Ariel Publicity

Industry Experts & Musicians Dish Out Their Best SXSW Tips

As a follow up to last week’s The SXSW Survival Guide, I’ve decided to take some of the best tips from some of the experts of today’s music industry and provide them for you here! I took the time to talk to some of the contributors from our 2009 Indie Maximum Exposure list to see what they had to say.

Over the next several days, I will be posting all-new tips that you can use to maximize your South by Southwest experience.

This advice is divided up into 3 sections

1. Before You Go
2. While You Are There
3. After You Get Home

There are not 100 here but they are some great gems…

BEFORE YOU GO

Read “How to Talk to Anyone” A Week Ahead
So, the week before the conference, read “How to Talk to Anyone” or any book about how to be a great listener. Then, use the conference as your testing ground for your new listening skills. Get extremely interested in those around you. Think like an investigative reporter. Ask follow-up questions about how they got into that. What they love and hate about it. Ask why they came to the conference. Talk about non-work-stuff, too!  Be very curious about their unique perspective. Learn from it.
- Derek Sivers

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Now that you know what to do to prepare before you get on the road, you need to know what to do while you’re there! Here’s what our experts have to say:

WHILE YOU ARE THERE

Go With The Flow
Don’t bother jotting down the bands you want to see because chances are, you will not make it to most of them. You’ll be on your way to see the band you “must see,” and you will absolutely run into someone you know on the street, then one thing leads to another, and you missed the show.
- Lou Plaia

Stay Portable
Unless your artist image is “musical Sherpa,” then you don’t want to be tied down to a huge backpack or bag full of crap. You’d be better off having a second-run CD batch made in thin, lightweight packaging OR have some download cards made. Nothing sucks more than hauling 40 pounds of round plastic with you. If it’s too late to make your CD’s in flat packaging (cardboard sleeves, paper envelopes, Tyvek, etc.), don’t lug around a bunch of jewel cases. You’ll be better off in the long run if you can just pick up and move to the next party, function, session, etc.
- Matthew Ebel

Make Free Time
Scheduling meetings is great, but you never know who you are going to run into on sixth street, so leave some holes in your schedule. Some of my best meetings at SXSW have been by chance.
- Rick Goetz

Try Not To Judge A Man By His Business Card
The music business is like that board game perfection. Every few months all the pieces pop up and people land in different positions and in different companies. Do your best to meet people of quality rather than just the people you think have something you need. You never know where people end up and having been nowhere important and somewhere important several different times in my career – trust me when I say I appreciate the people who gave me the time a day when I didn’t have a flashy business card or a lot going on.
- Rick Goetz

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So you FINALLY went to SXSW, and now after days of music, food, panels and networking (*phew*), you’re back home. So what can you do now to maximize your time spent in Austin? Here are a few pieces of advice.

AFTER YOU GET HOME

Create Your Own Lasting Media
So, no blog covered your performance?  No photographer snapped your photo for Rolling Stone?  That’s OK!  Make your own media around your experience at SXSW.  Write up a blog about what you did, and who you met, and post it on your MySpace, Facbook and Last.fm. Snap photos and post them on Facebook and Flickr with tags, or record some videos for your YouTube Channel!  Let your experience live online for years to come!
- Ariel Hyatt

Get Them At Their Desks…Not At The Party
The best time to get down to business is when they’re alone, back at their desk, a week or two after the conference, undistracted, and can give you their full one-on-one attention. That’s when you want someone checking out what you have to offer: when they’re focused on you – looking at your site.
- Derek Sivers

Go Old School – Use The Phone & Stationary For Follow Ups
I have learned the strongest way to follow up is with a phone call and a hand written letter or note with material in the mail, because we are all inundated with digital communication. Suddenly a phone call is refreshing and unexpected.
- Jennie Walker

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Ariel’s Tips On How To Advance Your Career at the Most Overwhelming Music Conference of Them All

Envision What You Want Before You Arrive My first bit of advice: Arrive prepared. Know who will be attending and create some goals before you get there.

Attend at Least One Music Conference Each Year I believe all serious musicians should make it part of their job to attend at least one conference a year.  They can be expensive to get to, but think abut it this way: music lessons and equipment were at one time expensive, and those things are also vital for your career. Conferences are the best place to meet people who work in and around the music industry, and conferences are a relaxed environment to connect with people in the industry who can change the course of your career.

Austin, Texas is a wonderful city, and its distractions are many. Keep in mind that this is not a vacation. It’s a work-related learning experience. With a little planning and foresight, you can have a million-dollar conference.

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Ariel’s Top 7 Facebook Apps for Musicians

Do you have a fanpage but still not sure how to make it pop?

Here are six Apps that will set you on the right path, help you to stand out from the pack and keep your fans engaged and interested in you on a consistent basis.

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Want Top Increase Your Bottom Line? Focus On Your Fans!

Its here! A whole new Decade

Paying attention to this article could be the difference between you making a little money off of your music in the New Year vs. making A LOT of money!

All of the current news surrounding the music business is bad news. Music industry professionals are getting laid off left and right and CD sales continue to drop.

But I think that this is a very exciting time to come up with some alternatives and some offerings for your core fanbase that could make you a lot more money.

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