For most bands I work with, I stress the importance of finding the balance between finding their demographic and leaving the breadcrumbs to let them find you.
As a music lover, I find myself discovering the music as opposed to music finding me. Regardless, a majority of people’s discovery process is based on the content you create online. Strategic tagging on your YouTube videos, Flickr albums, your band’s blog, or even StumbleUpon can help shorten the path potential fans have to take to find out more about you.
So you say you get that tagging is important, but what are you actually supposed to write as the tags? Well…that’s a great question.
Here’s my ever-expanding answer to that question:
- The title of the content
- Members of the band (including nicknames)
- Similar sounding bands that are up and coming or absurd/cult favorites (ie not The Beatles)
- General descriptive phrases about the nature of the content (ie “[insert song name] music video” or “tour diary” )
- Action phrases about the content itself (ie “eating a burrito” or “guitar solo”)
- Specific emotional phrases describing the content (ie “happy song” or “breaking up”)
- Synonyms of any words/phrases mentioned above (aka is there another way to say the same thing)
- Common mispellings of everything mentioned before
- I’ll probably add more as I think of them. Do you have any tagging suggestions…email them to me and I’ll give you the credit!!!
Basically, think about relevant (that are both general and specific) words and phrases that make it easy for people to uncover your band. Remember: in the beginning of the relationship, it’s about them, not you.
Breathe 4 Jobs
1 12 2009I had only heard of Ryan Star before I saw this video, so I was curious about his music on top of the creative marketing behind his new single “Breathe”.
The first thing that came to mind was that this seemed more sincere and authentic than the bands who write songs for the troops or any other emotionally prying attempt to get people to listen to their music. These are actual unemployed Americans and two of them have been hired since the site was put together, so there is a tangible outcome as a result of this campaign.
Watching the video, I appreciated the beauty of their silence (aside from the flight attendant highlighted in the beginning). Their faces as well as signs did all the necessary talking to convey how this recession has effected people from all walks of life. It forced me to attentively listen to the lyrics on my second viewing, which should be one of the main goals of any music video.
More importantly, this type of marketing, aside from serving a societal benefit, also gives people something to talk about. It allows word of mouth marketing to take hold since it’s a cool video with an innovative concept (note: I won’t comment on the music itself). HOWEVER, I would have had the people in the video put together video resumes or a general short video of sorts, so potential employers as well as people in general could have gotten to know them better. Making the project seem more about them, in effect, popularizes both the song specifically as well as Ryan Star. Overall, job well done!!!
If you’re an employer hiring in their occupations, please please please consider these extremely capable folks.
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Tags: beathe 4 jobs, breathe, Creative Music Marketing, innovative music videos, music video, ryan star, unemployment
Categories : Creative Music Marketing, Industry Commentary