You have a unique opportunity to gain great experience by directly assisting the team in all aspects of online marketing – direct to fan marketing, blogging, analytics, social media marketing, tracking and reporting, building / running websites, Twitter and Facebook marketing and so much more.

The position will involve online marketing, social media and content management such as:

• Updating websites with relevant content
• Engaging with our own, and clients, Twitter, Facebook networks
• Researching and developing directo to fan marketing campaigns
• Analysing Google Analytics and other reporting tools

 
You will be:

• Currently pursuing (or recently completed MA or BA studies in Business or Marketing)
• Have your own laptop
• Dependent, reliable, enthusiastic and interested in music and creative industries
• Excited by the opportunity to work in a growing business, where you will get hands-on experience across many areas and where your voice counts
• Interested in digital media, online marketing, social media and analytics
• Dynamic, organised, adaptable and a quick learner
• Good written and verbal communicator in English, to native level, with attention to detail
• Confident with excellent interpersonal skills
• Web and social media savvy
• Good knowledge of Excel, Word and Adobe Photoshop

 
This is a 3 day per week internship based in Kings Cross, London. Starting immediately, for a minimum of 3 months which could potentially lead to a full time, paid position – subject to performance.

A full reference from Amplified Media Head of Digital will be provided at the end of the internship.

To apply, please upload your CV and provide a few words below outlining what you could bring to this fast growing business.

The Davy Lewis Tour is taking in over 100 gigs in 52 week, across Europe, visiting 52 Towns / Cities and is partially funded by himself, sponsors and donations.

We caught up with Davy and managed to do a quick email interview:

What is the inspiration behind the tour?
Well I recently finished my first album and wanted to get it to as many people as possible, in person. Plus I get to travel too and meet new people/musicians and hopefully get some more inspiration for the next album.

What do you hope to get out of it?
I hope to create more awareness for my music and gain some life experience, as well as sampling the hangovers across Europe :) I hear they’re great!

How did / are you going about planning it?
It’s not easy, if it wasn’t for email I’d be screwed. I’ve basically been sending 100s of emails to bars,venues,radio,hostels etc… Trying to organise gigs and accommodation and planning the best route to take from place to place. It can be a bit of a bastard.

What’s the best tip you can offer grassroots musicians?
Just go for it and enjoy yourself as much as you can! As well as working hard of course :)

You can track what Davy is up to and his whereabouts by following the links at the end of this post. And if he’s calling into your part of town do drop in to one of his gigs, show some support, enjoy the music and tell him we said hello.

http://www.davylewis.com/
https://twitter.com/#!/davylewistour
https://www.facebook.com/davylewistour

This really is a great showcase of a band doing it for themselves, getting out there to find and connect with their fans. We asked the band a few questions about the Breakfast with NATG sessions to find out the inspiration behind this brilliant direct-to-fan campaign.

Here’s Breakfast with NATG – part 3 (check out their Youtube Channel for more):

Amplified: What is the inspiration behind the new EP?

Sarah: We were mainly influenced by a specific year in our life where we moved away from london. our friendships and relationships were really tested and out of this period came a lot of disjointed creativity. We were experimenting a lot and really working on our sound (with 5 musicians all influenced by very different genres), out of which came Young Light. We view the EP as an introduction to Nimmo & The Gauntletts, an insight into our dynamic as a 5 piece.

Amplified: What is the story behind ‘Breakfast with NATG’ videos?

Reva: We were always planning on doing a little project but we weren’t quite sure how to approach it with something that hadn’t really been done before. Then surrounding the EP hype we realised we were now at a place where we could do something which included the fans that had helped support us. Acoustic versions of the EP was also something that we had planned initially so the two ideas seemed to join quite nicely. We thought about a living room style tour but it has been done quite a lot and a friend then suggested breakfast or dinner- something which we thought could aesthetically look great and would be a nice perk to every weekend.

Amplified: What do you want to say to your fans?

Reva: That we owe them a big thank you for helping us and supporting us at a stage where it’s most needed. The fact that we put up videos these days and people care and watch them and comment positive encouragement for us means so much. We would be doing it anyway because we love it but the feeling of someone else bouncing off and appreciating the hard work and the songs we write is a great feeling. At this level particularly, any fan is really helping us push further.

Amplified: What are your plans for summer?

Sarah: This summer will see the launch of our music video for track ‘Young Light’ off the EP which will be directed by Ben Galster. We are also recording new material and organising our self a few regional shows spread throughout, with a few festivals and some good support slots.

Amplified: Who are your influences?

Josh: We all listen to so many different artists and genres which comes through a lot in our own music. Bands and artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Arcade Fire, Beirut, The Macabees, David Bowie, The Smiths and Otis Redding to name a few. Even producers like Brian Eno and hip-hop producer/rapper Dr Dre.

You can buy the EP direct from here:
http://vibedeck.com/nimmo-thegauntletts

Find out more about Nimmo and the Gauntletts here:
http://www.nimmoandthegauntletts.com/
https://www.facebook.com/nimmoandthegauntletts
https://twitter.com/nimmo_gauntlett

So what options do you have?

In our humble opinion, there’s only one platform you should consider using, right now at least, and that most definitely is Soundcloud.

Reasons why you need Soundcloud:

• The Soundcloud platform is really easy to get started. Set up a free account and upload your music in any audio format and start sharing straight away.
• Soundcloud have a great developer team who have developed really slick music player widgets. These widgets are easy to create and deploy online. Fans, bloggers, PR, Labels can easily re-share your widgets across their networks, helping to create notable reach-amplification for your sounds.
• Simplistic analytics that show you how your sounds are doing, number of plays, downloads (if you’ve set the track up for download) and if you upgrade to Pro or a Pro Plus account (for heavy users) you’ll see what users are engaging with your tracks and what countries they are from.
• Soundcloud makes it really easy for everyone to access your tracks. Most journalists, bloggers, PR, labels just dont have the time to fiddle about with downloading mp3s. The easier you make for them, the increased likelihood of them checking you out.
• And finally, Soundcloud seamlessly integrates with really cool applications – Rootmusic, Webdoc, The Hype Machine, Facebook, Tumblr and 100′s of other apps.

Founded back in 2007/08 Soundcloud have since come to dominate the market when it comes to moving music / sound around online. We at AMPHQ have been using the Soundcloud platform since 2009 when we started work with Strummerville, the Joe Strummer Foundation for New Music, to integrate into the Strummerville DIY platform – take a look here →

Here’s a great interview we’ve just found from HoxtonFM where Dan Formless catches up with David Adams at Soundcloud’s London HQ ahead of the London Electronic Music Event (LEME) held this weekend at Alchemea London.

The explosion of social networking over the last half-decade has given musicians of all genres a new, and indeed global showcase for their talents. Perhaps the major success story in this field is the micro-blogging site, Twitter, where a performing artist can reach beyond their direct friend and contact list, and into the consciousness of record companies, agents, and even established stars who might, even in some small way, mentor and support them.

It’s important to treat Twitter as the micro-blog it is – the artist doing their music marketing on Twitter has an opportunity to report on auditions, rehearsals, successes, and also failures – marketing your music on Twitter is like marketing yourself. A performing artist never knows which tweet – and it could even be along the “who will give this sucker and even break?” path – will attract the right kind of attention. An interesting tweeter will always attract more attention than a “look at me” poster.

Twitter’s search function will offer up people to follow that have similar interests or careers, depending on how fully they fill out their profiles. Marketing your music on Twitter to these individuals or organisations is something of a no-brainer; there will already be considerable common ground, even if the relationship only ever ends up being the bouncing of ideas, or a support network.

It is important not to forget the importance of cross-linking when using Twitter – a YouTube playlist of a musician’s best work can be quickly disseminated to thousands, especially if your followers deploy the powerful retweet web.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, music marketing on Twitter is a two-way street; the person who offers support, advice, and constructive criticism is far more likely to receive help when needed.

Michael Brandvold certainly thinks so, in his blog post made yesterday he singles out the Van Halen release, info taken from Bravewords.com:

Starting at roughly 8:00am EST on Thursday, February 2nd, VAN HALEN’s new album A Different Kind Of Truth will reportedly be available via the Australian iTunes store (12:00 midnight on February 3rd Sydney time). Go to www.apple.com/au/itunes for more information.

A Different Kind Of Truth, will be released in North America by Interscope Records on February 7th. Audio samples from the entire album can be found at this location (click view in iTunes).

Michael goes on to state that the Van Halen album had already made its way on to torrent sites and argues that many U.S. and rest of the world fans would buy it from iTunes as of 2nd Feb instead of being made to wait until 7th Feb. This model worked in the ‘physical’ world when the record labels controlled distribution channels to drive up anticipation but in todays ‘Triple A’ music economy (Access Anywhere Anytime), we at AMPHQ fail to see how it can remain relevant. It just doesn’t fit.

Michael presents a compelling argument, one we agree with, especially when the recording industry is constantly spouting claims that internet piracy is killing music sales.

We know there have been moves towards ‘on air on sale’ release strategies, maybe its time for the labels to review how they release new music globally?. As Michael says, “there really should only be one territory for releasing records now… the World.”

Article source: There is Only One Territory for Releasing Music Now… the World – Michael Brandvold

The Webdoc Topspin integration allows you to easily add your email for media, merch, tickets, and video widgets into the Webdoc canvas along with your band photos, artwork etc. With a quick set up in Webdoc, by entering your Topspin API, all of your Topspin available widgets (API enabled) will be visible within Webdoc. This integration has got our minds racing with the direct to fan / fan engagement possibilities..

Here’s a great short video showing you how it all works.

Great to see Shamal and to meet Vincent Borel and the rest of the Webdoc team at this years Midem. Head over now to Webdoc to set up a free account and start creating your your own sharable pages.

For those of you who like stats and come to think of it those of you who dont, we’re quite sure you’ll appreciate some of these Next Big Sound figures. Quite incredible to think that in 2011 there were 64 billion new plays, 16 billion profile views, and 3.5 billion new fan connections. Yep, that’s right: Billion

Metrics were taken from Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud, Youtube, Vevo, MySpace and Wikipedia – Soundcloud notably had a 231% increase, which surely has influenced their recent $50 million investment. Well deserved in our eyes, we’ve been using Soundcloud for nearly all of our projects – especially the work we’ve done on the Strummerville DIY pages and Top 20 Playlist.

Source: 2011 STATE OF ONLINE MUSIC

<img> credit: hteeml.com/featured-products/code-ninja-t-shirt.html

Amplified Media is looking for a keen and eager front-end developer/designer ninja!

We’re actively seeking an awesome coder with 2 or more years experience in front-end web technologies like jQuery, HTML5 and CSS/CSS3 as well as design knowledge with proficiencies in web app design, WordPress and user experience.

If you are ‘one of those’ with mad skillz who can claim knowledge with social data APIs (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…), just know that is a certified bonus right there.

It’s not required to have a degree, we’re not looking for paper. We really don’t mind. Experience in the field is key.

It would be awesome to check out any portfolio stuff you might have laying around, or even better, a GitHub username. If you lack any of these, you should toss us some code samples or sample projects you’ve toyed around with in the recent days. Code is poetry.

We are looking for an intern based in London to get cranking immediately.

Amplified Media is a passionate, fast moving startup running on coffee and creativeness. We got some awesome projects coming up in 2012. If you want to join a firm who is nuts about music, likes delivering innovation to musicians/labels/artists/etc, then you should really consider applying for this spot.

Notes:
This is for an internship position (Jan 2012 – April 2012) in a new & developing company, based in West London. You will be required to work from our office, expenses paid. This is a great opportunity for you to become a critical part of a growing media firm specialising in music & arts marketing.

Midem crowdsourced a video asking prominent artists, managers and industry experts, “Why Direct To Fan?”. This is D2F in a nutshell.

Their answers present a collective argument for the almost unassailable truth that communicating with and selling direct to fans is the best, if not only, way forward.