The host was our local Chris Brandt . Previously of Music BC.
There was a lot to be said, twitter was mentioned along with facebook, youtube, wikipedia.
The core idea was that you need to promote yourself in as many places as possible in order to gain the attention of passersby. Nothing really new here I suppose. It's common sense but sometimes we need someone else to clue us in to what should be common sense but slipped under our radar.
It's not just the people you know but the people they know and so on. The web is called the web for a reason. It branches out and connects to sites that may not be entirely related to your promo but if you can catch the eyes of onlookers.
The cool thing about twitter is that there's the retweet button. Great that others can tweet your posts and broadcast your ideas well beyond your current network. That's awesome.
Similarly there's facebook by which you can tell your friends and if they like or post a comment on your profile, every one in their network will see it. Cool. Facebook has other things. Paid advertising et al.
There's really no way that I could possibly summarize all the topics discussed. Unfortunately, this time I didn't bring my laptop nor even a piece of paper to write on.(Funny. I had three pens in my pocket). All my notes were mental.
All this being said, I still think there is a downside to the social networking. A lot of people think that social networking is like a silver bullet. There's no magic here. The truth is the bottom line is still the bottom line. If you have a good band and write good music, it's going to get someone's attention. Promoting it is good but make sure the material is up to par in the first place.
The downfall of the information age is that ANYONE can promote themselves as a musician. That's great but then again some of the people out there make me sick to my stomach. The fact that some of these people are getting famous for what they do floors me. A few examples were brought out. Particularly this kid:
Granted, good for him that he's made a name for himself.........for what? Lip syncing? This is the example of promotion that we should look to?
The point however is well taken. If you have the right promo, you can sell anything. And, love it or hate it that kid has millions of hits. He even got 50cent to drop in on one of his videos. Now I personally could care less if 50came to my door asking to use the bathroom but he's famous and now this kid is famous.
Dissecting that just a little further, where did the kid get all those hits? He had to have a fanbase to begin with. So, where did all those fans find out about him? Well, he put the name of the song up in his title.
Which brings us to another subject, covers. Covers? Why not? 80% of Led Zeppelin's first album was covers. Does anyone think less of them because of that? Okay, maybe some of you do. The point though is that you have to draw the crowd first. People have to get a taster if they are to decide whether or not the rest of your product(Yes I said product) is something they would be interested in.
This kid and others like him are an anomaly though. There's lots of talented people out there doing covers and not all of them are getting the attention they deserve.
Speaking of Zeppelin, let's take a look at Virtual Zeppelin:
Yup. A paltry 30000 hits. Ok, 30 thousand hits is nothing to shake a stick at but in comparison to millions it's paltry.
So as much as there is good reason to use social media, the web is full of idiots. Did I say that out loud? I'm not trying to be a jerk. It just goes to show where people put there money these days. It's not about talent. It's about what's trending? That's what twitter is about. Trends.
When people search for music on youtube, they're not looking for Zeppelin or ELP, they're looking for what's hot now. If you want to get hit's you need to cover contemporary music and that means hip hop too. It's the only way you're going to draw traffic for your originals.
Opinions? You can rail me for this post. That's ok.
