Comments on: Shifting Business from Distribution to the Collective: What You Can Learn from the Music Industry’s Social Media Failures

By: Anthony Bradley

Anthony Bradley — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:12:16 +0000

I don’t really have any suggestions other than looking for service providers, consultants, in your area. I only know of one called simplesolutions.com in Maine but I’m not sure how much social media they do. Like you said, the skills are hard to find.

By: Pam Mark Hall

Pam Mark Hall — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:12:41 +0000

Anthony,
Any suggestions to my sincere question about how to find technical help?

By: Pam Mark Hall

Pam Mark Hall — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:43:46 +0000

Anthony,
I agree with your premise that the value of building community trumps distribution. The most difficult part of utilizing all the social media platforms is technical. What I mean is, most of the musicians I know are often early adopters of new technology. The breakdown comes for us when any kind of customization to templates is needed. We need knowledge of and access to developers who can assist us in leveraging all the moving parts. It is amazingly difficult to find technical help for those of use who are independently promoting our music. Any suggestions of where to find that help at a local level?

By: Anthony Bradley

Anthony Bradley — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:15:07 +0000

Warm,

Agree with all you said. I do believe that musicians need to project themselves with social media (YouTube, Facebook, et al.) but building community is hard and they need to be practicing so actually building community around artists is better served by a label or their agent. Also agree that the SAIPC need to market better and tap into the social Web. They didn’t even post the competitor’s programs ahead of time on the Web so people new what pieces they were performing. That alone, IMO, significantly negatively impacted attendance.

By: Warm

Warm — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:34:32 +0000

Thanks for hosting the competitors. Weiwen’s playing was amazing and her program choices were very good in my opinion and I was surprised she did not make the final round. I agree there is tremendous power in relationships, especially for musicians. When Angelo accepted his San Antonio International Piano Competition semifinalist award, president Anne Johnson said he had class and respect for the competition by staying the entire week, participating in the competition’s other activities like master classes, and receiving his award in person. Unfortunately the other semifinalist competitors including Weiwen left early and missed a great opportunity to develop more social relationships with the San Antonio music community. That is, not all social media relationships are formed online. And as talented as they are, marketing and social relationships are just as important to their careers.

I think you are right about classical music audience demographics. What is interesting is that many of the performers are young, but the audience is typically much older. I wonder if these performers can get more of their similar age friends to also enjoy this music genre. Also schools need to offer music classes even in this age of elective class cutbacks so we can develop another generation of music lovers. For the San Antonio competition, more marketing is needed to people of all ages. In the 7th largest city in the US, even if classical music is enjoyed by the minority, with such talented young performers as Weiwen and Angelo they should be able to fill the concert hall every night, but it was not full except the last day.

Using Weiwen just as an example again, I cannot hear her beautiful music on Facebook, YouTube (except a Spanish TV interview with her), San Antonio IPC website, her website (she doesn’t have one), or elsewhere because it is not posted. Please encourage them to post their music to these social networks. The San Antonio IPC records each concert, but does not make the CDs for sale to the public, which is another travesty.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:13:15 +0000

You will actually find that some labels and managers are good at building relationships now. Probably the major factor in the demise of the industry was how long it took the major labels to understand MP3s, or – as you point out – the new relationship that they enable. But on top of the labels, you have the professional associations that are fighting a rearguard collective battle.

You’re right to sound an alarm, as I think it is quite clear the movie industry is next in line for a painful shake-up. So who’s next after that? Or more importantly, what can I learn from this? Good questions. As I don’t know your industries, it’s hard for me to guess.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:48:26 +0000

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