This past year at Volume 11 we highlighted a different article every month through our “Blog Post of the Month” column.

The featured blogs had a great mix of advice ranging from how to land a record contract and a festival gig to John Mayer’s tips on avoiding social media pitfalls to how digital streaming is affecting today’s music industry.

Here are my favorite Blog Posts of the Month from 2011:

February Post of the Month: The Top 7 Things Independent Artists Do Wrong

I picked this article to help everyone kick off 2011, and I think now is a great time to go back to it.  Did you fix these problems this year? If not, it’s time to write some of them into your 2012 resolutions!

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Since its the holiday season, I chose a holiday themed blog to share with you for November’s blog post of the month.

In “5 Ways to Make the Most of the Holidays“, musician Cheryl B. Engelhardt gives advice for taking advantage of holidays to do some positive things for your career.

It is telling that Engelhardt starts out by pointing out how much work she is putting in the rest of the year, and that her advice is based on the assumption that you are working hard on your music career, year round.

She describes her own efforts:  ”I’m never not working. I’m either plugging my next show, looking for the next film placement, writing a song, scheduling a band rehearsal, calling booking companies, or, at the very least, thinking about one of these things.”  So before you move to steps 1-5 of her holiday advice, make sure you are starting with the same strong foundation.

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For September’s Blog Post of the Month, I chose “20 Easy Ways to Have FUN and Get More Fans!” by Chris Seth Jackson.

I love this blog because it is about having fun while getting work done, and who doesn’t love that? According to Jackson, “The atmosphere you build around your music can be just as compelling as your music,” so by finding ways to have fun with both current and prospective fans, you are increasing you opportunities to connect beyond what you could do with music alone.

I love suggestion #1 – Pictures with fans

“After your show, take pictures with everybody at the show. Let them know those pictures will be up on your site the next day. If you use Facebook, make sure to allow tagging so they can tag themselves and friends.”

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For July’s Blog Post of the Month, I chose Berklee Blog’s coverage of its John Mayer 2011 Clinic – “Manage the Temptation to Publish Yourself.”

This blog focuses on how to be the best artist you can be, and explores a lot of the distractions that might be keeping you from improving.

The blog focuses on Mayer’s advice regarding two areas that inhibit artists- (1) allowing social media to get in the way of making music and (2) allowing myths and negative mindsets to influence your decisions.

First , the Berklee Blog covers Mayer’s discussion of the pitfalls of social media and how artists can avoid them. One major pitfall- focusing artistic energy on promotion rather than creating great music.

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Most of you probably have a basic understanding of what music publishing is, but have you ever thought about how changes in the music publishing business affects you, the independent artist?

Is it easier or harder to get a music publishing deal than it used to be? Do you even need a music publishing deal? What can you expect a music publishing deal to do for you in today’s music industry climate?

I got the opportunity to ask veteran of the music publishing industry Jonathan Rosner some questions on the topic.

What do you think are the biggest changes in music publishing over the last 10 years?

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For June’s Blog Post of the month, chose I chose “Concert Posters and the Rise of Legal Rights” by Martin F. Frascogna, from his blog Music Globalization.

Have you ever considered the following questions posed in Frascogna in his blog:

Who owns the concert poster? The band that’s performing? The designers who designed the poster? Perhaps the venue that booked the artist?

What about the photo or image used in the poster?

How about the trademarks rights for using a band’s name in a poster?

If you don’t think these issues are important, think again.

I chose this article because it addresses an area I previously haven’t given much thought to – a musician’s rights and responsibilities with regards to trademarks and copyrights used in concert posters.

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In “Great Marketers Aren’t afraid to annoy and Why You Need to Think Like Them,” artist Minh Chau shares a hard learned marketing tip.

According to Minh, first, before you can even think about marketing, “you MUST have a good product and you MUST know who your target audience is and market to them.”

Next, overcome the fear associated with promoting yourself.

Then when you are ready to market, “the key to great marketing is one word: frequency.”

Minh points out: “Has anyone ever gone out of business because of overexposure? Umm…I couldn’t think of one. Has anyone ever gone out of business because of underexposure? Plenty!”

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(Pesci) Jeff Gray works in music licensing at Fox Sports & is an A&R / Talent Relations contact for Future Content LLC. Previously, Pesci has worked for MTV, Bug Music Publishing, Warner Music & Cleopatra Records.

Pesci also plays an active role in the music community as a performer (guitar), songwriter, arranger and collaborator.

He is a 9 year ambassador for the Hunnypot lifestyle brand contributing to their industry parties and bi-weekly radio show.

Pesci has worked with and participated with artists such as Jennifer Marks, Superdrag, Beth Thornley, Local H, TSOL, Janis Ian, Geza X, Paul Roessler, Lovers Electric, The Shocker, Libbie Schrader and many more.

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This month I came across 2 great posts on how to make music videos.

Since they both discussed different aspects of making a video- one from a creative standpoint, and one from a logistical standpoint, I thought they would both be worth highlighting. That way you have some well rounded information to help you make your music video the best it can be.

The first post I suggest you check out is 7 Tips to Make Your Next Music Video by Lisa Sniderman found on Michael Brandvold’ Music Marketing blog.

In the article Sniderman lists 7 things she learned the hard way by making her own music video.

So now, you can check out her blog, and you won’t have to make the same mistakes.

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For this month’s Blog post of the Month I chose “The Top 7 Things Independent Artists Do Wrong” (2011 Edition). It is a 2011 revamp of one of Sentric Music’s most popular articles- “8 Things Unsigned/Independent Artists Do Wrong” from 2007.

I can see why this topic made for such a popular article, and I thought it would be a great way to kick off our 2011 Blog Post of the Month column – it gives artists a lot to think about how they can improve for a new year.

The list covers a broad array of pitfalls for independent artists, including lack of quality music streaming, lack of use of stats, and not helping yourself enough.

So start 2011 off right and figure out whether you are guilty of one of the offenses highlighted by Sentric Music!

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