Is the idea of using bloggers to promote music beginning to gain some traction? After reading my post about Jewel's MySpace promotion(just checked, she still hasn't read my message to her about it), David added this:Blogs are better marketing tools than sites like MySpace because bloggers are more influential.
Hmmmmm.....do you agree? My point wasn't so much that Jewel should ditch MySpace(she shouldn't, but then again, she shouldn't concentrate her promotional efforts there, as that's not where HER target market is) and go after blogs, just that her MySpace poster promotion was really a waste of everyone's time, including her's. In that case, the '100 CDs to 100 bloggers' idea would definitely be a better idea.
I think like anything else, it depends on the execution. We can try to prop up blogs as being better marketing tools than social-networking sites like MySpace, but on the flipside, it's hard to deny the effectiveness of MySpace to promote a band WHEN USED PROPERLY, as Jeremy and his band The Favorites are doing.
So let's try a different approach, check out the MySpace page for Shaye(and yes, there's a Nettwerk connection here, bandmember Tara MacLean is a client of Nettwerk Management). Currently they only have 128 profile views, but the page has only been up about a month.
So which do you think would work better for Shaye as a promotional tool:
1 - Adopting the 'make the community our friends' approach that Jeremy uses with The Favorites, via MySpace?
2 - Using bloggers to promote their music.
Also, keep in mind that the members of Shaye have all had solo careers prior. So there is a community of fans already there, granted it's not as big as a mainstream band/artist, but there nonetheless.
Personally, I think if Shaye could identify 50-100 bloggers from their fan forums/lists/website, whatever, if they could get their music in the hands of bloggers that are also Shaye fans, that would be more effective in this case for building buzz for the band. Because as David states, bloggers are, for better or worse, influential.
The idea is, let the group's core fanbase push their promotion, which will eventually spill over to cover new listeners, such as those that read their blogs, or find them on MySpace. Since you will be appealing to bloggers that are ALSO fans of Shaye, they have a vested interest in promoting the band. In Jeremy's case, he is using MySpace to BUILD that community of fans for The Favorites, and doing a great job of it. Shaye already has its core community of fans in place, they just need to find a way to appeal to and grow them.
That's which way I would go if I were handling Shaye's marketing, what about you?
4 comments:
I would always advise doing both and a lot of hip hop acts are doing so to great effect. MySpace and marketing to bloggers is a potent combination in which each area of activity amplifies the other.
One of the things that some of us discussed back when hip hop blogging was taking off a few years back was that the publicists are the first to find you.
What was interesting about that time, roughly 2001 to 2003, was that the smaller indie operations were the ones reaching out. And by that I mean both small indie hip hop acts and small indie pr firms & publicists.
Now we're getting much more attention from major labels though the big guys are more likely to send us links to streams or videos while the smaller folks are more likely to send us cds.
Actually I started in 2002 with Hip Hop Logic, not 2001.
Hey, thanks for the shout out in your viral community post. It's nice to feel appreciated.
I don't think it's an either/or situation at all. To me, if a marketer or self-promoting artist has brain one in their head, they will use BOTH.
First of all, both venues are FREE! I mean, seriously, marketers have had a golden egg dropped in their laps. You don't have to pay for billboards, print ads, or anything like that when you sign up for Myspace or a blog. When, in all of American history, has advertising been available for such little cost?? Though I don't advise this, some bands have even dumped their traditional websites for a Myspace-only presence, and it still works.
I do agree with a previous comment that emphasized that whatever you do, it needs to be good. It needs to be well-designed, constantly updated, and it needs the direct participation of the artist.
Just some examples of some artists that are doing it right:
Candace Cameron Bure, actress and former Full House star maintains a fully interactive message board where she frequently interacts with her fans and answers their specific questions. Candace doesn't have a blog, per se, but her website that links to the forum is often updated with personal messages as well as news of her goings-on. (And I'm proud to say that a suggestion I made to her there actually made it into one of her E Channel programs!!)
Tom Green maintains a website and a blog. So far as I've seen, his blog is very interactive, well written, and he's using it to push an online-only TV station that he has created.
Kelly Clarkson remains very interactive with her fans on her message board. She does have a myspace page, but with all the impostors out there, they've kind of slacked off on it. Still, her website is well-designed and her interaction with the fans is marketing gold.
Dave Barry, author, runs a wildly successful blog, which he has used with tremendous success to help his book sales. Dave's fans were upset when he ceased his weekly newspaper column, but now they're even more happy with his daily updates to his blog. He's also incredibly interactive with the fans, and his posts get anywhere from 30 to 100 comments a day.
As for Myspace, it doesn't get any better than the band Line of Fire, who almost always leave comments and answer personal messages. I'd never heard of them prior to getting onto Myspace, and by the time they were done with me, I had their CD in my grubby little hands.
Okay, longish comment...better go work on my own blog!
Great input guys.
From my point of view.....MySpace is a better tool for CREATING and BUILDING a community, and bloggers would be better tools for EXPANDING that community. And I think for established artists, MySpace can serve as a touchpoint for the artist, it really replaces their website as being the place where fans want to come and interact with the band.
BTW I've forwarded this thread to Shaye via a message on MySpace, so hopefully they'll come back and check out all this great advice they are getting here ;)
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