Altruist music sharing may become a viable music promotion strategy…

Since they decided to screw conventional record-industry models by leaving Columbia (Sony Music) last April, the famed techno/dance-beat band Groove Armada have been pampered by their new sponsor Bacardi for the last year or so. The Rum manufacturer has been helping the band with touring and recording, and now they have set out to try a distribution experiment that probably has great chances of succeeding. BLive Share is a website set to promote the duo’s new up coming four-track album in a rather original way.

Upon singing-up to BLive Share you get one of GA’s  (Groove Armada’s) tracks for free. Share it to 20 people and you get the second track for free. Send the second track to 200 people and get the third one for free. The same applies to the fourth one by sending it 2000 people (I don’t think many people will share 2000 tracks though, and those special prizes will only be delivered to the hardcore fans. By ‘great chances of succeeding’ I refer to the overall effect this promotion technique will have on the band’s popularity as well as its album’s).

Top sharers  “will get a very special award from BACARDI and GA, with the top regional sharers also picking awards”. So not only do you get tracks but you also get “special awards”! Yay! Since this is a contest, there is a due date, and that date is when GA’s new EP comes out (in 19 days and 3 hours according to their timer).

Is it a coincidence that two days ago I posted an article on a start-up called NoiseTrade that embraces a similar model for connecting bands and fans? I think not.

Radiohead’s ‘pay-what-you-want’ model opened quite a lot of doors for the evangelists of music promotion and marketing, and focusing on exponential sharing techniques is just a ripple of that phenomenon that took a year and a half to mature. I now strongly believe that NoiseTrade’s and GA’s (or should I rather say Bacardi’s) initiatives are onto something big. It has entered the realm of the general consensus that music is now free, or “disposable”, or at least has reached some stage of liquidity that doesn’t undermine its value as an art form , but that has just renders it a strong medium to ignite buzz. A band’s traction will be judged by its capacity to be shared – a band’s word-of-mouth, or rather mail-to-inbox score will become an tangible and powerful credential.

Groove Armada’s Andy Cato explains the train of thought:

Sharing music has always gone on — it’s giving music away that’s the problem. We wanted to come up with a 21st century version of what we used to do with cassette tapes. When you give music away for free it’s disposable. When you share it, it’s done with love. The online sharing application will be available until March 2nd, when the EP becomes available via commercial digital release.

Just to show you where this can go in terms of viral promotion, the renowned and illustrious BoingBoing.com, ”Directory of Beautiful Things’ (I love this site by the way) has partnered with Bacardi and GA to launch a contest starting today (February 10) and ending on March 2cd. (Not much to it: go to the BoingBoing post here and follow instruction to maybe win a 16gb iPod Touch).

This is the visual result of that partnership after only a couple of hours:

This model was screen-shot from the BLive Share website. More than 320 of GA’s tracks have already been shared only through BoingBoing in a matter of hours (I must admit I would’ve excepted more coming from BB, but hey, that’s already pretty good).

So is altruism the future of music promotion? Anyone have an opinion on this? Mruff?

PS: This post was intended to give tid-bits of music info. The post above inspired more than I had initally planned so it has now become THE post of the day, and all the other music news might as well just go to hell, except one – Derek Sivers (CD Baby and MuckWork dude etc.) attended the MIDEM 2009 conference/tradeshow last month and brought us back some cool littel interview-videos of some featured music companies. Check them out on Music Think Tank or www.sivers.org :)

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FanCorps: How bands can manage their street teams online (1)

For all you bands who have very dedicated fans, dedicated enough to help you promote you shows, your releases and be part of your street team, here is a website you might want to look into.

FanCorps.com is an online street-team management system. Although there are other websites out there that offer street team features (i.e. Reverb Nation or Trafficonline), FanCorps is the first I’ve come across that really incorporates elements of social network, and makes you feel part of a team.

Fancorps offers management and communication tools to help bands centralize their street team tasks and activities. Fans can choose to-do tasks from a list of “orders” and earn points, redeemable for t-shirts, concert tickets etc.. The army theme is just over the top for me, but many people love that kind of stuff.  The “orders” depends entirely on the band, and can include putting up posters, distributing flyers or contacting radio station.

For print-promo related activities,  the band uploads all the artwork, leaving the responsibility of actually creating the flyers/posters to the fans. And if the fan is clueless and doesn’t know where to start giving out those fliers, he/she can consult the ‘Intel’ section, where FanCorps lists places where you could actively promote (locations of record stores, pubs and clubs, book stores, radio stations). Check out their promotional video to get a better idea of what they offer.

Membership for bands starts at $50/month,  which allows you to manage 250 street team members. Centralizing your fans’ activities can greatly increase your exposure, but does the service really pay-off? I think it’s pretty expensive seeing how Fancorps doesn’t actually take care of any of the logistics (other than messaging and task delegation): you still have to do all the work you would normally do with a street team, however if you already have an established and dedicated street-team, managing their activities through FanCorps might make your life easier.

Howl.

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Why it’s hard for bands to get fans to come back to their shows

“Because of a phenomenon in business called saturation of market. It happens the same way to the guy selling fish or oranges up and down the street. People in a small demographic area can only eat fish so often. The answer is multifaceted. Change or better still diversity must be instilled. Example: If you play country in the coffee shop, your fan base comes and becomes saturated. You rotate out of the demographic area by playing elsewhere or not playing at all and your friend who plays folk or rock plays that region / coffee shop. Street vendors have known since the dark ages to rotate goods or areas with other vendors. Seek out three or four other musicians of variety in your area whom are interested in doing a cooperative you might even use a magician or other form of entertainment. Work those small venues as a group. You may find you have more work than you can handle”.
(Noisy Kung-Fu – www.myspace.com/noisykungfu)

“Unless you have two or three hundred very close friends who are wild about you, you’re going to have these problems for a long time. Part of the problem is that the economy is bad, so people aren’t going out as much. ($3+/drink vs $3+/gal of gas…sheesh! While I only have a few drinks, I use a LOT of gas!) Add to that our current over-policing with an emphasis on “zero tolerance” for everything from DUI’s to people just trying to have a good time & gather together. Add to that the competition with karaoke & DJ’s.Top it off with bar owner apathy & refusal to advertise anywhere except their marquees (if they even HAVE a marquee).The end result is a huge problem for a band trying to get started. Stop playing bars. Go with venues where the audience is guaranteed, like town festivals, fairs, company picnics, weddings etc. You’ll sell more CD’s & T-shirts, & possibly get to the point that you DO have a loyal following who would like to see you in a bar sometime. You may have fewer gigs overall, but at least the people will be there. Or, you could find a really good manager &/or agent. Never tried that, myself, but I’ve heard it can give good results, with the right person/agency. Good luck. We’re all in the same boat on this issue”.
(Monkey Wench – www.bandmix.com/philbymon)

“I used to book our band for the door at clubs. I would then line up 2-3 other new bands to get on the bill with us and charge their fans and keep the money. Hopefully some of the bands fans will rub off and stay with you. It takes 2-3 years to build up a consistent fan base. Your group name has to get familiar. Our name did and we eventually were just payed to play to whoever showed up, which thankfully for a couple of years we did draw well. The only problem was that we started off original and then started adding our fans favorite cover songs to the sets, over time we became a cover band and thats all we were known for. If you cant keep people coming more than 1 or 2 times you might need to evaluate your material and maybe tweak it to suit the crowd. We used to come up with little contest to spice up the night, you know loudest (drunk) table, best(biggest hooters) looking gal, anything to get the audience involved in what you are doing. Somehow you have to make yourself an event that people just cant stand to miss. When we ran the door we would let unescorted women in free, this would in turn bring in more guys. Remember the customer is king and really doesn’t owe you anything, don’t piss them off in any way”.
(Jw123 – www.bandmix.com/jw123)

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