Artist Managing and Branding: The Need for .MUSIC

As I began this journey of thinking I wanted to be an artist manager, I had no idea of all the aspects that I needed to learn about in order to be the best manager/coach/promoter that I could be. So I started reaching out to some people who I knew could point me in the right direction. One of the resources I found was a great website that offers a book on artist management. It is aptly called Artist Management Resource. Did you know that there are 6 types of managers in the music business? They include: The Music or Personal Manager, The Business Manager, The Road Manager, The Tour Manager, The Production Manager, and The Technical Manager. These roles are all described on the artistmanagementresource.com website, so for more information, CLICK HERE. They also have great resources for sale, of which I plan on purchasing as I begin my own career in this wonderful business of artist management and artist development.

As a manager for any artist, one of the things I consider to be most important is branding. In this day and age of digital music, it has become critical for any artist to have an online presence. I recently read a great article by Constantine Roussos that addresses the need for a .MUSIC domain name for the music industry. He makes a very compelling argument that a .COM extension simply isn’t sufficient enough for artist branding anymore. For today’s artists, having an Internet presence is absolutely crucial, so Roussos makes a great case that a .MUSIC extension is the perfect way for any artist in the music industry to accomplish this goal. The hard truth is, no matter how talented an artist may be, if they don’t have effective branding, they will have a very difficult time connecting with the people they want to hear their music - their fans. One of the ways to accomplish this branding effectively will be the use of the .MUSIC extension. This gives a very clear message as to what an artist’s website is all about. Roussos gives a great example that I will illustrate here: If I were an artist who wanted to be found online, would it make more sense for my web address to be amydawn.com or amydawn.music? Obviously, the amydawn.music tells the person searching me that my website is about MUSIC without even clicking on the link. I fully support this initiative, as I think it will provide a great resource for the branding process of any artist. If you want to get behind the initiative as well, CLICK HERE. I think this initiative will be an incredibly simple way to unite the music industry and help all artists connect with their fans more effectively, as well as help with copyright/trademark issues that are only getting more complicated as the digital age progresses. After all, anything that helps get the music to the masses is something that all of us in the music industry should support, right?

This issue is only one aspect that is covered on Roussos's website. I highly recommend Roussos's blog. It's full of great articles on the every aspect of the music industry from Artist/Band to Website Strategy and everything in between. If you visit there, be prepared to learn!