Tag: Blogging Advice

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Blog Tips: The Playlist Will Never Die

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Never underestimate how fast the world can change. The move from home phones to cell phones, to smart phones took less than twenty years. Our primary means of consuming news changed from print to digital in what is ultimately the blink of an eye as far as the history books are concerned. Heck, less than a hundred years ago it took week for a message to be sent from one country to the next, but now in the digital age we can send mail to space and back again within seconds.

Music is no different. Columbia Records, the oldest label in the world, launched in 1887. In less than 150 years the industry has undergone more evolutions than anyone can count, changing much faster than most realize. Within the 60 years you could have recorded a single and drove it from radio station to radio station in hopes of getting it played. Today you need an entire team of people who understand radio to even have your song considered.

And let’s not even deep dive the changes in music journalism. The image most carry of a young writer rubbing shoulders with their rock idols a la Almost Famous is a thing of the distant past. Today’s writers are more often than not laptop junkies who maintain a healthy photography hobby on the side (or they’re photography junkies with a writing hobby – it’s 50/50) who make next to nothing writing articles read by anywhere from tens of people to millions. Every one of them is constantly searching for the next original thought or undiscovered gem that might catapult them a bit further into the arena of those who actually get paid to write about music.

While I encourage you to always keep your passion for the next big story strong, it’s important to know that as much as things seem to change there is a lot that remains the same. One of those things is playlists, and in the digital age it is easier than ever to cultivate and engage with a community through playlist curation. In fact, the Music Business Association recently called playlists ‘more popular than the album.’ Ouch.

The biggest problem you’re going to face when deciding to integrate weekly playlists into your writing is deciding which one of the big four streaming companies are you going to build your content on. Spotify has the largest share of the market by a vast margin at the moment, but Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon each have millions of monthly subscribers. Ask your readers what they use and follow their lead.

As for the playlists themselves, the easy access to most music throughout modern history makes gathering simpler than most daily chores, which is all the reason you need to create as many playlists as your mind and collaborators can imagine. At the very least you should be creating weekly discovery playlists based on the coverage you plan to run. Take all the reviews and editorials you’ve got lined up and channel them into an eclectic collection of sound to help further promote the focus of your work. In doing so you’ll not only better engage your audience, but you’ll also make a lot of publicists and independent artists very happy.

But you should never do the bare minimum unless it’s absolutely necessary. Get creative. When the possibilities are endless you can be both extremely niche and shamelessly generic at the same time. Collect the 25 best love songs of the last 25 years right alongside a list of every song played during a car chase in a Fast and Furious film. Invite musicians, industry professionals, actors, and anyone else of interest to create playlists for your audience, and use those playlists to promote any coverage of that artist person you have on your site.

In an age where the options for consuming news and entertainment are endless the best tactic for reaching consumers is to play into their own interests and behaviors. People are more likely to start their day with music than a quick search of your latest blog posts, so take your brand and focus to them through the streaming playlist curation. If you can establish yourself as a great playlist curator people will seek out your other work. You can even add links to the description that promotes specific content on your site. 

It has never been easier to showcase your taste than it is now, so quit hoping you 1000-word discovery of the week essay will get a million reads and build me a list of every song and artist my life is missing.

James Shotwell is the Digital Marketing Coordinator at Haulix. He is also the Film Editor for Substream Magazine and the host of the Inside Music Podcast. If you enjoyed the words above James would like you to follow him on Twitter.

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3 Creative Challenges That Will Improve Your Music Writing in 2016

We are now more than one full week into the new year, and there is a decent chance some of you  reading this have already failed to stay true to your new year’s resolution. If so, do not fret. Millions make resolutions on or around January 1 that they are unable to maintain for a variety of reasons, and countless more never even try to make a change in their lives. The fact you recognize your desire to be better than you are today is the first step towards achieving meaningful change, and with a little hard work and dedication we believe you can accomplish practically anything. That may sound a bit too altruistic for some, but our experience has proven this to be true, especially in the world of entertainment.

As writers, we should each be striving to improve our skills with each passing day. We should be hunting for stories and other creative challenges that take us out of our comfort zone and force us to approach our audience from new or unfamiliar angles that, in time, will give us a greatest perspective on the world of music. Desiring this and doing this are two very different things, and we have found that the hardest part for most writers is finding place to start. So, with this in mind, we have come up with three creative challenges that will better your ability to not only discuss music, but appreciate it as well.

Spend more time with music released by independent artists

Everyone trying to quote/unquote ‘make it’ in the world of music has a dream of landing a job that finds them covering the biggest releases and having their words positive reactions used in future marketing materials. After all, how cool would it be to have your words printed on a sticker that was stuck to the next album from your favorite band? It would be awesome, that’s how cool it would be.

That said, if you want to further establish yourself as a unique voice in the world of music criticism in 2016 we advise that you stray from the Billboard charts and spend more time seeking out the next big thing. A&R used to be a job that one or more people held at essentially every record label, but in the age of social media most A&R work is done by the influential voices that drive internet discussion. You no doubt receive dozens of pitches from aspiring musicians every week, so take advantage of that fact and use your inbox as a source for new music discovery. Find something great and write about it. Not just once, but every chance you get until you’re sick of discussing that band. Use whatever knowledge you have regarding how to break artists in the modern day and apply it to your coverage of that artist. Interview them, list their best work, cover their tours, and most importantly, share how their art makes you feel. If you can help even one person to discover a new talent they love, others will follow.

Choose an upcoming release to know nothing about

Many artists rely on singles to sell albums because they don’t believe the record as a whole would be considered quite as good as one really catchy song. This is why most artists release the best song off their record first, as they believe many in the press won’t give their new album a second thought unless they’re hooked by some earlier marketing materials. While this may be true for some, it’s kind of a shame that artists today don’t believe people will care about their albums if the singles don’t dominate conversation and radio play for weeks, or even months on end.

This year, choose one release you know you will be interested in and do everything in your power to avoid its promotional cycle. Skip the singles, the cover art, and any interview that aims to build hype for the release until the entire album has been made available for your consumption. Then, and only then, give the record a listen. Allow yourself to become fully emerged in that artist’s world of sound without any preconceived notions of what it will sound like or how it will make you feel. Let the art speak for itself, and then share that experience with those around you.

Read one music critic you disagree with regularly

We struggle with this challenge more than probably any other task in this feature. It’s not that we don’t enjoy reading, as we very much do, but it takes a lot for us to sit and read something we don’t necessarily agree with and accept it as valid criticism. That fact is probably true for anyone in life, but there is an added degree of necessity to do so when it is comes to being a great critic. After all, your goal as a music writer is to sell people on music they may or may not be interested in. Sure, some readers will be fans of the artists you’re covering, but hopefully there are also many who are newcomers or who are otherwise new to that particular artist. Your job as a critic is to express your opinion in such a way that it influences buying or listening habits. The same can be said for your competition, which is why it’s important that you know their work and understand what gives it meaning to those who read it.

You don’t have to be sold on something you don’t enjoy when reading the work of a critic with opinions different than your own, but you should be able to understand the good and bad qualities of their writing. Furthermore, you should be able to deconstruct their work, compare it to your own, and see what, if any similarities there may be. Perhaps you disagree on certain artists, but you both tend to use the same phrasing when describing something you enjoy, or maybe you both use far too many adjectives in your work. Whatever the case, there is more to learn about yourself and the industry at large from enjoying the work of your peers than there is in the comments section of your last article. You become a better writer by reading the work of other writers. Never forget this fact.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him onTwitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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10 Ways to Ensure You Never Get a Reply From the Band/Publicist You Emailed

One of the great things about running this blog has provided us is the opportunity to engage with a wide range of music industry professionals on a daily basis. From publicists and marketing gurus, to bloggers with big dreams who are still in college, the spectrum of people we consult when creating content is pretty vast. You never know where the next great idea will come from, but you know it will come in time.

Recently, one longtime reader of the blog shared with us their list of reasons why bands and/or publicists may not be replying to a writer’s emails. Some of the points made were obvious, but as we have learned time and time again it’s never safe to assume people understand a certain concept or process unless you’ve walked them through it before, so we decided to run the list in full. A few items have been altered ever-so-slightly for the sake of editorial fluidity, but the points remain the same. Here we go…

1. Your subject line references Satan and/or includes the word(s): “hails”, “perfunctory”, “slappin’”, or “skunked.”

This one applies mostly to the metal world, but those hoping to work with Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus would be wise to keep mentions of the dark lord to a minimum as well. Every email sent should be viewed as an extension of yourself, and as such should reflect the level of professionalism found in your work. You don’t want to come across as a fanboy looking for early access, and you certainly don’t want to sound like an inexperienced critic who relies far too heavily on edgy adjectives. Just keep your subject line direct and simple and you will be fine.

2. Your subject line is empty.

This may actually be worse than mentioning Satan in your subject line, if only because the presence of the word ‘satan’ would mean you actually put effort in your pitch. There is nothing professional or engaging about blank subject lines. In fact, they make your message appear more like spam than anything else, and we all know how people respond to spam.

3. You begin the body of your email with “Look…we both know”

No, we don’t. Unless you’re best buds with the person you’re email you should never begin a letter with something as vague and presumptuous as the phrase highlighted in this point. There is nothing you both know until the receiving party receives your request, and even then they probably have some questions for you. Do not assume anything when contacting other professionals. Instead, always make it a point to introduce yourself, your outlet, and the purpose of your message right at the top of every email. This way, confusion will be kept to a minimum.

4. You put more time into the out of context Proust quote for your signature than you do in the actual content of your email. 

What this means is that your message reads like it was copy and pasted from a hundred similar pitches mailed to a hundred different artists or outlets. While there will be some who reply to these type of emails, most prefer a more personal approach. Address people by their name, reference the artist/album you’re writing about, and make it a point to present yourself in an intelligent. Bands and publicists often receive dozens of emails a day, if not more, so make sure the content of your message is worth their precious time.

5. Your signature is basically just a bunch of random GIFs of you wearing a gas mask and throwing up the horns.

Remember the three or four times I mentioned professionalism in the points above? If your signature appears to be something created by a middle school student setting up their first-ever email account it may actually lower the likelihood of you receiving a response. Artists and publicists are always seeing someone to cover their latest projects, but they want that coverage to come from respectable outlets they believe will benefit their talent. Establishing their belief that you can provide such benefits begins with your first email. Don’t mess it up.

6. You misspell stuff

Spellcheck has been around as long, if not longer than the internet. There is no excuse for your poor grammar in 2015. 

7. You’re a pompous ass

You’re not the next great thing in music journalism. Even if you are, don’t act like it. You may be able to expose artists to large audiences, but that doesn’t make you a one man Rolling Stone or give you the right to act as if you are somehow above anyone else in the music industry. Being humble in this business will get you much further than walking around with a chip on your shoulder. 

8. You (repeatedly) mention the time you smoked weed with a celebrity only to find out later it was just a random homeless woman at Arby’s.

While it’s true that a lot of wild and crazy stuff can happen during interviews, it’s considered incredibly unprofessional to brag about those exploits when attempting to establish one’s standing in the business. No one cares how many shots you did with Escape The Fate in the basement of The Crofoot, nor does anyone want to know who won in the blunt rolling contest you had with Juicy J in Atlanta, at least not in a pitch email. If you can fit that stuff into a feature that’s one thing, but tales of debauchery set against what should be professional situations are not going to impress anyone in music.

9. Your request turns into a 2500-word invective against “The Machine”

Everyone is busy in music and no one has time to read everything sent their way. Your chances of having your email read, let alone responded, increase exponentially with the less words needed to make your inquiry known. Be thorough, of course, but also try to cut out any unnecessary information. Tell the band or publicist who you are, who you write for, and how you would like to cover them and/or their latest project. Add details that answer any obvious questions they may have (length, time frame, format) and provide information on how to follow-up with questions of their own. Beyond that, there is very little your initial outreach should require. Remember: Keep it simple.

10. It’s been in your Drafts folder for six months even though you thought you sent it. Dummy.

No one is above this mistake. You’ve either done it, or you will do it sometime in the future.

This article was created with help from Jonathan K Dick, who requested that we also give credit to Trevor Shelley de Brauw. Thanks guys!

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Journalism Tips: You Need To Relax

Every music writer today, regardless of experience or genre preference, deals with stress on a daily basis. Whether you’re fretting over the quality of content posted, the happiness of your fellow staff, the happiness of your readers, or worried you may have simply not posted enough, there seems to always be something worth losing sleep over. At least, that is how we see things. Writers, just like site owners, have a big problem with internalizing every single thing that could possibly frustrate them and never taking the time to actually deal with any of it. We just keep going, day in and day out, with the hope that one day we will feel the increasingly heavy weights on our shoulders being lifted off. We don’t know when that will happen, and most probably couldn’t tell you a single scenario where they would actually be able to stop stressing for good, but it’s a lie that has helped countless creatives push through and it will continue to serve its purpose for the foreseeable future.

Having spent nearly a decade of my life writing, it wasn’t until I had already put five years of hard work in that I really began to notice the impact stress and its constant presence in my life took on everyday existence. My brain had rewired itself over time to revolve around the internet and what I saw as the time of day when posting ‘must’ happen. The first thing I thought about when I woke up was whether or not any headlines had broke while I was asleep, and the last thing I did before bed last night was a scroll through my RSS feed for any late breaking headlines. “If I could just be on top of the next story,” I thought. “Then I will be satisfied.”

What I eventually realized, and what I still struggle with today, is that there is no true end point for creative people. Our drive to create content the world enjoys will never be satiated with a single post, or even a single day’s worth of great content. Our pursuit is one that seeks for to create high quality work over an extended period of time, and no amount of day-to-day success is ever going to subdue that desire. The best we can do is learn to live with our drive rather than letting it rule over us, and that begins by learning to relax. I know that may sound like a foreign concept to many writers reading this now, but it’s true. If you cannot relax then you cannot create your best work, and if that happens that constant itch to create something truly great will slowly begin to eat you alive.

Before your passion gets the best of you, use the tips below to shake off the stress of creating content and find what I assume I probably some much needed rest. You deserve it.

It’s never a bad idea to have a plan. In fact, it’s a damn good idea.

I wish someone had told me when I was just starting out that life as a writer is 100x easier when you have a plan. More specifically, life is easier when you have a content calendar that outlines every major feature and piece of content you will need to create in the next several weeks, as well as the deadlines to complete each item. Doing this periodically makes it easier to plan your day-to-day work load, which in turn lowers your stress. You know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and exactly how much time you have to get everything accomplished. For added help, I suggest making daily to-do lists as well. I use Asana to make mine, but you can use whatever works best for you.

Even if you have a plan, be careful not to take on too much at once.

When I first started making calendars and to-do lists I thought it best to try and see just how many things I could accomplish on any given day. I would make lists with twenty or thirty tasks, and anything left incomplete at the end of the day would be the first thing tackled the following morning. What I didn’t realize at the time, and what I hope to save you from now, is that leaving so many tasks unfinished made it impossible for my mind to fully shutdown at the end of the day. Whenever I wanted to get up from my desk and walk away I would see them, mocking me from the page, and I would feel as if I had somehow failed myself by leaving them incomplete. Sometimes this forced me to stay up late, cranking away on subpar content because at least it would be completed, but other times I would walk away online to find the need to do more work keeping me up at night. No one was telling me I wasn’t doing enough other than myself, but that was the only voice I needed to hear to feel inadequate.

Educate yourself

The more you know about how the independent music and digital journalism world works, the better prepared you’ll be to conquer it. This is the entire reason the Haulix blog you’re reading right now even exists: Education. Every member of our staff learned about the industry through trial and error. No one held our hand or showed us what to do. We simply woke up every morning and dedicated ourselves to improving what little skills we had and in time things slowly began to improve. Looking back now we realize that was the hard way to learn about life in music, so we created this blog to make life in music easier for future generations.

Step away from the laptop. Put down your phone. Walk outside. Breathe.

Chronic stress is the response to emotional pressure suffered for a prolonged period over which an individual perceives he or she has no control. This is a good way to explain how most writers feel in the digital age. We know we can create great content given time and space, but there is a constant demand from the world at large to produce more and more content and it’s easy to perceive that cry for posts as a call that must be answered. After all, it’s because of our readers that we creatives have a purpose in the first place.

Before you can give your readers what they need you must first care for your own well being. Planning and organizing will get you far, but in order to truly shake off the stress and worries of life in writing you need to disconnect. You need to close your laptop, put your phone in ‘airplane’ mode, step outside, and breathe. Take a walk, take a nap, catch a movie (that you don’t review), or call a friend and catch up. Find something that has nothing to do with your writing and let it be the only thing you focus on for a period of time. Your mind needs time to rest, just like your body. You can only push yourself so far before your work will begin to suffer, and if you continue to push beyond that point things will only go from bad to worse for everyone involved. Trust me – it’s okay to unplug. Just do it.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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Advice: Wipe Your Creative Hard Drive

This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, both from professional and creative side of the business. We achieve this goal by sharing advice columns, editorials, interviews, and similar features based around the realities of life in entertainment today. We create 99% of our content, but every so often one of our brilliant friends will share a piece with us we cannot resist place here on the company blog. We thank Andrew Jones, the man behind Checkered Owl, for the article you’re about to enjoy.

As anyone who follows this blog knows, I spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen. Like most of you a big part of my day is heavily rooted in the digital world. Skype meetings, Facebook analytics, tour booking e-mails, video editing, tweet sending, blog reading, podcast listening, podcast recording, spreadsheet creating, Spotify or iTunes spinning records in the background…etc. And more often doing 2-5 of any of the above at once. And overall this works for me. These tools all let us get a ton done every day.

However after a while I can feel the ones and zeros collecting around my brain.

They pile up.

And slowly but surely they start to clog up the system.

Creative thoughts come less easily.

Fight it.

Just like your computer, every once and a while you need to clean out all that data, re-format, and come back working more smoothly. Put down the phone, walk away.

Then come back and work twice as hard.

This post was written by Andrew Jones, editor of Checkered Owl. It originally ran on his blog, but we loved it so much we felt it deserved to shared once more on ours. If you like his work and want to read more of his writing, or if you want to be super cool and offer him full time industry employment, reach out and connect with him on Twitter.

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Journalism Tips: Facebook Erased My Blog’s Page For Sharing Our Own Posts

There are countless reports around the web about the way Facebook’s ever-changing algorithms make it increasingly difficult for pages of any size to reach their audience. Your site or music project may have thousands of likes, but you’re often lucky if more than a hundred or more people see any single post. That is, unless you pay to ‘boost’ your post, in which case the exposure received correlates directly to how much you’re willing to spend.

Still, despite the restraints put on organic reach most blogs and artists still rely on Facebook to serve as a hub for their audience. The number of people who take it upon themselves to visit a music site every day is smaller now than ever before, as more and more people rely on social feeds and RSS tools to find the latest and greatest content to consume. Your post may only reach 1% of your total Facebook audience, but that is still 1% more exposure than your content would have gotten otherwise, right?

This week, after eight years of building an audience for my own music blog, I typed Facebook into my web browser only to discover I had mysteriously been logged out of my account overnight. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but once I logged back in it became clear something had transpired while I slept. A notification from Facebook informed me two posts on my blog’s page had been reported for linking to a site that was infringing on someone’s copyrights. The posts in question were both song streams, each from different artists, and each was posted using the official stream made available to all members of the press (one was even sourced from Billboard). No downloads were present, nor were any links to downloads. In short, the report was bogus.

I assumed, perhaps foolishly, that this warning from Facebook was a one time thing that wouldn’t matter as soon as I clicked past it. Once I did however, I realized the problem was far more pressing than it seemed. Without warning, Facebook had completely removed my blog’s page, along with the 10,000 likes we had been able to accrue over the last eight years of content creation. Every staffer who had listed our blog as their place of employment also had their employment status erased. Facebook, essentially, deleted all signs of our existence on their server.

As you can image, I quickly went from being not at all concerned to as mad as humanly possible with a side of panic-stricken fear. I scoured the Facebook support pages, hoping to find a number so I could contact someone in Palo Alto to help me sort out the mess I had found myself in, but as any of you who have encountered problems with Facebook may already know there is no call center to dial. Facebook handles its support issues entirely online, and there really isn’t a way to just ‘call someone.’ I eventually found a page related to claims of infringement, and there I found a line that sent chills down my spine:

“Facebook is not in a position to adjudicate disputes between third parties. If you believe these reports are not being made in good faith or are inaccurate, we suggest you or your legal counsel contact the complaining party to discuss this further.”

For those of you unable to decipher the legal talk above, Facebook is basically saying that they will remove posts/pages tagged for copyright, but they will not hear disputes from those accused of sharing the copyrighted material. They claim those matters should be resolved by legal council, but they NEVER provided me with a name for my site’s accuser, so even if I had council there would be no one for them to contact.

I spoke with several friends in the music community, and while some knew of others with similar problems, not a single person could provide me with a solution. More than twenty-four hours have passed since my site’s page disappeared from Facebook, and unless a miracle occurs soon it seems it will remain gone forever. That means all the work myself and my dozens of contributors have put in to building our FB hub is now gone, as well as all the photos and exclusive bits of information shared through posts on that page. Worse even still is the fact I have no idea who accused my site of wrongdoing, and there seems to be no chance that will change at any point in the future. Some unknown power saw it necessary to deal a blow to my team’s efforts, and now we are all suffering as a result.

The impact of our absence from Facebook will take days or even weeks to fully understand, but we’ve already noticed a decline in organic sharing. Readers can still post our content to their FB walls, but without a hub to share our reviews its clear we will need to find new methods of bringing our latest and greatest features to the attention of people online.

If you’re reading this and have any idea how to help, or if you know someone at Facebook I could call to plead for some understanding, please reach out. Otherwise, let this be a lesson to you that Facebook can and will strike you down without notice or a fair chance at explaining whatever wrongdoing you are accused of doing. They are in control of your ability to share, and though you may believe otherwise it’s the people with influence (from money or celebrity) who tell them what does and does not get exposed. I don’t know what, if anything, can be done to stop this, but I do knot it’s not right. Unfortunately, it’s also not technically ‘wrong.’ It’s just the way things are, and right now that has left me in a very unhappy position.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder ofAntique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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Journalism Tips: What To Do When Presented With A Conflict Of Interest

Hello, everyone! Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to spend a few minutes discussing conflicts of interest in the modern music industry. This blog was created for music bloggers by music bloggers, and is intended to inform as much as it aims to start a dialogue. We welcome comments and replies at the end of each post.

This blog exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

In all my years of music blogging, ‘conflict of interest’ is probably the one term I have heard thrown around more than any other when discussing the efforts of various writers. Site owners, much like countless industry professionals working in areas like publicity or management, often have several industry-centric efforts going on at the same time. Some see this as a problem, while others view it as simply leveraging a position those individuals have earned through hard work. I’m not here to tell you which side is right because in all honestly I’m not entirely sure, but I can provide insight into the meaning of this often thrown around term and how it applies to the world of blogging today.

To quote our friends at Businessdictionary, a conflict of interest (COI) is “any situation that has the potential to undermine the impartiality of a person because of the possibility of a clash between the person’s self-interest and professional interest or public interest.” To put it in simpler terms: conflicts of interest are situations that occur when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation.

Some of the COIs taking place in music today include:

  • Bloggers writing about bands who they have an invested interest in, whether it be through management, label dealings, publicity, or any other facet of the music business.
  • Bloggers accepting cash ‘donations’ in exchange for covering certain acts on their blog that may otherwise not fit into their normal content offerings.
  • Critics scoring albums higher than they normally would because of a personal relationship with the artist.
  • Publicists contributing content to blogs featuring their clients.
  • Publicists and managers handling artists they have invested
    time/money in alongside to artists they have no financial ties to.
  • Bands touring with groups they have a financial interest in, as opposed to working with the best band for the bill.
  • Record labels maintaining music blogs under pseudonyms in order to push their latest releases.
  • Record labels paying music critics to review albums they would otherwise never consider highlighting.
  • Partnership blogging, which is an act where one writer covers a certain person’s artist so that the other individual will in turn cover their artist at some point in the future.

There are many more potential conflicts of interest taking place in the music industry today, but the vast majority are never brought to light. The reason for this is because the blogging industry, much like the wild west, is a place that is still very much trying to define itself. Everyone is scrambling to make something for themselves before the powers that be set a precedent everyone must follow, and until that happens people will use any and everything at their disposal to get ahead? Is that right or wrong? Again, I’m not a hundred percent sure anyone can really say either way.

Conflicts of interest must be addressed on a case by case basic in order to determine where they fall in the world of business ethics. That said, whether or not the person executing the COI cares for business ethics is another discussion altogether. There are far more people writing about music online for free than there are those who make a living doing it, and as a result It’s not hard to understand why people would bend rules and business practices for financial gain. That does not necessarily make it right, but in the mind of a young writer it’s not right that they often must write for years and years before seeing a single dime. COIs offer a quick leg up against the competition, be it for promotional or financial purposes, and as long as that remains true there will always be those willing to risk whatever fall out may occur if their efforts are uncovered.

Speaking of risks, it’s hard to tell what – if anything – will happen to someone whose COIs are discovered. In extreme cases there may be people removed from contributing staffs or black listed from a certain mailing list, but more often than not the only damage done in these situations is to the perceived reputation of the individual responsible. If you’re a critic and word gets out that your opinion can be bought, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for you to sell people on your word being trustworthy in the future. Likewise, if it comes to light that coverage on your blog is available for purchase your readers may look to what they believe to be more authentic outlets for news and music discovery. Then again, some might not care at all. People are weird like that.

In a way similar to how you choose the type of person you want to be in life, you also have a choice when it comes to the type of blogger you want to become. There are as many ways to success in music as there are to failure, but I can tell you from my decade of experience that nothing beats an honest voice with a unique perspective. Be yourself, regardless of what others say, and over time you will see your career flourish. You will find and audience, or perhaps they will find you, and together you will create a dialogue on music that is rewarding for everyone involved. Cutting corners for short term success or minuscule financial gain offers no longterm benefits, forging a trusting relationship with your reader is something that will reward you again and again.

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Journalism Tips #27: A Beginner’s Guide To Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Hello, everyone. If you have been a longtime reader of this blog you may recall that our Journalism Tips series used to run each and every Saturday afternoon. With the recent launch of our podcast, however, that column has spent the past few weeks on vacation. That is, until today.

This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

There was a time in the distant digital past when a writer did not necessarily need to understand search engine optimization (SEO) in order to be successful online. Today, that kind of digital ignorance will only lead to a writer’s continued ambiguity in the world of music. In order to be successful online in 2014 you must have at least a basic grasp on SEO, but if not there are many, many resources available to help get you started. We cannot claim to have mastered this process ourselves, but we have done our best to gather the basic information you need to know in order to start creating content with a higher likelihood of landing on the front page of Google, Bing, and whatever search engines rise in the future. I’m not sure this will be a series, but if response demands it we will certainly share more.

What is SEO and why does it matter if I do it well?

To phrase things in the simplest way possible, search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. Sites with strong SEO often find themselves on the first page of Google’s search results, which in the world of blogging is kind of like winning the lottery. In fact, a 2013 study from ad network Chitika revealed that 92% of all search engine traffic goes to sites on the first page of results, with the top result receiving 35% of all clicks. Here is a chart showcasing the average percentage of clicks received by search results based on where they appear on the page:

[chart]

The findings of this report were similar to another report Chitika released in 2010. An excerpt from the latest report reads, “While being the number one result on a Google search results page is obviously important, these numbers show just how big of an advantage websites of this type have over any competitors listed below them. The importance of SEO for online business is seemingly quantified by these latest statistics, which, judging by their similarity to those observed as part of the 2010 study, are not likely to change significantly in the near future.”

What affects a search?

Good question. Ready for a bad answer? Only Google knows the truth. The search engine company has revealed that their system takes into account more than 200 different factors to help it determine the results for each query. The full list of factors have never been published, but seasoned professionals have made some great guesses over the last decade. Moz, for example, surveys the opinions of dozens of search marketers every two years to better understand the working of search engine algorithms. They use this data to aide sites in understanding what helps and hurts their site’s visibility in search engines. It’s not ‘proof’ to what search engines use when ranking, nor is it by any means a ‘hard science,’ but it does reflect the characteristics of websites and pages who rank highest in search engine results.

Moz competed their most recent survey in 2013, speaking with over 120 search marketers about their opinions on over 80 ranking factors. The top three factors for Google results were Page Authority, +1’s, and the number of Unique clocks linking to the individual page. Click here to view the full list.

What the heck is page authority?

You’re full of good questions today. Page authority, as explained by our friends at Drumbeat Marketing, is an SEO term used to describe the probability that a specific page from your site will be found on a search engine. Page authority is based on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100 and deals with the relevance of information and links within site pages to one another. Higher page authority means greater chances of your page showing up on search engines, and that your page will be placed closer to the top of the search results. Note that page authority is related to the pages within sites, not the site itself. You can learn more about page authority and how to improve the ranking of your site, here.

So how do I improve SEO through my website?

I thought you would never ask! Definition are kind of boring, I know, but in order to properly understand SEO you need to also understand the terminology associated with it. You’re here to learn about creating pages that will rank high, however, and that’s what I’m going to tell you about.

There are many factors that affect SEO when crafting a new article or page for your website. Fortunately for us, our friends at Spin Media have created a very easy to read and implement guide that should help you change your content creation practices in no time at all:

Title

• 70 characters or less is ideal

• Front-load keywords when possible

Description

• Keyword-rich summary of story in ‘Descrip-on’ field under All In One SEO Pack (if applicable)

• Use up to 350 characters, put keywords in first 160

Images

• File name descrip-ve of -tle, no stop words

• Hyphens between words in file name (no other special characters)

• Cap-on and Descrip-on fields same as file name

• Alt text: Slight varia-on on file name, no hyphens

Linking

• Internal link to relevant content in every piece

• External links to highly authorita-ve sources

• Link on keywords for anchor text, rather than source name

• Link with full URL, star-ng with hXp

• Use rel=“nofollow” in links to sketchy sources

(Ex: example)

Body copy

• Repeat keywords in first 1-2 sentences

• Fluid, gramma-cally sound wri-ng

Other

• Use bold and italics to emphasize key terms when natural

• Use keyword-specific tags

As I said in the introduction, this feature is intended to help you get started with your SEO efforts. There are literally hundreds of sites dedicated to optimization, and there are at least a hundred different thoughts on the best methods to properly optimize your efforts. In order to find out what works best for your site you may need to try a few different approaches. Watch your analytics and make changes wherever necessary. We will definitely post another SEO guide if there is a demand, but for now you can gain further insight through this free PDF on SEO released by Google earlier this year.

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Journalism Tips #25 – ‘You Need To Have A Plan’

Thank you for joining us for another installment in our our ongoing Journalism Tips series. We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the couple months we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. Today we are running a special editorial by our very own James Shotwell about the importance of having a plan. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

The greatest piece of advice I believe anyone can give you on the topic of finding success in the music industry is to find something you love doing and do it the absolute best of your abilities. Work hard each day and, eventually, people will take notice. I cannot guarantee you will find work in your desired area of the business right away, but through focused determination anything is possible as long as you give it your all. 

The second best piece of advice, which I realized recently that we rarely ever discuss, is the importance of having a plan. Yes, just like a football team, construction project, or army heading into battle, you and whoever you choose to work with in your pursuit of a career in entertainment must have a plan if you ever hope to get anywhere. If not, you will be doomed to eventually begin spinning your wheels, stunted by your own lack of motivation.

So, what should this plan entail? For starters, what you hope to accomplish. Every website that is regularly updated today exists because someone walking the planet had a vision for something that they did not believe could be found in the world. This could be as simple as a place for a particular individual or group of individuals to share opinions, or it could be something much more grand, like a political movement or call for social change. Whatever the case, it’s best to have some idea what you want before you ever begin to craft content. The world does not need another corner of the net dedicated to copying and pasting entire press releases. There are literally thousands of sites like that already, and to be perfectly honest most have no audience at all. If you want an audience, you need a purpose, and in order for your work to serve a purpose you need a plan.

Planning your web presence can be as simple or complex as you desire, but for the sake of making life easier over the long haul I advise writing every thought and idea you have down up front before you decide anything. Weigh the pros and cons of your various ideas, click around to see what type of competition exists, and then purchase your very own URL. Before you can build an audience you need to know who you are as a website. Why do you exist? What do you feature? Why do you feature it? Additionally, what do you hope to get from your site? If the answer is money, you might as well go to school and find a degree in something with a demand for skilled laborers. Music writing is about passion, and those trying to conquer the blogosphere with any other motivations will eventually be exposed for the frauds they are.

I started my first music site, Under The Gun Review, because I believed there was no one in the world who thought about music the way I did, and for whatever reason I felt that gave me all the reason needed to start my own blog. For the first few months, this was all the reason my site needed to exist. It was a fresh voice in the crowded world of music writing, but a fresh voice nonetheless. As months became one full years of writing, however, I realized that in order to grow my efforts would need to do more than simply vent whatever words were swimming around in my mind. If I wanted to become a true member of the music writing community I was going to need to write stories others had never thought to write, interview bands no one had interviewed, and do everything in my power to share the best bands no one had listened to with everyone with a desire to discover something new. I needed to be the bridge between the average music fan and the best sounds the world had to offer outside, which was a task I gladly accepted (after essentially making it for myself).

As soon as I realized I had been writing for the wrong reasons, things began to change. My views increased, networking became easier, and other aspiring writing professionals were coming out of the woodwork to contribute to my blog. People were happy to learn that someone still cared enough about undiscovered music to spend their day writing about the ‘best of the rest’ so those who knew nothing beyond what was played on terrestrial radio could have an outlet for new sounds. My site grew, as it continues to do, and I found myself becoming far happier with my work. 

Sometimes I reflect on how I spent that first year of my life as a so-called music writer, and more often than not I feel a bit like a fool because I believed I could create something that existed for my own selfish desires and make other people care. I learned, as so many do every single day on this planet, that the true rewards in life comes from doing things for others. The best part of my work week as a music blogger now is finding a band or album or song that is relatively unknown and sharing it with anyone will to listen. I don’t care if the post receives twenty clicks or two-thousand, though the latter is always appreciated. As long as I know I am putting my all into the words I am writing and that I am being honest in the things I say then I am overjoyed that anyone, let alone more than one person cares enough to read it.

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Tips And Tricks For Covering Vans Warped Tour

Hello and welcome to a very special mid-week edition of our popular Journalism Tips series. We normally hold these columns until Saturday, but due to the time sensitive nature of the content contained within this post we decided to run it a few days early. Don’t worry, there will be something new on Saturday too.

This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

There was a time not too long ago when I would have thought we talked about Vans Warped Tour too much. While it’s true that many labels who use Haulix to service their artist’s latest releases have participated in Warped Tour at least once or twice in the past, it’s not true for every single one of our clients and we often worry about giving any one area of music too much attention via this blog. In 2014, however, Warped Tour is a far different beast than it has been during any other year that I can remember. The punk and hard rock elements are still firmly in tact, but the world’s largest traveling music festival has also expanded its musical offerings to include people from the world of EDM, rap, pop, and beyond. Some complain, but I think it’s ultimately for the best, and if you’re smart about how you approach your coverage of Warped Tour you may find it has the potential to be one of, if not the most rewarding coverage experience(s) you have all year.

I know that every writer has their own method and routine when it comes to interviews and live coverage, but that does not mean you’re incapable of improvement. To help get this point across, I asked Absolutepunk staffer and all-round badass music blogger Jake Denning to provide a few coverage tips and tricks for those who have yet to attend the 2014 installment of Warped Tour. He agreed, and after a few back and forth conversations we settled on a nice list that I think drives home the idea that you can never truly perfect your interview style. In truth, you can only plan, practice, and hope for the best. Put yourself in the best possible position to succeed and do whatever it takes to make your goals a reality.

Without further ado, here’s Jake…

I recognize the advice I’m about to share is not gospel, but I feel like it will help some looking for some tips when it comes to doing press the Warped Tour (or any festival in general).

BEFORE YOUR APPROVED DATE:

1. Make sure you’ve turned in the interview request form that was sent to you when approved for press. Some interviews (such as The Summer Set and The Ghost Inside) require advance approval, and if you don’t turn in the form well in advance of your show date, there is absolutely no chance you will speak to that band.

2. Make sure you have a plan for food/water. My personal preference is to pack the following: (1) Quest Protein Bar, (1) 3.25oz bag of Jerky, and (1) Small bag of Trail Mix, along with (1) Empty gatorade sports bottle (you can generally find these at any sporting goods store for about $2-5, VERY useful).

ON THE DAY OF THE SHOW:

1. Have your batteries charged, your memory clean, your bag/gear organized

2. Get to venue and find yellow Vans tent well in advance of check-in time (generally 10:30am local time). This allows you to be ready to go when it comes time to enter the venue, and find the press area as quickly as possible

3. Once you’ve found the press area and you’ve introduced yourself and signed in, find the performance schedule, typically located next to the interview sign-up sheets. From there, momentarily forget about doing interviews for the day, and build a schedule based on what bands you’d like to watch. Ideally, you shouldn’t have more than 20 minutes between sets, as to maximize the day. Once you have that schedule, THEN start to remove performances that conflict with press times for a particular artist (For instance, if Every Time I Die is doing press from 1pm – 1:40pm and you’d like to see Motionless In White at 1:20…well, looks like you’re not watching Motionless In White)

4. HAVE AN OUTLINE – I recognize this is not for everyone, but for someone who tries to hit on the album/release a particular artist is touring on, this is essential for me. I need specific notes detailing my critical thoughts on said release, as well as questions pertaining to lyrical content, etc. You will never get a chance to interview this artist again on this specific day, so be as detailed as you can be in this setting.

5. Be mindful of when a particular artist is scheduled to interview and be mindful of when they arrive. Be near the press table when they arrive, so that you have a better chance of getting to interview them. To be honest, not every publication that signs up on the list (even if they’re first to sign up) will get to interview. For example, I had an artist come in that 7 different people (including myself) had signed up for – the Tour Manager routed them to AltPress, myself, and then one other publication, and then promptly left.

6. After an interview is done, IMMEDIATELY find a way to upload to Dropbox (or favorite cloud storage provider) – Things happen.

7. Chances are that you’re probably going to end up charging your phone/laptop/etc at some point in the day – take that opportunity to connect with other people/artists in the room. Plague Vendor (Epitaph) ended up on my radar because I ended up getting to know them for 20 minutes or so, not knowing who they were before hand.

8. Last, but certainly not least, FOLLOW THE RULES given to you when approved – for example, if you’re in a venue that does not allow video, then DON’T shoot video and claim you didn’t know about the rule afterwards.

Jake Denning is an entertainment writer and critic with years of experience working online. He has interviewed dozens of bands and written about more albums than you have probably heard in your entire lifetime. He’s a smart go-getter with a blindingly bright future ahead of him and we’re grateful that he was willing to help us with this post. If you would like to learn more about his efforts in music and beyond, click here to follow Jake on Twitter.

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