Jeeni Blog

Helping the next generation of talent to build a global fanbase

How to Stay Sane While Sheltering in Place

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How to Stay Sane While Sheltering in Place

by Kelli Richards, Jeeni MD USA

Many of us have been going a little stir crazy after several weeks of sheltering in place. But given it’s likely we’ll be in this situation for quite a while longer, it’s to our benefit to find ways to retain our sanity during these challenging times. Here are a few ideas to share that I’ve found have been working for me.

Stick with a schedule and routine — what worked for you when things were ‘normal’? Keep doing those things now. For me, it includes getting up early, exercising, meditating, good nutrition, getting outdoors every day, sticking with my work routines (work bursts, scheduling calls and Zoom video chats), stretching, staying hydrated, and getting plenty of sleep. I’m getting an extra hour daily now to boost my immune system — and of course the additional rest has all kinds of extra benefits for your mind and body as well.

Reading daily is also an anchor for me, so it’s paramount (at least for me) that I make time for that.

Make time to connect with friends, family, colleagues and loved ones. Make sure you balance your time between work and play/rest. Move your body daily, however that works for you. Take time to make nutritious meals for yourself and keep your house clean and tidy. Watch something funny, educational, or inspiring on TV if it moves you. Minimize your exposure to news — limit your intake to maybe 2x/day. Listen to great music throughout the day. Have fresh flowers around and get your nature intake daily.

Those are some of my tips — I’d love to know what some of yours are that are helping you in these times. Be sure to leave a comment!

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10
Dec

Portsmouth Based Tech Start-Up encourages local business to benefit from Kickstart, as December 17 deadline looms.

Local companies are up against the clock if they want to benefit from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s generosity. The deadline to register for the Government Kickstart scheme, which pays for hand-picked new recruits to boost businesses, is Friday 17th December, so time is of the essence. Local entrepreneur Dr Shena Mitchell is founder of Jeeni, the ethical music streaming service with an audience outreach of over 3 million music lovers, and she is full of praise for Kickstart. “I have been hugely impressed by the quality of the applications, all our new recruits have been brilliant and they are a great asset to my team. So far we have recruited Marketing Executives, Sales Executives, Technical Developers, a Partnership Coordinator, as well as a Human Resource Manager to handle all these new recruits for us. In fact, we’ve been so impressed with the quality of our new applicants, that we’ve applied for another six recruits.” Her company has been working with their specialist partners Gradfuel, who are consultants for the Department of Work and Pensions, which is where the Kickstart grant funding comes from. “It’s a great opportunity for companies like ours to bring keen young graduates on board for a minimum of six months, and scale up our business. We not only do the right thing by helping new talent, but the cream of the crop could stay with us for years to come. Best of all, there’s no financial risk, with over £8,000 worth of grant money to support each young person taken on board.” The Kickstarter benefits are remarkably generous, and with only days left to register, Shena is offering to help local businesses take advantage. Benefits include £1,500 upfront grant funding from the UK Government, for each young person they enrol, in addition to their salary. 100% of their salary covered for up to 6 months and up to 100 hours a month. “Our partners Gradfuel are the experts in the market, and have raised £18.7m in Kickstart grant funding so far. We’ve had a 99.5% success rate in our applications, against the market average of 22%, supporting over 1,400 companies to process their Kickstart applications.” Full information and a direct link to registering for Kickstart applications is available on https://jeeni.com/kickstart/ shena@jenni.com 07703567196

26
Mar

Jeeni Live Music Festival

By Kelli Richards: Jeeni USA MD I’ve decided that I’m going to write blogs periodically about some of the cool clients I’m fortunate enough to work with.  One of them is a UK-based venture called JEENI  run by long-time client, colleague and friend — Mel Croucher; a legend in the UK games industry.   Simply put, JEENI is a multi-channel streaming service for independent musicians and performers, providing a unique showcase to put undiscovered talent in front of a global audience. JEENI artists get to keep 100% of everything they earn from the sale of their music and merchandise. JEENI audiences are given the power to vote, donate and be rewarded too. JEENI treats its members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. Their numbers have been growing steadily over the past year or so, and this past weekend they ran a Live Music Festival featuring some of the amazing musicians in the global community.  As an homage to my former A&R role at EMI, I was really impressed with the talent of several of the featured artists.  The highlights reel runs about an hour, and that’s time well spent to discover some wonderful talent and be entertained by artists you others might not hear about — not yet anyway.  It’s quite an eclectic line-up but some of my personal favorites from this festival include:  red-headed wunderkind Harvie Joy, teen guitar virtuoso Toby Lee, vocalist Jem Cooke who appears to be channeling Adele, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Gerendas, and a spine-tingling track from Zeeteeah Massiah. I promise if you invest an hour in watching this online music festival, you’ll be very pleasantly rewarded.  And consider joining JEENI as well! The incredible talented Zeeteah Massiah who starred in the Festival will be playing at The Crazy Cogs on Thursday the 8th of October 2020, if you fancy seeing her gig live. https://www.brasseriezedel.com/crazy-coqs/

04
Jun

Top Ten Tips on How To Promote your Music Independently

Let's set the scene. We believed there would be a load of "How to Videos..." giving expert advice to help musicians, artists and performers along their merry way. We thought just Google it and the rest would be simple. But the quality of what we have found raises the question, "how helpful are these videos really, and do musicians and performers use them"? Do these videos add real value? To find out more, we're asking the new 400 Unsigned Artist Community members what they think. Maybe they have found a video or a blog which changed their fortunes, and they are willing share and let us know why it had such an impact. Let's see how far this forum opens new discussions and debate. Having listened to Jasmine from Ditto in the video below, we started to think that our first job might be to start a discussion around "how to promote and market your work". So you don't have to watch the whole 7 minute video, we have just listed the headlines to get a discussion going. (approx. 60 seconds read time) 1. Making great music, music always comes first. 2. Play as often as you can, make them remember you. Put on a killer live show and make an impact. 3. Start locally, go nationally and then head out on tour. Ed Sheeran says he played at least a thoiusand shows, before he became known in the music industry. 4. Create a website and build a mailing list - which links to your music, bio, promo images, tour dates, mailing list and sign-up form. 5. Get your social media sorted! Keep a consistent brand identity! Include competitions, polls, track snippets, press shots, backstage videos. Use targeted social adds, do not use mass advertising. 6. Check out what other successful performers are doing and learn from them, rather than starting from scratch. 7. Get your tracks PLAYLISTED. 8. Manage your own PR and contact journalists directly. Create an Electronic Press Kit, write a press release, upload your music, send to bloggers & journalists. 9. Surround yourself by the right people. Just because you are independent, that does not mean you have to do everything on your own. 10. Know your audience and focus on your niche! So that's it folks, let's create our own list and add value to this vital conversation. If you would like to join the new Unsigned Artists Community check us out and send in a request to join today. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2529935880656436/?source_id=459365401133253 https://vimeo.com/396502327