SongAmpr Launches Song Promotion Platform With Free Premium Memberships For Hypebot Readers
SongAmpr officially launched today offering musicians a platform for releasing and promoting music with SongPages. The idea is to maximize the impact of each single and to build an ongoing relationship with one's fans one song at a time. SongAmpr provides a variety of related tools and options for monetization and fan outreach including merch sales, subscriptions and fan clubs. I talked with founder Bryan Joseph, who also founded and ran PowerChord Academy, about his new project.
Back in May I wrote about the idea of launching your own song of the month club building on a post by Chris Robley.
It turns out that Bryan Joseph was already creating a platform that would allow musicians to do just that and a whole lot more. Today SongAmpr officially launched as a platform for promoting one single at a time.
Joseph explained to me that shifts in music releasing and listening, such as the waning strength of the album, had made singles releases a key event for connecting with and exciting fans. He pointed to Alex Day as one example of an artist focused on singles releases. So the core idea was to create a platform to support that process.
Bryan Joseph was the Founder and President of PowerChord Academy which introduced the rock and roll summer camp. He later sold the company in 2011 and turned to building SongAmpr.
Joseph says many of his ideas are based on his own music experiences and he set out to create the software that he wanted to use. In fact he held back releasing music for his new band, The Rebel Electrics, until he could launch it through SongAmpr.
SongAmpr is a free service with a premium plan at $3 a month. You get quite a bit for free with SongAmpr taking 15% of revenue generated on the platform.
The features include:
Dedicated song pages
Fan clubs
Subscription services
Merch items
And a number of integrations with other services that allow you to do such things as connect to social media properties and MailChimp and to even add your Tumblr blog to your SongAmpr account.
It's a lot to take in but the core idea is to focus on releasing singles as full events in and of themselves:
"Release your songs 1 at a time and maximize the value you get from each song. Don’t waste your songs. Release singles, continuously engage your audience, sell subscriptions, build your tribe, monetize each song, acquire new fans, and maximize the value each song delivers to you — all on the same page."
That approach led to some interesting ideas such as the option to offer a song-specific merch item with each release. SongAmpr is set up to let you customize a variety of merch items such as t-shirts which are sold directly to customers and fulfilled via a print-on-demand service.
There's a lot packed into SongAmpr. I think it's a powerful idea in that it connects many different services and features together organized around the idea of SongPages and singles releases.
One problem that faces any such platform is that musicians are suddenly confronted with a new place to send their fans. In addition, SongAmpr relies on third party players, such as YouTube and SoundCloud, to provide the audio or video for each SongPage.
Though SongAmpr does sell individually uploaded tracks, they currently don't have a player of their own. While that is certainly a challenge, providing an embeddable player would support the logic of the site and give musicians additional incentive to use SongAmpr as opposed to organizing their release campaigns around YouTube or SoundCloud.
Nevertheless SongAmpr is an interesting service that is well worth checking out.
In addition to the free option, Hypebot readers can use the discount code "hypebot" when you sign up for a premium account. Be sure to sign up for the Pro option rather than the free option when so doing.
More:
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is relaunching All World Dance. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Neat.. now musicians can easily promote their songs with SongAmpr..
Hey Clyde,
Thanks for the post. I like how SongAmpr relies on integrating third-party platforms like SoundCloud and Youtube to make musicians feel more comfortable with using the site.
As multiple technology platforms compete for the attention of up and coming musicians, the ability to make the sign up and creation process as easy as possible hinges on these third party integrations: SoundCloud/Youtube for Sound, Tumblr for blogging, Twitter/Instagram for fan interaction, etc.
Best,
Ali