Afro MonkAre Blogs/Soundcloud/YouTube Channels Making Money Off Your Music?
February 8th by John-Michael 
Tags: music advertising, music marketing, music public relations, soundcloud, Youtube.
Dear Producers,
You should NEVER let anyone brand your music. I will admit that I’ve done it in the past and had AfroMonk.com Exclusives but back then Soundcloud and YouTube worked very differently. This is not to say that don’t let others repost your music but noticed how I use the work repost vs brand your music.
If you actually use marketing or advertising techniques (high recommend) you’ll lose all that data and information from people who listen or play your music. There are TONS of analytics that you should be looking at OR have a marketing/advertising person monitoring. When you hand over permission for someone to upload or use your music via their outlet, all of that is gone. You’re ultimately letting them capture your audience and even give them the power to advertise to these people and make money from your audience.
How could you leverage other networks to support you via their Soundcloud, YouTube, Blog, etc… You make sure they SHARE/Re-POST your soundcloud tracks or videos. The major issue is Soundcloud and YouTube. You lose the plays on your account and the opportunity to have the new listeners find you on other social media outlets that you can leverage by pointing them to which ever you want (Facebook Like to Download). If the channel SHARES your track anyone who Follows or Like’s their channel will STILL see it and they are leveraging their audience for YOU not THEM.
There are also advanced strategies that allow anyone who hits their page/channel and plays your track to be added to their list versus yours. All this can be prevented if you simply require them to point to YOUR track or website. YouTube channels are a big culprate of this. I can’t tell you enough how bad it has gotten on Soundcloud. Websites and networks should be building GROUPS not profiles. If they are posting a track on a blog post make sure they are using YOUR account or profile versus theirs.
Don’t be a fool and think that they are helping YOU vs them when pushing your music for you. They are ultimately using your music to help themselves. Just look for banners, ads, sponsored links, etc… All that traffic they are getting for your name and music is making them money. I’ve been running this blog for three plus years now and always made it a point to not advertise or take money for post. I might be running banners for festival events but assure you that all I receive in return is a ticket to cover the event.
I just want to make sure producers are aware of this and it’s a very real thing that’s happening. Times are changing and you deserve the gains versus others. If they are really out to help you they’ll use your links and mediums versus theirs and share it properly to help you not them.
Let me close this rant off with introducing you something that you might of considered… If you’re a moderately successful producer and want to take it to the next level you might want to consider bringing in someone who specializes in Marketing or Advertising. It’s a common practice to have an agent or manager but their roles and skill set usually and almost never in building your market share. PR people help out with this but deal more with keeping your name in the media but not DIRECTLY reaching people. Think about it like this if any business wants to grow or reach more people they invest in public relations, marketing or advertising. This is why I’m building an agency with a talented artist manager to address these issues and make sure artist aren’t taken advantage of.
* Note: The old Soundcloud does not have the SHARE feature. The new Soundcloud allows you to SHARE someone elses track and appears on their feed so anyone who Follows the profile will see that they shared the original track from the Producers profile.
Category: Afro Monk Rants, Music, News |
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