We’re bringing recaps of the best industry expert Do-It-Yourself tips right here from SHARE Conference in Belgrade, Serbia. While there were a lot of interesting talks about music from all types of perspectives, two speakers’ tips stood out on the last 2 days of the conference. Interestingly, one of them didn’t even mention one word about music.

The tips covered in this post are by Nico Perez, co-founder of Mixcloud, and of Sam Graham Felsen, blog director of Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

First Nico’s tips:

• Due to the fact that the internet has enabled us to listen to whatever music we like, there is now a paradox of choice (it has become difficult for people to pick music). This has increased the value of curation, for instance via DJ mixes. This means that as an artist, one of your goals is to get curated by influential DJs or bloggers. It ties in to a tip given during a panel discussion by Tony Brundin, who said it’s important for curators to be able to tell if your track is good or not within 30 seconds.
• Part of the reason why the above is true is because music has been opened up; the means of producing have been democratized, which creates the reality that now more people than ever before are trying to promote their music.
• For this same reason, it is really hard to be successful. Nico encourages artists to keep pushing. The more successful you get, the easier it gets; the less struggle it will be.

Now to have a look at Sam Graham Felsen’s tips. As indicated, he did not say one word about music. What he did talk about was how to grow a following and how one can channel the following’s power. Some very good lessons for artists, especially when you’re using an ecosystem-approach.

• In the campaign they hardly blogged about Obama himself, but much more about the movement. In other words, give your followers a spotlight, connect them to each other. Surround yourself with your fans and treat them like your best friends.
• Focus on people that already feel involved. This goes right against traditional marketing ideas where you should spread your content so that everyone hears about it. Instead, focus on the following you have; when they spread the word (or music) for you it will be much more powerful than any type of promotion you can do by yourself – especially with a limited budget.
• Make it personal. Help your following feel personally connected to you.
• Access matters: treat your followers like high-level staffers. This means that you don’t inform the journalists first; you tell your fans about your plans at the same time you would announce it to the press. This helps foster that connection described above.
• Embrace user-generated content. For artists, this could mean giving fan art or fan remixes of your tracks a spotlight on your blog, Facebook account, or your official.fm profile.
• Viral is a myth. This was one of the strongest statements of the speech. Sam argued that viral needs a community. If you make a ‘viral video’, but have no community to spread the word, it’s unlikely to go viral.

What are your experiences with the above tips? Show us how you apply them! We might shine our spotlight on you. Tweet us (@officialfm) or shoot an email to bas@official.fm.

That’s all for the SHARE Conference for now. We hope to be back next year!