Independent UK artist Noush Skaugen has 1.2 million followers on Twitter, and the company likes her so much, they’re letting her play a gig tonight at their corporate HQ – which she’ll be livestreaming to fans around the world.
So how did she build up this big a following without a record deal? She’s written a column for our digital marketing blog SandboxFM talking about how she uses social media to connect with fans. “The internet and social networks such as Twitter have certainly changed the modern day artist’s career,” she writes.
“I started my career through a one on one connection with my fans at live shows. I feel the virtual world needs to be approached in the same personal way, with the knowledge that each platform has its own demographic and type of audience. Twitter is like a virtual bar that you hang out at, chit chat, where people can discover you and you engage with them.”
For more of Noush’s views on social media, artists and why the key element is still the music itself, read the full column.
Is Spotify just about streaming music? It seems the company has ambitions in the music videos space too. The company is running its first full-length music video today: an exclusive for Jimi Hendrix’s cover of venerable blues track Bleeding Heart.
It’s part of a promotional campaign from Sony Music for a new Hendrix compilation, and the Spotify homepage will be reskinned to trumpet the exclusive.
So in that sense, it’s more an extension of the company’s advertising strategy than a full-scale move to compete with the Vevos and YouTubes of the world. Spotify tells us that because the video is effectively an ad, it’ll only be seen by free users of the service – premium users get Spotify ad-free.
However, Spotify Premium users will get the album to stream exclusively from next Thursday, a few days ahead of its official release.
The video will be available in all six of Spotify’s markets from today, and as Sandbox explains, it involves re-imagining a Hendrix performance at the Glastonbury Festival – complete with a cameo from festival boss Michael Eavis. UPDATE – here’s a screenshot of the reskinned homepage (click for larger).
Last month, there was a big hoo-ha about the way OK Go’s videos were disabled from being embedded anywhere other than YouTube. Now the band is releasing a new video for its latest single, This Too Shall Pass, which WILL be embeddable – thanks to sponsorship from State Farm.
Meanwhile, the band’s Damian Kulash has written an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, in which he reveals EMI’s decision to block embeds of the band’s hugely popular Here It Goes Again video made daily views drop by 90% from 10,000 to 1,000.
“It needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet,” Kulash says, of EMI. “Curbing the viral spread of videos isn’t benefiting the company’s bottom line, or the music it’s there to support. The sooner record companies realize this, the better — though I fear it may already be too late.”
Shazam, the music recognition company which has found its greatest success via mobile apps, has introduced a new technology designed to help broadcasters and advertisers incorporate mobile into their campaigns. Shazam Audio Recognition Advertising (or SARA for short) encourages members of the public to “Shazam” an advert with their mobile device; the service then recognises the audio and delivers customers some tailored marketing specific to the brand. The big idea is to deliver exclusive promotional content and hidden offers to mobile customers – and of course this being Shazam, any tagged adverts remain in the user’s profile for them to view later or share with friends.
Taken at face value, the new Shazam service is a nice add-on for advertisers who use music as a core part of their TV campaigns, helping them to connect with consumers who have a ‘what’s the track in that ad’ moment. But the real value lies in more sophisticated ad campaigns where extra value music content can be given to any ad viewer who wants to interact with the advert – a bit like an audio QR code or red button. How that message is conveyed to viewers will be the tricky part.
Music Ally’s latest offshoot is Sandbox.fm, which focuses on digital music marketing – with a fortnightly report and blog. Every day, we’ll be rounding up the latest stories from the latter of those.
Today, Sandbox reports on a new iPhone app called Tweeb, which provides people with analytics and follower management for their Twitter account, on the go. There’s also news of livestreaming firm Ustream’s new Ustream Producer app, which helps artists produce better interactive webcasts.
Meanwhile, trance DJ/producer Markus Schulz has released a new iPhone app that, rather than simply promote himself, actually offers 15 of his favourite tracks to listen to. Universal Music Group is also going mobile, but with mobile websites rather than apps, via a deal signed with mobile technology firm Netbiscuits.
Earlier this week, Pharrell Williams told the MidemNet conference that illegal file-sharing is “just taste-testing”. It’s fair to say that Chris Morrison – who manages Gorillaz, Blur and other artists – doesn’t agree.
In fact, he said so himself at the MIDEM Manager Summit this afternoon, responding directly to Williams’ claim. “It’s not [like taste-testing]. It’s like giving them the whole bloody meal!”
Morrison said he was fairly ambivalent about file-sharing until recently, when Stylo, the lead single from the new Gorillaz album leaked, mere hours after the first CD pressings were made.
Brands are talking to more stakeholders in the music industry when working on deeper marketing campaigns, but they are impatient if this means drawn-out negotiations, according to Nokia’s VP of music Elizabeth Schimel.
“We don’t do traditional sponsorships any more,” she said in a MIDEM session on brands and music this morning. Nokia is keen to work more closely with artists – witness its recent campaign with Rihanna – but this is changing its approach.
“With artists, it’s more about just ‘I’m putting you in an ad’. But that’s not something you can just do in a contract between you and a label,” she said, while warning that having to bring labels, publishers and managers to the table isn’t an excuse for hardball negotiations.
iPhone music games developer Tapulous is looking beyond iPhone for its hugely popular Tap Tap Revenge series, according to its VP of business development Tim O’Brien.
“To date we haven’t been motivated to move to another platform, but in 2010 we’re definitely looking to port,” he said, while appearing at the MidemNet Mobile Apps and Music panel session.
The Tap Tap Revenge games have now generated more than 25 million downloads on the App Store, and it was recently reported that Tapulous is making $1 million a month from them, through a mixture of game sales and in-app payments.
Ted Mico from Interscope / Geffen / A&M says mobile apps offer a host of possibilities for the music industry, but only when done well. “Great apps are like babies,” he said. “Very easy to conceive, but very hard to deliver…”
He was speaking on a panel session devoted to mobile apps this afternoon. Mico highlighted the fact that artists have to be prepared to genuinely support their apps, rather than simply launching and then forgetting about them.
“The content has to be immediate and authentic, not some canned EPK content – if you’re not prepared to do the work, you’re not going to get the results,” he said. “The artists who are willing to do that are going to prosper… At the moment, the evidence is stacking up in favour of doing the extra work.”
The music industry doesn’t need more reasons to hate The Pirate Bay, but here’s a good one: it’s facilitating the comeback of Rednex. You know, the band behind ‘Cotton Eye Joe’.
The band’s comeback single ‘Devil’s On The Loose’ has been released purely through The Pirate Bay as a free download, promoted on the site’s homepage. “In 12 years all the record companies will be extinct and the copy-free system will rule, no matter what anyone tries to do about it,” says the band in a statement. “We see the record companies as dying, phlegm-coughing dinosaurs that have no function in the new system.”
We haven’t dared listen to the single, but here’s a reminder of the band in their heyday, so you can spend the day with the same thing on your internal jukebox as us…
Independent UK artist Noush Skaugen has 1.2 million followers on Twitter, and the company likes her so much, they’re letting her play a gig tonight at their corporate HQ – which she’ll be livestreaming to fans around the world.
