WE HAVE MOVED...

Here is the new website link:


http://musicindustryreport.org/

Personal Branding

If you are a CEO or an entrepreneur you are no doubt already familiar with the fact that personal branding is the new old-fashioned way to bring your business success. It’s printed everywhere! All you have to do is go out, promote your personal brand and watch your profit margins soar!

If only it were actually that easy.

The problem with personal branding is that while the technique is invariably successful, it doesn’t work very well if you aren’t familiar with the concept of personal branding and how it applies to business-both topics that articles on the subject tend to be suspiciously grey on! How a person can read a three page article on personal branding and still not have a clue what it is is a complete anomaly, but it happens. One can only assume that the people out there writing about personal branding don’t understand it any better than you do.

What is personal branding? Before you can begin to make any kind of marketing strategy work for you you have to understand its ins and outs, the way it works, how to make the most of it and what it has the potential to do for your life and your business.

You know that as a company and a business entity the most important thing you should be worrying about is your reputation. Your reputation is going to decide whether or not people come to you to meet their needs and, ultimately, whether your business will


succeed or fail. As the leader of the company, your reputation is tied up in your business. That means that while you’re in the hot spot you need to keep your reputation blemish free and do everything you can to cultivate your reputation as an expert in your field.

Welcome to personal branding.

Personal branding means marketing your image. When your image is strong enough, successful enough and popular enough, people will come to your company just to work with you. They trust your company because they know as an expert in your field you wouldn’t settle for any less than the best in your products and services.

Celebrities practice personal branding all the time. Why do you think the Olsen twins’ clothing line was so spectacularly popular when it first hit the market? Not because the clothes were remarkable (the designs didn’t really fit their niche until several years later) but because it was promoted by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.

There isn’t a red blooded American that was alive during the eighties that doesn’t recognize those two names.

You want that to be you. You want people to flock to your company just because you’re there. You can actually use your own reputation to boost your company’s profit margin.

Personal branding is easy. All it requires is confidence in your skills and an understanding of how those skills relate to your chosen market. Now all you have to do is go out there and show the world what you're really made of.

Artist Quote of the Week

"I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500."

-James Brown

Yamaha now shipping their new AUDIOGRAM 6 and AUDIOGRAM 3 Computer Recording Systems

Yamaha Corporation of America is now shipping their new AUDIOGRAM 6 and AUDIOGRAM 3 Computer Recording Systems. Recently named Best in Show at the annual NAMM music trade show, these powerful yet affordable audio interfaces are designed to turn a computer into an intuitive tool for recording from virtually any microphone, instrument or audio device. In addition, the company is offering a $20 rebate on the AUDIOGRAM when purchased with a qualifying Yamaha keyboard, guitar, or bass.

Packaged as complete computer music solutions, the AUDIOGRAM Series bundle together a hardware interface with software for recording and producing music. Recording music from instruments, microphones, CD players or MP3 players is as easy as installing the included 48 track Audio/MID music-production application, CUBASE AI, on your computer and connecting the audio interface using the USB cable provided.

The AUDIOGRAM 6 features 2 XLR combo inputs with preamps, two stereo inputs, one-knob compression for dialing in the desired sound from microphones and instruments, and a USB jack for connecting to a computer. The compact AUDIOGRAM 3 features one phantom powered combo input switchable for microphones or instrument recording, a stereo input, a stereo and headphone output and a USB jack.

Purchasing an Audiogram 3 or 6 also qualifies you to register at www.MPSN.com to receive the X Factor DVD with over 4 GB of VST instruments from Sonic Reality, IK Multimedia, FXpansion and Arturia.

The AUDIOGRAM Series are now available for $149.99 retail (AUDIOGRAM 3) and $199.99 retail (AUDIOGRAM 6). Complete rebate terms and redemption form available at www.yamaha.com/rebates. For more information, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Pro Audio & Combo Division, Music Production, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamaha.com.

From Crackle: Open Labs interview with "Teddy Riley"--super prod...

Music industry turning against LOUD recordings?

Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it's not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.

Today, artists generally feel they have to master their records to be as loud as everybody else's. This certainly works for many artists. However, there are many other artists who feel their music would be better served by a more dynamic record, but who don't feel like that option is available to them.

This all comes down to the moment a consumer hears a record, and the fear that if the record is more dynamic, the consumer won't know to just turn up the volume. This is an understandable concern, and one Turn Me Up! is working to resolve.



Check it out here:
http://www.turnmeup.org/index.shtml

TuneCore, iLike Bundle Indie Services

TuneCore and iLike have teamed up to offer independent and unsigned artists a package deal on both distributing and promoting their music. The partnership is more of a bundled product than it is a new service, as both companies offer their core services independently. But together, the two hope to present a more complete message than they could marketing their services separately.

TuneCore brings to the table a wide digital distribution platform, which can post clients' music to all the major digital retailers and subscriptions services. Once the music is available, iLike then lets users promote it through full-song streaming applications on social networks like Facebook, Bebo and other channels. Each time their music is played, artists get a royalty from the corresponding service hosting the file.

The partnership between the two firms lets artists sign up for both services at the same time, rather than requiring separate agreements.