Background and theory

The self-publishing revolution

Digital marketing and promotion through social media networking creates new platforms and methods of viral (word-of-mouth) marketing.  The internet enables self-managed communities and weakens the role of the institute in accessing knowledge or producing content. Blogging allows mass amateur publishing, e.g. setting up a MySpace profile and ‘publishing’ four music tracks by an artist where the cost of distribution is shrinking towards zero.

This presents many possibilities for diversity of content and reach but creates a new problem of ‘noise’ from the prolific range of content, information and entertainment choices enabled by the internet, creating a scarcity of attention for consumers.  When publishing is, “…effortless, the decision to publish something isn’t terribly momentous.” (Clay Shirky, ‘Here Comes Everybody’)

As the markets fragments, there will be an enhanced role for mass media – placing a greater emphasis on advertising and publishing which may paradoxically strengthen the hand of the incumbent music industry and existing stars as unknown artists need the budgets and expertise of labels to break through the noise. This is observed in the dominance of Clear Channel in radio, live music, and advertising – even providing seed capital for new artists and financing established artists like Madonna.

The opportunity of social media for independents

Social media is an extension of what marketers previously daubed ‘guerrilla marketing’ or ‘below-the-line’ marketing, concerned with “achieving conventional goals, such as profits and joy, with unconventional methods, such as investing energy instead of money” (gmarketing.com).  Independents can flourish over their Goliath competitors: they have less to lose by entering the digital arena, benefit from constantly reducing costs and it is time, not capital, which is the limiting factor.

Social media works by stimulating multiple one-to-one and one-to-many personal interactions. Since the medieval minstrels, music stars have always succeeded by cultivating relationships with their fans where personal ties puts the artist in a strong position of economic and emotional power. Success dictates limitations: although the web has no technological limit there are cognitive limits as to how much you can read and how many people you can trade with.

Several studies demonstrate the impact of word-of-mouth online marketing on music sales. Chang’s 2007 study of 108 albums found that each additional blog post corresponded to higher sales. If blog chatter is extremely high (above 240 posts) it is possible for an album to overcome the disadvantage of being released by an independent label.  Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) examined the effects of online consumer ratings on book sales at Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s websites, finding that additional positive reviews increased relative sales. Very negative reviews had a greater impact than very positive reviews.

Savants and enthusiasts: connecting with fans

Viral marketing, accelerated by online communities, relies on the fervour and interconnectivity of fans.  An Emap poll (2003/2005) categorized music consumers as ‘savants’ ‘enthusiasts’, ‘casuals’ and ‘indifferents’, showing ‘indifferents’ make up half of the population.  Malcolm Gladwell highlights the relationship between ‘connectors’, ‘mavens’ and ‘salesmen’ to make things go viral in his influential 2001 book ‘The Tipping Point’.  Reaching the many, or what he terms the ‘tipping point’ of market impact, relies on championing by an influential few.  In a pyramid model, few are ‘creators’, more are ‘synthesizers’ and the majority are ‘lurkers’ –  directly proportional to ‘savants’ (few), ‘enthusiasts/casuals’ (more), and ‘indifferents’ (many).

Tastemakers are critical for consumers to navigating through the online ‘noise’ to find quality goods –credible agents who include celebrities, the music press, DJs – and particularly friends. As the music available increase towards infinite, what to listen to next becomes a critical economic and cultural leverage.

Research findings

Find out more about the research background, methodology and see the full survey findings here.

Case study: Unsigned artist

Basildon comedy music artist Kunt And The Gang uses digital marketing to establish a following and professionalise his work. After failing to get signed with previous bands, the solo artist, trading under the moniker ‘Kunt’, established a project which was unlikely to appeal to corporate sponsors, creating four self-released albums, promotional videos, and ongoing touring.  MySpace and YouTube are critical in establishing his success without a record label.

File-sharing was significant in spreading his name, yet his third album features a guilt-inducing track ‘The Illegal Download Song’, a parody of the music industry’s heavy-handed attitude to file-sharing where, “me and Little Kunt boo hoo/ over our lost revenue”. He thinks file-sharing has exposed his music to more people than legal purchases, but it may fail to benefit the creator as people hear his songs “…without actually knowing who it’s by”.  On balance, he thinks file-sharing is beneficial as free word-of-mouth publicity but it is more effective through personalised sharing like blue-tooth mobile and CD copying rather than anonymous bit-torrenting.  T-Shirt sales at his gigs outnumber CDs by two to one.

As an artist “marooned on a small island between comedy and music”, the mainstream press offers little critical exposure, so live gigs and heavy promotion from mailing lists, MySpace, and Facebook are invaluable promotional tools.  Videos are part of the creative process creating, “another dimension and I see them now to be as much of a part of it as the music.” Videos are shared virally between fans, becoming ‘the singles’ which people want to hear at gigs. One video was show on Channel 4 TV show Rude Tube, gaining him mainstream exposure. Videos are part of the nurturing of fame, “…sometimes you turn up at a venue and you can see people nudging each other and whispering, “That’s Kunt!””

His approach demonstrates that an independent can sustain a career using online technologies, but it relies on a multi-pronged strategy of creating multiple product and media types and persistent marketing through several digital channels. Fame, or ubiquity, is achievable through powerful web viral marketing, but it cannot necessarily be readily monetized.

Negotiating the online ‘noise’

Navigating the ‘noise’ of the crowded online marketplace, and how this can become a profitable activity, concerns independents. 49% believe digital marketing is unrewarding, perhaps detrimental to their creative practice.  Negative perceptions include MySpace as a “waste of time and harmful to integrity”, where it is hard to “cut through the haze”.  It cuts into creative time, participation is labour intensive leading to fatigue, but others thought marketing and promotion, using letters and phone calls, always took a lot of time. The difference is not between it being easy before and hard now but “it used to be expensive with money and now it’s expensive with time.”  Online networking is “a bit like live gigging – you have to work at it to be successful” with success happening from “offline stuff supported by an online presence”.  The web is a unique resource for developing a list of potential buyers, but requires a “PR machine” or street team of fans to spread the word. One participant noted that traditional magazine press led to an online sales spike.

This marks a strong diversion from the utopian view of online commentators of the web as an enabling tool – indeed, many find its current mechanisms cumbersome with a potentially low return on investment.  From my own experience of promoting shows using MySpace, the website’s lack of geographic filters became as arbitrary as fly-posting to target an audience – instead I flyered outside similar, local gigs.  In time, more sophisticated ‘web 3.0’ tools utilising recommendation engines, meta-data and filters may allow more targeted, measurable marketing approaches.

Different platforms were cited as important in promoting music online: MP3 blogs are the modern-day fanzines to discover new music; a database for relationship management, “the DIY entrepreneurs’ currency” (Shillingford), was critical for those with commercial music experience; ‘Street teams’ and offline guerrilla marketing techniques were important for underground music which places significance on “the kudos about keeping things close to the edge of legality” (Yunga).  The artist’s own website as a standalone destination was the most important digital platform, with 52% declaring it ‘vital’, demonstrating that the individual’s ‘brand’ and identity is valued above a standardized space.

Social media and communities

Social media was cited as the most effective marketing tool for independents. Adorno critically viewed popular music as “social cement” (1941). Today, music’s sociality can be positively harnessed for cultural and economic gain. Success comes from being “persistent and repetitious” with online marketing supporting live shows and “press-the-flesh” activities.  Facebook (43% of survey participants found it ‘useful’, 15% ‘vital’) is better for peer recommendation due to the likelihood of ‘friends’ knowing each other.  Many were cynical about MySpace (although 23% thought it ‘vital’ and 46% ‘useful’), with little relevance between number of ‘friends’ and quality of relationship or commercial potential. 

Bob Baker’s research with MySpace artists reported many found it time consuming, difficult to quantify friend quality, with a vulnerability of shutdown.  MySpace helps to connect artists in different geographies: Simian released works by a New York artist and Oyewole supported an American artist for a UK show. There was a discrepancy between established artists bombarding audiences with marketing messages whereas “…because I’m an independent artist, all of a sudden it’s spamming.” (Oyewole)

Participants used the internet to grow communities of interest or ‘scenes’, starting a label for local artists (Simian) and a radio show of ethnic music (Oyewole).   Internet culture as a sub-set of mainstream culture was noted as positive to independents e.g. the BBC Radio 6 show ‘Introducing’ for new artists, showing that underground music, through its adaption of technology, is now able to directly influence the development of the music economy. However, an internet community does not replace a real-world community as “physicality is still extremely important” (Oyewole), although it may reduce the desire for people to work locally, weakening regional scenes (Simian).

Two themes recurred: the shrinking physical environment enabled by the internet where artists can connect with geographically dispersed communities of interest, enacting Marx’s prophecy of capitalism spurring on the “annihilation of space by time” (1853) and Marshall McLuhan’s ideology of an inter-connected ‘global village’ enabled by technology (1962).  This is met by the increasing importance of personalised connections, with social networks as a ‘third space’ to connect real-world fans, artists and collaborators together to accelerate relationships, creating deep, personal ties between artists and audiences.

Read part 5: New business and value models
Independent music online research index