Musicians and Their Friends

The traditional way of marketing music or any product for that matter is to use the communication technology available to tell as many people as possible about the product. Turn on the TV or listen to the radio. Advertisers are randomly trying to tell everyone about their product.

What is the whole point of trying to contact as many possible customers? ....to reach the taste makers - the real fans. Marketers use radio and TV is to tell everyone in hopes that the taste makers are listening.

In many ways we've been treating the internet in the same way. This new communication tool is being used to try and tell everyone about a band. How many friends can we get on a MySpace page? How many people can we follow on Twitter? How can we get our music listed on every mp3 blog? If we do all that, someone who cares will listen right? Ummmmm.

The web isn't like TV and radio. Today an artist or band can find their real fans, the influencers, easily. How? The real fans will use the web to search out their favorite artists and bands. Those are your peeps. Get to know them. Treat them well because they are going to talk about you.

If you can amaze an audience with a performance and a song, then the puzzle of how you need to use the web to connect with your fans will all fall into place. It'll be obvious what needs to be done. The fans will tell you.

We, as the music industry, need to use the web to communicate with fans, not talk at them.