Social Media and Music PR: The State of Play as Told by Publicists and Artists

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Music PR:The Current State of Play as Told by Publicists and Artists

By Alex Burton, Get Fresh USA



Social Media and Music PR:The State of Play as Told by Publicists and Artists

The music industry is a tumultuous place. Its troubles are nosecret and as jobs are axed, spending decreases, and execu-tives fight the advancement of the digital age, everyone hopes

that solutions will be found to bail out a sinking ship. But recordcompanies aren’t the only part of the industry that need toadapt to changes in technology. Social media has providednew and unique opportunities for instant communication, rapiddissemination of information, and creative approaches to busi-ness.

To get a clearer picture of this changing landscape and how it’saffecting the broader music industry, I interviewed a number ofartists and publicists about social media and how they use it. I’vegathered my findings into a three-part essay, which you are read-ing now. Part one will deal with publicists, part two with artists,and part three with my conclusions and ideas about how to moveforward.

11/02/2009





PART 1: Publicists

Billboard Magazine recently posted their Maxi-mum Exposure List, a list of new and effectiveways to reach large audiences and expose newmusic. The magazine enlisted a panel of 20 ex-perts in marketing and publicity to assist in com-piling this list. The results were typical of theindustry with ideas like: have a song covered onAmerican Idol, get a cover story in Rolling Stone,and perform live on Oprah. It reminded me of

when I played music and I’d get unhelpful advicefrom family and friends outside of the industry.“You guys should go on tour with U2,” they’d sug-gest. “That would definitely help your career.”They’d explain as if I didn’t know.

The problem with the article is that these outletsaren’t new at all. Additionally they are available only to artists already at the top,not artists who are on their way there. In fact the closest the list came to embracing

new media was suggesting that publicists secure a video link on PerezHilton.comor have a video on You Tube’s Most Viewed Videos page. Given that there was apanel of publicists and marketers involved in this list made its content even moreshocking. Is the industry really this out of touch? Furthermore, are publicists notadapting to new technologies?

“It has completely changed the PR landscape,” says Lori Mahon, the principal atOverture Media, in Franklin, TN. “If a publicist isn’t getting their feet wet with so-cial media they are going to look back next year and wonder where everyone is.

It’s a new tool; instant communication!”

“It’s impossible to ignore, and anyone who does is setting themselves up for failure”says Francesca Caldara, the in-house publicist at Equal Vision Records, a popularindie label with one of the best track records in music today.



Francesca and Lori are not alone as other publicists repeated those same senti-ments in some form or another. Social media has made the transfer of informationinstantaneous. We can now find out the latest news as it happens, without the filterof major news networks. Artists continually break via word of mouth, viral videos,

and strong grassroots fanbases. They often seem to jump into the mainstreamovernight, although in reality these artists are likely to have used social media topropel themselves to success.

“Print magazines have been late because of their 3 month lead times, while theblogs and webzines post information within days,” says Caldara. “Now those blogsand webzines are late because of sites like Twitter where people post about some-thing instantaneously and it spreads in seconds. Individuals are determining thenews now and the press is just playing catch up.”

With all of this fast communication it makes it easier for bands, labels, and publi-cists to stay in sync and have real time impact on their PR campaigns.

“I will help my bands set up accounts on social media networks if they haven’t al-ready,” says John Kasiewicz, principal of 440PR. “I walk them through basic strat-egy for their specific social network and encourage them to post and express theirown voice through those mediums. Usually fans know when it’s the publicist post-ing rather than the artist. Musicians now have the ability (and some would say the

responsibility) to engage in a more personal role with their fans online.”

Beyond just advising bands on social media, some publicists are partnering withtheir artists in developing and executing a content strategy that can reach acrossacross multiple channels for maximum impact.

“We were twittering and posting on Facebook very frequently as a team, not justPR,” says Mahon of her recent campaign with Christian rock band Thousand FootKrutch. “I also re-tweet my bands’ posts or they re-tweet links of reviews I post.”

Mahon also credits social media sites like Twitter and YouTube in developing mo-mentum for some of her less mainstream bands. “We have to think outside thebox and find other avenues when we’re going against more popular, streamlineprojects,” she says.



At The Beggars Group of Labels, Sonya Kolowrat emphasizes the impact of socialmedia on some of her biggest successes. “We’ve had to adapt a lot since the in-troduction of blogs… people want a ton more online content,” says Kolowrat. “Vam-pire Weekend has been my most successful campaign. It was a perfect storm of

a band’s hard work, key early supporters, and of course some key blogs.”

Recognizing the importance of walking the walk, Caldara, Mahon, Kolowrat, andKasiewicz all blog, and use social media to discover new artists to work with.

“I check out bands on Myspace all the time,” says Grace Jones of Tell All YourFriends PR, in New York. “I often find them on there and if they’re not already rep-resented, I move forward.”

While the importance of social media meets no objections here (an overwhelmingmajority of those interviewed listed social media as “very important”), they are allquick to caution that it’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.

“One of the biggest mistakes I see publicists make is focusing on the latest socialmedia trends and not spending enough time tailoring a campaign to fit an artist,”says Kasiewicz. “I still believe everyone can still benefit from some traditional PR.”

Mahon has a similar take.

“Relationships are the most important aspect of PR,” says Mahon. “When you havea trusting relationship with a media outlet, manager, band member, and label, youare successful. Social media is a good center to begin a PR campaign, but I stillkeep many elements of traditional PR.”

“My job is tailored around traditional PR models,” says Kolowrat. “It’s important toknow your outlets and the journalists you pitch to. This is such an email societybut sometimes you just need to pick up the phone. It helps to build and maintain

personal relationships, which are very important.” After all, in addition to creditingbloggers with much of Vampire Weekend’s success, she points to the band’s cov-erage in The New York Times and The New Yorker as campaign highlights.



“I cultivate relationships with specific journalists daily,” says Caldara, an admissionI heard repeated by the other publicists in this article. “There are a few people Iwas friends with before I started at Equal Vision and those relationships are thestrongest and I tend to get the most coverage from them.”

While I am dismayed by Billboard’s aforementioned article, its lack of inventive-ness, and total disregard for new media tools, I am happy to discover that someof my music industry peers are eagerly embracing social media’s importance.Whether they’re teaching their artists to use these tools strategically, using socialmedia in concert with their artists to maximize its impact, or simply disseminatingnews, they are all taking steps to adapt to a changing way of doing business.

“Actually a lot of the media outlets I work with are now on Twitter,” says Mahon.

“So it’s a great instant tool to get info out on our artists. As social media invadesthe PR world things will evolve in ways I can’t even imagine. But that is exciting!”

It is this readiness to adapt that will ultimately keep PR a relevant profession, asthey are balancing traditional PR with new media opportunities. The rules arechanging and roles are becoming less defined, but PR seems to know that.

“Our marketing department utilizes social media more than I do and may placeads on Facebook and build fan pages,” says Kolowrat. “That hasn’t been my job

(yet)!”



PART 2: Artists

For the last two years, Myspace has been ina serious decline. The once mighty power-house of social networking is losing U.S.based traffic (according to Mashable it’sdropped 20% since June) and its revenue isdrying up. In its heyday Myspace was aneasy tool to understand for artists: get friendsand get plays. It produced results while givinga pretty good indication of the scope of their

fan base. As new sites popped up with betterdesigns, easier navigation, and more uniqueoptions Myspace began to lag, and today itsits not forgotten, but certainly crippled.

“When Myspace first came out it helped The Sleeping a ton, but it seems to havelost its engine and not many people visit the site anymore,” says Doug Robinson,singer for New York based rock band (and Victory Records veterans) The Sleeping.“There are so many social media sites now that I honestly have no idea which are

the most important or will be the most important in the future.”

“There’s just too many bands,” says Ryan Lallier, guitarist for Big Surrender. Lal-lier’s former band, Waking Ashland, did time on Tooth and Nail and Immortal beforedisbanding in 2007, and he notes how things have changed since then. “I thinksocial media has a negative effect,” he says. “I know how annoyed I get with bandsbugging me to listen to their music and I can’t help but think people are annoyedby us and consider us the same as the other millions of bands on the internet. Inever got into it.”

It is these types of frustrations I see repeated over and over as I speak with artists.There are a plethora of different networks, all clogged with competition and differentmethods of communicating, and many bands don’t know the best ways to usethese tools. It’s a general feeling of being overwhelmed and unsure of where to



begin.

“The internet is the most useful promotional tool of all time for musicians,” saysJordan Powers, whose band, Far-Less, put out several records with via Tooth and

Nail before throwing in the towel in the spring of 2009. While he recognizes its im-portance, Powers readily admits he’s unsure of how to use it effectively. “We triedto blog and we had a Myspace and Facebook but we didn’t really know how to usethem the right way. We were just kind of clueless,” he says.

Given social media’s connectivity and its ability to reach broad audiences, shouldn’tproperly managing these outlets be a priority not just for artists but for publicistsas well? Isn’t this an opportunity to develop innovative and strategic methods ofpublic relations? Is it wise to assume bands are able to manage these technologies

effectively on their own? Shouldn’t publicists and artists be communicating witheach other more than ever?

“We never spoke to our publicist,” says Josh King of Drive Thru Records act Houseof Fools. “Our publicist just put a B between the P and the R and then drank it,” hesays smugly.

“In Waking Ashland we had an in-house publicist and an outside publicist but wealmost never spoke to them,” says Lallier. “I don’t think they used innovative meth-

ods, they still deal mainly with print.”

These feelings of exclusion and the obvious lack of band input seem to be thenorm here.

“We always wanted to be involved with our PR but no one ever considered ouropinion,” says Powers. “It became a problem that was never really resolved andtoward the end of our band we really resented the fact that they didn’t consult withus more.”

Of course this prevalent publicist neglect doesn’t exist across the board.

“We speak to our publicist almost twice a week and are very involved in our PR,”says Evan Winiker of Steel Train. While Winiker’s publicist at Big Hassle doesn’t



directly operate their social media sites, it is obvious that the band is adept at usingthem. Currently enjoying a lengthy tour supporting Hanson, Winiker regularly up-dates Steel Train fans with photos and videos from the road, as well as commen-tary and info about the shows. “We covered Living On a Prayer with Hanson last

night,” read a recent update on Winiker’s Facebook. A bevy of “likes” and com-ments ensues.

This ability to develop and maintain a conversation with fans is a major benefit ofsocial media.

“With newer social media outlets, publicists can get information more directly tolisteners,” says Jonathan Steingard, whose band Hawk Nelson is represented byLori Mahon at Overture Media. “Our publicist is involved with our use of all our so-

cial media sites.” Steingard also blogs regularly and credits his publicist not onlywith assisting in Hawk Nelson’s social media activities but also working with theband to create effective content. Steingard and Mahon’s social media collaborationenables Hawk Nelson to cut through the overwhelming mass of competing artistsand information to push the Hawk Nelson brand.

“Social media has crowded the “airwaves” with so much music that many peopledon’t know what to listen to,” says Steingard. “The term “my favorite band” uses tomean a lot more than it seems to now. Fans demand and require a fairly constant

flow of news, information, and other tidbits from their favorite bands.”

And so Steingard and Mahon work together to give the people what they want bykeeping a consistent image across all social networks, using similar art themesand relevant content to link their sites together. They also use Facebook to runcontests and Twitter to spread news and information.

This kind of collaborative relationship is the type of thing that Powers, Lallier, King,and Robinson all long for.

“We try and use all of these tools,” says Powers, “But we just don’t know how todo it the right way. We would love for some one to show us.”

While bands are capable of taking the initiative to learn these tools on their own,



not everyone understands how to interact with the media and the public like a PRprofessional does. The publicist/client relationship should be a close one of mutualexchange. After all, the success of a client benefits the publicist as well as theartist. To that end publicists and bands should be mutually invested in developing

not just print strategy, but also successful interactive social media strategy.

Myspace has lost much of its power and new trends have emerged. Artists thatrelied too heavily on Myspace’s former promise of glory are now trying to play catchup with new media. Keeping current with social media changes is the best way toengage new communication and networking tools to great effect before they be-come irrelevant.

“It’s inevitable that today’s social network of choice will be tomorrow’s “Hotmail” or

“Friendster,” says Steingard. “In that sense it’s important not to be too caught upin one single medium.”



PART 3: The Future

While some in the music industry are em-

bracing social media, there remain signif-icant numbers that aren’t. Notoriously badat adapting to change, music industryexecs at the highest levels still look tononsense like Billboard’s Maximum Ex-posure List as a source for creative ideas.But it’s not just the high-ups that are theproblem. From the confused artist to theoblivious publicist, social media still lies in

the realm of newfangled gadgetry formany. With resounding cries of “I’m in theband, some one else should be doing this,” coupled with publicists that think,“That’s not my job,” the progress being made of incorporating social media intoPR is slow, and so begs the question, are we doing enough to incorporate socialmedia into our PR strategies when breaking new bands?

Reputation/brand management is an important part of any business. When dealingwith new artists or those flying under the radar, reputation/brand may be the most

essential tool we have to work with. With limited resources and funds, this is oftenall a small band has to rely on. All communications affect the development of brandor reputation so all communications should be purposeful, with an eye on the con-sequences of said communications. With the prevalence of social media we canmonitor fan and market response for any artist in real time, and adjust our strate-gies accordingly. Since this is new technology, it doesn’t officially fall under any-one’s specific responsibility. In the music industry the boundaries are becomingmore blurred everyday and this is an opportunity for publicists to become a moreimportant part of a band’s career. It is a chance to have longer, more involved re-lationships, constant campaigns, and larger impact. It is the evolution of music PRto a more encompassing level, blending elements of marketing, management, andpublicity into a new kind of organized, team oriented, personal approach. Thereare several examples as to how social media is already being leveraged in newways.



If you follow social media strategy, you’ve likely heard of Frank Eliason. As a man-ager of a customer service group at Comcast, Frank took the initiative to start track-ing mentions of the company on Twitter and began reaching out to frustratedComcast users addressing their customer service issues. Frank’s team now han-

dles hundreds of messages a day and thousands of emails a month using the“ComcastCares” handle on Twitter. The effort has done wonders for the company’sreputation for customer service, and it’s all been accomplished by using socialmedia to respond to customer complaints as they happen.

Another great success story is that of Dell, who has made $3 million from Twitterin the past two years. By offering exclusive Twitter deals, Dell Outlet deals, andoutlet specific information via its DellOutlet Twitter handle, the company has grownto one of the site’s most followed users. The best part is that DellOutlet followers

evangelize the company and retweet the outlet-specific info, spreading the com-pany’s message even further.

Recently Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls made headlines by making $19,000on Twitter in 10 hours. How? Simply by engaging her fans. She started with a spon-taneous hash tag Twitter conversation, as the discussion progressed she designeda t-shirt related to the chat and put it on her online store while the chat was stillhappening. Four hundred shirt sales later and she’s sitting on $11,000. A few nightslater during a similar Twitter convo, she started auctioning off random items from

her apartment and custom-made postcards, taking in another $6,000. A few dayslater she tweeted about a donation only show for her Twitter fans, and brought inanother $2,000. As Palmer so eloquently puts it, “Total made this month from usingTwitter: $19,000. Totally made from 30,000 record sales: ABSOLUTELY NOTH-ING.” Obviously not everyone can make this kind of money in a few hours, but thekey thing to note is that Palmer accomplished this by using social media in a newand creative way to engage her fan base and deliver results. Not only did she makea significant amount of money, but she made headlines in the blogosphere andbeyond.

A recent article in Advertising Age noted that nearly 30,000 journalists have leftthe profession since the beginning of 2008. This isn’t really surprising consideringthe faltering numbers of print media. The article then goes on to explain how majorcorporations are using social media to bypass the journalist and pitch directly to



the consumer. Coldwell Banker, Best Buy, and MasterCard have all enlisted theirPR agencies to develop unique, original YouTube content to engage their cus-tomers directly, resulting in accurate, measurable, results.

While none of these examples are directly related to breaking new bands, they allrepresent the utilization of social media in new and exciting ways. They are deliv-ering results and creating buzz not only amongst customers and fans, but through-out the business world as well because of their clever usage of PR. If this kind ofinnovation can exist outside of the music industry, then why can’t it exist within it?It is time that we caught up with the cutting edge ways of doing business. In an in-dustry notorious for dragging its feet in embracing new mediums and technologies,it shouldn’t be difficult to make a splash. And we can do it starting with PR. AsFrancesca Caldara from Equal Vision said in Part One of this essay, “Individuals

are determining the news now and the press is just playing catch up.” While I be-lieve there will always be a place for traditional PR, it’s time that we take the nextstep forward.



Alex Burton is the founder of Get FreshUSA, a New Jersey based PR firm special-izing in new media strategies within musicHaving spent the last decade as a touringmusician signed to a prominent indie label,Alex decided to branch out into PR with hisown unique approach.

“As an artist I know what my clients arelooking for in a publicist. I take a very artist-centric approach because that’s how I al-ways wanted to interact with my ownpublicists,” says Alex.

Additionally, Alex is passionate about social media and works closely with his artists to educate

them on how to best utilize these new tools.

Alex holds a B.A. from Rutgers University in Journalism and Media Studies, and blogs aboutsocial media and the music industry at http://www.GetFreshUSA.com.



Contributors

I’d like to extend a very special thanks to the following for their valuable input and

generous time. Additionally I’d like to thank Jesse Cannon for his introductionand input.

Publicists:

Overture MediaThe Beggars Group of LabelsTell All Your Friends PREqual Vision Records440PR60 Cycle Media

Artists:

House of FoolsFar-Less

The SleepingSteel TrainHawk NelsonWaking AshlandBig Surrender

Documents

Social Media and Music PR: The State of Play as Told by Publicists and Artists