Notes from "Profiting from Technology: Online Offline and On Tour" - SXSW Interactive 2011

Profiting from Technology: Online Offline and On Tour
SXSW Interactive, Tuesday March 15th, 9:30 am Hilton, Salon H

Panelists:
David Claassen, BMI (Moderator)
Bram Bessoff, indiehitmaker.com
Bryan Calhoun, SoundExchange
Fred Croshal, Croshal Entertainment Group
Kimberly Thompson, Sonic Bids

Take Away Talking Points:

Crowd Sourcing: 
http://www.pledgemusic.com/

On Demand Printing:
http://www.zazzle.com/
http://www.audiolife.com/
http://www.cafepress.com/

Three components to building your website:
1. CMS (Drupal, Word Press, Joomla)
2. CRM/Email Marketing (Fan Bridge, Exact Target, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp)
3. eCommerce (Reverbnation)

Metrics:
- SoundScan an industry accepted and valued metric. Report your live venue sales with www.indiehitmaker.com
- Promoters are interested in fan count (Facebook, myspace, twitter)
- Radio cares about Metrics, you need them to get air play (Next Big Sound, Big Champagne)
- Geo Location, Market Building (TopSpin - new technology)
- Measure Twitter with Hoot Suite or Cotweet
- Measure website metrics with Google Analytics
- FOllow through on your analytics, review and react

Strategy: "Off to the RACES"
R - Respect for your fans, partners and service providers
A - Authenticity, your message needs to be authentic
C - Consistency, keep your messaging broadcast consistent, create a schedule and stick to it
E - Exclusivity, be the go to place for news about you or your artist
S - Syndication, get the word out through all the channels available to you

- Give something, get something in return (Reverbnation has excellent models to accomplish this)
- Don't forget email, may be the most effective tool to communicate with your fan base (check open rates and click thrus)

Branding:
- Crowdspring.com - find creative artists to help build your brand identity
- Brands are the new record label, they will fund you, provide technology outlets to proliferate your brand
- Submit through SonicBids.com

Mobile Technologies:
- Waterfall
- Mobile Roadie (app creation)
- GroupMe

Start Making Money Today:
-       Register at SoundExhange.com and see if you have money waiting for you, there is $40 million in unpaid royalties waiting to be paid out to artists, if SoundExchange does not have you in their system, they can’t pay you.