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The Record Shop teams up with The Funky Umbrella

Funky

A little over a year ago I was out catching a set with one of our artists. I noticed a guy with a camera darting back and forth across the front of the stage in what looked like gymnastics maneuvers, but what was most likely his valiant efforts to catch the best shot he could in the crowded venue.

We were looking for a new addition to our video production team so I asked the club owner if he knew the guy. He said, “Oh ya, that’s Kaz, he’s here all time. He films all of the bands and offers them a great deal on the footage after their set.” I thought, “What a great concept. This is the type of dedicated, big picture work ethic that we’re looking for.” Of course before I was able to grab his attention, I got sidetracked with some friends, and we were headed to the next venue.

I was disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to chat with him. From what I could tell, this Kaz character was the hardest working videographer in Nashville. However, the disappointment was short lived. Sure enough, the next night I ran into him at a different venue. Or maybe it was his clone. I swear the dude is everywhere.

As our video department expanded we brought Kevin on for a few gigs and he nailed the project every time. He was always ready to work, but if he was ever tied up with another gig, Kevin would make some calls and have a crew ready for us right away.

So you can imagine that I was floored when he told me about his involvement in a new multimedia company called The Funky Umbrella. It is essentially a team of Kazanaters that have an unwavering dedication to their work and a genuine support of their clients. Could it be true? Did I finally find our match made in heaven? The Funky Record Umbrella Shop? While the name is a work in progress, I’m blessed to have the pleasure of working with these guys.

The Funky Umbrella is a unique media company that offers a wide variety of services under…….. (wait for it) one umbrella. They provide video, photography, web design, branding, and much more. But this ain’t the “one man, one stop shop” you’re used to. The Funky Umbrella has an amazing team of professionals, each with a specific skill set, working collectively to offer a comprehensive package of services for everyone from musicians to executives. (After reading that I realize I sound like I could be narrating their latest commercial, but what the hell, these guys are great!) But I’ll get off the soapbox and let you see for yourself.

Check out Thefunkyumbrella.com

The Funky Umbrella has teamed up with The Record Shop to handle the production of Balcony TV as well as our live video shoots and artist press kits.

We are stoked to be providing audio recording and mixing for The Funky Umbrella’s productions as well.

I am very excited about this new partnership (can you tell?) and look forward to continue offering our friends valuable resources in the development of their projects. Among our recent work, The Funky Umbrella and The Record Shop have teamed up with Lightning 100 to produce a video compilation of the Live On The Green Concert Series featuring Will Hoge, Los Lonely Boys, Edwin McCain, Ten out of Tenn, Here Come The Mummies, Brett Dennen, and many more. You can catch the videos here…. Don’t forget to check out The Funky Umbrella on  Facebook to see their latest work and viral resources!

Catch you next time

-Giovanni

The Record Shop

therecordshop1 (@) gmail . com

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Sue Basko Interview with The Record Shop

Sue Basko, Lawyer for Music and Film, was kind enough to feature The Record Shop as part of her blog…

Sean Giovanni, Nashville Music Producer/ Balcony TV Nashville

by Sue Basko

The Record Shop is one of Nashville’s new creative, up-and-coming recording studios. Sean Giovanni is The Record Shop‘s owner/ music producer/ recording engineer.

Giovanni also runs Balcony TV Nashville. Balcony TV is an internet music show that brings in well-known musical acts to do one acoustic song apiece out on a balcony overlooking a scenic part of a city. Balcony TV was founded in 2006 in London and has since been franchised worldwide to Dublin, Hamburg, Poznan, Brighton, Auckland, Paris, Brisbane, Edmonton, Rennes, Prague, Toronto, and Mexico City. Nashville was the first U.S. city to have Balcony TV, and has been followed by New York and Austin. I love Balcony TV!

Sean Giovanni offers these insightful answers to my probing questions: Read The Full Interview Here……

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Social Networking: the Five Biggest Mistakes Nichepreneurs? Make

Social networks have become a major element of artist marketing campaigns. Susan A. Friedmann (TheNichePreneur™ Coach) shares her five biggest mistakes made in marketing through social networks. How have you utilized social networking to build your brand? Share your stories for a chance to win a free day of studio time at The Record Shop!

Over half of all Americans between the ages of 15-34 consider themselves active social network users. They regularly visit well-known social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, or log onto specialty social networks, like Ravelry (devoted to the fiber arts) or GroupRecipes (for the foodie set). While industry research tells us that television watching is declining, especially among this age group, social network use is on the rise: average users spend seven to eight hours a week online. read the full article here….

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How Facebook sells you

I read an interesting article this week in Bloomberg Business Week. The piece looks into the new advertising strategies that Facebook offers for businesses. While reading, I wondered if these methods could be implemented by musicians, and labels, as well. Click the link below to read the article and let us know what you think. 

How Facebook Sells You- Bloomberg Business Week

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DIY Publicity Campaigns; Why You Need to Do Them, And How to Get Started

Eric Normand, author of “The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide” and accomplished guitarist, teamed up with “For The Record”, to provide some insight on climbing the ranks as a musician in the Nashville music industry. Eric’s upcoming book, “The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide” provides a comprehensive reference of what it takes to persevere in the competitive Nashville music community.

You can learn more about Eric and his upcoming release at nashvillemusicianssurvivalmanual.com

Whether you are an obscure musician trying to get your music heard, a first-time author putting forth a new book, or an independent filmmaker introducing your first film, you all share something in common; a desire to introduce your art to a world that has yet to learn of it. How do you create an awareness of your project? These are tough times and the aforementioned endeavors are not easy ones. The list doesn’t stop there either. Photographers, artists, songwriters, and others are in the same boat.

The new global economy and a variety of other factors has created an extremely competitive dog eat dog world when it comes to business, and this means we all might have to take some alternative approaches to getting the word out. Without the proper publicity and promotion, no one will know about your great project, products or services. Traditional advertising is too expensive for most, and not necessarily that effective anymore. There is no right or wrong approach, but many believe that social media combined with Internet marketing are essential to most startup creative businesses at this point in time. If you’re ready to take the plunge, here’s how you can dive in.

  1. Build your social pool: Interact regularly on Facebook to slowly build a group of friends, fans, and followers on the Internet. With hundreds of millions of users, it shouldn’t be hard to find a couple hundred that are interested in you. Over time this can grow into thousands. Twittering can be productive as well.
  2. Start blogging: At this point in time, blogging is a powerful tool and can be used to promote literally any business. Create your own blog and write about your areas of expertise. The information you put forth should not only be directly or indirectly related to your products and services, it should also be useful to your targeted audience.
  3. Build a website: While a .com domain is optimum and will help to give your business a legitimate “face”, not everyone can afford one initially. There’s nothing wrong with starting out with a free WordPress (or similar) site. This will allow you to begin building your brand. Your blog should be built into this site or linked to it. This website/blog will serve as a central hub to all your Internet activity, with links to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
  4. Guest Blogging: It can take a while to create heavy traffic on your site. Blogging as a guest on a higher traffic site can help build your readership and drive more traffic to your site.
  5. Online Discussions: Find message boards with themes that relate to your project and interact with group discussions. Offer advice and perspective where pertinent and provide links to articles on your site.

There is a recent article regarding working in the new social media paradigm that offers some useful tip’s that I highly recommend reading – Top Seven Reasons Why Artists Strongly Resist Social Media by Ariel Hyatt.

The online social interaction approach to publicity is no secret, but it is still a new concept to many. Over time, if done correctly, you will build a “readership” that is genuinely interested in what you have to say, so always strive to provide useful information. By building a large group of readers, or “friends”, fans, and followers, you are connecting with an audience that will potentially come to your shows, buy your book, watch your film, and enjoy your art.

Is this easy to accomplish? No. Does this take time and effort? Absolutely, but then again so does any career. Without the proper promotion, nobody will ever hear about your project. If you think you have something good to offer the world, put it out there. Sometimes the best way to learn how to swim is to just dive in to the pool. You might sink and then again you might not, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

Are you ready to take the plunge yet?

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Three Reasons Every Artist Should Have A Newsletter

Maintaining a dedicated fan base is one of the most daunting tasks faced by musicians. We all know the importance of social networking, working the press, and promoting shows. If only there was a way to incorporate all of your promotional efforts into one source that could be easily distributed to your target audience. Well guess what? There is! It’s called a newsletter. Newsletters are a simple and effective way to build a “community” around your music, while keeping in touch with your fans on a regular basis. This week we discuss the three reasons why every musician should have a newsletter. 

 1) Build a real fan base

Want to know the secret to developing a solid fan base (after you write good songs)? Offer valuable content to your fans. David in Portland is probably not going to visit your site just because you sent him a comment about your new song. Now, what if you told David that by signing up for your newsletter he would receive a free download of an exclusive song that you wrote while touring in Portland. I’d bet your odds of a response would be looking much better. 

There are many great ways to build your fan base by offering valuable content through a newsletter, but first you will have to develop your mailing list. Incorporating a news letter sign up box on all of your web sites is a great way to start. Offering free content for newsletter members is an effective way to encourage potential fans to sign up. 

Unlike a social networking site, where members can join your page with a simple click, your fans will have to share their email address in order to join. Due to the endless amount of spam email’s generated on the web, most people are not likely to give out this information unless they are going to receive valuable content in return. Therefore, an email newsletter gives you the opportunity to connect with fans that have a genuine interest in your music.  

2) Stay in touch with your fans

Most artists have a wide variety of viral outlets for their music. There’s myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube, reverb nation, last fm, band camp, just to name a few. If you have spent any time promoting your music on the web, I’m sure you have noticed that it can be difficult to keep your fans interested in all of your pages. Most fans just don’t have the time to browse through every page. With all of the artists out there fighting for attention, it can be difficult to stand out amongst the crowd. One of the greatest advantages of an email newsletter is the ability to share all of your sites and content in one place. 

Your newsletter can also be a great way to interact with your fans through fun contests and promotions.Through offering exclusive promotions for newsletter members, you can maintain interest in your music and establish value within your content. You can also build relationships with your fans through incorporating a fan of the week, answering questions from fans, or encouraging them to vote on a poll related to your music. There are endless possibilities for creative fan participation within a newsletter. 

Promoting upcoming shows is another effective aspect of an email newsletter. It’s great to post events online and throw up flyers around town to promote a gig. However, with your newsletter you can communicate directly with your core fan base. If you are planning on touring, you can organize your mailing list by region and send out invites to fans in the surrounding areas. With an event posting or flyer, you are limited to the basic details of your show. In a newsletter you have the opportunity to tell your fans more about the performance or offer discounts and giveaways to members who attend.

3) Connect with the press

A newsletter is an excellent way to build rewarding relationships with press and radio. These companies receive countless messages every day from artists who are looking for valuable exposure. If you want a shot at gaining entrance to the gatekeepers of promotion, it is important to offer plenty of valuable content. Mailing a press kit is great, but your banking on the chance that your cd makes it through their endless pile of submissions. If you work on developing a relationship and can make it into the coveted inbox of a writer, you will have the opportunity to maintain their interest with your valuable content.

As we discussed earlier, showcasing valuable content is essential to maintaining your fans interest in your project. This is even more important in connecting with the press. Everybody is releasing new songs and playing shows. The key is to show that what you are doing is notable enough to share with their audience. It is also important to consider how your content could be beneficial to the press. For example, if you are using a product, website, or promotional campaign that has been effective in developing your project you could share your experience and explain how it could benefit their readers. 

Once you have received some coverage, you can use your newsletter to share this content with your readers. Through including a link to the article in your newsletter, you can show your appreciation of the press outlet that showcased you project. This method of promotion can go a long way in developing long-term relationships with the press. If you can provide an outlet to draw traffic to a publication, your value to them will greatly improve. 

Are you ready to promote your music with a email newsletter? Still wondering if a newsletter is right for you?

We are happy to answer any questions and help you get started in developing your content! Drop us a line…

We work with Constant Contact to create valuable email newsletters for artists and businesses. We are now offering a free trial of the program. Feel free to drop us a line for more information!

As always, we appreciate your feedback! 

Feel free to leave us a comment with your thoughts, experiences, suggestions, or anything else you’d like to tell us about! 

 Want to hear more from The Record Shop? Sign up for our newsletter here…

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