MicControl Interview Series: Branded Music

MicControl Interview Series: Branded Music Wednesday, 8 September 2010 , 0 Comments

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Hi everyone, Jon here!





After the success of the Recording In The Home and The Blogging Side Of Music interview series', we are happy to announce that next week, we will be debuting our 3rd series on the topic of branding, entitled Branded Music.





This 5-part series will spotlight some of the new music industry's most influential thought-leaders, dissecting the success of their own brands in order to share some powerful insights with the emerging music community, both musicians and bloggers included.





Each interviewee throughout the series has done an exceptional job establishing a direction for and awareness surrounding their own brands. Check out the schedule below - we were very fortunate to speak with some truly incredible people:





Monday, Sept. 13: Derek Sivers - Founder, CD Baby

Tuesday, Sept 14: David Sherbow - Founder, LiveMusicMachine

Wednesday, Sept 15: Bruce Houghton - Founder, HypeBot/ Skyline Music

Thursday, Sept 16: Chris Bracco - Founder, Tight Mix Blog

Friday, Sept 17: Ariel Hyatt - Founder, Ariel Publicity/ Cyber PR





Except from interview with Derek Sivers:





While CD Baby is a very well known brand, you have also done an excellent job building up your own personal brand as an artist and an entrepreneur. Do you have any tips for artists looking to establish their own personal brand, meanwhile building the brand of their band?





Be selfless. Think only how you can give people what they really need and value. It has to satisfy a need from their point of view, not yours. Then just structure it so that you save a little bit for yourself, to keep you going.

Think of how much you can give. What else can you possibly do for people, that they value? If you want money, you have to do something money-worthy. For example: writing and publishing articles is not money-worthy. Everybody is doing it now. But writing a great book can be money-worthy. Singing your songs with nothing but an acoustic guitar with your eyes closed may not be money-worthy, because it's what everyone else does. But putting together a killer house-rocking party-time band, for example, can be very money-worthy.

Keep doing things, always. Keep sharing. Keep helping. Keep writing.





Except from interview with Ariel Hyatt:





Is it possible for the marketing strategies (word of mouth, grassroots, social media, viral, etc.) to define, or at least influence the nature of an artist's overall brand? How can this be used to the benefit of the artist?





Yes and yes!! The key here is you must listen to your audience. Do they seem to respond better to videos or do they like status updates on Facebook or maybe they like live tracks?

Do you get more reactions from shows at certain venues you play then at others? (If so stop playing the venues that your fans don’t like!)

Asking your fan base what they want is key to how you will be able to give them what they want. The strongest brands in the world never release a product without market research first! You can make your own market research – but you have to be willing to communicate that you need help in doing so in order to benefit from this.

Try asking on social media, in your newsletters and by watching how your fans respond at shows. Get behind the merch table and ASK!

TIP: Use fun survey software like Poll Daddy Polls - http://tinyurl.com/facebookpolldaddy Poll Daddy Polls feature both private polls that only your friends can see, and public ones that you can share with all of your fans. This is a great way to poll your fan base and see what they really want! Or try Survey