What! My name is... Who? Seriously... What's your name, I CAN'T FIND YOU!!! - Eminem picked a good name... what about you?

Ok, then.  Let’s roleplay.  I’m a music lover who has just heard an insanely addictive track from a band called ‘Skyscraper’.  It doesn’t matter where I heard; it could have been a live performance, or on someone’s facebook wall… but I’ve heard them and I like them.

POP QUIZ: What’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get home in front of my PC/Mac/Acorn?… ok scratch ‘Acorn’. But nevertheless, what’s the first thing I’m going to do?  Here’s a hint, it starts with a G and rhymes with ‘oogle’.

*Countdown theme song plays*

OK, so if you answered ‘Google’ (or to be politically correct ‘search engine’ ),  you can give yourself a gold star!  You can also give yourself additional bonus points if your first answer was ‘find them on Youtube’.

In all seriousness now, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 3-5 years, you would have noticed that searchability, or as we like to call it ‘googleability’ plays a massive role in your fan retention.  Youtube, also as a standalone platform is by miles the Internet’s primary source of accessing ‘free’ music (in spite of being a video channel).  So what does this mean?  This means that people expect to find you easily when they search for you using either of these two platforms.

Now, going back to our scenario, what do you think happened when I searched for this awesome band called Skyscraper.  Here’s a clue:

Guess what I did next.  I gave up, like most fans do.  Oh well, I’ll probably hear them again… some day.

Was Beyonce even a real name before the Knowles coined it? Who cares, it's ultra-googleable... that Matthew Knowles must be able to see the future!

Having a searchable name is very important.  It always has been, and always will be.  You are never going to compete for the top spot in either Google or Youtube if your artist/band name is common generic term, like ‘ice’.  There will just be too much competition forcing you out. So if you’re at the position where you’re still deciding on your stage name, try to avoid commonly occurring single words.  Do you think ‘Tyler the Creator’ or ‘Lady Gaga’ have ever had this problem?

Sometimes (as we’ve found is often the case), an act has settled in on a name that is just too generic for them to get any luck on search engines of any kind, but are also too committed for a complete name replacement.  In cases like this, we recommend name modification.  Consider ‘Starboy Nathan’ who revealed (in an exclusive interview with AJ King on UbandTV) that his name change (from ‘Nathan’) was due to the fact that he was getting muscled out of google by ‘random dentists’!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUE2ArrvAc

Or UK underground legend Shaun White, who revealed in a recent conversation that he has a long standing duel with an American Snowboarder baring the same name! Or the increasingly popular ‘L Marshall’, who revealed in an interview with our very own Marcus Bronzy, that his name change (from ‘L’) was… well, I’m guessing you can figure out how much luck he had with THAT name!   In both of these cases, the artists were both established stars in their own right, but still needed to adapt to improve searchability.  Simply adding a word before or after their name made ALL the difference!  Looking back at our example, if ‘Skyscraper’ (who by the way are imaginary – and please don’t sue me if that is your band name), changed their name to ‘The Skyscraper’ or ‘Skyskraper’ (note the DELIBERATE misspelling) this would probably massively improve their searchability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZCog4oVB3w

Earlier this month, the massively popular AL came into the UBand HQ with a similar dilemma – she didn’t rank for ANYTHING.  We helped her to implement a similar name modification, so she’s now known as ‘Aleisha Lee’. The result on Youtube was complete domination of the first page of search results, try it if you don’t believe me!

In conclusion, it’s very difficult to find a name that’s wholly unique, but if you want to give yourself a chance in the independent market, you don’t want to be constantly losing potential fans due to not being searchable.

Alfie Behaviour (formerly 308) are a self described 21st Century Motown duet that make simply breathtaking music.  When they approached UBand to produce their website, we were happy to work with such a creative outfit.  The challenge as always was to produce a website that complemented their smooth style of music, originality and creativity.  We also developed their new look logo and colour scheme.  Alfie’s approach to music is as refreshing and exciting as their website it… check them out here!

The Beauty of the ‘Freebie’

Let’s face it, the idea of ‘giving’ away your music has never been a popular one amongst, well, musicians!  And why not, you spend hours (not to mention £) slaving away in the studio, recording, mixing, mastering, listening back, then recording, mixing and mastering all over again, just to get the track to the level where it meets your expectations.  Let’s not discount the production, if you’re not self produced, this will either be paid for, or someone will be sacrificing time and personal creativity in the hope that at some point they will be remunerated (paid up!) for their efforts.  So it’s not only right, but it’s expected that after completing the masterpiece, you’re going to stick the track on iTunes, register for your PRS/MCPS, sit back and reap the financial rewards for all of your creative hard work.

The problem is, without an already established ‘name’ or the backing of a major label/publisher, you’re going to find it incredibly difficult to get any kind of meaningful numbers to your paid downloads.  Sure, you make music, and if it’s good music you deserved to be paid.  BUT, how much are you prepared to give away for free to help you to build a following that will eventually translate into revenue.

It often takes a lot more than one killer track for someone to buy into an artist and make that decision to ‘follow’ them as a loyal fan.  Music consumers want to be able to go to your website/soundcloud/reverbnation/youtube etc. and have access to listen to more of what you’re offering as an artist.  They’ve become used to this, spoiled by all the choice and access that the Internet has provided us with.  If all that you offer is paid downloads and 30 second samples, you’re probably not doing yourself any favours in terms of building up your fanbase.

Rappers in many ways have been popular music’s most successful entrepreneurs, and here in the UK they certainly represent the fastest growing musical genre. This is because many rappers have utilised the beauty of ‘free’ness, by releasing free mixtapes to attract new followers and listeners to download (and hopefully get hooked) on what they have to offer.  Some rappers have built huge fan bases by just releasing mixtapes, and it’s great to see this methodology now rubbing off on other genres.

MTV’s brand new for 2012 winner, Conor Maynard, is a great example of ‘the beauty of free’.  The very talented UK singer (touted as Brit’s Beiber) built up a substantial Youtube following by just singing covers in front of his webcam, and now seems to be destined for worldwide stardom.  Imagine if he had just done one cover, got a few 10,000’s worth of youtube hits, then decided.  ‘Hey’ I’ve got a little buzz now, time to start making people pay to hear me.  Yeah, he would have generated a little bit of short term income, but nothing like the popularity ‘Can’t Say No’ received when he did release it on iTunes.  His current fanbase (May-niacs) will pretty much pay anything for his album when it is released, and they now number in the 100’s of thousands!  Pay day didn’t come too soon for Conor!

The major labels have been battling piracy en masse for some time now, with major western governments (mainly US) heavily chipping in resources and changing laws to ‘crack down’ on piracy. In our opinion, it’s a battle they’re destined to lose.  People want to be able to listen to music for free, and a majority of people that do go for paid downloads don’t do it out a moral obligation to the artist, but rather because it’s more convenient to have the track go straight from iTunes into their playlist that it is for them to manually .mp3 the track and jump through hoops to get the track onto their music device(s).  This also explains the huge growth in music streaming platforms like Spotify that are relying on advertising revenues to pay artists/labels for making their music available.

So, in our opinion, rather than alienate yourself from reaching potential fans through short-sighted profiteering, try to embrace the idea that consumers expect to hear a good deal of your music at no cost, before they make the decision to invest in you.  Give a little away for free now to earn a huge deal more in the future.

Avoid the cleeshay, find your neesh ‘aye! (Typo’s deliberate!)

As one of London’s leading artist consultancies, we’re often asked our opinion about what makes for a good single release.  Managers and artists bring us their music and usually make statements like:

“This track has that commercial feel to it”, or “this track’s what’s hot at the moment” or “this track has that breakthrough appeal”,  and it’s at this point that you might see one of our eyes glaze over with boredom as the artist/manager normally plays us a generic soulless copy-cat sounding pop song, that is usually the worst track in their collection!

Generic sounding pop-songs are NOT what are going to get you noticed by venues, promoters, DJ’s, Record Labels, booking agents, and the likes!  Generic sounding pop songs are what the major labels will force you to produce once you’ve already signed a contract!  What makes DJ’s and the music industry take notice is originality!  Think about all of the stand out UK acts that have broken through in the past 10 years (such Corinne Bailey Rae and Dizzee Rascal [pictured]).  Who do they sound like?

Avoid the Cliche’ pop approach and find your niche!  What is it that makes your track, your production, your delivery and your music unique?  Do you have a sound that sounds like a less polished version of what’s already available, or do you have a sound that will make a listeners ear’s perk up and say ‘oooh, that’s different!’.

Let me tell you a little secret about DJ’s and bloggers, they all want to be credited with ‘finding’ the next big talent, so when they hear something that stands out, they’re normally all the more eager to give it publicitiy so they can say ‘yeah, I found that track’.  Give them something to make their ears prick up and take notice that you’re not just a copycat pop artist, make them say ‘I haven’t heard anything like this before’ and you’ll have a much higher chance of getting noticed!

Talk to the hand, ‘cause the label ain’t listening!

OK, so we all understand that humans are innately fearful of rejection, but networking is NOT flirting.  An approach from an artist towards an ‘industry insider’ is nobody’s favourite pass time, but it’s never going to end up with a hand to the face.  We understand that networking’s an ugly, uncomfortable word.  I mean, where else in life (apart from a bar) is it condoned to walk up to someone, un-introduced and just start a random conversation!

However, in the music industry, we believe this to be an invaluable and essential skill.  The industry has becoming so much more personal in the past couple of years, because of the huge rise in successful independent outfits.  So many people open doors for themselves by just seizing opportunities to network, smile and chat to a stranger in a room.  During a large music industry networking session that we helped to organise at Musicalize, we watched as some artists got straight on to building new contacts and links, whilst others recoiled into the shell of their own fears and insecurities.

6 quick tips on networking

1. Don’t be scared, the worst you can get is a slightly cold conversation.  Reluctance and fear should be an artist’s worst enemy as every person you speak to could be a direct or indirect contact to your next gig, publication and/or record contract!
2. Strike up a focused conversation.  Think about why you’re approaching this contact, and be clear with your message.  Some of the most successful musicians I know, who manage to make quick progress so far as getting bookings goes, are also excellent negotiators and comfortable networkers.
3. Be warm, personable and approachable.  Your talent will only get you so far if you’re a jerk!
4. Further to the last point, PLEASE DO NOT do that whole, ‘let me pass you on to my manager’ thing when someone ‘industry’ approaches you.  This can easily be taken the wrong way and be a complete turn off to a potential new link.  Build up a personal rapport, mutual respect and warmth, and only pass them on to your manager when it becomes essential!
5. Be a little bit prejudice – Ok, we know that prejudice is totally unacceptable in general, but sometimes, you can tell who to target by who they are speaking to and how much respect they hold of the people around them.  Target your targets by being observant.
6. Ask penetrating questions.  Networking is not an attempt to build friendship, but an opportunity to see where there is potential to work together.  Don’t be afraid to ask people what they do, no one is ever offended by another human being showing an interest in what they do.  Just remember to listen closely when you’re given an answer!

So in short, if you’ve got the confidence to stand on a stage in front of crowd, then you’ve got the confidence to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger who could be holding the keys to your next big break! Take a deep breath, swallow your fear and speak up!

www.frommorning.com