Contributors
Tammy Donham received her undergraduate degree in Marketing from Western Kentucky University and her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Middle Tennessee State University. Donham worked for Fruit of the Loom, Inc. in several marketing capacities before moving to Nashville in 1996 where she worked for nearly 17 years for the Country Music Association (CMA).
She held various marketing-related positions within CMA ultimately rising to Vice-President of Marketing. While in her post as VP, she oversaw all marketing, creative services, and research efforts for the CMA Awards, CMA Music Festival and CMA Country Christmas events and television specials, including broadcast, digital, radio, out-of-home and print initiatives. She was CMA’s lead liaison with ABC Television Marketing, Synergy and Affiliate teams and worked closely with these and other event partners to maximize promotional and brand-building opportunities for CMA properties across all platforms. Donham is a graduate of Leadership Music, as well as a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Country Music Association.
Donham began teaching Marketing of Recordings and Digital Strategies for the Music Business in the Recording Industry Department at Middle Tennessee State University in the fall of 2013.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tammydonham
Ariel Hyatt is the founder of a successful PR firm Cyber PR®, an international speaker, and author of four books (three out and one coming in 2015). Her trademarked, award winning Cyber PR® process marks the intersection of social media, PR, and online marketing. Her PR method is taught at several universities. However she is best known in her industry for her ability to simplify and explain things that creative minds don’t necessarily love: PR, marketing, and social media.
She is so good at un-confusing, that she has been invited to present at over 70 conferences in 12 countries, including SXSW (where she has appeared 15 times), CMJ, Vivid Sydney, Hub-spot Ignite, Campus Party London, The 140 Conference, You Are In Control (Reykjavik), and Social Media Week New York. Ariel’s work has been lauded by established media outlets garnering her press in Oprah, CNN, Wired, Billboard, Forbes, and The Washington Post.
An entrepreneur who embraces challenge, Ariel taught herself crowd-funding by raising $61,000 in her own successful crowdfunding campaign. “I see crowdfunding as the new ‘advance’ book publishers are not giving them, record labels aren’t giving them and small business loans from banks are next to impossible hard to secure for the creative class. Crowdfunding must be mastered.”
In order to help people gain mastery she has written her latest book Crowdstart, on Fears, Fans and Funding. It will be released officially in the spring of 2015. It’s a step-by-step guide on exactly what you need to do to complete a successful crowdfunding campaign extracted not only from Ariel’s own experience, but also from many of the successful crowdfunding campaigns she has coached her clients through.
Ariel is also the author of three successful books on PR and new media, Music Success in 9 Weeks (now out in its 3rd edition), Musician’s Road-map to Facebook & Twitter, and Cyber PR For Musicians. These offer artists step-by-step plans to create profitable and sustainable businesses. Her newsletter and YouTube series, “Sound Advice,” has over 20,000 subscribers, and she has written over 200 articles to date.
Ariel proudly serves on the advisory boards of Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, SXSW Accelerator, and on the education committee of The Moth.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/arielhyatt