The increase in adoption of geo-location services, such as Foursquare, present such an opportunity.

For those of you still unfamiliar with Foursquare, the general premise is that users can notify friends of the restaurants, bars and venues they are in when out. The point of which encourages you to find friends when you’re out and discover new locations and parts of your city you never knew existed. The inclusion of reward points and ‘badges’ that can be earnt add an extra element for users.

How could this be useful for independent artists?

Having an artist/band profile and checking in at venues for shows and appearances serves two purposes:

1. Increased exposure of the band on venue pages (user profile pages also offer links to Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles for people to give easier access for people initially discovering the band)
2. Fans checking in at the shows are rewarded and it is possible for the band to see which others users have checked in the most times with them

For a band, offering an ongoing promotion for the most die hard attendees of shows (in a similar way to how increasing numbers of venues are rewarding their Foursquare ‘Mayors’) in which they are rewarded with either an item of merch or special token from the band, or even just for those seen to be attending a number of gigs can help to fix a name to the face of audience members for relationship development.

While bands can often be snowed under with the number of different social media and interactive platforms, something like Foursquare is useful in that it can be updated in seconds from a large number of mobile devices, and allows an easy extra level of interaction with fans.

While such tools require a certain amount of time to set up, they can really give fantastic feedback of not only how well your campaigns and promotions are working, but also how best to interact with your particular fan base. Why go to the bother of maintaining a specific music profile page when most of your fans want to interact with you via Twitter or Facebook? Tools such as Google Analytics will help monitor how and where your fans are finding their way to you, and even what they like when they find you. All of this can all help to optimise your presence online by customising your sites to make them easier to find on search engines, and help to give you an idea of what your fans want from you online. Are your fans spending most of their time watching videos you’ve posted? Analytics tools will highlight how popular your videos are so you know that by increasing the number or variety of the videos on your site, your fans will be more likely to keep returning to check out new videos, or re-watch their favourites.

There are a wealth of different levels of analysis you can use for your sites, from simple link-tracking using sites such as bit.ly which will help to highlight how many users click links posted on various sites (try using different short links on different social media sites to see which is most successful in sending users to the sites you post), through to more comprehensive systems, including Google Analytics, which will give a wealth of information from search engine terms, time spent on the site, most popular pages, and even locational hotspots based on IP address locations. Platforms such as Topspin and Bandcamp are built around giving great feedback to bands and artists to help promote their music, with embeddable widgets are gathering data that can really give clear indications as to social media successes, and even help with gathering mailing lists through to sale of music and other physical and digital products.

Why the Beatles reference in the title of this post I hear you ask? I am referring to Pandora‘s Tim Westergren who wrote a fantastic article about how important or successful a dedicated online marketing assistant can be for a band. While analytics and general web presence maintenance and promotion are vital to a ban’s success in the current music business climate, much of what is entailed can be time-consuming and often needs someone particularly technically-minded, and can benefit from someone’s dedicated attention. If a band wants to be successful it is worth appointing someone to help out with this side of their music, leaving them freer to concentrate on their specialist skills – creating and playing music.

After releasing figures this week of WMG’s $17m loss in Q4 of 2009, Bronfman is obviously keen to lay blame somewhere, and in-keeping with his personality, wants to be seen making a stand against various parts of the current music business.

While Bronfman speaks of premium streaming services that require payment from subscribers that he feels will rival iTunes, I can’t help but picture a big swing-and-a-miss for WMG. One reason Spotify has become such a leading platform in music streaming is it’s far-reaching catalogue, and user uptake. The success iTunes has received is also largely down to similar elements – it’s market penetration and availability meant that it reached a large number of users quickly, lead the way and strongly maintained it’s position.

Any future service that hoped to take over from services such as Spotify or We7 would need to rely on the majors withdrawing their catalogues from those services and all coming together to sign deals to give the same catalogue to the new service. Who would choose a subscription service that you had to pay for which only had, for example, the Warner catalogue, when other services offer a wider range, with less stringent pricing options?

The bullish attitude of Bronfman only smacks to me of a company that are not getting their own way in the current music industry model, still relying too greatly on recorded music sales, and wanting to throw their toys out of the pram when their competitors are seeing streaming services as a potentially successful fraction of their future model. Would Bronfman have still made this weeks comments if Universal’s SVP Rob Wells hadn’t spoken in January in support of Spotify?

It still surprises me (but shouldn’t) when the majors are seen to be fighting against the tide of industry changes, rather than accepting the climate as is, while using their efforts to maximise potential income rather than casting negativity over what they cannot control.

In my opinion, were Warner to remove their catalogue from the streaming services, the lost promotion would have more of an adverse effect on recorded music sales than would be compensated for by dictating to consumers that they must buy through iTunes or the premium services of their choosing.

With this in mind, I have decided to start a (hopefully) regular feature in which I get to find out from the artists themselves how they are working with the new found musical and creative freedom they are currently enjoying, at the same time sharing with you some of the great music out there to be discovered.

The first artist I have the pleasure of featuring is North Carolina singer-songwriter, Chris Bryant. After reading an article featuring Chris and how he is capturing imaginations with his “de-mix” approach to covering other artists, along with his idea of being his own support act for live shows, I listened to his music via his website and Bandcamp pages, and he quickly became one of my most listened to artists of the last few months.

I have been fortunate enough to get in touch with Chris to get his views on his music, and how he approaches life as an independent musician.

Filed under: Artist Spotlight Tagged: artist/fan relationship, Bandcamp, Chris Bryant, direct-to-fan, free music, independent, Live Music ]]> http://elliotpearson.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/independent-artist-spotlight-chris-bryant/feed/ 0 Elliot Pearson Chris Bryant http://elliotpearson.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/traditional-vs-digital-artist-management-in-2010/ http://elliotpearson.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/traditional-vs-digital-artist-management-in-2010/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:42:18 +0000 Elliot Pearson http://smoothonemusicservices.com/elliotpearson/?p=431 ]]> As an observer, something like the yearly MIDEM conference in Cannes is a great way to catch an insight into the current views of those inside the music industry about what is happening right now, and how they see things changing in the future. It is often supported by fantastic panels with often conflicting views. At the MIDEM Manager Summit, one such panel helped to highlight completely different views from two different managers. While the don’t necessarily conflict as they are personal opinions and not a clear case of right or wrong, it is interesting to the approaches of two successful artist managers.

Monday’s panel of Chris Morrison of CMO Management (Blur, Gorillaz) and Mark Wood of Radius Music (Imogen Heap) showed two managers working from different approaches – Morrison’s more traditional approach and Wood’s more tech-centred approach.

For me, the conversation was notable for a few different points. Morrison’s view of online digital retail was very concentrated:

“…there is only one retailer that counts on the net: iTunes… yet we spend an inordinate amount of time feeding the competition, rightfully so because we want there to be some competition”

There is no reference from Morrison to direct-to-fan techniques. I understand that for a number of reasons his point is correct; iTunes has by far the largest market share and is one of the largest music retailers, both online and offline, is a key access point for chart inclusion, and is an established brand for consumers with incredible tie-ins with the market-leading portable music devices. It is also true that competition must be maintained to keep the pressure on iTunes. Maybe it is the label involvement in the artists that chooses this path, but even EMI must be able to see the potential in direct-to-fan marketing and retail for such established acts – especially with EMI being on the virtual receiving end of the Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ experiment. With platforms such as Topspin allowing many cost-cutting aspects to a release maximised for the established fanbase, and with the big name acts still more than capable of receiving media coverage even without chart placement, it is a better time than ever to shift to a new business model.

Morrison admits that he tries not to get overwhelmed by the online side of the music industry, distilling it in his mind to “a form of communication and a retailer”. While it is understandably a big shift for someone experienced in traditional record industry values to move into the digital world, a lack of understanding or neglect could prove costly – if I were an artist, I would want my manager doing their utmost to keep up with developments, should the time come that the band move away from the safety net of a major label deal.

When the topic of file-sharing was brought up, Morrison had a response to Pharrell Williams’ earlier comment about comparing file-sharing to “taste-testing” which has been widely reported:

“It’s not, it’s like giving them the whole bloody meal!”

While it is understandably frustrating to work so hard on a project over a period only for it to leak before release must be frustrating, his views about stopping piracy and “taking the gloves off” echo the lawsuits and clampdowns that have alienated music fans from major labels, by vilifying them after years of supporting the industry only seems to do itself further harm.

Mark Wood’s awareness of the internet and social media are far more in-line with how the industry seems to be developing, partially because his client, Imogen Heap, is so switched on to the idea of fan interaction. The information they receive from fans through the stars prolific Twitter-use amongst other things allows the management team to maximise and direct it’s avenues going forward, whether it be geographic pockets of information of fans requesting shows, or database cleansing and management. While such digital information is by no means exclusive, it can only be representative of a whole fanbase, it is vast information that would only be missed if these opportunities were neglected.

As I mentioned before, I am not saying that either approach is right or wrong – Morrison’s traditionalist approach is fine while the band are still operating under the major label record industry rules, albeit in a different climate – but as time passes, those in the industry who are more open to change and keeping up with the way consumers interact and source music will enjoy far more success than those who steadfastly cling to what has worked before now.

As Charles Darwin noted:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

The thought has been inspired by the core idea behind Apple’s use of multi-touch devices, and today’s much over-hyped launch of the iPad. While I’m sure many of you are rolling your eyes at the mere mention of the device, and anyone who knows me will be doing the same based on their knowledge of what a Mac fan I am, I reassure you this is not a tech post about the unit or intended to add to any of the hype.

Computers are increasingly more and more incredible at what they can do, and with the ability with which they can do such things. The thing that strikes me about the iPad, iPhone, or indeed the HP Touchsmart computers or other such devices is that the way with which we interact with them – the user interface -  has been distilled to virtually it’s most simple and natural form. Touch.

Watching the promo video of the iPad on the Apple website brought home to me how astonishing and powerful this is as a concept. Seeing the person in the video fully interacting with the unit, performing every function on it with perfect ease using only their fingertips with no mice, scroll balls or stylus drives home how simple the notion is but at the same time how beautiful and right it is. As technology increases we are inevitably burdened down with the new accoutrements that are required to use them. Take the next step in TV which is almost certain to be 3D – we have travelled from radio which we could rely solely on our ears to enjoy, to television which included our eyes, next to 3D which will also require us to be wearing the tinted glasses. But with devices utilising touch technology, the input devices we have become accustomed to are removed – rarely has taking something away meant that we are taking a step forward.

As a child we learn touch before we can speak, and many of the things which follow require us to actively learn them. The videos on YouTube of babies ‘using’ iPhones indicates that the interaction with technology via touch interfaces is in fact far more natural an occurrence than writing words with a pen, or pointing and clicking with a mouse.

Sometimes, not purely in design terms, simplicity is beauty.

What business do these thoughts have on a music blog you say? With all the technology in the world being shaped to create, record, sell and interact with music, and the billions of dollars invested in trying to make billions of dollars from it – the latest technology we use to harness and synthesise the feelings we get from music, or the repeated concerns about how anyone will make money or a career from music in the future, it is easy to forget the beauty in simplicity; the distillation of everything that is concerned with music today – the song.

At it’s most base level the song has more importance than anyone seems to remember.

Before you worry about what you need to record or market or promote or sell the song, make sure you do the song justice in the first place.

I seem to be making the point repeatedly recently, but it’s always worth pointing out the one-sided views presented of the current state of the music business and coverage of this report is no exception. The Guardian leads with the headline “Piracy continues to cripple music industry as sales fall 10%“, while TorrentFreak obviously reads the statistics from their perspective in the article titled “Pirates Are The Music Industry’s Most Valuable Customers“. Both of them are writing with the record industry in mind, whereas I am hopefully speaking with a view of the music industry.

Some people will be thinking it’s somewhat of a “tomayto/tomarto” situation (excuse the phonetics but I thought this would be more easily understood in comparison to a “tomato/tomato” situation…), but for me it is a clearer cut situation than that. When I refer to the traditional music business structure, it is the record industry which is essentially focused on shifting units, and has been built around major labels selling products to a mass market as we’ve known for the last fifty-plus years. The phrase music industry for me represents what is emerging from the power shift happening in the industry which is increasingly involving artist empowerment and direct-to-fan interaction, when music, in whatever form and whatever it represents, is the dominant cultural currency.

The record industry is suffering. Although the IFPI report shows progress regarding increasing digital revenue (up 12%), including digital album sales up 20%, the increase in digital is still lagging behind compensating for dropping physical sales and industry revenue (overall the record industry is down 30% on 2003). This however only covers label revenues, and doesn’t measure statistics of music outside of certain transactions. To quote Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media:

I’d like to challenge you to consider a different perspective, in my honest opinion, the only perspectives that matter, that of the artist and the fan. I see news about the health of the music industry as defined by the stock price of WMG, or quarterly earnings of UMG, Sony and EMI every day.

While I don’t suggest that direct-to-fan transactions account for the total amount of that 30% loss in revenue, the music industry is flourishing, with artists able to take their careers into their own hands, and deal with their work and fans outside of the traditional label structure. If it were possible to measure data of music transactions outside of the major label, IFPI-covered system, I think with time we would see an increase in this as it gradually becomes a large part of how the music world will develop going forward. While there will still be room for the record industry, albeit more streamlined as it finds it’s new methods of operating, consumers will be able to access and use music as they want to. Enjoy mainstream pop and hyper-colour Disney tie-ins? The majors will supply this to you. Prefer heartfelt, coffee-shop acoustic folk? You’ll be able to go straight to the artists you love.

This could cover artists of any level; someone who regularly plays in the pub in your town will be as accessible if you want to find their music as an established major label artist who is taking their career into their own hands. And they will receive greater revenue and control for their work that they deserve. The pop artists on the major labels will still benefit from the increased financial backing and marketing they need.

As I type this I have an image in my head of an embryo spawning two twins; both from the same genes but each displaying their own personalities and sustaining themselves independently. I will probably omit this image from my article, however, as I’m sure it is a weak metaphor at best, God forbid I even reference it in the title of the article…

I don’t want to dwell on the file-sharing/piracy aspects of the debate, as while it exists and shows little sign of relenting (or even the question of whether it should need to relent based on the positive elements of the culture) I’d like to end with a quote from Matt Churchill who sums the birth of the two twins emerging from the traditional record industry egg beautifully:

If it wasn’t for file-sharers we’d not be looking to develop better business models, better distribution platforms and innovative ways to make sure the artist gets the right amount of money for their work.

More and more frequently I’m reading articles covering independent artists or bands who are finding ways to create music and release it to their fans in a two-way exchange that enriches everything about the release – more than any major label release could ever dream of.

Today I was sent this story of UK band, Hope and Social, and how they wanted to include their fans in their latest project.

While the story is self-explanatory, I think it highlights some very key values that Rich Huxley from the band writes about, and should be inspiring reading for other independent artists out there.

The band obviously value their fanbase and far from take them for granted. Fans are not simply numbers on a mailing list used as part of a calculation predicting sales, they are individual entities united by their fanship of the artist. As I have mentioned before in previous posts, the music industry is quite rightly an increasingly two-way interaction – rather than a faceless mass being force-fed music, the internet has democratised the world of music, and people are free to connect with any music they feel a connection with.

Looking at Hope and Social’s story, I am yet to see a better example of a band including their fans in such a key way. Rich writes about how involved their fans were in the construction and running, and even social aspect, of the event, but also how they were asked to be involved in the recording itself. The value of the final product to the fans that were there far exceeds the financial aspect of the purchase of the ticket and it’s inclusive physical release after the fact. This goes no end to strengthening the bond between artists and fans. What greater momento of a fantastic evening’s entertainment with a band you love than a permanent keepsake that actually has part of you included within it?

While the idea and execution of the event and release show a great awareness and creativity from the band, Rich Huxley’s writing also highlights the band awareness of the events place in the greater picture for the band. His awareness of how both online and offline interactions between fans and the outside world (for example, fan blogging or hash-tag utilisation on Twitter) shows great savvy and promise needed to really succeed on a level they aspire to in this new style business, but is part of the same knowledge that eludes or scares other artist’s and inhibits them from achieving similar successes. Hope and Social prove that to be successful in new ways of doing business, the music, the fans, and the enjoyment of creativity can still remain the central focus.

When Nine Inch Nails released their ‘Ghosts’ collection in 2008, it heralded a real shift in how artists marketed to fans, and how recorded music can still create, and indeed stimulate, revenue. Echoing Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ release, NIN went further, with an increased range of options, more clearly defined and varied than Radiohead had offered. The pricing levels were:

• Free – 9 tracks from the release, high-quality & DRM-free MP3 with PDF
• $5 – All 36 tracks in a range of digital formats with a 40-page PDF
• $10 – 2 x CDs with booklet & immediate digital download
• $75 – “Deluxe Edition Package” with audio CDs, DVD, Blu-ray in hardcover fabric slipcase
• $300 – “Ultra Deluxe Limited Edition Package” (pictured) with 4 x LPs, CDs, DVD, Blu-ray, art books, slipcases and all personally signed & numbered by Trent Reznor

It is well-publicised that the $300 package sold out of it’s run of 2500 copies within hours, bringing in $750,000 before taking any of the other packages into account, and within the first two weeks of release the collection had brought in over $1.6m – straight to the artist.

Fantastic news for Trent Reznor, and thoroughly deserved for such an immaculately thought-out release. Both sides of the divide are happy; NIN can release their work on their terms and to a quality level that makes them happy (while receiving a shedload of money in the process without a label taking the majority of it) and the fans get music or artifacts that they love at a level they choose to spend, while feeling a greater connection to the artist they love.

This is all well and good for an act with the prior success and following that Nine Inch Nails have, as well as the financial backing, but how can an independent artist utilise a similar system for their own releases?

While the $300 package that NIN sold was what really blew their fans away, the level of quality and product in the package wouldn’t have come cheap at all, and it would have still been a certain amount of gamble to have 2500 copies made up if they weren’t to sell (Nb – I am unsure if these were made prior to release, or made to order when quantities were realised). It would be ridiculous for an independent artist starting out to consider a product of this magnitude, but the lesser packages could provide a good basis for their structure.

One thing that Trent Reznor was adamant about was that music quality would never be compromised, after all, that is still what it should all be about, so even the free package had MP3s of a high quality with no restriction. The idea was not to give a free taster, and make the songs so hard to listen to that the listeners would ‘upgrade’ to a better package, but it was to give a good representation of the work for those who would not normally listen to NIN, or those could not afford a higher package. It may be that an independent artist could give away an EP-worth of material in this way, but while keeping the quality high.

The paid download and CD options will fall much more in line with what we are used to, but the deluxe package is where each artist can really tailor the release to themselves and their audience. There is realistically no end of things that can be included, such as extra tracks, additional artwork, merchandise or videos, and much more. The key thing is to maintain the quality. To truly engage the audience and thank them for being passionate enough about your music to purchase this package, the content must be deemed special enough by the audience that it is something they will enjoy and treasure, rather than just including anything left lying around unused to make the package seem busier.

The beauty of many of these items is that they are rooted in the personal relationship between the artist and the fan, and often involve very little outlay (as long as the quality isn’t questioned). For example, the fan is more likely to enjoy and respond to a video recorded by the artist, possibly just a spoken message, or live acoustic performance exclusively for the package, than a material object like a badge or bottle opener. An exclusive video or song can be recorded very modestly and included on the CD or DVD, or accessed via a ‘VIP’ area on the artist site.

Artists are becoming increasingly aware that there is scope within what they do to reach out to fans in a way that can monetise their talent, whilst still enriching the musical experience for their fans. Terra Naomi is one example of an artist willing to diversify what she does, including writing songs for fans that pay for her to record a video of her performing the song to them with a personalised introduction. For someone like Terra who received great fame and a resulting deal with Island Records by posting videos on YouTube, she already had the skillset to be able to provide this service as it was essentially much of what she was already doing.

As technologies emerge, and new formats are embraced – whether they be iTunes LP-style HTML music players or iPhone applications – it is inevitable that major labels will have greater reach into these formats by having the money to source in agencies who can create such products, but there is still a wealth of ways that an independent artist can successfully offer products that can create income from fans as long as the music, the essential ingredient so often left out of digital marketing discussions, is the core of what the fan can engage with.

When George mentions the changes in distribution and publicity/promotion, two phrases come to my mind, both of which concern the same thing, but I feel are based in two completely different ideologies; “Direct-to-consumer” (D2C) and “Direct-to-fan” (D2F).

While both phrases essentially mean marketing and distributing music or products to the audience via emerging technologies in a way that usually bypasses traditional retail or mass media channels, the use of either the word “consumer” or “fan” dictates from which side of the industry the interaction is coming from.

The word “consumer” denotes the mindset of the major labels in which they see the audience as just that, and a D2C transaction is primarily a way of helping to maximise potential profit by cutting out the middle men of retail or media. For an independent artist, it is important that the word “fan” is used to indicate what is involved in D2F; that it is more than just a transaction and should be seen as a two-way relationship that must be maintained as you would a friendship, with both parties receiving benefits from it.

While this may sound a little ‘touchy-feely’, it is a huge part of a successful artist/fan relationship, both creatively and financially. Through a genuine two-way interaction online utilising social media, or inclusive elements of website usage (fan submissions, competitions or user-generated content) the fan feels valued, and that they are more than just appreciating the music and creative talent, but that they too are included in the artist’s career. Rather than just being fed promotional release information, if they can interact with the artist they are more likely to take note of information as it comes through, visit artist platforms more regularly for opportunities and updates, and are more likely to purchase releases, tickets and merchandise from the artist because of the relationship that has been built between the two parties.

If Chris Anderson’s long tail theory is to be taken into account, a strong relationship with this core fanbase will be enough to prove financially beneficial, and can be built upon and expanded.

The major labels are increasingly becoming aware of the strength of this type of relationship, and so are implementing techniques into their campaigns. How genuine they are is always very obvious, and it means much more to the fans when they can tell the artist themselves is excited by the prospect of being able to interact with them in return. For great examples of both camps, compare John Mayer’s Twitter stream with that of Britney Spears – see if you can identify which is D2C and which is D2F.

The beauty of an artist who is proactive and engaging in their approach to fan interaction is that they are happy to maintain it constantly, a necessity to keep a good relationship going. If the artist were just to interact on their terms – in the lead up to an album release, for example – the effect would be nowhere near as strong.

I’ll cover more on D2F in future posts, but I felt it important to differentiate how I feel majors and independents deal with the same premise so differently, and will be able to later discuss the effectiveness of both approaches.