’s posts, share content from one

another, and are generally more involved

with each other online, EdgeRank looked

at this relationship, and would more likely

place content from one of these parties into

the stream of the other party.

2. Weight: determined by the type of content

that is being produced. Posts that contain

video, photo, and audio were more likely

to be delivered into a recipient’s stream

than a simple comment or “like.” Facebook

rewarded meatier content postings.

3. Time Decay: simply a measure of how long

a post has been out there. Recent postings

appeared in a feed more often than older

postings.

Although EdgeRank is no longer the term used

to describe Facebook’s engagement algorithm,

the above criteria (excepting time decay, which

Facebook has de-emphasized) still provide a great

point of reference for marketers when determining

what content to post to their community. Best

practices still include:

• Creating posts rich in photo, audio, and

video content. Not only because of the

algorithm advantages, but because content

is a better way to engage your fanbase. On

average, content-rich posts see 200% more

engagement than non-visual posts.

• Encourage fans to post photos of you. Being

tagged increases visibility.

• Stay Aware! Hardly a week goes by without

Facebook making changes to their service.

There are a number of online services that

are good resources for Facebook updates,

including Adweek’s blog, Forbes, Mashable,

and many more. For information from the

horse’s mouth, check out facebook.com/press

Additional Best Practices on Facebook

• Wherever possible, embed a click-through link

to a marketing campaign’s primary landing page.

• Use a static call to action in the “about” areaof your profile to drive traffic to your primary

campaign landing page.

• Utilize your cover photo to help promote your

tour dates or music release information.

• Use link tracking services like Bitly to see how

your links are shared – making social media a

more measurable marketing channel.



Demand Generation

• You can monitor your fan activity through the

Facebook Insights analytics. Reviewing your

insights can let you know when you should

spike the activity or increase engagement

with more content (songs, videos, remixes,

etc.). Additional third party analytics services

like Quintly can help you to measure what is

working for other similar bands, in terms of

types of posts, time of posting, and more.

OF NOTE: Facebook is constantly changing their

algorithms, which has recently resulted in less

organic reach for marketers. What this means is that

Facebook is incentivizing their paid options, to reach

fans that you have acquired organically! Not the best

situation for creators and marketers, but perhaps

another cautionary tale against utilizing properties

you don’t control as your sole online visibility.

Helpful Third Party Services for

Facebook Marketing

Facebook itself currently does not provide a great

native homesteading option for bands that want to

highlight their music, tour dates, videos and more

in a really user friendly way. A number of third party

options have popped up to ll the gap. Again,

technology is advancing on a near daily basis,

but there are several helpful third party services

that bands can use to help increase visibility

and engagement (as well as sell direct from your

Facebook prole, if you want) on Facebook. The

most widely used option is BandPage, which allows

artists to share their music, bio, photos, videos, tour

dates, and more, as well as collect email addresses

from potential fans.

Twitter

Overview

Twitter (a tool for microblogging—

creating online updates using less than 140characters) can be highly misunderstood. To many,

Twitter can simply seem like a time-wasting tool

that the self-absorbed use to discuss what they had

for lunch. And while there are certainly folks that

use Twitter in that fashion, enlightened marketers

have found Twitter to be a very useful and effective

tool. While not at the scale of Facebook, Twitter

currently has over 300 million monthly active users,

with 100 million of these users using the servicedaily.

Twitter has also been found to be a tool that music

consumers tend to use. An NPD Group study

found that active Twitter users buy 77% more

digital music downloads on average than non-

users. 12% of those who have bought music in the

last three months also report having used Twitter,

versus 8% of overall Web users. They are far morecomfortable spending time online, buying online,

and communicating online. As we will discuss,

when best practices are followed, Twitter has a

lot of potential to cheaply and effectively increase

sales.

Twitter is an example of a marketing tool that

falls into three of our dened marketing channels:

Permission, Viral/Social, and Discovery.

Perhaps the most interesting facet of Twitter is how

quickly messages can be spun into the viral realm

via the “retweet” function. A retweet (usually noted

by starting your tweet with “RT”) is when one fan

resends a message (a “tweet” in Twitter-speak) from

someone in their network and shares it with their



Demand Generation

entire network. It’s perhaps the highest degree of

content approval and means that the content was

so valuable and important that they were willing

to share it with their network – causing it to spreadfrom one community to the next. Retweets of good

content are not unusual—all the more reason to

focus on writing something of substance.

Twitter Best Practices

Some tips to consider when getting started with

Twitter:

• Build Up Your Base. Like any other

communication method, the more engaged

people you have to communicate with,

the better your results will be. Certainly

communicating with your fan base via site

visibility and emails to let them know you are

on Twitter is a good rst step. But the most

effective way to build up your Twitter following

at the moment is to simply follow individuals

that have mentioned your band, or are fans of

similar bands. If you have great content, more

often than not, folks you follow will follow you

back. Additionally, Twitter users can view, and

often follow, the folks that their friends follow.

Twitter also makes suggestions of other,

similar, Twitter users that fans should follow.

There may not be a mathematical equation

that explains it all perfectly, but the bottom

line is that following key folks in your particular

niche in the Twitter community will very likely

result in an increase in the number of followers

you have, which will provide you with a larger

base to communicate with.

• Quality Posts. While it’s incredibly easy to

follow folks on Twitter, it is just as easy to UN-

follow too. Providing your community with

interesting content will not only keep folks

happy and involved, it is also the basis of any

viral Twitter campaign. Give folks a reason to

talk about you!

• Consistency in Posting. Breaks in posting

could cause a drop in followers. Consider

using a service that can schedule future

tweets. HootSuite, Sprout Social, and many

other third party services can be used to

schedule tweets.

• Engage your Fans. Consider asking more

questions of followers to connect morepersonally and get everyone engaged (e.g.,

ask followers what they think of a recently

posted demo).

• Connect Your Blog to Your Twitter

Account. WordPress makes it easy to send

announcements to your Twitter feed from your

blog. Of course the 140-character limit will

not allow the entire blog post to appear, but

followers will be directed back to your blog/

site from the tweet.

• Connect Twitter to Your Facebook Account.

The Selective Tweets app lets you selectively

update your Facebook status from Twitter

simply by ending a tweet with #fb.

• Use Hashtags for Trending. Hashtags are

a way of adding additional context to your

tweets. You create a hashtag simply by

prexing a word with a hash symbol, like this:

#hashtag, in any of your tweets. Services like

Hashtracking can help to provide analysis on

trending Hashtags.

Hashtags were developed as a means to create

“groupings” (otherwise known as “trending topics”)



Demand Generation

on Twitter, without having to change the basic

service. For example, folks at the SXSW music

festival has used the hashtag #sxsw to categorize

any SXSW posts under this heading, which makesfor easy review by folks interested in news on

SXSW. Effective use of hashtags by bands might

include tweets on upcoming festival dates (such as

#glastonbury, for example).

Collaborative Marketing Outlet

Wikipedia

According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia is currently

the sixth most visited site on the entire Web. Withhundreds of thousands of other sites currently

linking to it, Wikipedia is also one of the most

optimized sites on the Web. As such, a band entry

on Wikipedia often appears higher in search results

than a band’s ofcial site.

Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited site, with tens

of thousands of editors responsible for adding

and maintaining the content. While a potentiallyexcellent trafc generator for bands, it is also

somewhat tricky to set up a Wikipedia page for

developing bands. Wikipedia frowns on self-

promotion (its goal is to be an impartial community-

developed encyclopedia of sorts, not a promotion

vehicle), and one has to take certain steps in setting

up a Wikipedia page as to not have the page

deleted by the site’s editors. Making your entries

and edits as notable, relevant, and non-promotionalas possible will help avoid this, as anything added

that remotely resembles a sales tool will surely get

deleted by Wikipedia’s editors post-haste.

Another key to marketing and generating

conversions on community-edited sites like

Wikipedia is to add specic targeted links back to

your site in a way that ts the context of the page.

Taking the time to blend the content and the link

to your site in such a way that it naturally ts and

enhances the content on the page will ensure that

your link does not get deleted. Research shows that

proper implementation of links on these pages can

account for low to mid single-digit increases to the

overall revenue in a campaign.

Best Practices for Marketing on Community-

Generated Content Sites:

1. Add the link in the top third of the page forvisibility.

2. Ensure that your link ts in naturally with the

page content.

Paid Marketing Opportunities on Third Party

Social Networking Sites

Of the four dened marketing channels we’ve

identied, our previous examples have focused onorganic (i.e., free) opportunities: Permission, Viral/

Social, and Discovery. The fourth dened marketing

channel is Paid placement. While it’s certainly

advisable to exploit all organic opportunities rst,

online paid placements allow artists to target

specic psychographic and demographic criteria

of potential fans, which can provide additional



Demand Generation

visibility to support your organic efforts.

There are a number of paid visibility opportunities

available online. Let’s take an in-depth look at one

particular option: Facebook.

Facebook Advertising Options

One of the problems with traditional advertising

is that it is impossible to pinpoint a message

specically for someone who actually wants to hear

it. While print (and some online) publications can

provide general demographic information on their

subscribers and readers (such as annual income,

how much money they spend on music per year,age, etc.), most advertising models do not allow

you to target your fan with laser-like precision.

Facebook is an example of an online outlet that

does provide this sort of highly targeted advertising

opportunity, one in which you can pinpoint the

exact characteristics of your target fan, and deliver

them a specic message for a specied period of

time. If done properly, this sort of online targetingis an evolution from ads being annoying intrusions,

into helpful, meaningful recommendations. As

mentioned earlier, Facebook generates billions

of dollars a year from their advertising efforts,

and they are currently the second largest web

advertising vehicle in the world, behind Google.

Facebook advertising traditionally relied on the

information that users had uploaded into theirproles, from age, geography, favorite music,

books—basically any personal information that

folks have added to their prole page. But in recent

years, Facebook has partnered with some third

party data giants including Epsilon, Acxiom, and

Datalogix to allow brands to match data gathered

through shopper loyalty programs to individual

Facebook proles. What this means is that as an

advertiser, you can target folks on Facebook not

only based on what they say in their proles, andwhat they say in their posts, you can target them

based on past activity on a variety of other online

and ofine activities and interests. To put it another

way: Facebook knows A LOT about you, and is

using that information to help advertisers target

their products more effectively.

Based on the psychographic and demographic

information you are looking for in your campaign,Facebook trawls its user base for members who

meet this criteria, provides you, as an advertiser,

with an estimate of the number of folks you will

reach with your ad, and provides you with pricing

options based on an ever growing palate of

advertising options including clicks to your site,

promoting your page, boosting your post, and

much more. The ad creation process is simple:

1. Get Started: Assuming you have an account

set up in Facebook, go to facebook.com/

advertising and log in.

2. Create and Target your Ad: Say you are

interested in placing an ad with the goal

of driving potential fans to your site to

experience your music, or learn about

your tour dates. After choosing the “send

people to your website” option, you will

be asked for specic targeting information

on who you want to reach, how much you

want to spend, and what you want your

ad to look like. You will also be asked for

specic text and an image or video to

accompany your ad.



Demand Generation

3. Target Your Ad: Set up your target

demographic and psychographic

information. Let’s assume you are targeting a

local demographic for a record release showtaking place in Cambridge, MA. If your band

sounds similar to the iconic Cambridge-

based low-rock trio Morphine, you might

want to consider targeting Morphine fans

in this ad. Facebook will provide you with

additional potential targets as well. In this

example, Facebook is suggesting targeting

Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire fans (not a bad

suggestion), as well as Nirvana (not quiteright). Facebook ads could just as easily

be used to announce new releases, free

singles, etc., with your personal website

being the destination for the click-through

on the ad. Facebook ads are also exible;

it makes sense to experiment with different

campaigns to see what kind of trafc volume

you might get from your alternate settings.

4. Determine Your Pricing: Set up a daily

budget and choose your pricing model

(CPM, CPC, Clicks to Website, or Daily

Unique Reach).

5. Place your order and enter your payment

information.

Additional Advertising Options

Facebook advertising is just one option available

to marketers. Depending on your psychographic

and the tools that your fans are more predisposed

to using, your advertising campaigns can be

expanded to focus on other outlets, including

Twitter. Twitter’s advertising options are currently

less robust than Facebook, but one relatively

easy way to implement Twitter advertising is their

“promoted tweets” option. With promoted tweets,

you can select specic tweets to promote to your

fans. Similar to Facebook you can target youraudience (your fans and/or fans of other bands

you’ve toured with, perhaps?), and set budget

restraints in much the same way as you can with

Facebook.

A nal note of caution with regards to paid

advertising for musicians: paid advertising can get

expensive, and is not the best place to start when

you’re a developing band. There are a variety offree or inexpensive options that musicians should

start with rst that often tend to have better results.

Paid ads should be considered only for more

established bands that want to expand their reach

and who understand that music marketing is a

comprehensive system that needs to be continually

monitored, assessed for success, and ne-tuned.



John Kellogg

• Assistant Chair of the Music Business

& Management Department at

Berklee College of Music

• Music Business 101 Online Course

Author and Instructor

• Licensed Entertainment Attorney

Licensed to practice in the states of New

York and Ohio, John P. Kellogg, Esq. hasrepresented recording artists The O’Jays,

Eddie Levert, Sr., LSG, Stat Quo of Shady/

Aftermath Records, and G-Dep of Bad Boy

Records. He also serves as a member of the

management team for the late R&B

recording star Gerald Levert, whom he

represented throughout his career.

Kellogg is President-Elect and a member

of the Board of Directors of the Music and

Entertainment Industry Educators Association

(MEIEA), in addition to being a former board

member of the Black Entertainment and

Sports Lawyer’s Association (BESLA) and a

2005 inductee into the BESLA Hall of Fame.

He is the author of the book Take Care of

Your Music Business:

The Legal and BusinessAspects You Need to Know to Grow In the

Music Business, as well as numerous legal

articles and editorials. A former vocalist with

the group Cameo, Kellogg has been proled

in Billboard, Ebony, Black Issues, and In the

Black magazines.

A music business degree puts you in the

position to be a leader in the music industry.

You’re going to study with other studentswho have experience in the business as well

as instructors that are skilled at incorporating

music with the business principles you need

to know in order to be successful.”- John Kellogg,

Music Business Online Course instructor

“



Renowned FacultyBerklee Online instructors have managed, produced, and engineered hundreds of artists

and records and have received numerous industry awards and accolades. Each week you’ll

have the opportunity to participate in a live chat with your instructor and receive one-on-

one instruction and feedback on assignments.

Award-Winning CoursesInstantly access assignments, connect with your instructor, or reach out to your classmates

in our award-winning online classroom. Study from anywhere in the world at a time that

ts into your schedule.

Specialized Degree ProgramNo other accredited institution offers the acclaimed degree curriculum provided by Berklee

Online. Earn your degree at a cost that’s 60% less than campus tuition and graduate with a

professional portfolio that will prepare you for a career in the music industry.

Like-Minded ClassmatesOffering courses for beginners and accomplished musicians alike, our student body

comes from over 140 countries and includes high school students getting a jump-start on

college, working professionals, executives at industry-leading technology and business

rms, and members of internationally known acts like Nine Inch Nails and the Dave

Matthews Band.

Experienced Support

Every online student is assigned a Berklee-trained Academic Advisor. Each Advisor is

passionate and knowledgeable about music and here to support you throughout your

online learning experience.

Try a sample lesson for free:

online.berklee.edu/sample-a-course

How Berklee Online Works



Questions about

Earning Your Degree Online?Contact Us.

[email protected]

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1-617-747-2146 (INT’L)

Beerkle - Music Business Degree Major Handbook

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