360DigitalInfluence

On November 23, 1787 James Madison wrote:
“A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.”

When he wrote those words, social media was nowhere on the horizon, nor was the telephone. At that time, getting messages out in a timely manner was much more challenging than it is today… significantly more challenging. The smaller the society, the easier it was to make sure everyone was informed. Today’s technologies make reaching thousands of people in real time no challenge at all.

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In the fury of learning about the new music platforms, we should also take a look at some of the lower-tech ways to make music work for brands.

Covers have long been a mainstay of YouTube content.  Two recent cover promotions are worth noting.

A.V. Club Undercover (Starbucks)

They Might Be Giants covers Chumbawamba
This promotion is now over a year old; Starbucks re-upped.  The premise was fairly simple; the folks at A.V. (the straight man music site affiliated with the Onion) made a list of 25 nostalgic indie songs and threw it out to 25 bands.  Each band picked a song to perform in the site’s Chicago office.  The longer the band waited, the smaller the list got.  This nice, simple game mechanism encouraged bands to record songs early and added an extra layer of drama for those of us watching the promotion.

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If you’re reading this blog, you probably check the internet. And if you checked the internets yesterday, or live on the East Coast, you know we had a minor, yet vivid plate tectonic event (aka earthquake).  While many rushed on Twitter or Facebook to share their best witticism or plea for a hug (guilty) - people also began to share music that connected, comforted, and best summed up the events of the day.

Welcome To the World Cloud Music

Earthquake aside, more and more people are sharing music, and not just on Twitter and Facebook. This year Turntable.fm, Spotify, and most recently Google Music have all launched to not only great fanfare, but also to impressive numbers of new users. Throw in Last.fm, Rdio, Pandora, 8track, and good ol’ YouTube-and you’ll see that discovering new music, sharing it with your friends, and hopefully adding to your cache of cool has never been easier.

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My relationship with music is a pretty active one. I’ve been a club DJ for a little under 9 years (it’s more of an expensive hobby rather than a separate career), so it’s important for me keep up on new (and discovering old) music. Which is how I happen to have come across the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) back in the early 2000’s.

Red Bull’s creation and support of the RBMA has become a example of the cultural patronage by a brand within youth and creative culture, with the Academy evolving its “platform for those who shape our musical future” into the social realm.

Here are some notes on how they did it – and how you can too:

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I’ll admit it: I don’t think about the “future” of music that often. I’ve been listening to a steady rotation of musical soundtracks, country music, and late-90s soft rock ever since late-90s soft rock was current, and while I’ve made the switch from CDs to iTunes, I haven’t been more creative than that. However, the subject keeps bubbling back to the surface with the launch of new platforms like Spotify and Google Music, the rise of mobile applications, and even the changing needs of radio (as discussed at a recent client event I attended hosted by Ford Motor Company). Finally, when this infographic showing 30 years of music sales from Digital Music News was circulated last week, I took note:

There are some quick takeaways on where music sales have been and where they’re headed:

• Never again will any source of music dominate the way CD sales once did. CDs accounted for 95.5% of music sales in 2002 and we’re moving to a model with even more options, not fewer.
• The whole is likely not greater than the sum of its parts. Single sales both digitally and on CDs/vinyl are a significant piece of sales when, in the past, we looked for an entire album. This changes both the sales model AND the approach of artists who no longer need to have 12 songs ready to release new music.
• Cassettes haven’t reached the retro cool point yet. Vinyl sales as full records and singles are making a comeback, but not cassettes.

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This past week social media showed users a little bit of everything – from the serious to the silly. If you’re anything like me, your Twitter and Facebook newsfeeds are continuously populated with link sharing from friends (and them adding their own commentary, which is always logical). Here are some of the most common serious and silly links shared among my friends this week. What was shared most in your feeds?

The Serious

Obama joins FourSquare

President Obama becomes one of the most high-profile people to join Foursquare. So far more than 27,000 followers are receiving his tips as he checks in across the Midwest on his bus tour. His tips are different than mine and yours as he’s sharing how to improve the economy and not what his favorite item is to order off the menu.

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Two weeks ago I stumbled upon a video tweeted by a friend; the clip was visually stunning, brilliantly edited and instantly made me want to cash in my airline miles to follow in the director’s footsteps. I shared the video via email to my co-workers and via Facebook to my friends. Within an hour of hitting send, two friends had also shared the video and a colleague posted it to his Tumblr account. Roughly five thousand people had instant exposure to this content simply because I thought it was worth sharing.

As I kept my eye on the video it continued to be shared and viewed in multiples previously attained only by pop-stars and adorable cats. As a digital strategist I couldn’t help but investigate why and how a group of independent filmmakers could pull this off.

I started down the wormhole, did a few searches, and stumbled upon mentions of the directors on outlets like OK Magazine without a whisper of the brand that actually commissioned the content! I continued to investigate and suddenly noticed that the credits on the director, Rick Mereki’s, Vimeo account had been updated with funding details. As it turns out, STA Australia-the well known student travel site had commissioned Rick’s team to create the now “viral” clip.

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Remember the excitement you felt when your website finally went live? All the design, development, revisions, and debugging were finally completed. And with a click of a button, you launched your brand presence.

Getting a brand.com or corporate.com website off the ground can require a massive team effort. It can be so challenging that the mantra becomes, “Let’s just get through Phase 1.” For the moment, that makes sense.

However, content (and keeping it up to date) is as critical to the life of your website as the launch that excited you so much.

But when was the last time you reviewed and updated the content on your website? If you haven’t touched your site since the “let’s get through Phase 1” launch, you’re not alone. And if it has been more than six months, you may want to surf to the dot.com featured in your email signature and check things out.
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While sitting in a Facebook seminar the other day, someone in the audience asked about the success of Facebook pages for B2B companies. Beyond some of the very obvious Fortune 500 B2B companies such as Cisco, Intel and IBM, I found myself struggling to answer this question. It got me thinking about the topic and why B2B organizations should do some planning before launching a page on Facebook.

1. Who is your target audience? Did you know that the average Facebook user is 26 years old and most users are women (57%)? (Source: SocialMediaToday.com) On the other hand, the average users of LinkedIn are men and women, age 46 (Source: Marketing.LinkedIn.com).  It’s important to understand who your customers are and where they’re hanging out.

2. What is the primary purpose of the page? Thought leadership? Recruiting? General company information? Customer service? Again, is your target demographic already using Facebook to collect this information or are they currently getting it somewhere else? A small percentage (11.9%) of Fan pages on Facebook are for products, the majority (46%) are for entertainment (Source: TechCrunch/Sysomos). Ensure that your organization has a clear vision for what the page will be used for.

3. Do you have a steady stream of remarkable and unique content to engage a fan base? Facebook users are returning to Facebook 40 times/month, spending 23 minutes per visit and expect frequent updates that are of value to them (Source: SocialMediaToday.com). If you’re struggling to think about what you would say on your page or the type of content you will create, you may want to consider a different platform that does not have such demanding content expectations. The average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events, which means that you’re competing with that much more content (Source: Facebook Press Room).

4. Is your Facebook page going to be supported by a larger campaign or initiative to help amplify activity and awareness about your company? While integral to launching a page, promoting a Facebook page can be challenging, particularly if your organization is one that is not already in front of customers on a daily basis like a consumer brand may be. Consider how the page will be promoted once you have launched it.

Before engaging in any social initiatives you should set out some goals for what you want to accomplish. If Facebook is not going to be able to help you achieve those goals, it’s worth a second look.

If you are considering launching a Facebook page, still a good idea to do your due diligence and think through the above questions to ensure it’s the right platform for your organization to show its true business value and to be successful. Many B2B organizations have found success communicating with their audience on Facebook through proper listening and planning.

I’ve noticed something lately I can only describe as the Personality Paradox (mostly because I’m a big fan of alliteration).

It’s simple:  When it comes to engaging in social media, bigger brands (alliteration! OK, I’ll stop pointing it out.) tend to have smaller personalities.  This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.

In the case of a big brand there are myriad factors that can cause this Paradox.  First off, having a big personality takes a ton of effort and focus.  Add to that regulatory/compliance issues, organizational challenges, multiple marcom agencies, new management and a million other things, big and small.  Or worse, simply losing sight of the customers who got you there in the first place.

The perfect parallel is a rock band.  The unsigned band playing half-filled clubs is going to cherish every fan – no autograph unsigned, no photo request denied, no interview not granted, no Tweet unanswered.  But as that band gains a following and eventually breaks, the demands on their time and attention increase, forcing them to (1) triage inbound requests and (2) start speaking to their fanbase as a whole, rather than as individuals.  Oh, and as their egos inflate, they often quickly forget their most loyal base.

(photo courtesy of Arne Hendriks)
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