Marketing | Solveig Whittle

YouNow 101: Using Online Performance To Add Fans

January 17, 2013 3 Comments

This is the second post in a series exploring the various options for musicians to stream live performances online, including StageIt, Ustream, LiveStream, Google+ Hangouts On Air, Skype, YouNow, Broadcast for Friends for Facebook, and Second Life Music. I covered StageIt in a prior blog post, StageIt 101: Creating An Intimate Experience, where I featured Vancouver vocalist and songwriter, Jody Quine. My goal is to not only give you the basic service overview, but also let you hear from an indie musician who actually uses the service regularly. For this post, I interview Texas singer-songwriter Sonya Jevette.

YouNow is a website that acts a bit like a collection of open mic lounges where performers queue up to perform online. There are no pre-set show times like with StageIt, YouNow is more like a public stage, where viewers watch and interact with a stream (no pun intended) of performers as they broadcast fairly short (generally 10 minutes or less) sets from their living rooms or bedrooms. Some performers perform repeatedly over the day, or queue up to re-broadcast their prior recorded shows.

Marketing

Likable Business by Dave Kerpen (Book Review)

December 15, 2012 1 Comment

This is a book review of Dave Kerpen’s second book, Likeable Business: Why today’s consumers demand more and how leaders can deliver. Kerpen is the co-founder and CEO of Likable, a social media and word-of-mouth marketing firm in New York. He has also been named the most social CEO of the Inc. 500. I read Dave’s first book, Likable Social Media, and was so enchanted with it that when I heard that he had written a second book, to be released fall of 2012, I ordered it right away. Since the thesis and case studies in Kerpen’s first book seemed directly applicable to businesses of every size and kind, it seemed natural that his consulting experience with companies and social media would easily translate into a more generalized business strategy book.

The gist of Likable Business is that the same key principles of effective business use of social media – to listen, be responsive, and tell stories – apply beyond social media, to business in general. The book is written for marketers and executives at small, medium and large companies who wish to “reorganize not only the way they do business around their customers, but the way they empower their people to become likable leaders.” (6) As Kerpen states up front, this is not a research-based or analytical book – “for data junkies, something will be missing” (6) – nor is it a list or manual for the latest tools to optimize the online presence of a business. You could, however, call it a manual of business etiquette for modern companies of every size, from one-person consulting shops to large multi-national corporations.

Marketing

8 Things Indie Musicians Can Learn From Taylor Swift’s Red Release

November 28, 2012 8 Comments

**If you like this post, you may also enjoy my follow-up post 5 Things Indie Musicians Can Learn From Taylor Swift’s 1989 Release**

Album sales may be plummeting in the music industry overall, but Taylor Swift’s latest album hit the number one position on iTunes’ Top Album charts within 36 minutes of its release last month and remained there for the past three weeks. First week sales were 1.21 million copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan – the biggest first-week figure for a new album in more than a decade. None of this was an accident – it was the result of a carefully orchestrated and deeply creative yet disciplined launch. What lessons can indie musicians take away from the way the upstart Big Machine Label Group marketed Taylor Swift’s “Red”? Sure, Swift’s label probably spent millions of dollars of marketing budget and had relationships with huge retail chains, but there are some lessons for smaller music marketing budgets.

Marketing

Identifying Your Super Fan

November 23, 2012 5 Comments

“Indie band marketing is similar to marketing a small, consumer-focused businesses: a marketing budget that is probably zero to little, and the objectives are finding new customers, keeping existing customers happy and identifying brand.” […more]

I’m so excited to have published my first guest blog post on the digital music distribution site, Ditto Music. These guys are a great source of information for indie musicians, and they also might be a one-stop solution for you if you are looking to license and distribute your music online.

In my guest post, you’ll learn about some simple online tools to help you profile your Super Fan – you know, the fan who loves your music so much they help you market it to others without you even asking. Word-of-mouth is still the way most things go viral on the internet, but it’s also just good marketing to know to whom your music really appeals.

Conferences, Music

TAXI Road Rally 2012 Flashback

November 11, 2012 No Comments

For those of you not familiar with TAXI, it’s a 17-year-old company that helps unsigned songwriters and composers submit their music for a variety of opportunities in film, TV, movies, and with labels. This is very helpful for aspiring artists like me who do not have deals with publishing houses or music supervisors. It’s also a great way for music supervisors to license new music cheaply from unknown artists. I’m just too old to be a rock star, frankly, but I’d love to create a revenue stream from my music via TAXI.

Membership in TAXI costs $300 a year (discounted if you bring others to the service), and there are small per-song submission fees as well. The Road Rally is TAXI’s annual member conference. Michael Laskow, who runs TAXI, said that they have about 10,000 members, and that 2700 of them registered for the conference this year. I have heard others say that the Road Rally conference is one of the best things about being a TAXI member, and I tend to agree. Although free to attend (members can bring one free guest, also), it’s certainly not free when you count travel expenses and your time. There are so many music conferences these days, it’s important to budget for them and to ask yourself if they are really worth attending. We spent a about $1100 per person in real money, as well as the time away from our clients and our own music creation. I always come home with some new information and insights from the TAXI Road Rally, though. Sitting in LAX thinking about the last three days I spent at the Rally, I thought I’d share why I feel it was well worth both my time and money.

Marketing

12 Amanda Palmer Lessons (Not About Kickstarter)

November 9, 2012 5 Comments

I’m not a huge fan of Amanda Palmer’s music, in fact, I admit I haven’t listened to her newest album. This is particularly embarrassing because I was a supporter of her Kickstarter campaign. But what drew me to donate, and what continues to intrigue me about Palmer, is less her music, and more the gestalt of her success. As an indie artist myself, I got to thinking lately about what differentiates Palmer in a sea of indie musicians. Why has she risen above the noise in such a big way?

By writing this list, I am not suggesting that every artist should emulate Palmer, and I certainly don’t plan to myself. Instead, like David Byrne, I believe we should be inspired by her to think creatively about how to gain exposure for and market ourselves, not just our music. This is what fans really want: they want to be intimate with artists, to connect, to feel moved emotionally through experiencing their art, to feel they know them. All human beings are attracted to (and frankly a little afraid of) people who are unusual, creative and dynamic. As musicians, we may choose, like Palmer, to use that attraction to create exposure for ourselves and our music in an increasingly cluttered musical landscape, with an audience that has a shorter and shorter attention span.

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

Interview # 2 With Brian Thompson of Thornybleeder

April 19, 2012 No Comments

This is the second half of my hour-long interview with Brian Thompson (theDIYDaily.com), a Vancouver-based music industry entrepreneur, record label owner, artist manager, marketing consultant, digital strategist, brand architect, web designer, blogger, podcaster and industry speaker. Formerly the corporate head of buying and marketing for a large Canadian music retail chain, Brian faced a crossroads when his long-time employer went bankrupt. Using social media, Brian has since re-created himself over the past three years to become a well-respected voice on the convergence of independent artist development, music marketing, social media and technology.

Marketing

Personal Branding in a Digital World

April 17, 2012 7 Comments

What is branding? Is it a tagline, a visual icon, a jingle? Or does it stand for something more? What is personal branding? How are our deepest and most personal values – what we stand for – reflected in what we do online and how we present ourselves in a business context?

I just attended the first in a series of workshops facilitated by Michael B. Maine (whom I met through Twitter). Michael is a specialist in socially responsible marketing and social entrepreneurship, and is both staff and student at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI), a pioneer in the sustainable MBA degree.

There are so many good things to say about this workshop. The majority of the attendees were members of Michael’s cohort or instructors at BGI, and I have to say: Wow, I have never seen a group of MBA students more excited about being in MBA school. (I am not affiliated with BGI in any way, this is just my personal observation from one evening). I was nowhere near that excited about getting my MBA!

Music

Interview # 1 With Brian Thompson of Thornybleeder

April 16, 2012 3 Comments

As a student of social media, I am interested in the role that content plays in the development of a personal brand. To get some firsthand insight into the processes and dynamics that are involved, I interviewed a social media marketing influencer I met through Twitter, Brian Thompson (of theDIYDaily.com).

Brian is a Vancouver-based music industry entrepreneur, record label owner, artist manager, marketing consultant, digital strategist, brand architect, web designer, blogger, podcaster and industry speaker. Brian’s been in the music biz for twenty years. Formerly the corporate head of buying and marketing for a large Canadian music retail chain, Brian faced a crossroads when his long-time employer went bankrupt. Using social media, Brian has since re-created himself over the past three years to become a well-respected voice on the convergence of independent artist development, music marketing, social media and technology.