Yut Media - Blog

YouTube Symphony Orchestra…Who Benefits!?!?

2008-12-04T01:38:00Z

YouTube announced on Monday it launched a Symphony Orchestra. This is both an interesting twist for YouTube and to the classical music world.

Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post:
The YouTube Symphony Orchestra revolves around two main goals: the creation of a mash-up performance of a symphony from video submissions; and second, a live performance of the same symphony (written for the occasion by composer Tan Dun) at Carnegie Hall on April 15, 2009, with about 150 players selected on the basis of their YouTube video submissions.

In short, YouTube is offering a new twist on the familiar formula of how to get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, practice, upload.

The idea, launched by two YouTube employees at an offsite retreat about a year ago, is being greeted enthusiastically by the classical music world, which Tim Lee, one of the project's initiators, tactfully described as "hungry for innovation."

Classical artists and administrators at the New York news conference Monday visibly basked in the glow of what, in their world, is the equivalent of being noticed by the cool kids at recess. Besides Carnegie Hall, YouTube's partners on the project include Michael Tilson Thomas (who will conduct the Carnegie Hall performance), the London Symphony Orchestra (whose players have already posted 24 master-class videos on the YouTube site) and the pianist Lang Lang.

Read the entire story

Who Will Actually Benefit?!?
The obvious benefactors are the classical artists who participate…this is an opportunity of a lifetime for those who will be selected to play a New York’s Carnegie Hall in April. What about Youtube and the classical music world?

Will YouTube benefit and will the Classical Music World Benefit?!?!
Lets start with who picked up the story...we have The Washington Post, The New York Entertainment Magazine, The National and plenty of other art type publications along with a few bloggers across the web. The only stand out per se are Venture Beat and About.com. Particuarly Venture Beat where you won't find too many stories related to classical music.

So who does those stories really benefit? I'd say so far it benefits YouTube quite nicely. The story is posted offline and online across publications and talked about by people who normally aren’t likely to include YouTube in their conversations. People who more than likely don't pay that many visits to YouTube.

When and will the benefits kick in for the Classical Music World? Is there a glow to bask in?
Will people who have had no prior interest in classical music go to the http://www.youtube.com/symphony?? Let me say it “outloud” - YouTube dot com backslash symphony.

Go to YouTube.com – see anything there announcing the contest or the symphony area of YouTube? Yea, I didn’t see it either.

How do you think this will benefit the Classical Music World? What are your predictions? When the cool kids in school paid attention to the less cool kids...how did that ever pan out??

Images Drive Traffic and Interest

2008-12-03T14:25:00Z

I wish I had the interest, passion and talent for photography because photos, pictures...aka Images on the internet are very powerful.

Communicating Via Pictures
The saying goes that pictures are worth a thousand words…pretty convenient thing when you don’t have the time and inclination to write!

Human beings are pretty visual and we are definitely curious. Always use what you know about human nature to your advantage. Give people what they are looking for…on a regular basis.

Communicate your interests, passions, life, hobbies with your fans through the use of pictures.

Pictures of What!?!?
Your Life. It’s great to have pictures of yourself, crew and shows. That’s a really good start but in order to effectively communicate via images with your fans you’ve got to dig a little deeper. It’s also how you’ll be able to drive interest and traffic to your site/blog. (Btw, did you get one of those yet?!?)

Take pictures of your pet(s), favorite food, flowers, simple things in your neighborhood, things you see while on the road, instruments, costumes, books…anything that compels you. The things you are interested in, mean something to you, are passionate or curious about. Be creative.

The type of pictures and the things you take pictures of are going to help people figure out who you are, they’ll help people connect with you and discover things you have in common.

The pictures will become a method of driving new traffic and interest in you and what you are doing.

Picture Driven Community/Sites
Here are some recommendations of top sites/communities to create an account to post your pictures.

Flickr
SmugMug
PhotoBucket
WebShots
Google’s Picasa

Don’t simply post your pictures on MySpace…pictures on MySpace don’t get indexed the same way as pictures in the sites above. Plus, MySpace isn’t necessarily appropriate for more personal pictures of your life.

However, do use the widgets and bring some your pictures to your other online profiles. Remembe it's about creating content on your extensions and bringing that content to your end points.

Tag, Tag, Tag and Alt Tag
Create a few albums…separate them by shows, cities you visit, routines, interests, passions, family and randomness.

Within each albums, tag your pictures as specifically as possible. The tagging is what the search engines use to index the pictures. Don’t underestimate the power of Google Image Search.

Taking It A Step Farther

Use your own pictures in blog posts. Hint, hint…take some pictures of something and than write a short spill about it. Use Alt Tags when you post pictures on your blog for greater results.

People will start finding you and your pictures. They might also repost/use your pictures and link back to you because of them.

Make it easy for your fans to write about you…aside from the music, performances, games, shows or events you’re part of.

(ps. I'm wrong for not having an image attached to this blog post)

Link Love Looney Monday (wk 3)

2008-12-01T15:10:00Z

It’s always tough to return to a routine after a holiday weekend. I’m sure you’re feeling it too. However, we’ve got to get back on the horse again.

This week’s link love is going out to other social media experts…they don’t specialize in the entertainment industry but they have great insights on social media, social media marketing and creating social media strategies. There are a lot of people out there claiming to be social media gurus…a lot of people throwing key words around and blowing out hot air. I don’t want you to fall into any traps so let me lead you to some good places.

To kick things off we have the Buzz Bin started by a friend of mine and member of the Yut Media Board of Advisors, Geoff Livingston. Geoff is author of Now is Gone and truly an expert in the field of PR and Social Media. His writing and that of his staff is straight forward, honest and full of common sense. Honestly one of the very few social media blogs I read regularly.

Brian Solis collaborated with Geoff on Now is Gone. I met Brian at BlogWorldExpo 08. He wouldn’t follow me back on Twitter until he read my tweets and ensured I was worth a follow…he pulled out his phone with me standing there to look at my profile. I gotta respect the man for that!! His blog PR 2.0 is a resource well worth exploring.

Another well known blogger and social media guru is Chris Brogan. Chris also co-founded Podcamp - new media conference series, exploring the use of new media community tools to extend and build value. Chris blogs at ChrisBrogan.com

Across the pond from me and a friend I made through Pownce…we have Wayne Smallman and his blog Blah, Blah! Technology. It might be a little advanced for many of you, but I recommend digging into his archives. Wayne has wonderful information particularly on SEO, Blogging and Analytics.

Next we have Jeremiah Owyang. Reading Jeremiah’s blog could potentially make your head blow up there’s so much information…but, he has an amazing pulse on the world of social media, the players, happenings and outcomes.

As artists, entertainers and artist-entrepreneurs your worlds DO NOT revolve around social media…and they NEVER should. Check out the blogs listed above but do not get sucked in!! Read enough of the blogs to realize that social media and leveraging the web is something you can’t avoid; stop reading when you get overwhelmed. Keep taking it one step at a time and realize I’m right here for you.

One last recommendation...this blog is all about Twitter; it’s called TwiTip.

Sword Swallower, Dan Meyer, Speaks Out About Social Media

2008-11-27T14:40:00Z

Happy Thanksgiving!! This is a special Thanksgiving treat - an in depth interview on social media with Dan Meyer multiple Guinness World Record holding sword swallower, 2007 Ig Nobel Laureate in Medicine; a featured Ripley's Believe It or Not performer, and one of only a few dozen professional sword swallowers left in the world today, Dan Meyer has been seen by millions on hundreds of regional, national and international appearances. Dan was also a semi-finalist on the 2008 America’s Got Talent.

I don’t listen to too many people but when a man can swallow solid steel blades from 15 to 30 inches long and up to 8 swords at once.…there’s something inside me that says “I don’t know quite why, but I really ought to listen to a man like that – I doubt he wastes his time saying things that aren’t true.” It intimidates and fascinates me.

You can only imagine my excitement when Dan agreed to share his thoughts on Social Media with the Yut Media readers. Dan wrote an article called Dan’s Top Tips on Social Networking – an overview of social networks and how to best use them.

Let’s get into it and hear from Dan Meyer
Q: Our initial conversation started (over on Twitter) because I was looking for some input on RerverbNation. What are your thoughts of ReverbNation?

Dan Meyer: I really like ReverbNation and have been using it for about a year now.

Of course, being a Sword Swallower as a performing artist is completely different than most of the traditional rock bands that ReverbNation was designed for, so I can't really take advantage of selling mp3s online. But besides that, I have still managed to make it work for me, and I love it!

My favorite components of ReverbNation are the widgets, fan collector, schedule (with visual maps!), and most of all, the FanReach newsletter - I can put together nice HTML newsletters with images, links, and videos, and when I send it out to my fans, it includes my tour schedule, links to my online store, etc. I love the nice look and feel they have on their apps and widgets. I especially like the way that I can narrow down my target demographics for my newsletter to only send to certain demographics - Males, females, certain age range, within so many miles of a zip code etc. This means, I can send out an email to just my recipients in a particular state or region of the US or my fans in Europe whenever I head to Europe. Pretty cool!

Those are most of the main benefits, along with the fact that it is FREE, and they even claim to pay YOU for hits! Can't say I have used the Street Team functions yet with my fans, but I have heard back from several fans who say they appreciate knowing what I'm up to and when and where they can see me!

Dan’s Profile on RerverbNation

Q: When and how did you get started with social networks and using online tools to reach and communicate with your fans?

Dan Meyer: Now that I think back on it, it was way back in 1992 that I really got my early start in online social networking, although we didn’t know to call it that back then… When I got my first computer strictly for practical working on writing books and film scripts, I saw these little icon pictures and clicked on them to see what they did… They took me to online places with names like Prodigy, CompuServe, and Promenade, so I signed up with all three, and made a lot of online friends on all three, many of whom I still network with today! I ended up becoming a beta tester for Promenade, which evolved into AOL, and surprisingly, I still have and use my original account there!

Over the years, I became a Moderator on several Yahoo Groups discussion lists. Even though we may not consider Yahoo Groups the hottest in the social networking scene today, I did use it to set up a fan newsletter list that I use to send out updates from my BlackBerry when I’m on the road.

In the past few years, like many others, I got set up on MySpace, and used it to send out bulletins and blogs. But it was Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter that really got me going strong on the whole social networking trend in the past year, and I feel like they have helped me network with my friends and fans. However, it has been Twitter and Ping.fm that have really helped me take social networking to a whole new level by allowing me to keep an updated web presence on several dozen places around the ‘Net on a daily basis!

Why do you think it’s imperative as an entertainer to have an online presence?
Dan Meyer: Two words - “Show… Business”!

It’s called “Show business” for two reasons – you’ve got to be able to “show” yourself and market your show to as many people as you can possibly reach, but you need to be able to run it like a professional “business”. In the entertainment business, you need to be able to reach people from all walks of life and in lots of different ways. If people don’t know about you, chances are they are not going to come knocking on your door with opportunities.

And in the show business, you are only as good as your last big appearance. But if nobody hears about your appearances, they won’t be reminded that you’re around and actively performing. On the other hand, if you constantly promote yourself and your appearances using online tools, you’ll be able to keep in touch with your fans and let them know what you are doing, which often leads to more opportunities.

So it is imperative to have an Internet presence today. But not just one. The old days of just having a single .com website presence are gone… That’s only one “doorbell”, one way for people to find you, and today that’s not enough. Most people aren’t going to just stumble across your single main website. You’ve got to go reach people where they are, and viewers and not just on one single network like AOL or CompuServe used to be in the old days. So people have moved on to setting up other social networking sites, like MySpace. But not everyone is on MySpace, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Plaxo, or AOL… And some are on several.

Today many of my friends follow me on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn… others say they have kept up with me on Plurk or Pownce, Bebo and others… If you want to reach a lot of people in a lot of places, you have to have a presence on all of the sites. If you limit yourself to just one presence, you will limit yourself to the number of people you can reach.

Actually, there is a third word that is almost as important as the first two: FREE! Other than the time involved, most of the social networks are free to set up and maintain. I feel it would be a travesty to waste the opportunity to reach people on all these free social networking sites. Why not be able to reach potentially thousands of viewers, listeners, or fans at once for FREE instead of spending money on the old method of phone calls, faxes, and USnail Mail?

Q: How has using social networks and interacting online changed the way you do business?

Dan Meyer: I used to spend a lot more time on the phone… talking. Now I spend more time on the phone tweeting and SMSing, as those are almost as immediate, and in many cases more far-reaching than just talking to one person at a time. Now when I send out a 140 character Ping, it immediately updates my MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Mashable, Hi5, BrightKite, Flikr, Blogspot, LiveJournal, FriendFeed, and lots more sites I can’t even remember! And I’m sure there are some new ones I haven’t joined yet!

Another way that online networking has helped change the way I do business is that now I rarely mail out promo kits with DVDs… Now I can do almost everything immediately online using emails, images, and links to YouTube videos. This not only saves on time and postage costs, but it gets more immediate results. Several of my YouTube videos have gotten tons of hits in the past few weeks, and I am pitching some of my YouTube videos to shows like Leno and Letterman, and I’m hoping they’ll pay off in the next few weeks!

Several other social networking friends have also gotten involved in many of the same networks I have. So now we Digg each others’ stories, videos, and other work, and help promote each other. In my view, that’s what it’s all about – making it a win-win situation where both parties can cross-market each other and everyone wins!

Q: What’s the biggest opportunity generated from your online presence? How did it come about?

Dan Meyer: I’ve had a few nice opportunities that I know were generated strictly from having an online presence… A newspaper editor from the Huntsville Times who asked me through LinkedIn, “Do I know you?” I described who I was and what I did, and within a few weeks, she had written a feature story on me! Also through LinkedIn, I got connected to a new TV network in Las Vegas who is interested in doing a story on me.

And just a few weeks ago, I was at a Huntsville Havoc Hockey game twittering about the game, and I happened to follow the twitters of Ann Bernard who was twittering a Washington Capitals hockey game. And here I am a few weeks later doing an interview on social networking!

But one of the best ones was getting contact through my MySpace page from someone at America’s Got Talent, which prompted me to actually go to the first audition in Nashville, which led to the regionals in Atlanta, that led to the semi-finals in Las Vegas, and finally all the way out to the live episode in Los Angeles! Now that’s what I call a golden opportunity that was initiated through social networking!

Q: What is your online interaction with fans like? How much of yourself and “private life” do you share online?

Dan Meyer: I’m usually a pretty open and transparent person, so I don’t mind sharing some personal things. But I have also learned not to bore followers with trivial details. It can get boring to just say, “I’m having coffee now…” That can lose followers’ interest if you don’t really have anything to say. However, it is a little different if you say, “I’m having coffee now… with a fellow sword swallower here at the train station in Milano Italy!” Now I think that’s interesting and worth mentioning!

When I’m not on the road, my wife and I raise Arabian horses, cats, kittens, parrots, and chickens… So sometimes when I am at home on the farm, I don’t mind mentioning something more mundane, like when I’m bottle feeding kittens or mending fences in the pasture surrounded by beautiful horses. It kind of makes a contrast with performing and puts it all into perspective. Overall, it helps my friends get to know more about me and realize that I am a normal person with a normal life just like everyone else… except that I occasionally like to swallow swords underwater in a tank of sharks!

Q: You mentioned your addiction to your BlackBerry…how do you manage your time online?

Dan Meyer: I absolutely LOVE my BlackBerry… It is SO useful and productive when it comes to sending e-mails, SMS, Twitters, Blackberry Messenger, AIM, Google Gtalk, etc. And it is immediate – When I get an email, I can usually reply in a few moments and not have to wait until I get home to a computer late that night. So I use my BlackBerry constantly from the moment I roll out of bed in the morning till late at night. I keep two spare batteries in my pocket for extra productive days, but even in Europe, I managed to get by on one battery all day. And thanks to an innovation I use in creating my own “auto-text” shortcuts, I am to the point where I can almost send emails faster on my BlackBerry than I can on a full keyboard! As a matter of fact, many of my responses in this interview were done on my BlackBerry while waiting in traffic!

Here’s an example of how I used my BlackBerry to keep up with friends and fans while on the road. I just got back from four weeks performing at Harvard, MIT, the Bahamas, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. While I was on the road, I sent out Twitter and Ping updates whenever there was something interesting happening, which was usually several times a day! I twittered as I was going onstage at the Ig Nobel Awards ceremony at Harvard, and while I was sitting onstage during the ceremony. As it turned out, one of the 2008 Ig Nobel winners who was being awarded his Ig Nobel Prize had to be interrupted from Twittering on his BlackBerry, which he continued to do FROM THE AWARDS PODIUM while he was trying to give his acceptance speech! Talk about a diehard Twitterer! Needless to say, he and I now follow each other on Twitter!

A week later, I was Twittering on my BlackBerry while sitting next to Lethal Weapon actor Danny Glover in the Bahamas as we were both waiting to go onstage. We struck up a conversation, and he ended up pulling a sword from my throat right there in the green room tent! We even got it on video!

In Europe, I twittered when I was performing in castles in Sweden, at a huge science festival in Italy, doing a film shoot in Germany, and drinking coffee at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. When I got back from Europe, I ran into dozens of people who commented on several portions of my trip! I was amazed that so many of them had really kept up with me. I asked where they had read about my trip… The responses were varied… Some said they followed me on MySpace, others on Facebook or LinkedIn or Plaxo, while many others followed me on Twitter. So yes, even though we may not always get immediate direct feedback from our online comments, I have learned that social networking can indeed be a very viable way of communicating with friends, fans, and followers!

Q: Any pearls of wisdom you’d like to leave to other entertainers still hesitating to get involved online?

Dan Meyer: Don’t do it! Stay offline and keep doing what you’re doing to the same folks you are networking with now… so that those of us who are not afraid to grasp and utilize new technologies will be able to market to this new market that you are missing out on!

For the rest of you who aren’t afraid to move forward, go for it! Get a Blackberry, set up at least a few accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Ping to get started, and go for it. Networking is a win-win situation… the more people you and I network with, the more opportunities we create exponentially. So connect with me on any of the sites you are on so we can help each other out. Let me know if there’s a way I can help you out by networking with you or performing for you.

Again, it was a honor to have Dan share his online experiences and how he leverages the web…I hope you’re taking notes. I have invited Dan to come back as a guest blogger to share more of his knowledge, guidance and advice so hopefully we’ll see more of him.

Interview: Bryan Of Zelazowa On Indie On The Move

2008-11-26T20:37:00Z

Had a great interview with Bryan of Zelazowa about their site Indie on the Move which is created by and for independent artists to help book tours and review venues.

Listen and learn about the motivation behind Indie on the Move, how it can help you and how you can be part of helping other indepedent artists.

Query: Artist Who Use Social Networking

2008-11-26T15:55:00Z

I subscribe to HARO (Help A Reporter Out) and this query came across this morning. I asked Karen for permission to blog her query since I know many of you who read this blog are using social networking sites and social media; this is a wonderful opportunity to get some publicity and share your experiences. Karen’s email is included.

Artists who use social networking

Name: Karen Leland

Email: kleland (at) scgtraining (dot) com

Title: Freelancer

Publication: Artist's Magazine

Deadline: 5:00 PM PACIFIC - December 1

Query:

"I'm looking to interview visual artists (painters, sculptors,
photographers, etc.) who have used social networking sites such as
Facebook, MySpace and others to promote and sell their art. Also
any artists out there who are using art oriented message boards or
forums."

Entice Me…Feed My Curiosity…

2008-11-24T16:04:00Z

…and what else? What’s it call? You know, come on…oh yea, Interact. Entice me, feed my curiosity and interact with me.

It’s doesn’t matter what aspects of the entertainment industry we talk about; doing the following three things – enticing fans, feeding their curiosities and interacting with them will lead to greater interest in your offerings and people attending shows, concerts and events.

The internet, social media and utilization of web technologies make enticing fans, feeding their curiosities and interacting with them EASIER. It just takes a little bit of creativity and understanding of the tools that are available.

Social Media for Performing Arts: The Metropolitan Opera
Possibly one of the best organizations that’s making use of social media and strong overall marketing/promoting of their upcoming season is The Metropolitan Opera.

Entice: To entice a potential client/new fan is to share the experience, in this case of the opera, with them. The Metropolitan Opera entices various audiences by offering broadcasts of their operas over a variety of mediums…to include radio and live in HD.

The Met’s new online subscription service features 13 HD videos, 37 historic TV performances, and 120 radio broadcasts delivered on demand. They certainly figured out how to deliver content to their audience when and how they want it.

Other enticing factors on The Metropolitan Opera website include a well stock picture gallery, some previews and audio highlights. Visual and auditory features are key to sharing the experience and enticing people.

Really wish there were more previews.

Feed My Curiosity: The Metropolitan Opera website is full of interviews, commentaries, and blog posts. The comments are turned off on the blog posts which is very unfortunate. I also think they would do well to have more video interviews.

Visitors can definitely find the information they’re looking for and learn a lot. If you can’t find what you’re looking for…you can always Ask Figaro!

I love this feature. Let’s face it, operas aren’t the easiest things to understand so getting help from an expert on the topic is an excellent addition to the site, which by the way, also falls into the interact category.

Interact: Another interaction feature offered is the Ask Figaro Quiz “a highly un-scientific personality test to find the right opera for you!”

The Metropolitan Opera could do a little better with the interact portion of their website…they definitely could engage with their audience more by asking questions of their audience, looking for feedback and member reviews. Adding a forum to their website would probably go a very long way to allow opera fans to interact together while participating as well.

Parting Thoughts – What’s Completely Missing
The Metropolitan Opera is doing a pretty good job on their domain…however, there isn’t a whole lot of ways to spread the data on their domain to outside sources.

No way to share the Metropolitan Opera trailer of Madam Butterfly or any other videos on the site.

And I have to note again – the comments are off on the blog, which is a prime method for people to interact with them.

It really isn’t that hard nor is it expensive to get involved in leveraging web technology and tools to entice, feed curiosities and interact with people. It’s also not about doing perfectly, but at least getting started in engaging with your audience.

Link Love Looney Monday (wk 2)

2008-11-24T13:35:00Z

I started doing a lot more homework and research on social media for the arts (museums and art galleries) as well as for performing arts (theatre, opera and classical music). It’s definitely more challenging to find information and people who discuss social media for the arts/performing arts.

However, I did find some and they are full of great information. Some are blogs while some are blog posts.

Rohit Bhargava wrote a post called 4 Ways Social Media Could Save The Arts. My favorite recommendation is #4 – Allow Patrons to share their experience. I’ll be writing soon about that.

Arts Marketing – written by Chad M. Bauman the Director of Communications at Arena Stage is an open discussion about arts marketing related issues and often addresses social media and creating work of mouth campaigns.

Arts Organizations and Artists 2.0: Social Media for Arts People is a blog post I found on Blogher by Beth Kanter. It’s a thorough look at how a few organizations are leveraging social media…the post is complete with examples and many outside links that will lead you to some additional information and fabulous blogs.

Technology in the Arts is a blog about just that…the latest technology for the arts which touches on many great tools and topics.

Museum 2.0 explores ways that the web 2.0 philosophies can be applied in museum design.

What’s Your Story? Is a personal branding, PR and New Media for artists blog written by Beth Dunn, the Director of Communications and Technology for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

Indie on the Move: It’s Like Yelp For Music Venues

2008-11-23T21:43:00Z

I came across a write up of Indie on the Move on gigDoggy’s blog so I went and checked out the site…what a great concept! It’s really like Yelp but specifically for music venues.

The concept was created by the band members of Zelazowa. Zelazowa is an experienced band that has toured the US and Europe that has apparently decided to give back to the indie-music community. (everyone go ahhhhhhhhhh…)

No seriously, this was an investment of dollars and time for Zelazowa to create this site which is priceless to other indie artists and even more so to a band who is preparing to tour for the first time. If you are preparing to tour, be sure to check out the Touring Tips section. I’d add this to the question: Where do I sleep tonight – have a look a CouchSurfing.com

What is Indie on the Move?
Indie on the Move is a collection of venues and reviews of venues across the United States where bands are welcomed to play. Each listing for a venue has contact information, website, MySpace profile, location and a basic description of the venue…along with reviews of the venues submitted by other bands and artists.

As an artist you can create an account and you can start planning your tour, as well as contributing content to the site.

Community Effort – Be a Contributor
Now that Zelazowa has established the site it’s up to the indie music community to make it useful. The success or the failure of this site will be an excellent demonstration of strong community participation or weak community participation.

The site can only get better if bands add venues, verify information and add reviews. NOT ONE individual is capable of making this site a success ONLY a COMMUNITY.

Sure, huge money could be invested to pay for someone to look into each and every venues across the US but the data wouldn’t be as powerful or useful.

It’s the real experiences that matters. It’s the sharing of information with others that matter. It’s the helping and assisting of those who are less experienced than you that matters. It’s being part of a community that cares to help each other out that matters.

Venting Session: Disabling Embedding in YouTube

2008-11-22T11:01:00Z

Oddly enough this isn’t my venting session, but one brought to you by Brian Devine from New Media Strategies.

Brian’s annoyance is rooted in the counter intuitiviness of people choosing to disable embedding on their YouTube videos…as he goes on to say, here are two major problems with that:

“There are two major problems with a band disabling the embedding of its official content. The first is that you are directly disrupting organic online word of mouth promotion of your content – this is contrary to the best practice of making your not for profit material, like YouTube videos, as easy to be shared as possible in order to maximize your reach.

Secondly, disabling the embedding of official content you are encouraging the spread of unofficial content. Locking down the videos on YouTube will ultimately not have the effect of forcing consumers to go to the official YouTube Channel – people online will find other avenues to embed and share the content in other places and ways. This will cause disabling embedding to only be a short-term snag to those looking for the content that will really only be at the expense of the artist who didn’t need to disable it in the first place.”
Brian ended venting with: “My only hope that this outdated thinking is the result of management, labels, etc. and not the band themselves. “

Here are two examples that Brian noticed and mentioned: Glasvegas video for Please Come Back Home and Morrissey video for Alma Matters

Until Brian mentioned this…it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would choose to disable embedding capabilities for their videos. After all, two factors that make a video potentially viral: Good content and the ability to share the video.

Andrew Parker author of blog The Gong Show wrote a blog post on this topic almost two years ago to the date and these are his thoughts/opinions on why someone would disable embeds on YouTube:

"YouTube must be paying a rev share for this content. Content owners likely don’t want their videos to be played if they are not paid for the play, and YouTube can only do a rev share on videos played on their own site (until they develop ads embedded in the video). So, disabling embedding is a natural conclusion from these circumstances. This is greedy.
Another reason why content owners might want to disable embeds is they want to control the messaging around their video. Content owners like Domino Records want to stop users from presenting their videos along side offensive, insulting, or otherwise unacceptable material. This is less greedy, but still lame.
YouTube is turning off the feature that allowed them to become the 800 pound gorilla in online video. It was MySpace and blogosphere embeds that let YouTube rocket past previously established competitors like Veoh. YouTube has reached a critical mass, so I don’t think disabling embedding for a limited number of videos will effect their growth at this point. But, it’s pretty odd that YouTube would allow owners to disable the feature (more so than any other feature) that defines YouTube."

Bottom line question that can’t quite be answered is: “Why would someone limit the ability for their content to reach a wider audience?” Any thoughts?

ReverbNation Encourages Maximum Fan Participation

2008-11-21T16:27:00Z

RerverbNation is far from being a new kid on the block…launched in 2006 to respond to the changing music business paradigm. The folks at ReverbNation believe:

Nothing is more important to Artists than the relationship with their Fans. All of an artist's financial success comes down to the strength and breadth of the relationships they have with their fans. It is from those relationships that artists can earn a living selling music, tickets and merchandise. It is our mission to provide the tools artists need to create, nurture, and strengthen fan relationships. We call the total value of these relationships an artist's Band Equity™, and it is our mission to help artists maximize this.

Active Fans are the best promoters of music on the web. Fan attention has become fragmented across the web in a way that mass marketing no longer makes financial sense (see the demise of radio, music TV). Today is the age of social networks. Artists cannot be everywhere they need to be at once, so they need to focus on activating their most rabid fans to promote them in every corner of the web.

A Music Community is more valuable if includes all of the members of the community. We believe that fans, labels, venues, and other folks all deserve a voice in the community if it is going to be representative of the entire music ecosystem. At ReverbNation, we invite all members of the community to take part.

Those are pretty powerful beliefs and sentiments.

ReverbNation was ahead of its time when it launched and they introduced widgets to musicians and fans. They design the site/network with the ability to spread information across the web…taking what fans are looking for to them.

ReverbNation Street Team – Join and Get Off the Sidlines
Pretty catchy guilt embedded slogan they have going on and solid methods of implementation.

Artists who join ReverbNation have the option to enable their Street Team feature. The feature is built around the concept of “missions” which are assigned to you – the fans. Examples of missions are:

Spread Music
Promote Shows
Recruit New Fans
Drive Traffic
Offline Involvement
Custom

Once an artist/band launches a mission…the mission is tracked in real-time and progress is displayed in a “Leaderboard” that both you and the artist can see.

The real cool part is that there is a blog for each Street Team mission for the artists to interact with their fans. The artist also sets what the reward(s) and prize(s) will be for the winner(s).

Joining and Participating in a Street Team

You need to have an account on ReverbNation to join a Street Team but once you’re a member it’s really easy to join. Find your favorite band on ReverbNation and look for the Street Team Tab…that’s where you join.

Ideally, your favorite bands already have active missions going on that you can get involved in right away, but if they don’t – you can join their Street Team and you’ll be automatically contacted when a mission is launched.

Also be on the lookout for this widget on your favorite bands’ online profiles:

I would think the coolest part of being on a Street Team is that the artist(s) you are helping out knows you are helping them out and it opens a great line of communication between you and your favorite artist(s).

Not Interested in a Street Team – What else can you do?
ReverbNation gives you a lot of options to promote your favorite artist(s). You can promote their music, videos, upcoming shows, and latest press information through a selection of widgets and applications.

Find out more about what ReverbNation has to offer Fans.

Dos and Don'ts of Twitter

2008-11-20T16:58:00Z

Lots of newly generated talk about twitter in the music side of the industry thanks to a blog post written by Ariel Hyatt (@CyberPR) & Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) called the Musicians Twitter Roadmap.

I’ve written a few post on twitter already on this blog which you can find under twitter in the category section of the sidebar. But one of the blog posts I hadn’t gotten around to writing yet is the Dos and Donts of twittering…so here goes. (Some of it is a refresher from the other posts – hint, hint…that’s because they’re really important.)

Do thoroughly fill out your profile
Do add a picture
Do follow people back
Do learn something about the people following you
Do interact with people
Do @people
Do ask questions and for feedback
Do provide feedback and answer questions
Do be entertaining (but yourself)
Do be informative
Do be engaging
Do tweet on a regular basis (preferably a few times a day when starting out)
Do tweet 12-18 times before following anyone to include @people
Do use DM for one on one interaction when sending out to everyone is inappropriate
Do assist in promoting your followers – they’ll return the favor
Do retweet tweets that are worthwhile
Do promote you’re on twitter on your other social network(s) and blog(s)
Do learn some of the twitter terminology – and IM terms to shorten your words
Do try to maintain a resemblance to using proper English
Do take your extended twitter conversations to IM, email or DM
Do realize things can be taken out of context
Do know you can actually say A LOT in 140 characters
Do look into tweetups in your area to meet people in real life
Do look for twitter applications that will make your life easier
Oh…and do prepare to be frustrated at times. Twitter isn’t perfect

DON’T

Don’t be a self-promoting fool
Don’t DM someone your website after they start following you
Don’t make all of your tweets 5-7 words
Don’t follow 2000 people in one shot
Don’t publicly send personal information over twitter
Don’t publicly put someone on the hook for something
Don’t publicly embarrass, bad mouth, or criticize someone
Don’t go nuts welcoming and thanking all your new followers
Don’t go nuts retweeting tweets that aren’t worthwhile (informative, funny or relevant)

It’s a simple Do and Don’t list that if followed; you’ll find success on twitter.

Is the Movie Industry Better at Social Media?

2008-11-19T16:56:00Z

Someone pointed out to me that the film/movie industry leverages social media better than any other genre, niche, and other industries within the entertainment industry. I tend to disagree with that statement…while at the same time, I’ll give props to the movie industry for doing good marketing. The exception perhaps being…Cloverfield

Of course, you could now bring the argument in that solid marketing on the web is leveraging social media.

Marketing Online = Word of Mouth for the Movie Industry
Okay…so this isn’t necessarily true for independent films. They have a much lower budget and therefore limited abilities to plaster trailers all over the internet so more grassroot work is needed.

However, when it comes to blockbuster releases…the high dollars are invested in online marketing which generates the buzz.

People Love to Talk About Movies
A friend of mine that I talk to every few weeks asks me almost every time we talk “Seen any good movies lately?”

It’s a top rated question – it’s part of the American small talk dialogue. The movie industry just needs to give us something to talk about.

Whether it’s in person, movie review sites, on twitter or other social networks…what movies people have seen, are watching or movies coming out; those are all common and natural topics of conversation.

“Quite the weather we’re having” right into “Hey, have you seen xxxxx?”

We naturally took those conversations online.

Recommendations

People love to make and get movie recommendations. It’s probably the safest unsolicited advice to give “You should go see xxxx”

You might not have opinions about much, but I bet you have an opinion about pretty much all the movies you’ve seen. It’s probably, the few, if only opinions people seek and tolerate listening to.

Already Slated for Markets
Take the genre of a movie and the rating and Bang…you’ve got the majority of your market identified (age, sex and preferences). With a little knowledge of where those people hang out online, you can easily target them.

The span of the various genre of movies pretty much reaches everyone – making for an unlimited market.

Appeals to our Senses
Movie trailers tickle our fancies. The sounds, the pictures, the plot…the actors. We watch movie trailers. We just do. They’re entertaining. They cater to our short attention span, they wet our appetites, they get us thinking about our opinions of the movie’s potential…they hit the mark. They even give us something to look forward to and get excited about.

Interaction
Interactive websites and video games add a layer to the icing on the cake. So does our obsessions with actors and actresses.

Movie fans are drawn together and like we already covered; they engage with each other.

The movie industry has a really good thing going. Will anything change that? The economy – cost of tickets?

To other industries…you don’t quite have it made that way. Even independent films…what can they do to generate more buzz without the budget. What about performing arts, what can they learn from the movie industry?

Bob Schneider Let’s You In And Connects

2008-11-19T00:13:00Z

I had to write this blog post because visiting this artist’s website really “moved me,” as cheesy as that might sound.

I was hanging out on Twitter reading the stream when this came across: DavidEckoff is excited to be seeing one of my favorite musicians tonight, the infamous Bob Schneider from Austin, TX. Listen (link to website)

I clicked and landed on one of the most innovative and “communicative” artist website I’ve found so far.

First off, it’s cool. The CD case layout is pretty neat. Cooler yet, if you click on the moving people inside the CD…talking bubbles pop up with funny stuff.

So after the cool factor comes the, WoW factor. Unlike other musician websites I’ve visited, Bob doesn’t just let his music play. He introduces each of his songs and the story behind the song…then the song plays.

A really simple thing to do to communicate with your audience, an easy addition to be memorable, and an upfront way to engage your listeners.

You get to know Bob listening to him tell the stories behind his music. You discover he’s a funny guy. You connect to him and realize he would be a cool guy to have a beer with. You realized that going to one of his shows is probably a total blast.

Bob brings you into his world…in the process of doing so you realize you want to know more about him. I bet he clocks in an average of 5-7 minutes out of each visit…if not more.

Once you decide you want to know more about him, you go exploring and what you find is more coolness. Click the menu button for more…this is one of my two criticisms of the site. The fact there’s a lot more to find from the menu isn’t necessarily intuitive. Second criticisms is that you have to go offsite to see his tour schedule.

Anyway, the biography area is the best biography section I’ve ever seen. It’s set on a timeline with pictures and it’s narrated by Bob.

I’m not going to go through each parts of his menu but I recommend that you do go and have a look.

I’d love to hear from you. What do you think of the site? How did it make you feel? Did you connect with Bob? Did it leave you thinking…I want to go to one of his shows?

Musicians: Ten Reasons To Join Stereo Fame

2008-11-18T12:52:00Z

I already started to explain Stereo Fame last Friday and I invited a few local DC based bands that I’ve come across on MySpace to join Stereo Fame so I could sign them on to my label. Only one band took me up on the offer so far, 23RAINYDAYS. They now somehow have 3,000 more points than me…the bums!!

So yea, I’ve been spending a good amount of time listening to music on Stereo Fame…much like Brew Dad who said in a blog post “…it has taken the place of the radio when I do my writing.” If I were a musician or in a band, I know I’d be spending time on Stereo Fame…here’s why:

Ten Reasons To Join Stereo Fame
1. It’s New and Easy. Ever dream you could have been on MySpace when it first started out? According to the Stereo Fame homepage…there are only 3,415 artists on the site, to a 5,551 number of labels and listeners. You can become a sought after artist now…and as the site grows; you’ll keep benefiting from it. Getting started is real easy.

2. Feedback on Your Music. After listening to one of your songs (15 seconds of it) listeners can give it the thumbs up or down. Pretty useful information because you can use it to narrow down who is and isn’t into your music.

3. Knowing Who Listened to Your Music. You can find out who listened to your music. The site tracks the music each member is listening to. Guess what that also does? Every time someone listens to one of your songs…it shows on their profile; fabulous visibility.

4. It’s Only for Music. You’re not competing with the attention of any other entertainers, cladly dress women, or whatever else might distract someone on another site.

5. Exposure to All Kinds of Listeners. There are other people, just like Brew Dad who come to the site and just let the music play. Passive listeners who use the site as their new radio station. You also have extreme listeners looking for the latest and best new artists for their label.

6. Downloads. You can make your music available for downloads.

7. Technically Sound. The site is well done. This isn’t a tech blog or startup blog so I won’t get into this…but trust me when I say, this site is well though out, designed and executed. Plus, you have all kinds of widgets and banners to help spread the word.

8. Collecting and Using Data. You can look up in the charts area who the top labels and listeners are and the top played tracks for the last 7, 30 and 90 days. Lots you can do with that information to help yourself.

9. Points and Prizes. Yep, you get points for taking part in the activities on the site too, which means you can win prizes as well. You would do all this work anyways…now, you get rewarded for it.

10. Get Signed On to a Label. So what if it’s a virtual label!?!? It’s a person/fan who enjoys and believes in your music. It’s a fan who is going to help promote your music. What’s better, earning a friend on MySpace or getting signed to someone’s label?

Although I say, and will keep writing that some of your time online is well spent expanding the ways in which you communicate online with your fans…for musicians, the most important thing is and will always be, to have your music listened to. Stereo Fame offers great ways to make that happen. Not only is your music listened to, but it is also promoted – the site is built to do that.