Solveig Whittle: Shades of Solveig

15 Things I’ve Learned In 10 Months of Tweeting

October 23, 2012 1 Comment

When I began to tweet ten months ago for my social media class, I didn’t have a clue how much I would learn, both technically and socially, from the experience. This is not a post about the best time to tweet, how to use Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets, or how to geo-target your Twitter keyword searches. It is a post about some of the more subjective things I have observed about myself and other people on Twitter:

Social media is very much like group therapy. It’s free, it normalizes the human experience, and it is a great mirror for your own behavior. Chances are, the things that irritate you most about someone else on Twitter are the things you could probably stand to work on yourself.
Do your personal work, because who you are shows up in how you interact (sooner or later). After I have interacted with someone for a while on Twitter, reading their posts and seeing which of my posts they favorite and RT, I get a real sense of their values, their goals, and how they treat people. My goal is to work with people who share my values, so I try to remember that other people are also seeing who I am with every tweet I write.
There is no such thing as anonymity. As with email, don’t say anything on Twitter or any other social media site that you wouldn’t want read out loud in a courtroom. Even when you think no one is reading your tweets, someone probably is.
Karma: what goes around comes around. Do nice things, and eventually people notice. The same applies for tweeting mean or negative things.
Learn the rules, but then be yourself. Learn the basic etiquette, but don’t obsess about the details or adopt someone else’s style because you admire them. Pave your own way, let your own social media style emerge.

Music

Stealing Stardom: Macklemore’s DIY Success with “The Heist”

October 12, 2012 4 Comments

Rap artist and Seattle native Ben Haggerty, better known as Macklemore (profile by Andrew Matson of the Seattle Times here), and his creative partner, producer Ryan Lewis, are performing tonight to a sold out crowd at Seattle’s 7500 seat WaMu theater. He might be wearing thrift store fur, I’m not sure. I won’t be attending, but both my daughters are big fans, and they bought tickets months ago. I eagerly await their post-concert report – maybe even a text from the show or some iPhone pics (see below). Even though I’m a white woman in my 40s, and not a huge rap fan, I’ve been following 29-year-old Macklemore for almost a year since I first saw him perform on Chase Jarvis Live in November 2011. I was riveted on several levels: from carefully choreographed performance, to intelligent lyrics, to a masterful DIY social media presence and devoted fanbase. This guy was not just another young musician wanna-be – he was intelligent, articulate, positive, and inspiring. He wasn’t a rainy-day, depressing-lyrics singer-songwriter strumming his suburban-bought Martin guitar. This was a Seattle musician on the rise, I thought. Because I’m a musician myself, I was also interested to know more about how he was cultivating success without a record label.

As an unsigned DIY artist, Macklemore embodies a peculiarly early 21^st century musician success story, like Amanda Palmer’s, one that gives hope to millions of aspiring amateur artists around the world. It’s important to note that his success hasn’t been overnight, he released his first album 12 years ago. Through hard work and persistence, Macklemore has gradually created a devoted fan base that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions worldwide, with his socially conscious lyrics, artistic and sartorial creativity, and his considerable social media savvy. He’s even getting radio airplay – a seemingly impossible feat for an indie artist.

Music

Riding the Demon: Music, Love and Addiction

October 2, 2012 9 Comments

“Backstage he threw part of the guitar at me, and it whizzed by, just missing my head.” Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day in 2012? Nope. Roger Fisher in 1979, as described by Nancy Wilson of Heart.

The relationship between love, madness, addiction, self-destruction and creativity is always a complex one. Passion is the fuel, whether it comes from love or pain – or both.

I’ve been reading the new Ann and Nancy Wilson biography, Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock & Roll. Fascinated and horrified at turns, I am nonetheless appreciative of the matter-of-fact way Ann and Nancy talk about their love relationships, their music, and the role of addiction throughout the book. The narrative switches back and forth between the two sisters’ viewpoints, although at times it seems to almost come from the same person. The book touches on so many issues that I can identify with – from Roger Fisher’s narcissistic drug-fueled sexual excesses in the band’s early days (as told by Nancy) to the melancholy admission of alcohol problems and body image issues at the end (by Ann). The love story between the two sisters and the two brothers (the “Wil-shers”) breathes like a sleeping dragon throughout the book. In one of the last chapters, Ann tells of the last time she saw Michael Fisher. Never married, it’s clear she never quite got over him. If you watch footage of Roger Fisher talking about Nancy (in VH1’s Behind the Music), it seems he took a long time getting over her as well.

Music

The Un-Virtuous Music Industry Business Cycle

September 1, 2012 2 Comments

***UPDATE: Google To Launch Music-Streaming Service (Market Watch, May 14, 2013). This could be a game-changer, as Google is a major infrastructure challenger to Apple. Also missing from my analysis below is Amazon, who could also become a major player, and does have a cloud-based music storage system today.

***UPDATE: Apple announced a streaming music service on September 7, 2012, causing Pandora’s stock to fall precipitously. The impact of this service, which was also reported by the Wall Street Journal, is likely to be profound, although EricA Ogg of GigaOM speculates on whether Apple will succeed in this space given the relative lack of visibility of iMatch.***

It’s fall, the season when fruit ripens and leaves let loose and tumble to the ground. As I was walking my dog this morning, I was reminded of the stark difference between fruit and leaves. One is sweet and ripe, heavy with the burden and promise of life. The other, cast off like snakeskin, is the detritus of the season, dry and lifeless.

It’s the fall season in the music software industry as well. Every software business has predictable cycles for startups, and the music industry software startup cycle is no exception. The clock is ticking, and some music software businesses seem on the road to becoming lifeless, a step from being cast off from their investors like so many drying leaves. It’s not clear if any will bear the fruit – the financial returns – their investors were hoping for. It’s hard not to take as a warning the fact that projected 2012 Facebook revenues were downsized by $1B . Even this relatively successful consumer software platform continues to struggle to generate return on investment. Also in news this week, TuneCore founders Peter Wells and Jeff Price were ousted by the Board (read: major investors in the company take the reins, looking to change company direction to increase profitability). Slightly older news is that Spotify and Pandora are not yet close to profitable as of mid year 2012, and in fact, Spotify profitability appears to be moving in the wrong direction. Rhapsody was revived by absorbing Napster in a buy-in from Best Buy, and they are still owned almost 50% by RealNetworks, so theoretically they have deeper investor pockets. They are supposedly close to profitability, but their revenue and cost structures are less well understood. I’ll believe it when I see the numbers.

Thoughts

An Interview With… Me.

August 1, 2012 No Comments

I am so pleased to post this podcast interview of me by my friend Aaron Bethune of PlayItLoudMusic.com. Yes, Aaron interviewed me (not the other way around) this time.

Aaron is the founder of Play It Loud Music, a boutique management and booking agency run by a tight knit team of industry specialists and musicians. They have an extensive music licensing catalog, and they also offer an “a la carte” menu of services including marketing and branding to artists, labels, producers, studios, and businesses looking for a creative edge.

I met Aaron through Twitter (an example of just how amazing social media can be at bringing people together), and we hit it off right away. Last week, he asked (perhaps a bit innocently) if he could interview me. Frankly, I was flattered, because Aaron interviews some of the most influential people in the music industry, people like author and music licensing guru Sarah Gavigan, branding expert Marty Neumeier, music supervisor and journalist David Weiss and many others on his blog and podcast, Above the Noise. I hope you enjoy it. Aaron and I talk about my past life as a technology marketer, and what I’ve learned about the similarities between the music and software industries. Please feel free to comment on the interview, I’d love to hear what you think.

Above The Noise Music Industry Podcast with Recording Artist & Software Developer Solveig Whittle

Social Media

Music on the Blog or Blog on the Music Site?

July 8, 2012 9 Comments

(Originally published in March 2012 on my old website, which was hosted on the musician-focused website-building platform, Bandzoogle).

I’ve been struggling with the question of what kind of website to use to represent myself – you know, the one that you get to when you search on my name, Solveig Whittle (this one). I am currently using the service Bandzoogle, but in the past six months I have begun to really delve into the world of social media and music marketing. Along with that exercise, Stevie and I have been creating some music with primarily just the two of us, so I’m thinking it’s time to revamp my website(s) before I really launch into promoting the new music. After all, it should probably have a different brand and a different look, and this is my opportunity to “do it right” from the start.

Music

5 Things To Expect From A Great Music Producer

June 30, 2012 4 Comments

(From a guest blog post I made on my producer and partner Stevie Adamek’s website on 1/08/2012).

You’ve been a musician for a while, maybe been in a few garage or cover bands, and perhaps performed live around town. Recently you’ve begun trying your hand at writing your own original music. Now, you’re ready to take the next step and get your original material out there. A set of high quality demo tracks is the first step to getting visibility for your songwriting talents and musical capabilities. Most bands just get themselves recorded – not produced. I think that’s a mistake. There are many talented producers out there, and your original music can go from ho-hum to off-the-hook-competitive with good production. I’m going to cover what to look for in a producer, because in my experience, there are many people out there who call themselves producers, but don’t really provide the 360 degrees of services that a great producer does.

Marketing, Music

How About Standardizing The Technologies That Enable Artist Compensation?

June 20, 2012 8 Comments

Update July 6, 2012: I found a great article by Eliot Van Buskirk (@listeningpost) from January 2012 entitled “One Big Database Could Save The Music Industry” that outlines at least one proposed technical solution. Another solution would certainly be a set of standardized APIs across the software platforms involved, which would facilitate the passing of attribution data more seamlessly. This would certainly speed up payment to artists, and would make it easier for audits of labels and other middlemen to show exactly how many digital plays have been consumed.

Opportunity Out Of Chaos

I am concerned that the music licensing/compensation issue has created a polarized debate, but I don’t see a lot of discussion of how to fix the model. I think we all agree musicians (and producers and engineers, for that matter) should be fairly compensated for creating music. We also all agree that there is an increasing amount of music available to consumers for cheap or free, and that is unlikely to change. How do we reconcile these conflicting ideas? Because my business background is in software marketing, I always see things in terms of the opportunities created by technology advancements, bounded by the disorganized nature of the marketplace, especially in new or changing businesses. The music industry is certainly in flux – both in terms of production and compensation. That makes it both frustrating and exhilarating.

One thing I find interesting is how the opinion of the musicians (producers) differs from that of music consumers, and also from that of industry commentators (who are not creating music themselves, but make money indirectly from musicians and the creation of music.). We all have different points of view because they are informed by where we make our living. I think there is money to be made in nascent and confused markets, more than in organized ones, and that factor, to some extent, is preventing a model that is more streamlined and thus fairer to the musician/producer.

Music

The Instrument of Creation

June 2, 2012 2 Comments

This essay is about coincidences, relationships, love, death, expression, creativity, and the profound role that music can play in our lives.

I’ve been through the wringer this week. I don’t quite know what to do with it all, so I am going to write about it here. This post has nothing to do with social media or marketing, but everything to do with music.

On Tuesday, I found out that someone I had once loved deeply, Kyril Faenov, had suddenly died. Wednesday, I attended his memorial, burial and reception. Twelve years after we ended our romantic relationship, I was embraced again by his family and close friends. As I write this, it is Saturday, and I have been struck bolt awake every morning since, the knife edge of sudden, painful realization again in my chest. People around me are mystified by my devastation. How could I be so profoundly affected by a relationship long ago resolved and, so I thought, put to rest?

Marketing, Social Media

Delighting Your Customers With Likable Social Media (Book Review)

May 29, 2012 2 Comments

The introduction of social media tools has made transparency in marketing not only important, but critical. Social media enhances the ability to listen to what customers and prospects are saying publicly for any size company and brand in almost any industry today. I would argue that listening to customers has always been one of the key tenets of good marketing, and I agree with Dave Kerpen’s precept that that it has never been cheaper or easier to do so because of social media. There is no longer any excuse for companies to be ignorant of what is going on with both their customers and, I would add, their competitors.

Highly readable, this book is just the right mix of case studies, guidelines and suggestions. I read the book in one beach sitting. It is broken into digestible chapters of 12-15 pages in length, and the style is conversational yet substantial, with suggested “Action Items” at the end of each chapter. (I do always wonder if readers actually stop to write down their answers to these exercises. I just wanted to keep reading the book!)