Hey William, of course we've discussed this before but I think the biggest benefit of Soundcloud is to have a place to host music online so that one can very easily present ones music in a nice looking player on one's wesbite. Thus ensuring rapid access to your music for the casual site wanderer. Soundcloud is pretty decent even as the free version, allowing upto 1.5 hours of music to be hosted.

YouTube is a handy tool if one has a visual concept to go along with one's music. On their own they're not all that useful. To simply put a video out means very little and the chances of it being seen by all those millions of viewers is so small it's laughable, but in conjunction with other advertisement, and if the video itself is something that people would want to see it can help to boost one's footprint.

As we've discussed before, social media is pretty much useless until you've got a product people want and are actively looking for you .. until then it's just a family and friends thing. I pour a lot of effort into collaborations with authors and artists, writing music either for a certain story or to a piece of artwork in order that myself and the person I'm working with can both benefit from mutual advertisement.

Afterall .. how many times have you been to Linked In, or VI forums and looked at the sheer number of people calling themselves "Professional film/game/symphony composer, wedding cakes, shoes repaired while-u-wait, and no change given except on fridays!" .. the typical "I'm a big budget composer" spiel. I'm not saying that all these people aren't good at what they do, but to shine above all that means you've got to produce something truely exceptional .. and THAT I think is the emphasis of a music composer in the 21st century. Trying to find a project that allows one to be totally expressive, and original, and to shine brighter than the other 10,000 bodies all vying for JJ Abrams ear :P

One could get depressed about it, I know I certainly have in the past, but these days I have chosen instead (rather wisely I think) to do work that is personally satisfying to me and to really make the best work I can out of these projects. As much as I'd love to be getting paid to do pro-film work I feel that my upcoming symphony .. a collab. project with an author friend of mine .. is by far the better direction for me to take. And things like Soundcloud and YouTube will become invaluable tools to promote both our works as I assemble images to go with the music, or to show new songs easily.

Sorry if this re-iterates what we went over before, but I think I've said it somewhat more eloquently than the last time :P. And I do feel that although the world of music remains as impenetrable as ever, I think that there are avenues and challenges for us composers to look forward to that are far better than seeking the next blockbuster film .. and ultimately these more personal projects may end up connecting us to art and other artists in a more satisfying way.

Okay .. I'll shut up now and get back to writing music :P

@hetoreyn said:

 "Professional film/game/symphony composer, wedding cakes, shoes repaired while-u-wait, and no change given except on fridays!" .. 

Just right Hetoreyn! This should be almost everybody's signature here and all other such fora on the Internet - but I like mine too much to change...

Everybody and his DJ are "composing" these days, so I do too! Hey, I read a couple of articles about it on the net, and sat through 3 weekly e-mail courses on it. I'm an expert!! Here's my latest quaver-spewccato, copy-pasted, brassphobic, orchestrated online, epic trailer-track! Would you like shoelaces with that?

Hi William,

      my preference would be for Soundcloud rather than YouTube and I think they are probably both worth using (rather than just hosting the sounds on your own website). I don't know about the USA however I know that Ireland's music licensing and copyright society is now paying out on plays via Youtube. I don't have the exact details on how the payments are calculated however on the page linked (http://www.imro.ie/music-creators/imro-distribution-policies/imro-distribution-schedule/distribution-d124/) if you scroll down to the bottom you can see that there are now streaming payments backdated from 2009 up to 2012. I'd imagine the numbers are pretty low for anything classical (or for my commercial CD) however the way I look at these things is that it is better off in your pocket than in some of the bigger record company's pockets.

In terms of why I think Soundcloud is better than Youtube, I uploaded the preview tracks for my CD onto Soundcloud and linked them back to my website (http://www.tommcelvogue.com/index.php/home-page/music/new-cd/). What this gives me for the minimum premium package on soundcloud (€66 per year - solo account) and a free google analytics account is information on how many plays I'm getting on the various tracks (via Soundcloud stats) and where these plays are coming from (via Google Analytics). It's not perfect but in terms of understanding who is playing what, from where and for how long it has been quite interesting.

I don't use facebook myself as I find it too much in terms of maintaining any type of online presence however both YouTube and Soundcloud have great integration into all of the social media services like facebook, twitter and all of that mullarkey which means I don't have to do much in terms of trying to promote my music - if somebody finds it interesting or useful they will share that and if they don't, I don't lose any sleep over it as I'm not committing hours of my life trying to promote or market something, when really, I'd prefer to be either playing, writing or listening to music.

From the Google Analytics I can see when something gets posted on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and in some cases who did the sharing. This was useful when I took out some online advertising last year as I could see how many people had came into my website from the Ad and could see that the Ad was actually worth the money I had paid (£150 for one month of banner ads on an online radio website in the UK specialising in the music on CD) - I sold enough CD's that month via the ad, that the exercise paid for itself and I was able to see that quite clearly. These were also physical CD sales from my website via paypal, so I get 100% of the revenue.

For my SoundCloud account, I have configured the ISRC codes and iTunes links on all tracks and on the set so it is easy for people on either SoundCloud or my website to buy tracks of the Album with the minimum of clicks. Again, I can see all of this from my Google Analytics account too. The biggest margin I make on my online CD tracks etc is via iTunes so this is the channel I have "promoted" by configuring this into my SoundCloud account however you can customise these links to go to your CD Baby account so that people can get to your commercial tracks via Soundcloud very quickly.

And lastly, a number of my tracks were included in a SoundCloud playlist before Christmas, which meant that they were played as part of a shared playlist for about two weeks. This essentially advertised my music to a wider audience than I would ever reach as I generally can't afford the time to do anything beyond my day job and uploading the odd track here or there when I get a chance. The number of "listens" to my VSL version of Bach's Little fugue (https://soundcloud.com/mcelvogue/bach-little-fugue?in=mcelvogue/sets/classical-copies) went from 40 to 400+ in about two weeks. I don't have anything commercial in this space to sell however if this had been any of your works, I'm sure there is potential sales that could have been made by doing very little other than uploading the tracks and linking them to where they can be bought.

The music I would be selling commercially has a much smaller market than the classical, baroque or any other market for that matter and I don't have the time or inclination to do all the self-promotion stuff that most other musicians tend to get into (competing for how many friends they have on Facebook, how many likes they get etc - that's all a great for stroking the ego but if you're intending to make a living at the music stuff, what is important is - in my opinion - is how many people actually end up buying anything on offer which is a totally different challenge). I know that the facebook stuff does work for some artists, however in order to get people to firstly listen to your music, it needs to be out there and available for people to hear. The market is absolutely flooded with all manner of tosh as Hetoreyn stated and I think it is an extremely difficult task to stand out. Personally, I think that unless you have the weight of a big record company who is willing to take out all of the sponsored links, online promotions, media advertising etc it's simply not possible to stand out other than to accept that the market is relatively small and the corresponding revenue that is available is minimal. That's why I think it is so important to make the most of what revenue is available.

Most other music genres would use touring and performances to spread the word, generate a buzz, get people talking etc which is a much more direct and human way to whip up some interest in this genre and get people buying the music/merch etc. Sadly, these options are probably off the table if the product cannot be toured or performed in the same way which only really leaves the other revenue generating avenues which need to be exploited to their maximium (royalties, downloads, online sales, licensing). To me, this means maximising every commercial opportunity possible whilst minimising the amount of time spent doing anything else not music related. This is why the Soundcloud linked into my website works for me. I only have to update the sets and tracks on SoundCloud and my website is immediately in synch. I don't have to do an editing or anything else. I also switched to a wordpress-based template website which means I no longer have to get into the coding of HTML, Javascript or anything like that. I can update the site very quickly, from anywhere, using just basic word-processing skills.

Another thing I found is that I am also interested in photography and used to do quite a bit of this a number of years ago, both personally and professionally. By putting some of my photographic stuff online, people who would otherwise go to my website, find nothing of interest (musically) and then return to whatever they were doing in first place, start to spend more time on site and funnily the sales went up. I think it is akin to having a retail outlet in real life. If you walk into a shop and there is only one or two products on the shelf (and nothing grabs your interest or imagination) you leave and go to the next shop. If you can find a way to keep people on your site, even if the products or information is not directly related to the products you are selling, it engages people and they are more likely to take a second listen or look at what you're selling. I'm not sure if this is something relevant to you or not however I do recall seeing that you also direct and make films. I'm sure it couldn't do any harm to have some of these on your site (served from YouTube).

Anyway, that's my rant over with but I thought it might help in terms of offering up my experience with the whole internet mess thing that we now seem to have to contend with. Apologies for wandering all over the place with this post.

Tom

Tom and Heto, those are great posts - thanks a lot.  It is very helpful to hear any of these ideas.  I am pretty clueless about promotion, so your insights are very valuable.

 What I still wonder about this is - what good does it actually do? 

I am thinking that all that happens is if people like your music, they put a link on their phone or tablet or whatever and then use that to steal it - instead of downloading which is no longer necessary.  The new Napster is a link to streaming. 

In the end, it is all the same thing - get music without paying the musician. 

@William said:

I am thinking that all that happens is if people like your music, they put a link on their phone or tablet or whatever and then use that to steal it - instead of downloading which is no longer necessary.  The new Napster is a link to streaming. 

 

Not only can people link your music to their PED's through Napster but there is free software which allows one to record whatever is played through their computer monitors and create a wave/mp3/or whatever file.

That's why you post the crappiest quality MP3 possible.  The quality is good enough to get a general idea of what the music is but it sounds awful in their earbuds/car stereo/ monitors / etc.  Also, you could just post 30, 60, or 90 second snippets of your music at a higher quality.  Or a medley of your work that goes for two or three minutes.  I used to export two tracks of my music with one of the tracks having a customized audio watermark (my annoying voice saying, "You're listening to Such and Such composed by Me) that played every 20 seconds or so during the piece.

However, one thing I learned while trying to sell Pop CD's a long time ago is that you have to be prepared to give away something for free.  Back in Myspace's heyday I wasn't getting anywhere by just begging people to come over to my page and listen to my stuff.  It wasn't until I offered a free MP3 download which was linked to my website where they could also listen to 30 to 90 second snippets of the rest of the album did I start making some traction.  What I found was, sure some people just ate the free food and left without saying, "Thank you," but others became interested and stuck around long enough to listen to the other selections on the album.  Some were even inclined to buy because they liked what they heard.  And if they buy one, they might be interested in your second album.

Overall, promotion is a tough nut to crack.  What works for me, or the next guy, may not get you anywhere but don't be afraid to think outside of the box and stick with it.  Patience is sometimes the best promotion tool.  Think about some of your favorite composers/artists.  At what point in their career, did you start listening to their music?  I never heard of Vangelis until the mid 80's when his career was nearly 20 years old by then.  I started listening to Suzanne Ciani when she already had ten albums under her belt.  Promotion isn't a hundred yard dash.  Its' a marathon[sn][sn][sn]  

 jasensmith - those are great ideas. Thanks for your perspective on this.  I really appreciate hearing from all the people on this thread as it gives me the great advantage of their experience.

Soundcloud and their ilk are fine for geeks (99% of the people here :D ) and educators and people who already know you, but if you want to reach normal people:

Youtube. It's the lingua franca. It's device portable. It shares easily (which is what you want if you want to promote.) It is search engine friendly. And--last but certainly not least--people =expect= something visual to accompany your masterpiece. Just find or create one compelling static image which says 'you'. If you don't know what that is? Well, that's yer first marketing challenge---figuring out your brand.

<HTH>

---JC

Yes you are right, Youtube does seem to be the most commonly used.