Karen David : Summing up

Tags

digital marketing, digital music marketing, facebook, marketing, music, music industry, music marketing, pledge music, popular music, pr, social networking, twitter

Over the past year, through my internship with Nourishment Digital Communications, the main project that I have been involved with is Karen David’s digital music marketing and promotion. The project has ended now, but my first-hand experience has taught me so much and has been invaluable in getting to grips with working in the music industry. Throughout the project I have been given the opportunity to research and employ of-the-moment digital music marketing techniques and been directly involved with emerging music industry tools such as Pledge music. (For more on Pledge see my blog post from April 2010).

At the beginning of my internship, Karen was about to release the single Magic Carpet Ride and my role was to get to grips with Twitter, whilst promoting her latest single. During this time it was very difficult to get much conversation and fan interaction going as the single was not preceding an album and Karen was involved with other acting commitments. But towards the end of last year, Karen began filming a new role in BBC One’s Waterloo Road, and this association became invaluable, as it provided a great talking point whilst providing the potential to capture a new fan-base. But due to Karen’s schedule it was difficult for her to tweet regularly, I worked to start conversations with Waterloo Road’s fan-pages on the site, making them aware of Karen and her up-and-coming role.  Through these conversations I managed create a community with a few of her Twitter followers in the guise of ‘TeamKD’, which then soon came to be accepted and supported.

The beginning of this year saw the lead up to the release of Karen’s latest single Hypnotize, which initially included the promotion of the Pledge music campaign which was raising funds for the marketing of the release. It became key to make fans and followers aware of the campaign and want to be involved, which was primarily achieved through making fans aware of the different ‘gifts’ that were available to them. Here the Waterloo Road association was invaluable, as there were a number of trips to the set up for grabs, and this supported Karen’s increase in followers. Although I was still mainly working on Karen’s twitter campaign, I became to be more involved with all of her other social media pages during this period, generally monitoring and updating their presentation. Upon release the desi-mix of Hypnotize reached number 26 on the Asian Download charts (w/c 30/5).

Key points that I’ve learnt:

•    The importance of creating a community through conversations on Twitter.

•    The importance of giving back to fans, especially on the lead up to a single release when you are constantly asking fans to vote, request and buy the new single.

•    On Twitter make use of followfriday, particularly when you are getting close to a landmark follower number, the fans will retweet because they want to be involved in making something happen.

The whole experience has been incredibly insightful and my learning will remain with me and be built upon within my future projects.

Introducing : The Fives

Tags

digital marketing, digital music marketing, internet, Marketing tips, music, music industry, music marketing, social media, social networking

I have recently started working as an intern for The SuperSevenClub, and one of their acts The Fives have just had their debut track picked up by KissFM as being the track of the summer. This is a very exciting project to be a part of, and I have had the role of setting up and ensuring that The Fives have a presence on the internet. This project has resulted in me completing a large amount of research to ensure that the band can be found on the top music marketing and networking sites that are out there at the moment. Most of the bases are covered now, and the next stage is working to build a fan community.

Rootmusic! Rootmusic! Rootmusic! Why have I only just found you?

Tags

artists, bands, digital marketing, facebook, internet, music, music industry, music marketing, popular music, social media, social networking

During my research into selling music on Facebook, I came across Rootmusic’s ‘Bandpage’, and it is brilliant! Bandpage provides artists with the opportunity to create a professional looking fascia which can be added as a tab on their Facebook fanpage. This can definitely been seen to represent a real movement away from Myspace music profiles, but could even be possibly, due to Facebook’s standing, be a movement away from artist’s own websites. As Bandpage is immediately providing artists with an easy and significantly cheaper way of creating an eye-catching and very professional looking profile.

Setting up the page could not be easier, plus there are great video tutorials to help. Switching between ‘content’ and ‘appearance’ it is easy to see where you can add an image/ add text or change the background colour. Bandpage even automatically connects to SoundCloud, finding already uploaded tracks, whilst also automatically uploading biography information. One problem I had was that I had real issues sorting out the tracks that showed up on bandpage, and it’s worth knowing that if you end up deleting a track on bandpage it will also delete off SoundCloud (and so could ruin your current track orders). If you can I would say delete the tracks you have on SoundCloud that you also want on bandpage and start from scratch uploading (on SoundCloud) and then hopefully bandpage will pick up your tracks straight away. [I had a real nightmare with all of this - is it just me?] I also have to point out that to get a large banner image on your bandpage you have to pay $1.99/month. So if your just starting out you might not want to pay-out but if you’ve got people talking about you and are on the cusp of something huge, I would definitely recommend it. It’s another way of showing your professionality and that you’re ready for the big time!

Bandpage is Brilliant, below are some shots of my creation. I can’t wait to have the opportunity to set one up for another artist.

Selling music on Facebook

Tags

digital marketing, digital music marketing, facebook, music, music industry, popular music, selling music, social media, social networking

I would really appreciate any advice or hints and tips on selling music via Facebook. I’ve been doing some research via Google but obviously it helps if any musicians or artists out there could give me some ‘real-life’ advice.

I’ve decided that their are two key players: iLike and Nimbit.

iLike – seems to have been around a while now, and has been dominating the Facebook market place. This app allows fans the chance to ‘like’ songs, but then provides the opportunity to link them to an online sales store. Whilst fans can also add an ‘iLike’ sidebar to their iTunes/ Music Player in order to receive updates about an artist. This application seems to be so much more than just an ‘app’, it’s another social platform in itself, where fans can discuss and where unsigned bands can get their music ‘spread’ across the site. **Very good**

Nimbit – a great site, which is much more than just a place to sell music. You can upload tracks, merchandise and gig listings so that your fans will see them directly. Nimbit seems to be more of a marketing tool, offering acts/ managers the opportunity to keep track of fan stats but also chance to build networks between your fans. There’s a brilliant video on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X5AJBqFnfo about Nimbit and its advantages. Again, this app seems to be very good and I’m torn between the two so I would really appreciate hearing any of your experiences with them or advice/ comments.

Bits of this blog are like an idiot’s guide as I know it’s a mine-field out there, but I hope it’s helpful to people!

Marketing schedule for new labels and your bands.

Tags

digital marketing, digital music marketing, marketing, music, music marketing, popular music

Below is an ‘idiot-style’ guide for a new label to send to all of their bands on their rosta. Making sure all of the social media bases are covered will ensure that everyone will gain great exposure. The co-ordination will only support your uniformed presentation to the outside world and industry.

As always I appreciate any comments or advice.

Marketing Strategy

The week commencing (…) there is going to be a big marketing push to make people aware of (your label). We need to ensure that there is co-ordination between all bands and social networking pages to get maximum exposure to as many fans as possible.

Twitter
•    Create a page http://twitter.com/ following the ‘sign up’ instructions. Under ‘find people’ search for (your label) and add as a follower.

•    At the bottom of all pages there is an information bar. If you go to ‘Goodies’ you can then follow the instructions and link Twitter so that all tweets automatically go to Myspace and Facebook too.

•    Adding a Twitter link/ app to Myspace and Facebook pages will make fans aware of your presence and follow you. You can also search for people via their name or email address.

•    Regular tweets from (your label) and your band will get the word spread. The (label) page will work to tweet about the release and also your band, which will ultimately support everyone’s cause.

Facebook
•    Create a Facebook fan page (this has to be created through a personal account).

•    Follow the instructions and edit the details for your band.

•    Search for (your label) and become a fan, (we will then reciprocate).

•    Facebook can then be connected to Myspace, Twitter and other websites. Go to ‘edit page’ -> ‘promote your page’ -> ‘promote with a fan box’ -> the code can then be copied and embedded to your page.

Myspace
•    Create a MySpace music page http://signups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=signup

•    This can act as your primary website if you don’t already have one.

•    Upload your music etc and add (your label) as a friend (this page can be found by having the search bar on ‘music’).

•    Twitter and Facebook widgets can be integrated on this page so that your fans can easily find you on these other sites.

•    Ensure that (the label) is in your top friends and listed as your label.

Once all of these social site are linked, any updates that you make will automatically be seen everywhere = brilliant exposure for your band and your label!