I recently had the opportunity to meet a musician I'm now following on Twitter. I'm fascinated by the impact the Internet is having on the music industry and was very interested in hearing about the grassroots marketing techniques musicians are using these days. Our conversations made me think about how I use the web as a music listener/purchaser, what I like and what I don't like and how I behave online. With the purpose of it maybe being helpful I wrote a little piece about it.
How I use the Internet as a music listener/purchaser
Here’s a rundown of the music sites I use, why I use them and what I like about them. Though I know there’s a lot of additional sites and services out there, and I’ve tried out more than the ones I’ve listed, these are the ones I’ve continued to use.
twitter.com
Generally I don’t actively seek out musicians to follow on Twitter. The musicians I follow are mainly ones who have contacted or followed me first. If I see a new band or musician is following me on Twitter I’ll check out their feed and if their feed looks interesting I might check out their music on last.fm or myspace. I like feeds that include reflections on tours (thoughts on countries visited and venues played in), info on upcoming projects, and some creative writing is nice. If I like the music, I’ll follow the musician, and I have followed up on tweets I’ve received to download music and purchase merchandise. That said, I think there’s a little luck involved with Twitter. It’s kind of touch and go as to whether I’ll actually see everything (or even anything) a band or musican posts. I heard a good tip when I attended SXSWi this year, which was to tweet important items multiple times (the specific suggestion was three times). The second and third tweets are to catch any followers who may have missed the message the first time around.
myspace.com
I’m going to guess I’m not your typical MySpace user. For one thing, I don’t participate in the myspace community. I only use it to access music by musicians I’ve never heard of before, and last.fm is kind of taking over in this category. I most often use it to check out new bands, especially local bands, who are opening at concerts I’m going to.
last.fm
Again, I’m not a typical last.fm user as I don’t actively participate in the community, but I use last.fm a lot to check out new bands I’ve never heard of before and, to a small extent to check into bands I notice other last.fm users suggest.
facebook.com/iLike
I first hear about a fair number of concerts that I attend through iLike on Facebook.
facbook.com fan pages
I come across the majority of info I hear about about upcoming concerts, new releases, merchandise and special offers through Facebook’s fan pages. Most of the music and merchandise purchases I’ve made have started with a Facebook post. Of course, I don’t think I’d be too keen if all the info a band posted on FB had to do with ways I can spend money. I like reading about projects, reflections on current events, checking out photos of concerts, and news items.
blip.fm
I use blip.fm a lot to learn about new music from other users who like the same bands I do. It’s where I get the majority of tips on new bands to check out - in fact, I’d estimate at least 75% of the new bands I heard about this year were suggested to me by blip.fm DJs.
CBC Radio 3 (radio3.cbc.ca)
I love the CBC Radio 3 site. If the other music sites I participated in offered a Canadian only area, that would probably suffice, but as it is, Radio 3 is the only source I’ve come across that provides in-depth info on what’s new and happening in the Canadian music scene. As the majority of concerts I attend are in Canada, that’s important to me.
Band sites I use regularly
I can see how it’s necessary to have a site to provide resources for media and a store, but to be honest, there aren’t a lot of band sites out there that I’ve found have warranted more than a very occasional visit (once or twice a year). All the information about concerts, new releases and special offers I’ve ever followed up on have come from the sites and services listed above. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s important to post this information on a site, I just think there’s more exposure to be had from posting this information elsewhere. There are two exceptions, I will frequently return to the two sites listed below. Great Lake Swimmers because they update their site frequently (very frequently) with news and announcements (more than a monthly basis) and Billy Bragg because he’s an amazing man-of-the-people and I’m fascinated by what he’s doing with social media (heavy on the ‘social’ aspect’, with ‘media’ only an aside).
greatlakeswimmers.com
billybragg.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment