SONG CONTEST BLOG

Launching this month, Freak is a new drama made for MySpace from the creators of American Idol, Fermantle Media.  Freak will air each week in 15 minute doses on MySpace, with sponsoring brands, Red Bull and Tampax, tied into the plot… It’s a semi-reality treatment reminiscent of MTV’s The Hills with a social networking twist where fans of the show follow the characters’ individual MySpace profiles and take part in the content, context and direction of the show.  Best of all, you can submit your band’s MySpace profile for consideration for the program’s soundtrack, here.

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In a post called “Don’t Confuse Technology with Marketing” published today on The Music Snob, I found the opening statement intriguing: “The use of music marketing technology is not in and of itself an act of music marketing.”  The post develops into an insightful, artist’s perspective on the plethora of web-based music marketing and networking solutions aimed at independent artists and promoters, and questions their claim – each service with its unique proposition – as “an act of marketing” by mere subscription to and execution of their service. The Music Snob highlights that the majority of these services provide a means for fans to find the artist and not visa versa.  For instance, if the artist is distributing his music to iTunes, he is certainly making his music available for purchase… but that’s not marketing, that’s plain old supply.  So how do you create demand?  By marketing.

One of the successful attributes of social networks is the balance of push and pull marketing.  In push marketing, you look for and find friends.  In pull marketing, friends look for and find you.  Popular folks enjoy more of the pull while the less socially apt have to push.  This is a tried and tested socio-ecosystem, online and off.  However, musicians and music listeners are, by definition, unequal.  There may be a cross over – musicians may also listen to and purchase music and music listeners may also write songs and play in band – but one is supplying and the other is consuming.  In a world where music is ubiquitous and available in limitless varieties, the marketplace is not in favour of the musician and, therefore,  he must actively market (push and push hard) to find music listeners to consume his music.  The advent of taste making music technology such as Pandora, iLike and Last.fm has made it easier for musicians to develop their presence online but that, I hope The Snob will agree, is far too passive to constitute a true marketing effort through technology which, first and foremost, caters to the consumer’s appetite for music (and not necessarily your music).

From my understanding, what this post suggests, at least in part, is that few artists manage to market themselves successfully, even with an array of revolutionary “marketing” tools, and, resultantly, the music industry’s bottom line pretty much remains the same: a handful of artists sell while the vast majority don’t, even if all of them have a presence on MySpace, Facebook, ReverbNation, Sellaband, OurStage, Music Nation, Sonicbids etc. etc.

Starting at approximately $1000, emusu provides a turn-key solution for managing and selling your digital assets from your own domain, as opposed to distributing to third-party ecommerce websites or via social network applications.  The system is entirely web-based and the company is sinking its teeth into the music industry.  Ouch. 

The service allows its customers to create custom web pages from a series of handy templates and enable fans to buy directly from the source or incorporate its technology into an existing site geared for music retail.

The fact is that most artists simply don’t sell.  In fact, most labels don’t sell a volume of any note.  As such, even if the service was free, managing your own music sales is not too far up your priority list unless you’re shifting so many units that iTunes’ commission significantly diminishes your bottom line.  Furthermore, if MySpace, boasting approximately three million *active* musician users can’t make Snocap work on exclusive terms, how is emusu going to convince prospective clients that they can sell – and sell more – on their own?

At a time where the industry is shifting away from record sales and toward ticketing, merchandising, bundling, licensing, sponsorship, and advertising, emusu is a surprising entry into the space.  Selling recorded music is no longer the end game but rather the marketing collateral to sell something else.  The infamous 360 deal is a tribute to this strategy and Live Nation is a testament to its success.  Starbucks too.

However, if emusu can leverage its platform to forward thinking megastars such as Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails, both of which ’sold’ direct-to-the-fan, they may have a lucrative client.  Or two.

Recommended online artist development platforms:

ReverbNation provides marketing and artist development solutions for up and coming musicians that need to “compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment”.   With a 360-degree approach, ReverbNation offers every tool in the shed for fledgling artists plus social and professional networking solutions in a single hub.

Music Nation, an artist-fan-promoter community, provides an array of music marketing features, as well as song contest and songwriting opportunities.  Perhaps more fan-centric than ReverbNation, Music Nation has also adopted the 360-degree approach to artist development.

OurStage, an artist and fan community that revolves around a “democratic” songwriting contest, has been making a splash as a pull-marketing platform for songwriters and recording artists to receive objective feedback from potential fans.

SellaBand, a vision of the music industry to come, has harnessed the power of niches and created an artist development platform that allows fans to, literally, put their money where their mouth is.  With a low risk and easy to digest financial investment program for music lovers, artists enjoy recording and A&R opportunities if they manage to attract enough “believers”.

YouLicense, the first independent music licensing platform, is where artists and music buyers engage one another and cut out the middle man.  With a host of music licensing opportunities in every imaginable musical genre, YouLicense is an artist development favorite.

MyDrifts is more than just a MySpace music marketing system, it’s an entire suite of music marketing tools for the artist or artist manager that wishes to better target his marketing efforts and learn about his audience.

Sonicbids is an artist development veteran, helping bands get gigs, and promoters book the right bands.  Their community consists of bands, singers, songwriters, and performers of all kinds, and music buyers of all kinds, including singer songwriter competition promoters, music licensors, festival programmers, and more.

If you Google – myspace music marketing – you will find a medley of useless tips on how to add more friends, write enticing messages, customize your page, and do more of what approximately 3 million active musicians on myspace are already doing, most of whom are still not getting any more attention than they did when they first joined.  Don’t get me wrong, I love myspace and I believe that myspace music marketing is absolutely essential.  Actually, I hate myspace but I do believe it’s essential and, now, a music industry standard.

Forget about robots for your myspace music marketing strategy.  And don’t worry, labels are no longer counting the number of friends and plays on your profile (it’s hard to believe they ever did!) so you need not spend all day and night adding friends aimlessly.  Start thinking about a targeted myspace music marketing approach whereby you only contact ‘friends’ you truly believe will take an interest in you and your music.  After all, online social networking answers to the same principles as day to day networking: you may work the room, but you don’t go into business with everyone you meet.

If you’re eager to raise your profile, dig deeper.  Rather than thinking about your number of friends, think about the ratio of friends vs. plays.  For example, If you have 1000 friends and 1000 plays, that should raise a big red flag: your friends accepted your invitation, listened to your music once (on average), and never came back.  For a truly effective myspace music marketing approach, keep your outreach to a minimum and focus on the folks that listen to your brand of music, attend live shows by artists with mutual musical qualities, and are likely to show up to your next gig.  If you don’t play outside of Nevada, why badger someone in Minnesota every other day?  Keep your myspace music marketing initiatives user-specific, short, and to the point.  Spend less time marketing to everyone and more time marketing to a small group of truly potential fans.  Before you know it, your myspace music marketing campaigns will be powered by your fanbase, a more potent and authoritative music marketing force than just you.