Change The Game: 3 Simple Steps To Curate An Affordable Live Music Experience In Your Local Scene

25-Sep-2019 By Tanay Mulukutla

Your local music scene needs YOU: a local hero

Ever wanted to be a part of something big? Now is the time!

If you’ve always been someone who’s daydreamed about big ideas to manifest into reality, there’s a ninja in you. Look around, there’s talent everywhere and they all need someone who can take initiative to guide them. Your passion for music can be infectious in more ways than one. It’s your chance to steer the ship, all you need to do is provide your local talent with a platform that YOU help build: it is after all, your scene, so let it be seen! The first step is to acknowledge that you yourself can be the person that you’ve always felt your local music scene needed.

Don’t own or have contacts at a music venue? How about your friend’s backyard!

We all know that one person in our neighborhood that we can find complaining on a regular basis about there being nothing to do in the area, or that there aren’t enough venues where live music can be played anymore. Well, you being the ninja that you are, have found a solution. The creative, ideas person is always prone to think outside the box; why not use this to think up alternative locations for live music? Go ahead, give your friend’s backyard a fresh spin! Getting a bunch of artists to play at unconventional settings is how a lot of legendary music and artists started their journey.

Give your ‘scenesters’ a chance to pay what they want: using crowdfunding as an effective DIY tool

Crowdfunding is a perfect gauge of how much your fans are willing to contribute to a local show, particularly with the first few shows you run. It is imperative to learn more about the purchasing power and engagement level of your audience. You want to make all your shows not only accessible but also affordable: the best way to do it is by allowing your community to pay what they want. Over a period of time, you’d have an estimation of the exact price at which you want to sell tickets to your show, thereby creating a sense of value in return to your fans, artists, and hosts.

Show Tickets: Live Music Can Be Highly Affordable For Fans

07-Apr-2019 By Tanay Mulukutla

Live music is conceivably one of the most exhilarating experiences one can ever have. Having said that, show tickets can burn quite a hole in our pockets, and some might even argue that it’ the most expensive activity they indulge in. This is true in most cases, but at a fundamental level, live music can be a highly affordable option for fans. Furthermore, the independence that comes with an emerging live music scene has everything to do with how you as a fan contribute to it, and interestingly, all it takes at times is a pint’s worth! Local music promoters have come a long way and know exactly what it takes to make it all accessible and affordable to their fans. A recent wave of gigs at unconventional and/or secret locations has been on the rise to create an appetite for live music within their community, and much to our advantage they are ALL easily accessible making show tickets absolutely affordable. At youbloom, we’re all about paying it forward to our global village aka community! We, therefore, urge you to stay tuned to know what we’re cooking up for you. There’s going to something for everyone!

By that token, if you are an individual craving live music in your vicinity, get on your social media platforms to explore every avenue in order to contribute to this growing trend in more ways than just being present at a show. The possibilities are endless!
Here’s an interesting read on how you as a fan or even an artist can campaign for your local artists!

If you want to get more involved in your local music scene and reach out to like-minded artists and music lovers across the globe, youbloomConnect is the place for you! Go ahead and sign up to know more.

If you’re a “Fan”, click here

To sign up as a “CityRep”, click here

How to Promote Your Music on YouTube – And Keep your Subscribers (2018)

21-Jul-2018 By Robert Loustaunau

Promoting your Music on YouTube

Promoting your Music on YouTube isn’t exactly revolutionary. In recent years, the content-sharing platform has beefed up its incentives for creatives looking to grow a subscriber-base and monetize their music. For the DIY musician, the challenge is rising above that seemingly infinite noise of YouTube content and its pesky algorithms. Here we’ll outline how to make your channel a hub of unstoppable, watchable content that the algorithm’s just can’t keep at bay.

Put Your Best-Flick Forward.

Nick Aslam – youbloomDublin Music Festival 2018

Have your best or newest music playing at the start of the page or readily clickable. A majority of viewers decide whether or not they’re going to subscribe to a channel in the first 30 seconds of scanning the page. If they’ve ended up on your page then that’s already a great start for you. But now you need to hook them. Have your newest release or most popular upload playing automatically as they enter your channel. That, or have a welcome video that immediately makes the page personable between you and the viewer.

Clear Call-To-Action

You don’t want it to be hard for your viewer to find more of what they like. At the start and end of videos, as well as throughout your profile, make your call-to-action easy to see, and simple to click. The Backlink channel with Brian Dean has a really useful tutorial that explain the “In and Outs” of creating an effective call-to-action as well as tips on all aspects of YouTube strategy. A call-to-action can be links to your other social media, website or BandCamp album. Also, end your videos with explicit calls-to-action for viewers to leave a comment. Anything that will provoke further engagement among viewers is key.

Keep it Consistent

Choosing a day and time of the week to consistently upload content will more likely gain you a consistent fan base. Followers are more reliable if they can rely on you to stick to an upload schedule.

You’ve most likely spent a lot of time developing your band or music to fit a certain style. You want the feelings fans associate with that style to transfer over into your YouTube page. Work on developing your page to mirror your music. This could mean creating a layout with video thumbnails and color schemes that match that of your album artwork.

No Returns Without Tags

The tags you choose to represent your videos with will be your first line of attack in ranking among the ocean of YouTube videos. You want to cast a wide net but you also want to be casting it in the right place. Tags are the primary source that YouTube algorithm’s use to place your video.

Peco – youbloomDublin Music Festival 2018

Your first tag should match the keyword you have chosen to represent your video and should also be included in the video title. If the video in question is your “Music Vlog at the Hollywood Bowl,” than an appropriate first keyword might be “Hollywood Bowl or “Music Vlog.” For your next view tags, use variations of that keyword. Perhaps “Gig Vlog,” “Vlog,” or “Hollywood Music.” For your final few tags, use general terms that encapsulate the big picture of your video: “live music” or “LA music scene.”

Another way to get your tags working for you is by using the same ones as other popular videos that are similar to your’s. Websites like TubeBuddy and vidIQ allow you to quickly check the tags of high ranking videos allowing you to slap on the same tags for a chance to show up beside them in a search.

Keep it Short Lengthy

This isn’t Twitter folks. 140 characters isn’t excessive. In fact, research has shown that writing longer descriptions for your videos actually helps your ranking. 100-200 word descriptions seems to be the sweet spot here. This is because the more specific you are, the more YouTube bots have to work with when sorting you for organic searches.

By the same logic, longer videos, usually 8-15 minutes long, rank better. Just by making longer content you are quickly increasing the chances that your video will get more watch time. So if you’re wondering how to turn that 3 and a half minute music video you’re premiering into ideal-length content, get creative. Add bonus content to the ends of your music videos; a behind-the-scenes feature or heartfelt message from you and your band to your followers serves two purposes. It gets that run-time up closer to the sweet spot and it humanizes you and your content, giving fans a connection to you and your band that would otherwise be lost in cut-and-dry music video.

Co-Market

Image-1 (2) — The Burma – youbloomDublin Music Festival 2018

Many YouTubers rely on one another to promote their own channels. Teaming up with other artists, collaborating, or guest appearing in each others’ videos is mutually beneficial when both parties exchange niches of fans and followers. Websites like youbloomConnect make this co-marketing simple by matching you with compatible artists that suit your style and are based nearby. This makes collaboration seamless and if you end up finding a good match, youbloomConnect will even help you to set up gigs with the other artists. Check out our Connect Guide to learn more about everything youbloomConnect can do for artists.

Make this Space a Home

Finally, you want your channel to be more than a glorified playlist; that’s what SoundCloud is for. YouTube is the perfect platform to show your followers the minds behind the music and to establish a personal connection with subscribers. Feeling a relationship with a YouTuber promises a much higher return rate of loyal viewers between uploads. This can’t be done with a music video alone. Create band interviews, behind-the-scenes gig vlogs, or an informational video. And don’t forget to end each video with some specific call out to your viewers: “Leave a comment about your favorite part of that gig, what band we should collaborate with next,” etc.

Stay tuned or subscribe to the weekly youbloom Newsletter for our follow up article on promoting your music on YouTube. In our following post we’ll be getting into the nitty-gritty of perfecting your SEO score and how exactly you can beat the algorithm.

Knowing the If, When, and How of Hiring a Manager

18-Jul-2018 By Josey Dunbar

Knowing when hiring a manager (and whether or not to hire one at all) is right, can be a tough call for artists…

When deciding what’s right for your band, it’s important not only to weigh the obvious pros and cons, but also to consider the methods of attracting and choosing the best manager for your individual group of artists.

Step One: Consider the Pros of Hiring a Manager

1) Experience

Managers can provide outside knowledge of the music industry for your band. Whether you’re an up-and-coming group or have years of experience preforming, hiring a manager will provide knowledge that can prove to be essential when dealing with hosts, venues and sponsors.

2) Third Party Ear

In addition to providing knowledge of the industry, managers can also serve as a third party perspective when disputes arise within the band. Having an unbiased opinion can help to resolve budding conflicts between artists.

3) Concentrate Vision

Hiring a good manager can also be a perfect way to narrow in on a brand for your band and develop a solid vision for your group’s future.

Step Two: Consider the Cons of Hiring a Manager

1) Money

Managers aren’t free nor are they cheap. If your band is going to end up losing money or barely breaking even by hiring a manager- maybe consider holding off for the time being.

2) Loss of Artistic Freedom

It’s no secret that a band loses the total control they started with when they decide to hire a manger. Though releasing some control may prove to be beneficial for the musician’s future, you must decide if the end goal is worth it.

At the end of the day, hiring a manager is an investment that only you can deem worth the expense and risk.

But the important decision-making doesn’t end there; after deciding if a manager is the right move for your band, it’s time to decide how to attract and choose the right one.

Step Three: Attracting a Manager

After deciding to find a manager for your band, you’ll learn the first step in finding the right one is to not look. No you did not read that sentence wrong—don’t go looking for a manager; the right manager will come looking for you.

With that said, there are certainly methods of speeding up the process.

1) Growing Your Fanbase

The more buzz there is around your band, the more managers will know who you are and where to find you. To learn more about growing your fanbase check out “How To Hook the Super-Fans.”

After you attract managers who embody the same vision you have for your group, don’t be afraid to give them some control while still maintaining your own individuality, of course.

Maintaining some control of your own booking and touring can be made easy for those who choose to hire a manager and those who fly solo through youbloomConnect. Learn more at youbloom.com

How to Hook the Super-Fan

07-Jul-2018 By Josey Dunbar

Contrary to popular belief, a super-fan is not always a crazed group of followers or a die-hard groupie. All brands have super-fans. They’re a key component in building and sustaining a successful career by enagaging a solid fanbase.

The question then becomes: what classifies as a brand and how do you build one that attracts enough super fans.

The term super-fan refers to an individual who supports a brand and everything that brand produces. Artists depend on super-fans as a bedrock of support. When on tour, a band can trust that their super-fans will show up, buy merch, and be tweeting about the show long after it’s over. When band’s establish a healthy base of super-fans, they are establishing a continuous body of support that can last throughout their careers.

From Starbucks to your local coffee shop that plays nothing but bluegrass, all brands attract super-fans. This comes down to the fact that people are drawn to originality. Every brand needs its own niche to attract a sustaining number of super-fans.

Who will your super-fans be?

Before a company, artist or individual can successfully attract, engage, and retain super-fans they must have a well-established brand. At the end of the day, there are billions of different people in the world with trillions of different interests; this means every brand who successfully markets a clear and individual niche has a high likelihood of attracting super-fans.

Building a brand comes down to three things: intended audience, clarity of product, and quality of service.

Whether you’re trying to market your sound or attract a wider demographic of ticket-buyers, your brand begins with your unique offerings and intended audience. Detecting what sets you apart is the quickest way to identify the basis for your brand.

After establishing a solid brand with individualized characteristics that will attract super-fans, the task becomes maintaining engagement from those fans. This maintained loyalty is often seen when artists create personal relationships with fans and release a steady flow of their branded product (shows, recorded music, etc.).

In addition to establishing these bonds, the branded product must retain its super-fan as the brand grows.

Joining a community with inter-industry connections can make a huge difference too. Today, a lot of artists are finding security in artist networks, like youbloomConnect, which help bands grow their fanbase and develop their brand through artist-partnering and co-marketing tactics. Definitely check out our guide to how youbloomConnect works if you want to learn more about our strategy.

Ultimately, developing a brand comes down to originality. Pursuing what sets you apart and working to maintain relations with super-fans as your brand-base expands will ensure your success in the future marketing of your music.