Film Scoring Tips: 6 months young
I can’t believe Film Scoring Tips is already 6 months old. Thanks to the tremendous support from you, the readers, and the talented professionals who create content for us, this first 6 months have been a thrilling and joyful ride.
As we continue to move forward with exciting news on the horizon I’d like to give you some perspective on how the website is doing along with a sneak peek of what is coming next.
You are Film Scoring Tips
It’s true, the readers are the most important asset we have. Every time we post a new article it warms our hearts to see it welcomed enthusiastically by our audience. So let’s take a look at some analytics:
At the time of my writing we have recorded a staggering 12,000+ views by 7,500+ unique visitors. Most of our readers come from the US, the UK, Canada and Italy.
When measuring these performances we noticed a healthy growth. This is reflected in particular by the average views per day over monthly segments. You can take a glimpse of this data in the following chart:
The small decrease between November and December is in reality a very good reading as in December we switched from 2 articles-per-week to just 1.
It is worth mentioning that all this data is organic!
Social portals
Among the various social “places” where you can find us (instagram, twitter, tumblr, reddit, medium, linkedin) there is one where we concentrated most of our efforts: Facebook. Between our Facebook page and our companion group we feel we are creating a special connection with our audience.
Data analytics give us a very encouraging picture on how we did during the first 6 months: 900 post likes, 650 page likes, and an astonishing organic reach of 107k!
After Film Composers United our official group on facebook it has seen an increasing rate of new membership requests. I currently counts over 3,900 composers among its ranks.
We also have a newsletter you can subscribe to. It mainly consists of full articles, beautifully formatted for your mail client and delivered to you fresh from publishing.
Your favourite content
Our readers seemed to enjoy most if not all of the articles published so far. We received many words of encouragement. Readers defined our blog “thought provoking”, “great”, “useful” just to quote a few.
A few articles, however, really made our counters go crazy. So here is a top 5 of the most read articles of this first semester:
- Dario Marianelli – Tips from the Stars by Dario Marianelli. This is also the best performing article in a single day with 366 views recorded on February 5.
- The lean composer – Part 1: MVC by Giovanni Rotondo.
- Get out there, get your music out there by Adonis Aletras.
- SEO for composers: Google and your portfolio website by Robert Drane.
- 5 musical terms film makers often get wrong by Giovanni Rotondo.
There is no doubt one of the biggest strengths of our blog is the team of professionals contributing with super-interesting, cutting-edge articles.
Our writers are expert composers (one of them even won an Oscar…), music editors, orchestrators, record label owners, sound engineers and performers.
This week we started a new series written by film editor Pia Di Ciaula (The Crown, Tyrannosaur, A Very English Scandal). Furthermore we have a line-up of new content coming from key personalities of the film music world.
On-going series
Along with some “one-shot” articles, we started a bunch of exciting series, which proved very popular. We are going to add new chapters to them in the coming weeks:
We just mentioned Pia Di Ciaula’s series Film editors and music. Pia will share part 2 of the chapter on temp music, before exploring other phases where the input of an editor can greatly change the results of a film score.
Our tips from the stars series will be expanded with more world-famous composers (whose names we can’t yet share). They will bring their best tips to our audience exclusively.
The lean composer series will see new chapters based on concept such as leap-of-faith assumptions, a/b testing, adaptive process and more.
The tips from the past series will continue with lessons we can learn from past processes/methods to improve our workflow in the future. The very next entry will concentrate on vinyl!
Our series from short to feature will continue to explore the similarities and differences that a composer meets when going from one format to the other.
Brand new series
We will introduce some new series as well over the next weeks. The mobile composer will concentrate on gear and best practice to follow in the pursuit of true mobility. SYM – showcase your music, a series based on member submissions via Film Composers United, will help many composers every month reaching bigger audiences. Another similar series will encourage interaction between participants and selected film makers. Lastly we are designing one that we are sure you will love: well, we can’t say much but… it involves video!
Talking about us
Nothing says: “you are doing good” like renowned personalities/outlets saying “you are doing good”… Among the proudest moments of Film Scoring Tips’ first half year are a few that we can’t stop to brag about.
Eric Ries (author of The Lean Startup) sharing The lean composer in his newsletter was a validating experience.
Being invited as a guest for the Lean Startup co. webcast in February was simply awesome.
Lastly we got a couple of likes on social that left us breathless. We don’t want to name names but here are some initials. Thanks for liking our work composer HZ and actor (and jedi master) MH!
One more thing…
From the bottom of my heart and from everyone participating in this incredible adventure I’d like to thank you for your interest and for helping us shape the past, present and future of Film Scoring Tips!
Giovanni
