Music. Marketing. Social Media.

I was invited by Mack Collier to co-host #blogchat (on Twitter) last Monday night (the 8th) and was blown away by the quality of participants and discussions taking place during the chat.

Before I get into my thoughts, let’s take a step back. For those that don’t know what #blogchat is, it’s a weekly chat happening on Twitter (check out tweetchat.com for more information on how).  Essentially, you pull up a Twitter search for #blogchat at the appropriate time, and start Tweeting with the people already participating. The key is to use the hashtag (#blogchat) in every tweet so that the conversations can be seen by all. If you’re wondering how to find the “appropriate time” a simple Twitter search will tell you if you search for the hashtag.

The topic of the week was how musicians could use blogging and social media to help them achieve their goals – whether they be ticket sales, music sales, or just connecting with their fans.

The full chat transcript can be found here, and Mack’s review post can be found here. Happy clicking!

About an hour and a half into the chat, Curt Smith (co-founder of Tears for Fears) jumped into the fray and spent the next 30ish minutes answering questions.  Part of the value (as a fan) of following artists on Twitter is the perception of personal connection you feel with the artist, their work, and their lives. Take the following exchange as an example:

Some of the other valuable music-related nuggets Tweeted during the chat:

• Blogging and using other SM tools is a great way to build a passionate community
• Communications should be authentic – no PR/marketing people tweeting “as” the artist
• Don’t be afraid to have a personality
• Many artists don’t see themselves as brands – that mind shift is necessary
• Twitter can be a great “first step” tool to drive fans to other places (like a Facebook Fan Page or a website)
• Offering up special incentives/announcements via SM is a great way to make your community in SM feel special (Ed note: as well as start to get an idea of the effectiveness of these tools!)
• Artists and companies need to start viewing fans as long-term assets, not just short-term pockets stuffed with cash. The key? Building a relationship with them.
• If you’re going to use SM, always consider what the fans want to read/might find interesting. The focus isn’t you as a person, per se – it’s about your brand and your work. Don’t be afraid to let personality shine through, but avoid excessive inane chatter.
• Location-based software could be a no-no if you get big enough to worry about “crazy people”. Safety first!
• Most agree a blog should be the “home base” in your digital efforts
• Don’t forget the fan to fan connections – they’re key!
• Before you can ever start to think about selling anything – you need to build a community who wants to buy.

What advice would you add? Leave it in the comments!

This post was pushed to the back burner this month in the midst of the craziness that is my life.  Over the course of the month it became “that thing” that all writers (or bloggers, in this case) think about. That Post That Must Be Written, to be specific.

First off, I do want to send a huge public thanks to a friend and a very talented web developer, Caroline Keim.  I wouldn’t have been able to go to this event had she not invited me, as I’m really just not cool enough to be invited on my own (really, I’m not).

On to the main event…. the event!

This event was put on by Billboard Live, and the concert (Alicia Keys & Friends) was livestreamed on their site and later archived.  The event was mainly “& Friends”, as I believe that Miss Keys played three songs (at most) the entire night.

Alicia opened up the evening with a moving performance of Empire State of Mind – Part II. In a venue as rich in history as The Apollo and in her very own neighborhood, this song really took on extra meaning. Plus, I have a big sentimental side, so there’s that.

Thanks to NYPOST.COM, I figured out who the other artists (“and friends”) were. Billboard – in the future a list of the “& friends” would be handy!

Raheem DeVaughn, Hope, Elle Varner, Marsha Ambrosious, Jermaine Paul and Melanie Fiona all performed a few songs each, with Alicia popping on and off the stage throughout the performances to either perform duets with the acts, or perform her own songs as transitions between the guests.

Two acts really stood out – Melanie Fiona and Elle Varner.

Elle Varner was up first, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she stepped on stage.  It took about 30 seconds for me to figure out that while Elle may be young, and perhaps new to performing on a stage like The Apollo’s, she is mega-talented.  She’s on Twitter and was tweeting about the event before and after, and I went to her YouTube page to see what she had up there when I read through her stream.  Take a look at what I found below:

I wish she used YouTube more, but she does use MySpace, and keeps a bit info there.

Melody Fiona, the other standout of the night, on top of having a KILLER dress (seriously, I want to own that dress), also brought plenty of sass with a healthy serving of “Holy cow, that girl has PIPES” to the stage.

She was just nominated for a Grammy, and also performed on Jimmy Kimmel live shortly after her show at The Apollo.

At the risk of overwhelming this post with videos, I’ll leave my favorite song off of the video list – Ay Yo.  Click the link to go listen to her performance on Carson Daly’s Last Call.

In true Alicia fashion, she closed out the night with All Right – still one of my favorite songs so no complaints from me!

Now for the social marketing comments…

From a social media perspective, I think this event could have been better executed. There was a MySpace contest for fans to win tickets, but I didn’t see a lot across other social media sites (including Facebook, where she debuted her new album a short month before the event).  Also, Billboard’s site doesn’t provide a lot of interaction, and it’s hard to find the event, let alone watch the recording. I’ve done the digging for you here, but even knowing where to go it took me a few minutes to find it.

I also wish it was easier to find out about the “& friends” part of the show, if you couldn’t tell by my comments above.  I was sitting next to Xilla from Global Grind and between him, myself and Caroline, we were hard pressed to find the correct names of the performers using our ears (and our iPhones).  I spent a chunk of the next day double-checking my work, and figured out that we still had some of the names wrong!

Photos and video weren’t allowed at the event. Since Billboard was live-streaming the event I can see the logic in this, but at the same time, I’d rather show you all the video I shot and photos I took rather than have to point you to YouTube and Billboard’s websites as the sole source of information.  I can play devil’s advocate both ways on this, but with things like events – I’m a firm believer in the fact that fans should be able to record the experiences for themselves through photo and video, as long as they appropriately credit the source.

Overall, I’m happy to see Billboard do something like this, but think that little thought was put into the entire picture by all of the involved groups. The event was great, and fulfilled a long-standing want of mine to see Alicia Keys perform, but I still believe that it fell flat in terms of overall impact.  If companies in the music business are suffering so much, why don’t they put their full efforts into making events like this a true success? How can they appropriately gauge the effects of social media marketing if they’re only doing part of the work?

So. Go check out Alicia Keys’ new album, go check out the guest performers, and go check out the Billboard Live recording of the night.  It was a fun night full of great acts, and I really hope to see more events happening like this in the future. A great start, but there is more to do!

I recently had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the Social Fresh Cruise, an invite-only social media 4-day floating conference/cruise from Miami to Cozumel.

The cruise was part conference, part pure fun. I was one of eight speakers for the conference portion of the cruise, and spoke about “The Recording Industry is Screwed… Now What Do We Do?”

Why yes, I do like to stir the pot. Thanks for asking.

The 45-minute “speech” was more of an open discussion, prefaced by a bit of background about the industry.

The background centered around the alternatives that exist, allowing musician to carve their own paths and often times, decide IF they even want a record deal with a major label.

The discussion portion of the talk was the most valuable, and many people contributed their thoughts, opinions and experiences about the music and recording industires.

The discussion ranged from how research completed in the 80’s about how people would contribute and use the Internet is still relevant, from how one of the attendees favorite bands used Kickstarter to finance their projects.  Many of the attendees had their own experiences to share about connecting with artists on Twitter, and as we were on the cruise with Rick Springfield’s fan club, we ALL could see a real-life example about how connecting directly with an audience really works.

To talk a bit more about one of the best comments of the discussion, I’m going to jump back and discuss a bit about my personal tastes:

I REALLY like a great debate, and really enjoy people intelligently disagreeing with my opinions. As mentioned, the highlight of the talk came from one such comment by Lucretia Pruitt, who made the excellent point that the recording industry is experiencing what a lot of other industries go through when a seismic shift in their business model occurs. Hint: This shift for the recording industry begins with an “I” and rhymes with schminternet.

In general, innovation comes from the bottom up. The start-up, the smaller companies and the ones that have “less to lose” take the “risk” and innovate. They try out new things, see what works and adopt that into their strategy. The bigger more entrenched companies usually wait to see if what the smaller guys do works. If so, they copy it and make it part of their business. Less risk with potentially the same rewards.

Now, I’m not saying that this is an absolute, but it’s certainly a trend.

The difference with the music industry, is that the “big guys” have fought against this change for the better part of a decade, instead of embracing it and trying to innovate from the beginning.  From a PR perspective, that decision has caused a huge problem for the public image of the music industry.  In many people’s minds, it is now “us vs. the music industry”, especially “us vs. the RIAA”.

I’m thrilled to see some of the “big guys” waking up and beginning to realize that the “stick my head in the sand” approach is NOT a smart move, but they must do this while remembering that consumer perception is still a huge concern.

I have much more to say on this topic, and am starting with a conversation today at 3:30PM EST/ 12:30PM PST where I’ll be participating in an un-panel on SnazL with Mary McKnight (EMI, Sacrilicious Marketing) and Mike Fabio (Warner Bros. records).

Join the un-panel and upload a video, share photos or chat to participate.

Sonorasaurus is an iPhone app I’ve been beta testing for a few weeks month or so.

From the website:

Sonorasaurus is an app being developed for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) that allows for advanced deejay functionality with MP3s. After all sometimes a simple playlist just won’t get the job done. In the near future we will begin to expand more on what the app does and how it looks, but for now we offer a quick snapshot.

Aside from the whole tech side of apps and iPhones, we will endeavor to expose people to good music and the occasional free download.

I haven’t DJ’d in a few years (about 5, actually), so the app has provided a welcome distraction on my subway rides – figuring out what I still know (and realizing what I don’t!).

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I’ve worked with one of the developers on a record label before, which is how I was selected for the beta test.

You can find out more about the app and the creators here, and I’ve included the tutorial video from their blog below.

I tweeted about the app a bit, and a few people came back with questions which I’ll make sure to answer in my review.

Sonorasaurus Pros

• Intuitive controls – things do what you expect them to do, and they’re in the place you expect to look for them
• Accurate response – This was the aspect I worried about most.  Would the controls respond the way I thought they should? Great answer; they did!  The jog, pitch control and crossfader all responded beautifully and exactly as I expected.
• Easy Song Loading – It was really easy to pull songs off my computer and put them on my iPhone through their handy FTP site, and it supported both .wav and .MP3 file extensions
• Fun Effects – I don’t use effects much, but I toyed around with them some and thought they were really well-done.
• Pre-Loaded Songs – I liked the fact that Sonorasaurus came with pre-loaded songs. They were quite easy to mix and gave me something to mess around with while I learned the controls.

Cons

• Button Size – While the controls responded perfectly, I found that the + and – signs on some of the controls were slightly too small, causing me to hit the wrong buttons and miss the ones I meant to press.  I have pretty small hands so I do anticipate this being a slight problem for those users with larger hands.
• Headphone Cueing – This option isn’t available on the beta test version of the app, causing all mixing to be the equivalent of “leave the crossfader in the middle and hope for the best”.  It’s fine for practicing (as I do), but I don’t see this translating well for DJ’s in clubs unless they have their set and associated timings and pitch details down pat.

Both “Cons” were aspects people on Twitter asked about.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great application (so say TUAW, as well!) and I’m looking forward to seeing the final product (it’s still under review by Apple).  I enjoy using the application to mess around with different mix timings and combination’s, and anticipate that many DJ’s will feel the same.

The developers have let me know that headphone cueing (and other features yet to be named) will be coming in a Pro version of the application.  Once this Pro version is introduced I see this app becoming even more valuable to DJ’s, and perhaps a great “on the go” tool to record mixes or even use in clubs/at house parties.

See anything you have questions about? Post ‘em in the comments and I’ll see if I can get them answered.