Industry news & advice blog

• Live footage for EP and album tracks. Professional or fan-made. Post to your YouTube channel so people searching for you and your songs can access the library of your work. 
• Rehearsal room clips, on-the-road clips and interview clips. Professional or fan-made. Post to your blog and social media to engage with fans and stimulate conversations.
• Music promo. Professionally made. Use for press, ie blogging campaigns. Post them into your press release and then post across all your platforms.

• Decide what the video should look like. Do you want to be in it? Bear in mind live videos, even if highly polished, are rarely ‘stand-out’ or ‘attention-grabbing’. There are many other ways for you to be in the video; if you can act, all the better. Or have yourselves feature as pictures on a wall, cameo performances, animated images. Alternatively, if you’re not in the video, you open up possibilities for more directors to pitch to you i.e. directors in different territories.
• Write your brief. As directors usually make music videos because they offer creative freedom, you will put directors off if you are too prescriptive. A good approach is to be genuinely ‘open to ideas’, but guide directors by giving them links to other videos you like.
• Find your director – part 1. Many independent artists use friends or fans to produce videos and get good results. Be sure friends or fans are actually good at making stand-out music videos and make sure they are genuinely available to work for you, particularly to edit and deliver your video to your schedule.
• Find your director - part 2. Use a professional service. Radar connects artists and labels with budgets to professional directors worldwide. Directors pitch (i.e. send you treatments) and you then decide if you want to commission. It’s free for artists and labels to use the service. Other, competition-based UGC (User-Generated-Content) sites, such as Talenthouse and Genero access mainly amateur directors but will deliver multiple videos for your track. For competition sites you need to deliver a prize as an incentive. Money is a good incentive.
• If you are commissioning, rather going for competition-driven UGC, draw up a written agreement between you and your chosen director, even if they are a friend. Agree the budget, the treatment, the timescales and delivery, cash flow, insurance, casting and any other important points specific to you. Pay some budget up front as the director may need to hire equipment. Always keep some of your budget back to pay upon delivery. Always pay on time.

• Plan your release strategy and create your press strategy as part of that. You need press support to drive views to your video.
• Draw up a hit list of blogs you would like to cover you and of blogs who cover your kind of music - even if they are very small. 
• Rank blogs by size – you can use Alexa.com to do this.
• Arrange to get your video delivered 4 weeks ahead of your release date
• Select 4 or 5 blogs from your hit list to offer your video as a premiere/exclusive. These should be either the bigger blogs or blogs who have previously supported you or you would especially like to support you. If you’re a new artist, don’t waste your time hoping Pitchfork or Stereogum will cover you (if you are exceptionally good, have an exceptionally good video and have a personal contact with one of their writers, you might be lucky). Pick smaller blogs, stay loyal and work up from there. 
• Approach these 4 or 5 selected blogs 4 weeks prior to your release date with a view to getting a premiere/exclusive. You need to approach them one by one, because if two blogs then agree to provide an exclusive at the same time, you will have ruined your relationship with whichever you don’t choose, however you deal with it. Allow a week for each blog to get back to you, hence the need to start this 4 weeks ahead of release date.
• Also 4 weeks before release, approach all blogs on your entire hit list with audio of your track to see if you can generate press quotes. Also go for radio.
• A day or so before release date, hopefully with your premiere/exclusive coverage secured and some good press quotes, send a press release to all blogs on your entire hit list. Personalise each release e.g. ‘I see you like The XYZ and think you might like our music too’. State the release is embargoed until the premiere/exclusive is done. Follow up each blog personally. Always say thanks for coverage.
• Update your social media with news of all your coverage. Name-check and link to the blog to help drive traffic to them. They’ll like you for it and be more likely to cover you next time too.

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