Are you an indie band looking to take your career to the next level? Here’s the information that’ll help…

As I’m starting to get approached more and more by independent and rising acts about working with them to take their career in music to new heights, I thought I’d put together an information pack in one spot so you have all the information you’d ever need before we proceed to possibly working together.

Here you’ll find a few things that will help you make the decision to work with us, or maybe show you where you need help if you’re not yet sure what you’re doing wrong or how to proceed in promoting and publicising your act.

And while I’ve tried to give you everything you may need to answer some questions for yourself, if there’s anything else you needed to ask, don’t hesitate to get in contact and I’ll help you out the best I can.

1. Case Study

Whether it’s so you have some idea of the results you can expect, information for your management or to see what we’ve done with artists and celebrities before, we’ve put together a short case study on what we achieved with MTV’s Jackass star Bam Margera in the first 90 days of working with him.

While I know your act probably isn’t at the level of a multi-million-dollar celebrity like Bam, this case study will show you the massive increases I achieve with artists and bands. And for independent or rising bands, I generally see much more rapid results as the advertising and promotion indie acts have in place is much less sorted out than someone at the level of Margera.

Read the full Bam Margera case study here and see the kinds of results I can achieve with you.

CASE STUDY:

http://rockpublicity.com/bam-margera-social-media-digital-publicity-case-study/

2. ROCKstar Program

Rock Publicity’s ROCKstar program is what I use to get independent, rising and up-and-coming acts to the next level in their careers. It comprises of working with you closely for 90 days using the same tested methods I’ve used with my clients like The Veronicas, as well as artists signed to almost every major label on the planet like Warner, Interscope and more.

After the initial intensive 90 days, I’ll continue to advise, consult and work with you for a year to boost your musical career to new heights and continue to make sure you’re getting massive publicity on a national or global scale, you have a constant flow of ideas of what to do next, as well as ensuring your online reach, exposure and sales are always where they should be.

In short, you’ll be getting the experience and career-building advice from someone who’s worked with artists worth over $120 million, has contacts in every possible part of the industry (including just about every radio station and news outlet imaginable) and who can take your band or act to a level you probably knew you wanted to be, but didn’t know how to reach.

To find out more about the ROCKstar program, please click below to download the full .pdf file with all the details.

Click here to download

Are you one of our fans on Facebook? If not, check us out at this link.

3. Read More About Our Clients

Although I work with more independent bands than I can name around the world, I always like to direct bands to who my current permanently managed clients are so you can get an idea of some of the massive names in entertainment and music I work with, as well as what I do with them.

While I work with sometimes a half-dozen independent acts every month, my full time clients right now are the following acts. Check out some more about them:

Brandon ‘Bam’ Margera
The Veronicas
Dune Rats

4.Get In Contact

Got all that and interested in having Rock Publicity take you to the next level in your career? Then there’s only one thing left to do and that’s to get in touch.

If you click this link you’ll be taken to the contact page where you’ll find my contact details and we can arrange a discussion about were to go from here and how we can work together. Also, if you have any further questions, comments or are unsure about what to expect, don’t hesitate to drop me an email or call.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Get in contact here.

And regardless of whether it’s Rock Publicity that takes your band to new heights or not, I wish you all the best in your music career.

Want to see some of the results we’ve achieved with people in entertainment? This will help…

Although currently I’m loving working with independent and rising bands because of how challenging and rewarding it is, I have to admit most of my time is still taken up working with big names and well-known stars.

With my current list of permanently-managed clients, none is better known than the star of MTV’s Jackass, Viva La Bam, Bam’s Unholy Union, as well as professional Element skateboarder. The one, the only, Brandon ‘Bam’ Margera.

A lot of people expect that a celebrity of his level would have all their promotion and publicity well sorted out. And in most cases, that’s the truth. While Bam’s online promotion, social media and digital publicity was good when we started with him, we definitely made some huge waves.

Even though Bam is personally worth millions, has marketing and promotional staff from broadcasting networks MTV and TBS at his disposal and has been at the head of his game for over a decade, we were still able to achieve immense results for Margera’s online promotion in a very short time.

As I’m sure you know, one of the major factors in how well any online or digital promotion goes is how many people are seeing what you promote. In simple terms, the more people who see your stuff, the better off you are.

Are you one of our Facebook fans? If not, go like our official page to get all the latest updates.

To show you how effective Rock Publicity is in making sure the maximum number of people possible are seeing any piece of content, message or anything else you’re trying to promote online, we’ll use hard statistics gathered from when we began working on Bam’s social media.

I’m going to use Facebook as an example, as the site has very easily-gathered statistics on how many people are seeing what you post, or what you’re trying to get to people in terms of ‘reach’. And In short, ‘reach’ is how many people were seeing what was posted.

Here’s Bam’s Facebook reach on a weekly basis when we started working with him:

As you can see above, around the middle of December, 2012 (when we started working with Margera), he was reaching around 170,000 people per week via Facebook.

This meant that around 170,000 people on that week received messages about Bam, saw his photos, his updates and anything else he wanted to share with the world. For a star of his level, this figure of 170,000 per week is okay. But can definitely be improved upon.

So we set out optimising his page, implementing some viral promotional strategies and using all the secrets we know to really boost his online exposure.

And only a week later, this is the result we achieved:

One week later, by the third week of December, I’d boosted this to just over 1 million people reached. A massive increase of nearly 500% In seven days.

And what about how things stand today?

Yep, you saw that right…

After only around 90 days working with Margera, his Facebook page alone is now reaching just under 2.7 million people every week. Again, this is 2.7 million people that are receiving his updates, marketing messages and content.

In only 90 days, we took his Facebook reach from around 170,000 people per week, to reaching nearly 2.7 million.

That’s a massive difference…

…An increase of 1,487%

In short, Bam’s name is getting in front of many, many more people and as we know in entertainment, the more people who are seeing you, the more gigs you’ll book, the more endorsements you’ll receive, the more interest you’ll get from the right people and in the end, the more money there is to be made.

Facebook aside, we replicated these results over all of Bam’s social media, from his Instagram, to YouTube channel and his Twitter as well. In total, we estimate that around 3.5 million more people are seeing his content on a weekly basis than when we started with him.

I won’t go on about everything else I achieved for Bam Margera’s online publicity in 90 days in detail, but here are some other highlights:

1. Almost $100,000 in revenue generated via social media alone in under 7 days
   
2. 20 million+ media impressions (the total readership of magazines, blogs, etc we had Bam featured in) during his Australian tour, in only 21 days
   
3. Created one of the fastest growing new YouTube channels in existence, in excess of 10K new subscribers per week
   
4. More than doubled his fan/follower growth rate on all social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
   
5. Four corporate endorsements organised in 10 days, including one from a German luxury automotive manufacturer

…and if I can do that for such a well-established celebrity superstar, imagine what I can do for an act that hasn’t even got any real professional promotion in place.

To find out more about Rock Publicity’s full time management for established acts, or the ROCKstar program for rising, independent or up-and-coming acts, you can get all the information on the services page by clicking here. Or to contact directly check out the contact page here.

Got something to say about the results we achieved with Bam Margera? Speak your mind in the comments section below.

Want to know how you can take your flailing band from zeroes to heroes? This list may help…

You’re sick of playing in tiny pubs, or simply not getting any gigs at all. Your only rehearsal space is an open area no bigger than a prison cell that you share with a two-decade-old washing machine. And right now, maybe you can see a couple of boxes of your band’s unsold merch just sitting on the floor that nobody wants to buy.

Depressing thoughts, huh?

But time and time again, I find that’s what’s happening around me with a lot of music acts. They simply aren’t anywhere near where they want to be. The problem? In some cases they’re just lazy turds, but most of the time it’s simply having absolutely no freaking idea what to do.

In this way, I’m hoping this post will help.

This isn’t in any way going to touch on musical talent because if I’m honest, that’s not my business. Not that I’m condoning you should go ahead with getting your music out there if it sounds in any way like the utter aural horror that was Paris Hilton’s attempt at being a professional muso. I’m not here to talk about what you sound like, or how to fix it if your tracks are anything like a cat shrieking while submerged in a muddy pond.

But I am going to give you a dozen tried-and-tested tips to help your independent or upcoming act gain traction, promote yourself effectively and get your name out into the world like never before.

These are the same basic principles I use when promoting artists worth millions of dollars, signed to some of the biggest labels on the planet. Take some of this to heart and maybe you’ll start getting yourself to where you really want to be in your career.

1. Do Your Research

If you have no idea how to promote yourself, start getting yourself educated. While I’ll be the first person to admit there isn’t what I’d call a shit-ton of information on how to effectively promote an independent band out there, there is a veritable million-ton pile of nutritious mind-fertiliser freely available on the web and in books on how to advertise and market pretty much anything else.

Regardless of what you’re selling (and yes, like it your not when promoting your act you are selling yourself), the rules of how to go about this the right way don’t really change. So start by getting yourself educated on the basics of promotion and advertising.

Some books I’d definitely recommend to you if you want more exposure for your band (or in fact, anything at all), even only on the basis they’ll help you think more creatively and open your brain to a new way of publicising your act, are the ones below. If you look hard enough, I think you may even be able to find a few of these to download for free off the web…of course, completely legally.

I’ve linked you to where you can buy them below if you choose to do so. And no, I don’t earn any commission for referring them to you — these are five books I personally can vouch for that have helped me through my own career.

The Power of Outrageous Marketing by Dr. Joe Vitale
The Art of Money Getting by P.T. Barnum
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

If you get through even one of these books and don’t come up with some amazing idea on how to publicise yourself, I think it’s time to maybe think about pursuing a job cleaning toilets as there’s probably no hope for you at all in the music industry.

2. Be Prepared

Like a priest getting caught with a naked altar boy and no good excuse, there’s nothing worse than being unprepared. So before you start getting yourself out there more, think about the kinds of things you’re going to need, or get asked for at some point in the promotional cycle or further in your career.

Do you have copies of EPs to give to journalists if they ask you for one? Does your band have a place for fans to find out more information about you like a Facebook page, website or Wiki page? Have you got a press release or blurb about your band sorted? Any press shots, media or video to get out into the world? Have you come up with a plan or set of goals of exactly where you want to be in a few months, or a few years? Any unfinished tracks lying around you could complete to help get more of your music out into the world?

If you think you may not be ready to start pushing ahead with your career in music, then chances are you’re not. Prepare yourself first so you can focus on the important stuff without having to constantly delay yourself.

Go like Rock Publicity on Facebook to keep up-to-date with everything we’re doing when it happens, as well as the latest band promotion advice!

3. Be Unique

Think about how many unsigned-yet-talented acts there are in your city alone. Unless you’re banging the Editor of Rolling Stone or have a trust fund that allows you to spend your parent’s money on advertising your new EP launch everywhere you can, it may be hard for you to get noticed above the seething throng of musicians clawing for attention in your city or country.

These days, people want great music but they also want something to talk about. Something to discuss with their friends, that forces conversation or provokes thought, or is mysterious or not fully understood.

Although music shouldn’t be all about gimmicks or showmanship, if you can integrate some of that in with your awesome tracks, you’ll be worlds ahead of everyone else. Think about acts like Deadmau5, Slipknot, Priest, Daft Punk, Rammstein and others have used certain tactics and showmanship to help boost their exposure. If you can take a leaf out of their book, maybe it will help your act out.

4. Network

In this day and age of video games and some seriously shitty Twilight-induced vitamin D deficiencies, the thought of going outside and actually talking to people may frighten you. However, if you want to get ahead, I’m sorry but maybe you’ll have to leave your rehearsal studio (read: parent’s basement) for a little while and make some connections in the real world.

Regardless of what you need help with, or access to, chances are there’s someone around you that you know who can point you in the right direction, or make a connection between you and someone who can help. If not, then you should be figuring out ways of getting access to the people who will be able to help you. If your music is good enough, networking can also help you get noticed by industry people that matter, possibly resulting in offers of management, record deals or anything else along those lines.

For example, are you looking for sponsorship for music equipment? Find people who are already sponsored and ask them how they did it, or how to get in touch with to do the same.

I’ll admit, starting out in this respect is hard if you have absolutely no connections at all, but you’ll find that once you open one door, many more will open soon afterwards. The music industry is a fairly small place and everyone seems to know everyone else. It’s really not that difficult to keep the ball rolling and getting to know more people who can potentially help you out as long as you’re willing to get out there and ask a little.

If however you’re really adamant about not leaving your house, the Internet can be a great source of making contacts as well. There are tons of music forums and similar websites like that around and you’ll generally find people are more than willing to help.

Networking, whether it’s with other bands in your area or those involved with the industry in general, will be one of your greatest tools in achieving massive success in music.

5. Be Active

There’s nothing worse than when I ask some independent act about what they’ve been doing to promote themselves lately and getting a response along the lines of “Not a lot dude. I mean, we did call up the local newspaper to see if they wanted to do a story on us, but I think that was like, you know, around February last year.” If this sounds like you, you seriously need a wake up call.

Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s approaching record labels, recording music, chatting to other bands on your area about opportunities, booking gigs, getting publicity, writing blog posts, creating content or anything along those lines, the more you’re doing something – anything – the easier it’ll be for you to get ahead. And I’m sure it doesn’t take the genetically-engineered love-child of Hawking and Einstein to realise the more you’re doing things, the more people will be aware of you and what you’re all about. Not only that, you’ll be making progress towards a goal, which in this case is elevating your act above and beyond where it is now.

In short, instead of sitting around and listening to The Wall while totally baked and dreaming about what you could be doing, maybe you should be using that time to do anything related to getting your act noticed. Do something, anything!

6. Master Social Media

This one is huge and I can’t talk enough about how big a key social media is in today’s world when it comes to promoting a successful music act. In a lot of cases, providing your band has a great presence on the major social sites, you can completely forego things like a traditional website or blog. Instead, just focus on being able to share content socially with other people online — this is exactly the way I run things with my clients Dune Rats.

At the very least, you should have a Twitter, Facebook page, Instagram and YouTube channel, as well as profiles set up on music discovery sites like Bandcamp, Spotify and Last.fm for people to find your tunes more easily.

But having a presence on these sites isn’t enough, the key is making sure you’re consistently posting interesting and shareable content that people want to see, will come back for again, or will talk about to their friends. And you need to be doing this as regularly as you possibly can, without being spammy. It should only take you a few days to figure out what your online fan base responds to the best and when you know that, you know what they like and can keep on providing similar content to them, or tweaking campaigns to get better results.

Make sure you’re thinking viral content with almost anything you post. If you can master the art of providing things that people share, you’ve pretty much got one of the key elements of social media perfected.

I’ll admit, having a great presence on social media can be time consuming especially at the start when you don’t really know what you’re doing, but once you get the hang of it or have multiple people who can get content up, then it’s really a breeze. The only thing I really need to say more than that is if you’re not active on social media these days, you’re stupider than a pork farmer setting up shop in Saudi Arabia.

And hell, I’m the guy who generated almost $100,000 revenue for Jackass star Bam Margera via social media in under one week, so more than anyone I can vouch for the effectiveness of the medium. While you may not yet be able to rake in 6-figures in less than seven days, you can definitely take advantage of how quickly and easily you can reach people and promote yourself to them.

7. Get Press… Constantly

Getting publicity in local newspapers, music publications, radio and online media outlets should be one of the major focal points of any good band’s promotion schedule, but I never find any band goes after this nearly enough. The key here is to be consistent to the point of being almost overly-promotional.

The major problem I find with any act trying to get publicity is they’re simply not consistent. A band may have gone out and sent a few press releases when they first started out, but then they either got no response or felt it didn’t work, so they gave up and decided not to do it again. Because you know, that shit’s just too hard. Sound anything like you?

While I could go on in detail on every single aspect of getting press for your band (and I will in a future post), for now I want to just share with you what I’ve found to be the keys in any effective generation of publicity. In my experience, there are three main things to master:

One — Make whatever you have to say newsworthy: Nobody wants to read a story that says ‘some band from somewhere just released a new EP.’ So what? If you’re expecting you story to get noticed, make sure you’re putting something in there that people want to read about, that has relevance or is interesting. You want to almost force a journalist who reads it to feel they need to publish your story. Cause controversy, ask questions, pull a huge stunt or have a view on something important and current — these almost always work.

Two — Follow up: A lot of people have this view that you send out your little piece of paper or email that contains your release and you just sit back and wait for responses. Sometimes, this works. More often than not though, it doesn’t. The key here is to follow up with the media you’ve sent it to. After you’ve sent your release, wait maybe a day or two (unless it has immediacy that’s gone within a day) and give each outlet you provided it to with a phone call. Or another email asking if you can chat to them about it, or if they had any questions. I guarantee this extra time spent on following up will increase your chances of getting a story published many times over.

Three — Be consistent: My advice is to send out a press release about your act every single time you can think of something that’s newsworthy to put in one. And if your band is doing a ton of stuff, is very active or you have a great knack for coming up with stories, this shouldn’t be a difficult thing to do. While you may not get a story published every single time, the more you’re trying to get stories published, the more stories you will get published.

8. Seek Endorsements

Regardless of where you are in your career right now, there’s a good chance some company, brand or local business will give you something for free or help you out with cash in exchange for some kind of partnership.

But it’s not only getting free goodies or equipment for your act you should be thinking of here, it’s much more important that you look at the additional promotion you’ll get out of it from whoever decides to partner up with you. As an example, I’m currently in the works of getting my clients The Veronicas endorsed by a premium luxury car brand at home in Australia (can’t mention the brand yet) who will supply things like free personal transport for Lisa & Jess. But aside from that, The Veronicas will also benefit from this brand going out of their way telling people they have them on board in a partnership. This company will invite them to events, tell the media about the partnership, plug them via social media and all that other stuff. In short, despite the freebies being great, it’s really the additional promotion I see as the major benefit here.

While your band may not be yet at the level of asking for several hundred thousand dollars in free vehicles and other benefits, I almost guarantee there would be clothing labels, F&B companies, local businesses, magazines or something along those lines that would be interested. In the end, you’re only hurting yourself if you’re not going out of your way to seek these out.

9. Sell Stuff

Every band should have merch, albums or something else to sell and if you don’t, you’re seriously missing out.

Regardless of how big your band is, you can always supplement your act’s income via other means than simply relying on things like album sales or touring, that can sometimes make a big difference in funding new ventures you want to undertake.

The problem I always come up against with some bands is they don’t even have a few hundred dollars to outlay on getting merchandise printed, though today that’s not really an issue. You can always use sites like Cafepress to sell stuff like shirts that are printed on demand and shipped to your fans whenever they’re bought. You won’t make the same profit margins as if you had cash to but a few hundred shirts prior to selling them, but making some money is better than making no money at all.

You should also be thinking about other things you can get to your fans instead of just boring shirts. Why not guitar picks, coffee mugs or dildos? The sky really is the limit and if you can be a little creative, you may just be able to earn a little more than sticking to the same stuff everyone else is doing.

10. Think Outside The Box

In whatever you do, whether it’s designing an album cover, music video, stage show,  I urge you to think outside the box and do things differently than most others out there are doing. If you can make whatever you do stand out, you’re well on the way to discovering the true secret of promoting your act.

Let’s say you’re about to do a launch show for your latest album. Why not play the entire show wrapped in cling-wrap and tell anyone who turns up dressed the same will get a free copy of the record you’re launching? Instead of just designing a new album cover, ask your fans to do it for you, promote it via social media and select a winning design. Make a habit of your band setting up a random, totally-unannounced gig once a week in your home town in a hugely visible location.

Whatever you do — regardless of what it is — you should be going about it with the mindset of how you can make it more interesting or as far removed from the ‘norm’ as you possibly can. Think about how you can do it better, or make it more noticeable.

11. Have Ambition

I wrote about this in a blog post only a few days ago. I’m a massive believer in the fact that to a certain extent, you’ll always seem to get the results you’re looking for, or at the very least generate and come up with ideas at the level of the playing field you’re trying to compete in. And by this I mean if you’re only trying to book yourself gigs in local venues, chances are that’s all your brain will come up with solutions for.

If you want to grow your act and succeed on a much higher level, you need to start acting in a way that fits in with that. If you want to play a national tour, then stop booking small-town gigs in the hope someone will just come along and offer you something better. Most of the time they won’t and it’s up to you to get yourself out there and do this for yourself.

This ambition and elevated thinking should be applied in absolutely everything you do, from the press you’re trying to generate, to booking shows, to the merchandise you’re creating. You should always be thinking at the level you want to be at, instead of continually trying to keep the ball rolling where you are right now.

Want your band to get big? Think big, then act big.

12. Get Advice

Regardless of whether you live in Manhattan or Maryborough, there will be bands in your local area who have achieved some level of success above where you are now and it never hurts to ask them how they achieved it.

Time and time again I’ve found that people are almost always more than willing to help you out, especially when they’re teaching people something in their area of expertise. This ties in heavily with the section on networking, but I find even when people know someone who may be able to help them out, a lot of times the questions are never asked.

Asking someone for advice doesn’t cost you anything except a couple of seconds and if they can’t or won’t help you, I guarantee they’re not the only person in the world who knows the answers to the questions you want. Advice is free and if you’re not asking for it if you know you can get it somewhere, you’re only hurting yourself.

I remember early on in my marketing career I wanted advice on how to get started, or how to really get ahead, so I approached a few well-known multi-millionaires in my field for advice. Every single one of them offered advice and said they’d be happy to meet up with me to have a chat — but I ended up living with one of them for six months and learning everything he knew for free just because I asked for a little help.

Truly, it never hurts to ask.

13. Work With Professionals

Regardless of where you are in your career, chances are there are professionals around you who can give you pointers, tips and advice, or who you can hire to teach you things or hold your hand in getting you to the next level in your career.This could be a manager, publicist, booking agent or whatever, but eventually if you’re really wanting to achieve any kind of noticeable success with your act, you’re going to need the services of some, or all of these people.

If you’re talented enough, or your music catches the ear of the right people, you might get offers of people working with you for free, for some trade-off down the line or once you succeed with their help. But in a lot of cases, this won’t just happen on its own — you’ll have to be persistent in getting yourself out there, or writing something that doesn’t sound like a Justin Bieber CD being destroyed in a blender.

Eventually, you may be in the position to hire professionals if you have the funds. But unless you’re great at saving, can get a loan, or are adept at mooching off your parents, this may not be a viable option until you achieve some level of commercial success from touring or album sales. To do that, you will have to put the work in, based on everything I’ve mentioned in this post.

My advice is when there comes a time you get offers to help from successful professionals in the industry like managers or publicists, or can afford their services, you need to do so. Too many times I see people holding back on this when it could mean the difference between reaching a new height in their career or staying where they are.

And remember, if your band ever needs more professional help, advice, training or management in your music career, you can always feel free to get in contact with me here and there may be a way for us to work together.

Got something to say about these tips or advice? Have something to add? Leave it in the comments section below!

They say you only get what you focus on. I find this to be more than true when it comes to promoting and publicising bands…

I’m lucky enough to work with some major artists. ARIA-winning artists The Veronicas, as an example.

While I’ve worked with just acts ranging from independent acts just starting out, all the way up to celebrities worth personally over $100 million, there’s one thing I’ve always found to be a deciding factor in success.

And it’s all about where you decide to aim.

If you had parents anything like mine, chances are you may have grown up hearing something along the lines of “You can be whatever you want to be in life.” Although maybe that’s just what 60′s hippie parents with dreadlocks who grew up listening to Marley and Zappa say to their kids…

If not from your parents, you’ve probably heard the likes of “Shoot for the stars”, “Aim high”, or to quote billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump, “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”

What the hell does this have to do with your band or act anyway? Well, let me explain.

Chances are, your band may want to be bigger than you are right now. That’s great — it’s only through ambition and having goals we really succeed as human beings. Having dreams and aspirations of something more are good for the soul, as well as your drive to achieve more than you have.

But let me ask you this: When was the last time you actually did something at the level of where you want to be, instead of where you are now?

Where most bands fail at generating a ton of success is simply because they keep doing stuff that matches up with where they are right now. For example, if your band is only playing local gigs in your home town, you might still be only approaching local newspapers and media to run stories on you.

Sound about right?

Are you following us on Twitter? Check out Rock Publicity’s official Twitter profile here!

Elevating your band to the next level, or to ultimately where you want to be, means not only elevating your thinking, but also your actions. My experience shows me you always tend to achieve the results to set out to get and if you’re only setting out to receive local media coverage and a few small gigs, chances are you won’t get much more than that.

Don’t believe me? Well, take me as an example.

At 28, I’m considered one of the world-leaders in social media. I made my first $1 million in revenue by 24, had an agency with offices in four countries by 25, worked with some of the biggest companies in the world including governments of over a dozen countries and now I get to travel the world working with the rich and famous on their promotion and publicity.

I’m not trying to brag, but do you think I’d have achieved any of that if I set my sights low and only did small stuff?

Do you think my story at 28 would be different than it is now if I’d just decided to work with small, local businesses? Damn right it would be.

From the get-go, I make the decision of what I wanted to have and I started to look for opportunities that would help me make that happen. Constantly in my mind was the idea I wanted to be a leader in my field and one of the best in the world at what I did and to do that, I didn’t just do small stuff. I elevated my thinking and my actions to a level far above where I was at the time.

I approached bigger companies than I ever dreamed of working with. I spoke to some of the biggest magazines and radio stations on the planet, instead of just local stuff in my own town. In everything I did, my thoughts and actions were on a big scale — I didn’t just match them up with where I was at the time.

Did it work? Well, my first ever published story was in the L.A. Times, a publication that’s read by over 1.5 million people ever single day. Not bad for someone who had never even been in a local newspaper before.

And to a massive degree, this same kind of thinking and acting is big in determining success in music.

If your band is constantly focusing on getting small-time gigs at shitty local venues, no wonder that’s all you seem to achieve. I’m not saying you may not need to do these things in order to earn some cash and get your name out there initially, but while you’re doing that you should always be thinking about the big picture, or the next step after the one you’re at now.

If one day you want to see yourself playing on a stage with Lady Gaga supporting you, then constantly keep that as your focus, or your point of aim. Even if you are unsigned and hardly getting any gigs. And start doing things that may actually get you there, like generating massive publicity on a national or global scale, instead of just relying on local newspapers that only a few hundred people read.

Think big then act big. You never know where it may lead you, but I can guarantee it’ll be somewhere much higher than where you are right now.

Got a question or comment? Leave it the comments section below!

Bam’s bringing his entertaining mayhem around the world again. Britain and the rest of Europe, this time it’s your turn…

After selling out the Australian tour as well as every single show on the current Canada and United States tour, the mayhem that is Bam Margera’s Fuckface Unstoppable is coming to the UK and mainland Europe!

Kicking off on the 9th of July in Vienna, Austria then onto Bristol, England, where Bam will be bringing members of legendary bands Guttermouth and CKY with him in order to make the shows as epic as fans have come to expect from the group.

But a European tour wouldn’t be complete without mainland dates;  to start with, we’ll tell you about the biggest date on the entire tour.

Headlining with massive love-metal band HIM, Bam as Fuckface Unstoppable will be attending Finland’s QSTOCK festival that takes place on the 26th and 27th of July. With an estimated attendance of almost 30,000 people, this will be an epic event that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who has the opportunity to go.

On top of this, there will be two additional shows in Tampere and Helsinki in Finland, on top of the opening show in Vienna, Austria.

The tour will feature the group’s unique blend of rocking unique tracks and covers of bands like Turbonegro and Clutch, with on-stage antics and stunts that could only be expected of the one-and-only Bam Margera and crew.

Want to experience the unique act that is Fuckface Unstoppable? Then you need to get tickets to one of the following shows. Current dates are as follows, with more to be added later:

TUESDAY, JULY 9: Ottakringer Brauerie. Vienna, AUSTRIA
FRIDAY, JULY 12: O2 Academy. Bristol UK
SATURDAY, JULY 13: Underworld Camden. London. UK — SOLD OUT!
SUNDAY, JULY 14: Old Fire Station. Bournemouth UK
MONDAY, JULY 15: O2 Academy2. Birmingham UK
TUESDAY, JULY 16: O2 Academy2. Liverpool UK
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17: O2 Academy. Newcastle UK
THURSDAY, JULY 18: ABC Academy. Glasgow, Scotland UK
SATURDAY, JULY 20: O2 Academy. Leeds, UK
SUNDAY, JULY 21: O2 Academy. Oxford, UK
MONDAY, JULY 22: The Zombie Hut. Corby, UK — SOLD OUT!
TUESDAY, JULY 23: Underworld Camden. London UK — 2ND SHOW!
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24: The Port House. Reykjavik ICELAND
FRIDAY, JULY 26: Klubi. Tampere, FINLAND
SATURDAY, JULY 27: QSTOCK Festival. FINLAND
TUESDAY, JULY 30: Klubben, Stockholm. SWEDEN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31: Pustervik, Gotherburg. SWEDEN
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1: Pumpehuset/Livenation, Copenhagen. DENMARK
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2: Virgin Oil Co. Helsinki, FINLAND
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3: Rockefeller. Oslo, NORWAY

Tickets for shows are available at the following links. All UK dates dates available to purchase tickets now, with QSTOCK tickets going on sales on the 24th of April.

UK LONDON SHOWS: http://bit.ly/Xgr282
UK REGIONAL SHOWS: http://bit.ly/10DUeVn
UK CORBY SHOW: http://bit.ly/ZAgvkO
VIENNA, AUSTRIA SHOW: http://bit.ly/ZgEPww
TAMPERE & HELSINKI, FINLAND SHOWS: http://bit.ly/17gwFos
SWEDEN SHOWS: http://bit.ly/YEdfYx
DENMARK SHOW: http://bit.ly/18t3vR2
ICELAND SHOW: http://bit.ly/16g77cF
NORWAY SHOW: http://bit.ly/10Xby3Q
QSTOCK FESTIVAL FINLAND: http://bit.ly/10e5y8f

Don’t delay — the London show almost sold out in the first 12 hours so if there are still tickets left to any of the gigs, we guarantee there won’t be soon. So don’t say we didn’t warn you if you miss out!

To keep updated with the tour, keep an eye out here on the Rock Publicity blog, or at all of Bam’s social media links below:

BAM MARGERA
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Website | Google+ | App.net | Tumblr

JESS MARGERA
Facebook | Instagram

MATTY J
Facebook | Twitter

BRANDON NOVAK
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

ALEX FLAMSTEED
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

ROCK PUBLICITY/LEON HILL
Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Instagram

Some may say that begging is begging, regardless of how you look at it. Me, I have a slightly different view…

Whenever I think of fundraisers, some old-timey tune begins playing in my brain cage and I’m taken back to lamington and cake drives when I was a primary schooler.

You know, rosie-cheeked nannies and mothers asking for gold-coin donations in order to help a school raise money so that their little Johnny or Jane can have more comfortable ergonomic and eco-friendly chairs in their classrooms.

And since my American-made spellchecker is telling me that the word ‘lamington’ isn’t actually a word and my blog is read by a ton of Americans, let me explain that a lamington is a square lump of almost tasteless sponge cake covered in the slimmest coating of chocolate icing and then rolled in shredded coconut as if it’s going out of fashion. And it’s eaten almost exclusively by Australians.

Why the hell am I going on about this?

Anyway, all cake-based products aside, these are the things I think about when fundraising comes to mind and if I’m honest, they’re not the kind of things that inspire feelings of grandeur, success or prosperity.

I think this is exactly why most bands, artists and celebrities stay away from them.

For most people in the public eye, the thought of asking their fans for money for something, unless it’s in exchange for a concert ticket, t-shirt or album, seems almost like asking the antichrist if he’d like to babysit your newborn for a few hours. There’s this mentality it’s just something you don’t do, because it comes across as desperate, cheap or like you’re begging.

If this is the way you think about fundraising, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. More wrong than when an Austrian painter with silly upper-lip fur thought he could win a global war.

Regardless of whether your name is Bieber or Bezukladnikov, if you have some kind of fan base because of what you do as a performer or entertainer, fundraisers are something you should be taking advantage of regularly if you want to boost your exposure or bank balance.

Want to follow us on Twitter? Click here to go do it. Go on, DO IT!

The basis of any fundraiser is easy; simply asking your fanbase for money so you can do something, but that’s where most people fall flat. A band will post something on their Facebook wall like “Hey guys, we need money to make our new album — please help!” and then leave it at that. Then they go crying to their parents because it didn’t work.

No wonder.

Here’s how I believe you should see a fundraiser: A way to generate capital in order to take your career to the next level, generate exposure, fund a project and earn money.

But before you start any fundraiser, you need to have these things sorted out:

1. A Goal

You need to formulate the main goal of whatever your fundraiser will be. Whether it’s simply to earn extra cash, to produce a TV series, movie or album, or because you want to generate a ton of exposure, it doesn’t matter. First of all, your aims and goals, meaning what you ultimately want to get out of it needs to be clearer than the crisp waters of an Icelandic fjord. It’ll make the entire process so much easier.

2. What You’ll Give Back

In some cases, your fans will just give you money ‘because’ and for no other reason. However to make a fundraiser really succeed, you need to give something back to your fans in order to boost the amount of money you raise, as well as how much word spreads of the campaign. You should be rewarding your fans for them helping you out to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. You can base certain rewards on certain donations amounts, for example if someone donates $25 or more, you’ll mail them a signed photograph. $100 or more gets them a signed vinyl album.

But it doesn’t just have to be

3. A Kicker

This is what will make your fundraiser stand out from the rest. You need to come up with something about it that sets it apart from every other fundraiser you’ve ever seen or heard about. Are you looking to fund a one-off show in a location you’ve never played? Instead of some shitty town, why not play a show on a floating platform in the middle of a river in your hometown and film it for YouTube? Instead of raising money to record your new album, why don’t you consider telling your fans that if you hit your goal, you’ll record the entire album naked and stream it live on the Internet for everyone to see?

You need to think out of the box. You need be totally outrageous in whatever you decide to do, otherwise your fundraiser will likely fall flat before it’s even started.

4. A Way To Promote It

Having a fundraiser is useless if you have no way to tell people about it. Most bands, artists and celebrities these days have a Facebook page, Twitter and all that stuff, but don’t think you have to stop at that. Why not paint your band in body glitter and go roaming the streets of your nearest capital city asking for donations? General real-world and online press from the media can also be managed, but you’ll need to come up with a great kicker or story if you’re going to get the best results from that promo avenue.

Got all that?

Now let’s get onto why you should be doing this.

Obviously, money is a big one, but I’m going to leave that until last.

The first thing you should consider is what an amazing promotional tool a fundraiser can be in terms of spreading your influence and getting your name out in the press.

For example, I’m currently working on a fundraiser that will be launched through Kickstarter for the band Dune Rats — one of my clients — in order to cover expenses in the production of a DVD the guys want to make. Now while I can’t specifically speak right now on exactly what the DVD will focus on until the campaign is launched, what it will revolve around is one of the most downright unique, funny and out-there things I’ve ever heard. Once we announce it, it will get the attention of the media based on the totally outrageous thing they want to film in the DVD.

Regardless of whether the DVD that’s produced as a result of the fundraiser actually makes any money, their fundraiser is going to generate a ton of attention to their band from people that would have otherwise never heard of them, because the media will want to cover it.

Providing you come up with a way to make your fundraiser unique (like asking your fans to fund you to fly to Tibet in order to hang 20KG weights from your wedding veg with Buddhist monks so you can put it on YouTube), then people will share it. People will tell their friends and family about it, getting your name out there more.

What I’m getting at is that like a good bit of press, fundraising doesn’t just have to be thing thing that struggling bands use when they can’t pay their rent, or former Grammy winners use to sell their bodies for cash after they’ve squandered their millions on too much of that Colombian powder.

As the saying goes, ‘money isn’t everything’. And providing you use a little bit of that spongy grey matter in your head, you can get a ton of additional exposure for your act if you think creatively.

 – STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO OF THIS POST TOMORROW! –

Liked the rambling and gibberish in this post or have something to add? Post in the comments below!

Sometimes we experience things we’ll never forget. But if you’re like me, you’ll forget most of it anyway…

I remember being 6 years old and throwing knives at my brother.

I don’t know whether it’s because aliens once stole my thoughts when I was asleep because they were trying to discover the formula for a perfect roast duck sandwich that I perfected around 2007, but ever since a young age my memory hasn’t been exactly perfect. In fact, I barely remember a large chunk of my childhood no matter how many times someone tries to remind me of things that happened during my young life.

But I do remember throwing knives at my brother.

When we were kids, The Pest (the name I attached to my younger brother Jeremy) and I lived with our Mum in an old house in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was too far to walk regardless of how bored and determined you were and if you wanted to talk to someone that didn’t live in the same house as you, your only option was something fat and lumbering that said ‘moo’. So as you can imagine, we had a lot of free time and there was a ton of open space.

As any parent knows, the inner workings of the mind of a child is like a cage of monkeys on speed that have access to a never ending supply of feces; eventually, the primates are going to get restless and decide that covering each other in warm excrement is a good idea.

While The Pest and I fortunately never resorted to hurling our waste at each other, we did come up with a game that was even more dangerous.

Like homeless people in an uncovered landfill, we’d scour the house for every knife we could find. Butter knives, cleavers, angry weasels clutching shards of glass — if it was sharp and could be held, we’d take it.

Want all our latest updates as they happen? Follow Rock Publicity on Twitter!

When we were satisfied with our haul, we’d head out into one of the many open bovine-filled paddocks that surrounded the house and standing still, we’d start throwing pointy things in the air as high as we could. And we’d stand perfectly still to see where they’d come down.

I think you can see, neither of us were destined to become brain surgeons.

Eventually, we’d start an argument because one of us didn’t like the way the other inhaled their previous breath or something super intelligent like that and like all brothers, started to vent our anger on each other. Of course because we had knives, eventually we’d start throwing them at each other.

…I remember attempting to kill my brother by impaling him

I know I exaggerate sometimes but believe me on this. We’d have some fun, get into an argument, then literally start throwing knives at each other.

I’ve seen some amusing sights in my life but I can’t imagine I’d laugh harder than anything if I could go back and see 6-year-old me and 5-year-old Pest hurling blades at each other. I’d be in hysterics.

This is a long winded way of going about it, but the reason I’m telling you this is that despite how horrifically-poor my memories of my childhood are, I remember attempting to kill my brother by impaling him as vividly as if it had happened 30 seconds ago.

And this is exactly how I feel when I think about Glenn shitting his pants in a pub in Cairns around a month ago while we were on tour.

As most of you know, I recently toured the East Coast of Australia with Bam Margera as his tour publicist at the time, a job that would lead me to permanently managing his social media and a ton of his other press.

During that tour I saw, heard and experienced a ton of stuff that most people would call life changing, or about as far-from-normal as being violated in the eardrum by a small field mouse named Steve. Things that would stick with most people for life.

Things like a naked Novak and Alex jumping off a ferry in front of a hundred people in the Magnetic Island Harbour. Taking Bam Margera around Melbourne on the first night I ever met him because he got (very publicly) kicked out of a hotel by a half-dozen police. Or maybe it was the night I quit the tour in the middle of the biggest single show on the bill.

But for some strange reason, I know that when the spectre of lost memories comes and cleans out the dusty vault of my mind as I age, if there’s only one memory that stays with me from that entire tour I know exactly what it will be.

That sheer look of incredulous terror on a man’s face the moment he realised he shat his pants in the middle of a crowded pub.

Glenn, thanks for the memory.

Got a comment? Let me know below!

Those numbers are bigger than America’s budget deficit! Check out how we seriously boosted Bam’s Facebook reach…

There’s no doubt Bam Margera is a big name. Regardless of whether you’re familiar with everything he’s done or not, the truth is he’s influenced almost an entire generation with his antics, humour and personality.

But like a lot of celebrity profiles online these days, it was not nearly optimised well enough, nor was it reaching enough people. So once we got our sticky fingers on it, we went to town putting it in front of as many people as we possibly could.

Here are the facts when we initially got hold of Bam’s Facebook page:

REACH: ~160,000 per week
PAGE VIEWS: ~9,000 per week
VIRAL REACH: ~70,000 per week

In comparison with where they stand today, only just over 60 days later:

REACH: ~1.4 million per week
PAGE VIEWS: ~40,000 per week
VIRAL REACH:  ~293,000 per week

That’s an increase of around 775% in Facebook reach, 344% increase in page views and 318% increase in viral reach. All in just over two months.

So, did we put on our ceremonial blue poncho, chant the lyrics to Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway backwards, while mentally saying prayers to our pagan lords in the hope that his reach would increase? Well no, but that would be a much more interesting turn of events.

In short, here’s what we did to take Margera’s reach from mediocre, to massive:

1. Optimisation

While simple, the first step in boosting the reach to any celebrity or artist’s Facebook page is simple optimising.

To start with, his profile picture was still promoting a DVD of his that hadn’t been changed since 2009. That’s right, it hadn’t been changed since 2009 and this was in December of 2012. Now look, I know something like this is relevant, but for the sake of Tom Cruise, no profile picture change in over 3 years? And his header image was almost the same, still appearing as the same one that had been first uploaded in April, 2012.

This isn’t rocket science, but online communities want to believe that the pages they’re liking are active and being used. Bam’s 1.6M+ fans all liked his page because they wanted to be updated on what he’s doing, what’s going on with his life and his new ventures. Even if it’s only for appearances sake, you need to keep your page looking fresh to your fans as it increases how frequently they interact.

Selecting header and profile images should be done on the basis of their attractiveness and quality above anything. High-res photos that really express who the celebrity in question is increase community growth, as well as they give the page a professional and quality appearance. On top of this, regularly changing header images and profile pictures gives your community something else to comment on, like and share. While there’s no set rule to how often, I recommend around once per month is a good idea based on my experiences.

Are you following Rock Publicity on Twitter? Click here to go do it now for all our tasty updates as they happen!

Next, we set to work on making sure the layout and what was presented was as it should be. Another downfall of Bam’s page was it looked disorganised because of a few totally unused and non-updated tabs showing in prominent real-estate space at the top of his page. To boost his other social media growth, as well as to give the page a cleaner and friendlier look, we removed a few tabs and replaced them with clean-looking ones to direct people to his Instagram and YouTube channels.

In the end, these small tweaks led to something that was much more presentable for Margera and you can see the results right here on his Facebook page.

2. Content Updates

You hear the term ‘content is king’ thrown around a lot when it comes to social media. But in the case of boosting a celebrity’s online reach, they’re about as important as

To start with, before we got hold of Bam’s Facebook page, it was being updated with a new post on average once every four to five days. And generally what was being posted was only a poster here and there promoting one of Margera’s live shows.

To start with, one post every few days isn’t nearly enough. Secondly, although Facebook pages are generally promotional tools, communities don’t just want to see you pushing your shows, products or stuff like that all the time. It’s boring and comes across as spammy, or commercial. And thirdly, when based on celebrity pages, communities want to see what’s going on in the lives of celebs in general and that means photos, videos and status updates just about what that person or group is doing. In short, none of this was being done on Margera’s page.

To start with, we began by posting a new update per day, which was generally a photo his Facebook community hadn’t seen yet, most of which we pulled from Margera’s Twitter. This allowed us to firstly get some content on the page to keep it fresh, but also it gave us an idea of what his fans responded to better, shared the most and commented on more frequently.

Once we knew what worked the best and the best times to post for engagement (which is extremely important as well) we set to posting content that worked, at times we knew people would respond the most.

3. Engaging The Community

I hate the word engagement. It’s the kind of word boring business dudes in grey suits who drive silver Lexus’ to their grey, drab board meetings use to make their Powerpoint presentations sound more interesting. However, it’s probably the best word to use in this situation so I’ll stop with my ranting for now.

One of the major things we tried to do was to ensure that there were constant ways of Margera’s community interacting with him. Things like asking questions, ensuring there was a ton of content being posted constantly and everything else along those lines. Asking questions works a dream because as you know, when a person answers in a comment, it shows up in their activity for all their friends to see, which further spreads the word of a Facebook page.

Another great way to engage is ask your community for advice, what they’d like to see from a celebrity, what they thought of a show, run a competition, give away things, ask them to tag in photos and anything else you can think of. As with Bam’s page, the more ways you can encourage people to interact with you in any way, the more word will spread around.

4. Calls To Action

In case you don’t already know, a call to action is simply asking your community to do things for you.

The problem with a ton of social media is that people post content like photos and just expect that their fan base will share, like and comment on it on their own. Sure, a percentage will of their own accord, but people can sometimes be like a group of mentally-inept zombie sheep and need to be told what to do. In other words, don’t be shy to ask people to take whatever action you want them to.

While we didn’t do it on every single photo or video we posted to Bam’s Facebook wall, every now and then we said things like ‘Share it with everyone!’ or ‘Tell your friends!” in the comment on what we posted. When we did this, we saw share rates increase sometimes by 300%, meaning more people were seeing Bam’s content as they were sharing it to their own Facebook walls.

We don’t recommend you do this with every single thing you post as it can end up looking forceful and spammy, however one out of every three or four pieces of content you post is perfectly acceptable and your community won’t mind at all.

***

All-in-all, we’re generally happy with what’s been achieved so far and I can’t wait to see the upward swing in a few months to a year. The next steps to come will be monetising the page with sales and to generate additional revenue, which I’m sure I’ll talk about in a later post.

For now anyway, if you ever find yourself managing the page of a professional skateboarder-turned-Jackass-star, you’ll know exactly what you need to do!

Liked what you read? Have anything to add? Let me know in the comment section below.

I recently stayed at Bam Margera’s place in West Chester. Here are some photos from my time there…

As most of your probably know, I recently spent a few days in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The town pretty much famous for one thing and one thing only: Mr. Brandon ‘Bam’ Margera.

The point of my stay was to get some work done with Bam, as I’m his new online and social media publicist. You know, boring things like web series ideas, promotional strategies and getting content off him. However, due to a stolen credit card and a couple of useless human beings, Bam ended up not getting home until a few days after I arrived.

The result of this was me staying in his house alone for a a few nights. And when I say alone, I mean me and his six cats kind of alone. Nobody else at all.

If you’ve ever watched any of his MTV series like Viva La Bam, you’ll know that his house is a playground for childish adults. From the plethora or exotic cars in the driveway, to the two personal skateparks and the indoor rope swing, there isn’t much else you could really want in life.

Are you following Rock Publicity on Twitter? No? Go follow us now!

The strange thing is, it took me about three days to even think about taking photos of the rad-palace, I think mostly due to how awestruck I was by the awesomeness of everything. However in the end, of course I took a ton of shots of the house I’d seen dozens of times before on TV, but that I never dreamed I’d actually visit.

And as I’m sure I’m going to get asked at some point, all photos were taken on a Canon 550D camera with either a 18-55mm or 50mm lens. So yeah…there you go!

Below you’ll see some of my favourites:

I was recently shown around L.A. on my first trip to the United States by the two most awesome sisters I know…

Although I’m sitting at LAX right now ready to go back home to Brisbane, on my way here I was lucky enough to hang out with ARIA award-winners and all-round amazing humans The Veronicas, who gave me a tour of the City of Angels in the few days I was there.

I immediately loved Los Angeles. From the abundance of rad stores, to the amazing food and cool people, I was never really disappointed. Well, except for whenever I wanted a coffee, which I quickly figured out Americans are no good at making.

By far my favourite spot in LA was Venice Beach, for a ton of reasons. Rad hippie stores, rad people and probably the only great coffee I had while in the United States! But I think what topped it all was the beach itself and watching the sun set over it. This may not sound like a huge deal, but it was probably only the 4th time I’ve ever seen the sun set over water. So for me at least, it was epic.

Anyway, with such an amazing backdrop, of course I had to snap a couple of shots of Lisa & Jess. Here are a couple that I’m particularly happy with!

Want to keep updated with all the freshest Rock Publicity info? Follow our official Twitter now!