This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make!
Wave 2 contestants of the Blog Challenge have been patiently waiting while I tried to make up my mind.
I have read and re-read the blog posts over and over and I have chosen 1 grand prize winner for 3 Month Cyber PR Campaign and 2 runners up for 6-week Cyber PR Campaigns!
I love the way all three winners embraced community and really leaned on each other in the Mastermind forum and supported each other through the whole contest!
The Grand Prize Winner is…. Kelly Carpenter
The First Prize Winners Are…. Todd Dunnigan & Darryl Gregory
The Second Prize Winner is… Fern Carver Michonski
HONORABLE MENTIONS
(I’m sending you my Musicians Web 2.0 audio Bootcamp (not that you need it – you learned so much! But I want to give you something as a Thank You!)
Neil Milton
Scott Krokoff
Annie Aronson from HobbyHorse
Stephen Frost
Stephen Carmichael
Atul Rana from DonkeyBox
Kelly Carpenter
http://thiskellycarpenter.wordpress.com
Kelly, You achieved so much and you really took this whole challenge on and I’m so happy that you decided to get back in the studio after 9 years and record new songs! The fact that you accomplished so much in a such a short time was INSPIRING! Rock! X Ariel
From Carla Lynne Hall: I really like how Kelly’s blogs and mastermind conversations are so helpful. He offered info such as comparisons on what it’s like for fans to sign up for different company’s fan collector widgets.
Our Favorite Blog Post from Kelly: Music Success in Nine Weeks?
Have I “made” it? Not yet. One can’t expect miracles when starting with very little. But I am much further along to making headway in the current environment. Consider what I have accomplished through the steps in Ariel’s book:
* I now have clear goals of what I want to achieve
* I can now clearly articulate in a couple of sentences what type of music I do
* I now have a central website focusing on my performing and recording career
* I am now giving away some songs for free to lure people to my site
* I am now making sense of Twitter, using it more effectively, and truly feeling a part of the global community of artists, musicians, writers, and music industry people.
* I am now learning how to engage the global community of bloggers by listening to what others have to say and finding my own voice in the conversation.
* I have sent out my very first newsletter and am committed to sending one out every month or two. And I achieved over a 50% open rate!
* I now have a system in place to grow my mailing list, and it is growing! In fact, 400% in the last two weeks!
* Just three weeks ago, I had three wonderful opportunities to practice real live networking. Utilizing the advice in the book, I made myself memorable in my interactions and have discovered a thriving, local wine industry which has great potential for marketing my music. And… I played my first winery gig last weekend!
* After nine years of no new music, I have been so encouraged by my progress that I’m going into the studio to record a new CD in about 10 days, and I am developing a continuum strategy around the release later this fall.
* Prior to this, I really didn’t have a clue about what to do or where to begin. Although I knew the importance of leveraging social media, I felt completely overwhelmed by it.
Now I have a vision and I have tools. Employing the principles of regular and consistent communication with my fan base lets them know that I am serious and committed to this. They know I’m “all in”. And they have been very encouraging to me. I now have a few “true fans”.
But even more importantly than people knowing that I am committed, this process has served to help me over a psychological hurdle: That I have a voice and people are genuinely interested in what I have to offer.
Considering where I started from and where I am now, this sure feels like success to me.
Todd Dunnigan
http://roamingroyalty.com/msinw-blog
Todd – I think that the conclusion you came to is AMAZING, to find the purpose is something critical and crucial and I was so impressed the way you let it all out, and took it all in! I was inspired by your blog posts and by your honesty and bravery. Awesome x Ariel
From Carla: Todd started out super-strong, commented on other blogger’s blogs, wrote great creative blogs, provided great photos, and contributed helpful info on the forum. He went on tour for a bit, and still finished strong!
Our Favorite Blog Post from Todd: One goal we nailed
One thing we really got figured out was how to incorporate our dueling piano skills and use them in our original act, the last couple nights of our tour we got this nailed and got a ton of e-mails and sold a lot of merch, too bad it took us the whole tour to figure it out.
The idea I’m super-excited about
One thing that’s been missing from all these goals has been purpose. Yeah, I want to make more money doing originals and sell more merch and connect with more fans, but the big question has been, why? What’s the purpose? Money? I make pretty good money playing music already. Fame? I wanted that when I was 25 but now I’m 45 and I could care less about being a celebrity. I looked at my last goal where I said I want to give people something of value.
Darryl Gregory
Darryl: To see that you achieved ALL of your goals was inspiring and just WOW! Your blogs were terrific: Well-thought out and insightful and we look forward to helping you spread the ebook around that you are puttingtogethger to share your experience with others as part of future blog challenges.
Our Favorite Blog Post from Darryl: Gratitude & Goals
I just want to say thanks to Ariel, Carla and the rest of the artists who took part in the challenge. I was inspired by the blog posts and the messages on the Mastermind site. For those of you about to take the challenge, if you make it through to week 9 you’ve definitely won more than a PR campaign. I plan to put my blog posts into an eBook format so that those who plan to read the book can benefit from the insights I gained from doing the challenge. I hope it helps.
I set 2-month goals, 12-month goals, music-career goals, 12 month money goals and Lifetime intentions and goals. That in and of itself is an accomplishment, but lets focus on the 2-month goals. I put the results in BOLD under the stated goal:
* 25 new people on my email list by 9/5/10
signed up 40 new fans
* 1 print or radio interview by 9/5/10
got a print story in a local paper in Cleveland when I was on tour
* 3 new songs written by 9/5/10
finished 2 and have one just about finished
* 5 songs demo-ed by 9/5/10
4 songs in the can (finishing the last one this week)
* Book 4 gigs in 4 states by 9/5/10
booked 2 and I’m still talking to another, but only 1 state
* Purchase a new PA by 9/5/10
decided to wait due to financial considerations, but I did research
Fern Carver Michonski
http://cyberprmastermind.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=2g3awi8rvf0n0
From Carla: Fern’s blogs show great personality and perspective. She is active in the forums, and I just enjoy her attitude of just going for it. Her blogs show a lot of growth.
Fern! I was so impressed watching you take on this challenge (here’s something you should all know in the interest of Full Disclosure: Fern already paid for and completed a Cyber PR campaign with us a few months ago – and I know she was overwhelmed with all of the new fandagled apps, social media profiles and bloggers, podcasters and Internet Radio stations that we bombarded you with! I was so happy to see you focus and really embrace all of the new things around computers that felt confronting to you just a few short months ago! I was amazed to see you Go Go Go!
I’m gonna reup your campaign for a month so you can re-connect with the Bloggers, Podcasters and Internet Radio station DJs we sent your music to and you can take advantage of the relationships we began for you fully!
Love, Ariel
Our Favorite Blog Post from Fern: Don’t Be Intimidated By Computers!
Ariel’s book has created a confidence in me that YES I CAN learn about computers and figure things out!! That is a big deal for me. Computers can be overwhelming, yet with the guidance I found in Music Success in Nine Weeks, I have learned to overcome my fears! I have Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, my own Blog, a ReverbNation site, my Google Reader site and I have taken a much closer look at my own website, looking for ways to improve it. Every week after reading each chapter I would not only blog about it, but I would try to actually implement at least something and make it work… “Thank you” to Ariel for writing this excellent book, Music Success in Nine Weeks. Being a part of the 9 week blogging contest has forced me to develop a certain discipline about working on my music every single day. That alone is priceless.
Neil Milton
From Carla & Ariel: Neil was a leader in the Mastermind forum, supportive of others, and ventured into vlogging (complete with endearing, unconscious beard scratching!). His blogs are insightful, honest, and helpful.
Our Favorite Blog Post From Neil: I’ve met some fantastic, passionate, creative and talented musicians, some of whom I feel sincerely privileged to call friends…
After working through all nine chapters, I feel entirely reinvigorated by the experience and as an epilogue I thought it might be nice to summarize what I feel I’ve gained:
I have a clear list of goals and am well on my way to achieving them (albeit to the cost of some of the other goals) and I have a pitch than I’m very, very happy with.
I have almost entirely prepared the relaunch of my record label (no small task, either and something which I had mooted towards the beginning of the year) during these nine weeks. All music is with the distributor (including my own debut e.p.) and now we just have to wait for iTunes.
I have built new websites for both my music and my label from scratch – something I’d been putting off for months and something I’d have no-doubt continued to put off were it not for this challenge.
I have learned more effective ways to connect with my listeners and peers and have begun to increase my emailing list – though admittedly this will always be an ongoing process. I’ve also added to my own experience in the industry both with networking and with blogging.
Finally, and this is by no means the least important, I’ve met some fantastic, passionate, creative and talented musicians, some of whom I feel sincerely privileged to call friends.
With the confidence, structure and set of ideas that the MSi9W book has given me, I feel with a little luck and a lot of work the titular success from Ariel’s book is much closer than before I started – and for that, I’m very grateful.
Scott Krokoff
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scott-Krokoff/27697228589
From Ariel and Carla: He started with regular blogging but then switched to fun vlogs (videos) on Facebook, even got a gig in Belgium during challenge, and kept it going. He also created a SURVEY! He wasn’t on ourMastermind forum, but was very self-directed.
Our Favorite Blog Post From Scott: Sometimes I have unrealistic objectives…
I’m pretty good at to-do lists, but sometimes I have unrealistic objectives – I tend to shoot for the moon – so I often get discouraged when I don’t get everything done right away. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t dream big, I should, but I have to do better at being satisfied with small, incremental progress. That does not come as easy to me.
So what are my goals? Well, ultimately, I want to have a profitable music career, or more simply, I want to make a living being a singer-songwriter. This is what I love to do more than anything in the world and I want to make a living doing it. But to get to that point, there are a lot of intermediate steps along the way.
Annie Aronson From HobbyHorse
http://thismusicisreal.wordpress.com/
From Ariel and Carla – Annie You are an insightful blogger and mastermind participant. Interestingly enough, she chose not to promote her msi9w blog to avoid turning off her fans by sharing her process, which we understand and respect BUT now it seems you enjoy blogging so much that you are now blogging for her fans. Woot! J
Our Favorite Blog Post From Annie: So making money, though not at the root of what we do, is important and necessary…
I cut and pasted the following sentence from Ariel’s post on the forum because I think it’s really important and something to always keep in mind: “Every study on sales has proven one thing: People hate to be sold to, however people love to buy, and people always love to buy from people whom they like and who they feel they trust.” I actually copied the whole post and put it into a PDF so I could continue to refer to it along with the whole MSi9W book.
The idea of the funnel is a great way to organize a selling strategy. We are still at the very top of the funnel. It is still a challenge for us to just give away our music. It’s humbling, but it’s true. Not because we don’t want to give it away! If I didn’t truly believe in our music, I would give it up. I really would. But I believe what Phil and I do together is something worthwhile. So does he. I have to get this faith that I have across. It’s true that we have to win people’s trust. Being a musician is about more than making money, but without having money come back to us, we feel like we aren’t supported, that what we are doing has no worth, we find it hard to live with self respect. So making money, though not at the root of what we do, is important and necessary.
Stephen Frost
http://www.stephenfrostmusic.com/blog/
From Ariel & Carla: Scott Offered a lot in terms of personality and humor in his blogs and the Mastermind forum. He kept us laughing the whole time with his dry wit and self-deprecating (in a good way) tone!
Our Favorite Blog Post From Stephen: (Artists) Be honest about what you want… And what are you going to do first?
Ariel Hyatt’s whole book comprises ideas that just work. Not because she invented them (she didn’t), or because they’re all the ideas in the whole world ever (they’re not), or because she holds exclusive intellectual property rights over their deployment (she doesn’t)–but she offers a pretty simple concept: give me 9 consecutive one-week deadlines, take my suggestions, and you will begin meeting success. Requirements? Willingness to embrace the world you’re going to deal with. To be honest about what success means to you. To be honest about what you want. To be prepared to do things differently than you were brought up believing they’re done in this industry–because they’re not. The rules are a bit different. But they’re still rules. If I want 300 children, there’s at least one hard and fast rule (bwahahaha) that there’s no two ways about. For us, as a rule, success isn’t as much about us as it is about Everybody else. So what are you going to do first?
Stephen Carmichael
From Ariel & Carla: Stephen offered a lot in terms of personality and humor in their blogs and the forum as well – we LOVED your personality shinning through!
Our Favorite Blog Post From Stephen C: And JUST TALK to people…TALK (It’s Better than Selling)!
When I play somewhere (anywhere), I’ll mention something in my set about joining my emailing list. Just to put the idea in their heads.
After the gig I’ll walk around the club, bar (whatever it is I’m playing at) with my clip board in my hands. And JUST TALK to people. TALK! Talk to them about music, and they’ll talk to me about what they thought of my music (loved it, hated it, whatever). And what happens is that they end up saying, “what’s that in your hand?” or “what’re holding?” And then I ask them if they’d like to join my emailing list! Too easy! I didn’t even have to ask! Subtle is good…
As for online, it seems due to my emailing list widgets that I get a whole spectrum of people joining my emailing lists. And I’m so thankful of this!
Reverberation has to be the best tool for this! I’ve also found a really vibrant and engaged community on youtube!
Atul Rana from DonkeyBox
http://donkeybox.wordpress.com/
From Ariel & Carla: Atul is one of the most solid Mastermind contributors. He’s a leader there since the beginning, and is also known for sharing resources. WE were so impressed that you created a musicians networking night in London to meet more like-minded people
Our Favorite Blog Post From Atul: Results won’t come instantly because that is not how gardens grow..but results will come.
It might well be the end of the blog challenge but I don’t really see it as an end, the real hard work comes now, to maintain consistency in action, to do my “5-a-day” for the rest of my life, to continuously look at my goals for the band and to slowly as Ariel says “water my social media garden” Results won’t come instantly because that is not how gardens grow..but results will come.
In-fact two great results straight from the book have already come, we are being reviewed by two bloggers and our twitter followers have jumped from about 100 to 400, guess where I found the bloggers? Twitter of course. Thanks so much and I’ll see the new friends I have made on the forum!
Category: Ariel's Thoughts, Blog, Contests
The Indie Maximum Exposure List is Ariel Hyatt’s manifesto on how indie musicians can realistically profit from Web 2.0 & social media. 