The Future Buzz is not just a place where I help marketers, bloggers and PR professionals spread buzz online.\u00a0 I also help artists, photographers and creative people do the same.\u00a0 In fact, if you read between the lines, much of the advice I write on spreading ideas can be applied to anything you\u2019d like to successfully share.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mention often that when I\u2019m not blogging or helping companies achieve their goals online, in my free time I\u00a0write music.<\/p>\n
Previously I tried to sell my music on online mp3 shops and CDs \u2013 with mixed results (it\u2019s difficult being an unknown artist).\u00a0 I sold a few copies \u2013 but eventually came to a realization I would rather have my music reach more ears as the money I was making was worth far less than the joy of being able to share it with others.\u00a0 Soon after that, I released my latest album along with a few of my older works under a\u00a0creative commons license.<\/p>\n
My goal with art shifted to purely enjoying the process, and I didn\u2019t even worry about promoting it, I just uploaded it.\u00a0 And believe it or not, that\u2019s when the real magic started to happen.<\/p>\n
Every so often someone stumbles-upon my art through a link or a friend, and it reaches more ears.\u00a0 A creative commons license encourages people to share your art through BitTorrent or whatever file sharing they want \u2013 with attribution.\u00a0 They\u2019re free to burn copies, listen on iPods \u2013 whatever they want.\u00a0 All that is required is you keep the attribution and don\u2019t profit from it.<\/p>\n
With all of that said, I will give a piece of piece of advice I hope you\u2019ll listen to if you\u2019re any kind of artist that can put their work into a digital format:\u00a0 put as much of out under creative commons as you can.\u00a0 It is the most powerful promotion tool I\u2019ve come across in nearly a decade of making music.<\/p>\n
If I was a completely unknown artist and trying to make a living off my art today, I would do all of the following:<\/p>\n
It is totally realistic to do all of this.\u00a0 It\u2019s simple, it will get your name out there, and move you closer to the day you can create art for a living.<\/p>\n
I am not just saying this as a marketing blogger –\u00a0 I actually will show you just a few quick tangible examples of how real the results can be by releasing your art under a creative commons license:<\/p>\n
These are\u00a0just some<\/em>\u00a0examples of how the web has been a huge enabler for my art to reach new people.\u00a0 For all but the last example, none of this would be possible without putting music out under a CC license.\u00a0 Also keep in mind, I\u2019m not out there actively pitching myself or pushing my music, all I do is write it and upload.\u00a0 Imagine if I came up with ways to creatively market it \u2013 the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re reading this blog, you already know the power of creative commons, as you probably notice I use Flickr CC images frequently here (see my\u00a0stunning images\u00a0post for a good sample).\u00a0 Many of the producers of those images have literally hundreds of thousands of views for their art on Flickr, and perhaps millions when spread across the web.<\/p>\n Bottom line?<\/strong><\/p>\n We hear so much about how social media can help artists \u2013 well, nearly every fan I have is from message boards\/forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.\u00a0 Without those things, I probably wouldn\u2019t have\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0fans other than those who vaguely remember me from when I used to play gigs in college.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re an independent artist or freelancer\/content producer of any type, you can\u2019t afford to miss the awesome power of setting your art free via creative commons.\u00a0 This is the great equalizer for democratizing art.\u00a0 I see the incredible potential when I witness just a few samples of what people have done with my stuff \u2013 and I\u2019m a totally unknown artist.<\/p>\n When you put creative work into the magic of social media and let others use it to build upon for their own art or just share it with their readers\/friends, everyone wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Future Buzz is not just a place where I help marketers, bloggers and PR professionals spread buzz online.\u00a0 I … <\/p>\n