In today’s age, music has to move through various mediums.
You have to have a presence in the street, as well as online. If you are strong
in one, but lacking in the other, it seems as though you are not a complete
artists. An artist has to have posters, attend events, and so much more in the
street. On the viral side, an artist has to have a website, social networks,
and various releases via email and site placements.
Being that my company works heavily in the viral side of the
business, today I am going to touch on some of the smoke and mirrors that many
“artists” do. One of the main things is BUYING views, downloads, followers, and
more. Any site, any format, can be bought at a price. Hell, major artists even
purchase downloads in order to debut at number 1. Trust me, if you have the
budget, you can buy your placement. Personally I am against buying anything, I
hate faking the funk, and I rally against it. I will say this, when someone who
CAN show SALES or SELLOUT a show and has fabricated the stats, it’s almost
impossible to care. That being said, indie artist, this expense is NOT an
investment. There is software out there that people can check ALL these NUMBERS
and tell you who’s real or not. So, in my opinion, you do not believe in
yourself. If you believed in yourself, you would go after real fans and build
your fan base…because guess what, these bots will not attend a show.
Another major expense that artists do, which makes no sense
to me is WORLDSTAR placement. The only thing Worldstar does for you is bring up
your popularity among your friends. Let’s break it down realistically. You pay Worldstar
about $600 and up to get your video placed. This comes with NO PROMO; they
won’t tweet about you or talk about you or anything. The video is placed and
that is it. Labels could careless whether you are on Worldstar or not, those
views mean NOTHING. So, why are you spending that money?? How can you allow
yourself to spend that amount knowing you will have no return?? On the opposite
side, we have YouTube….hmmmm YouTube offers you FREE UPLOAD and the option to
MONITIZE your video. SO, not only is it FREE for my video to get posted, but I
can make money. To me, it is a no brainer. I recommend to ANYONE, take that
Worldstar money and pay for promo/marketing/eblast or whatever else you can to
bring awareness to your YouTube video. Stop doing it for popularity and think
BUSINESS.
Last, but not, least is digital distribution….haaaaa, let us
talk distribution. I know artists that have original music, not just album
fillers, but OFFICIAL singles. They own the production, they paid to record it
and they are awesome tracks, but what do these artists do? Upload the track to
sound cloud, hulk share, or whatever other media sharing site and post the
track for FREE download. What are you thinking? Some even go on Facebook and
say, hey for 20 likes I will post my new single for you to download. Damn I
never knew them likes make you money. There are various sites that allow YOU to
digitally distribute your music. Listen, you want to be an artist, copyright
your single, media base your single, and digitally distribute your single.
These downloads can actually help you land a deal. Show a label that you are already
making money and I bet they would be willing to invest in you.
In conclusion, artists, in the digital world please stop
faking the funk and be about your business. The people actually doing this as a
business can tell when you have manipulated your stats. There is nothing wrong
with spending your money on these things, but just remember what can actually
help you succeed and what just “looks good”. I do not want to hear “numbers
don’t lie” anymore, the new quote is “numbers don’t lie, but they damn sure are
faked”! <<<< #BREEZYSAYS!
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