How I ran social media for One Movement For Music Perth, July-October 2009

This was my first venture into blogging on behalf of a commercial entity. It was a massive learning experience and I’m grateful for the opportunity to run what I believe was the first dedicated Australian music festival blog.

The first One Movement For Music Perth ran October 16-18 2009. The event was a bold combination of music industry summit, artist showcase festival, and local artist street performance. Think of it as a nascent SXSW for the Southern Hemisphere.

Between July and October 2009, Nick and I ran One Movement’s blog and social media presence.

Located at onemovementword.com, the One Movement blog became the central hub of online activity surrounding the event. We published interviews, festival announcements, guest posts, a ‘four questions with‘ series, and event coverage.

From July-October, traffic looked like this:

One Movement promoters Sunset Events handed over the event Facebook and Twitter accounts to us in mid-September.

By the end of October, our Facebook fans looked like this:

And our Twitter followers looked like this: (Source: TwitterCounter)

So, what worked for us when blogging for One Movement?

1. Short, sharp posts that featured the input of festival artists. The ‘four questions‘ series proved particularly popular and attracted the attention of the fanbases surrounding the dozens of bands we profiled. (Witness the Big Day Out blog successfully replicating our formula here)
2. The guest post by Kyle Bylin of Hypebot, and the couple of One Movement-related placements we coordinated on their site.
3. Our Indonesian music industry feature, which was the second most popular entry on the blog.
4. Embedding music videos wherever possible to encourage visitors to stay on-site. This was especially useful during ‘four questions‘, as we asked every respondent to name their favourite song of the week, and included the music videos where we could.
5. Seeding exclusive content among fan communities. This involved posting links to the blog articles on artists’ Facebook pages, fan forums, and Last.FM profiles as soon as relevant articles were published. We also used artists’ Twitter usernames where possible to notify them of the new content, and encourage them to retweet the content.

Why did these work?

1. Put simply, people want to read artists’ opinions. They also want to know what artists are listening to; what’s influencing their work. The ‘favourite song of the week’ offered a quick snapshot into the artists’ mind, and offered a talking point for their fans.
2. Hypebot is a popular music news destination, and my relationship with associate editor Kyle Bylin ensured that he directed traffic off-site to provide OMW with the exclusive on his latest article, which we used as a guest post.
3. Indonesians are interested in reading about analyses of their music industry, since it appears that such articles are few and far between. Check out the response on Indonesian band The Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent’s Facebook page.
4. Most users will stay on the blog to watch the embedded videos, which increases ‘time on site’ metrics. And obviously, a combination of image, video and text makes for a visually appealing blog.
5. We decided early into the ‘four questions’ series that it’d be valuable to make each artists’ fan communities aware of the new content by posting the link on the most popular Facebook page/group, their Last.FM profile, and by including the artist as an @reply in our One Movement Twitter updates whenever we posted new content. This ensured that any switched-on fan (or fansite/forum operator) could easily find new content relevant to their artist, and reblog it wherever possible.

Facebook and Twitter

Once we were in charge of the event Facebook and Twitter, we built communities by posting daily updates based on the blog content, as well as responding to @replies and Wall posts as they happened.

Project Outcomes

• 6,700+ unique visitors to the event blog, One Movement Word
• 600+ Facebook fans
• 280+ Twitter followers

What did this mean for One Movement?

• Within four months, a thousands-strong community of passionate music fans built around a new event on the Australian festival calendar.
• Accolades surrounding the construction and ongoing maintenance of the first popular blog built around an Australian music festival.
• The ability to listen to, and learn directly from these engaged fanbases. (see below; click for full-size)

This post that originally appeared on waycooljnr.

Filed under Web, Writing | Tags: australia, blog, blogging, facebook, hypebot, music festival, nick-crocker, one-movement, one-movement-word, perth, Social Media, sunset-events, twitter | Comment (1)

Waycooljnr post: “Why Beggars Group Want You To Repost Free MP3s”

This is a guest post that appeared on Waycooljnr.com.au in November 2009.

Last month, Nick and I went to Perth for One Movement For Music; he as a panel moderator, and I as a reporter for the One Movement blog, which I’d edited since July.

Nick moderated a panel called “Busting Open Digital Myths“. My highlight of the panel was when Nick asked Simon Wheeler - Director of Digital at The Beggars Group, which consists of indie labels like 4AD, Matador Records and XL Recordings - about Beggars’ approach to online promotion, since they’re widely known and loved for allowing music blogs to repost free mp3s. Footage of Simon’s response is embedded below, as well as a transcription underneath.

Simon Wheeler:

“Everything we do is geared around a particular artist or release. One of the challenges we set ourselves - and it’s not a particularly scalable model - is that every campaign we put together around an artist or release is bespoke. It’s quite a labour-intensive way of working, but I think it’s very important that we try to do the record justice. When you’re working with very original artists making original pieces of work, I feel strongly that the marketing around that has got to be original as well.

There’s no standard practice to what we do. There’s a few common traits that we have. One that started in the US particularly is to make an mp3 available when we have an album coming out.

It’s kind of crazy how the music industry works; we shout and tell everyone about a new record. “It’s really exciting, it’s great, you can hear it on the radio.. oh, but actually, you can’t buy it for two or three months. Is that okay? Can you just not download it off of anywhere? Just wait two or three months, we’ll get it in the shops soon!”

So, going against that, we know that fans are passionate about an artist, and they’re very excited about a new album. So to be able to give them something to satiate that demand somewhat has been quite effective. There’s also the purpose of giving people a piece of music to ‘try before they buy’, if you like. We get a lot of love and a lot of coverage in the blog world, because I think our artists are very suited to that world.

We don’t give music blogs free reign, because you’d find that each blog would post a different track from the album, and so ten minutes after you’d publicised the album, people could just go and download the whole album (laughs).

So by making available one chosen, one focus track from a new album - much as you take a track to radio - there’s kind of an unwritten dialogue between us and the bloggers. We don’t tell them to post it, we don’t say they can’t post it; if people post the whole album, we’ll definitely say they can’t do that, and we’ll get it taken down. But they understand that if we post an mp3 to one of our label sites or blogs, then they won’t get any grief from us at all [if they repost it to their blog].

This really helps focus the campaign around a lead track, much as you do when taking a track to radio. There’s no new science here; this is just what the record industry has been doing for decades. We’re just applying that to the digital age.”

I knew that the Matador’s Matablog saw traffic and sales increase after adopting regular mp3 launches, but it was so refreshing to hear Simon’s response. He showed that Beggars Group understand the value in creating a dialogue with music bloggers, as well as giving fans a portable sample of a new album to take with them.

On a national level, contrast Beggars’ approach to what I see each week from major Australian labels, who release key tracks to radio using encrypted software, and who often disable the ability to save the audio file in a portable format.

The Beggars Group music blog strategy filters down to indie labels like Sydney’s Remote Control Records, whose blog regularly reposts promotional downloads from the likes of Matador, XL and 4AD. I interviewed their marketing director, Steve Cross, for Mess+Noise in October.

Simon’s outline above begs further research into how the group measures the return on the free mp3 promotional strategy. We’ll contact him for a guest post in the future, but I’m interested to know how Way Cool Jnr readers interact with label blogs.

Beyond Remote Control, EMI Music have maintained The In Sound From Way Out for over six months now. Though they’ve been shy about giving away too many mp3s just yet - check out the downloads page - their stream of the new Massive Attack EP ‘Splitting The Atom’ brought thousands of new visitors to the blog. (Disclosure: EMI is a Native Digital client)

Australian indie label Speak N Spell recently relaunched their site, which features a blog and free downloads. Sydney’s Difrnt Music are occasionally known to exchange songs for email subscriptions. And Melbourne-based boutique label Hobbledehoy took the unique approach of offering much of their catalogue for free download, in partnership with US provider Gimmesound.

Which other Australian labels see the value in using promotional mp3s to drive music sales and site traffic?

Filed under Marketing, Music | Tags: beggars-group, blog, difrnt-music, discussion, emi-music, free, hobbledehoy-records, indie, label, matablog, mp3, Music, nick-crocker, one-movement, panel, record, remote-control-records, simon-wheeler, speak-n-spell, waycooljnr | Comment (0)

My First Rolling Stone Story

In October 2009, my first story was printed in Rolling Stone Australia. It’s 600 words on a couple of music/tech issues; not exactly the most glamorous first RS article , but it’s a start no less. The story is below; click for full-sized PDF.

This was the fourth story I’d pitched to the magazine. Here’s my original pitch:

Bandit.FM: Under The Hood

Sony are launching their Bandit.FM music subscription and download service in October 2009. Let’s take a closer look at the strategy and technology behind the site. Are subscription services really the future of music consumption - as everyone seems to be yelling this year - or is at all hot air and marketing?

What will I discuss? (sample questions)

• Who’s backing the site? (eg. venture capital beyond Sony’s involvement?)
• How long has this been in the works?
• Why launch now?
• How long did it take to get all four major labels on board?
• Each artist seems to have a unique ‘content rich’ splash page containing imagery, a bio, and artist recommendations (eg. http://bandit.fm/sixstring/karnivool) Who supplies the content behind these pages? Were these compiled specifically for Bandit, or is the content supplied by external sources?
• How many staff are working on Bandit full-time?
• What are the advantages of a subscription-based streaming service as opposed to an advertising-based service?
• What opportunities will Bandit allow for Australian indie bands?

Clearly I was unable to answer all of those questions in the article, but the issues I raised warranted a commission.

Hey Andrew,
Am quite interested in the Bandit story, but only as a short thing, maybe around 600 words tops. You think you can get something meaningful in that space?

It would be good to get perspective on it that wasn’t just from Sony – the main thing is this can’t be a PR piece for them. A non-Sony artist who will be for sale there is good, maybe a comment from someone at one of the other majors. Nokia also do a subscription of sorts, so maybe that’s something to consider…

After submitting the story initially, I was asked to rewrite, as the tone was “a little too “essay”, not “news” enough for one of our short pieces”.

To give you an idea of the timelines associated with the story,  the article was finalised in late August, and it’s only appeared in print this month, for the November 2009 issue [pictured right].

It’s been a great experience, and I look forward to writing many more stories for Rolling Stone. Many thanks to Matt Coyte, Dan Lander, Stephen Green, Nick Crocker and Neil Strauss.

Filed under Published Writing, Writing | Tags: bandit-fm, comes-with-music, dan-lander, download, freelance-writing, gavin-parry, getmusic, karen-farrugia, matt-coyte, neil-strauss, nick-crocker, nokia, pitch, rolling stone, sony, spotify, stephen-green, story, streaming, tech, Writing | Comments (7)

Thoughts On Big Sound 2009

September 9-11, I attended Big Sound, my first music conference. I moderated a discussion panel called ‘Blogging, Twittering and Online Publishing: Tastemaking or Time-Wasting?‘, managed a showcase band, Hunz, and reported for The Music Network.

What did Big Sound 2009 mean to me?

It meant appearing in my first public speaking role since the occasional presentation throughout my tertiary education. On the day, it was my preparation and familiarity with the subject matter that saw 90 minutes of guided discussion pass without concern on my part. My notes from the panel are here.

It meant representing an artist whose music I love, and actively inviting others to experience his art and understand his vision. While I’m still coming to terms with the latter, but it was perpetually thrilling to see Hunz describe himself to the unfamiliar, both in meetings and on stage. Their showcase performance was strong, and well-received by the crowd present, based on the feedback we received afterwards. [Photo from the show below]

Throughout Big Sound, my personal goal was simply to introduce his music to new ears. That may be naive, but we agreed beforehand that there was little point in building up expectations. Whatever happens, happens, but there’s no doubt that their showcase was an overwhelmingly positive experience.

It also meant becoming more comfortable in crowded social situations. This was networking in the truest form I’ve witnessed since a digital industry event called Interactive Minds, late last year. It was very much a case of rapid-fire socialising, smiling, shaking hands, and exchanging details. Yeah, some of it was superficial. But while the personal connections I made mightn’t all yield results in the short term, in sum, the networking was the most enjoyable element of the event.

From my perspective, it was cool to have people introduce themselves to me after knowing who I am, which is the opposite to all of my music-related encounters in the past. The coolest example of this was Wally de Backer introducing himself the day after my panel. It took me like 5 seconds to realise that he was Gotye, and another 30 or so for Hans to make the connection to his identity - that is, a source of massive musical inspiration. But I wasn’t like ‘OMG WHAT TO DO?’, but more like ‘oh sweet, he’s keen for a chat’. Wally was there to showcase his other band, The Basics, who are self-managed.

One of the biggest shifts in my mindset of late is that I’m beginning to accept that ‘famous’ people are just people. It’s something inherently known, but it’s still difficult to accept. Everyone knows the feeling of seeing a public figure in the flesh and being too scared to approach; more and more, I’m abandoning that mindset, and just going after it. Cases in point: approaching both The Dead Sea (whose showcase was one of my highlights) and Yves Klein Blue’s Michael Tomlinson (who I’d interviewed for jmag the week before) at the Sounds Like Brisbane launch.

In the Big Sound context, it’s more a case of recognising that these meeting opportunities are extremely limited, and discarding hesitation in the face of time constraints. Again, this is one of the aspects of the event I most enjoyed: the simple act of bringing together so many influential minds that have the ability to make shit happen is the main drawcard.

I mean, the conference is nothing without its delegates. No shit, right? I’d read this beforehand and understood it at a basic level, but it really didn’t click for me until I was there among the masses that I realised - hey, any industry is built on the people who work within it. An event like Big Sound simply enables connections between people to happen at a more rapid rate.

A few people I spoke to questioned why the openness and accessibility on display across the three days couldn’t exist for the other 362. As far as I can comprehend, it’s because shit wouldn’t get done if artists, labels, managers, and promoters kept the gates to their respective castles open at all times. Those few days of meeting and conversing are useful because of their scarcity. In an industry built upon the creation and commodification of a social object - music - it was enlightening and inspiring to meet so many dedicated to sharing with one another.

I’ll cite Big Sound as the event that affixed a silencer to my pistol of industry skepticism. In an interview with Warner Music CEO and ARIA chairman Ed St John a fortnight ago, I related to him that my increasingly frequent conversations with the people who work within the industry has shifted my view of large companies - like major record labels - from faceless organisations, to groups of decision-making individuals. [Sidenote: read that interview on One Movement Word here]

That might read like a basic statement to make, and a basic realisation to have. But after spending the best part of a decade - my formative adolescence - reading and participating in online forums where the loudest opinion is often taken as reality, I’m only just starting to unlearn. Nick and I call it ‘blogger’s mentality’, wherein an internal bias colours one’s worldview to the point where it interferes with learning and understanding.

I’m not suggesting that I’m attempting to remove subjectivity from my observations, because you know as well as I that it’s fucking impossible. Instead, what I’m trying to do is approach every situation, every interaction with an open mind, while placing little value on preconceptions. It’s less naivety, than measured optimism. Lately, I’m of the mind that people - individuals - are inherently good, so I’ll treat them with that respect until proven otherwise.

To return this realisation to the context of Big Sound, and the wider music industry: I have no time for stories of failed business deals and broken relationships. An individual’s history is less meaningful than how they present themselves in the moment.

What I’m now aiming to do is assess people on their merits when we meet, rather than relying on markers of their past to colour my perceptions. To me, where you’ve been is less important than where you’re going. In a songwriting context, to wit: you’re only as good as your last song.

[Thanks to Justin Edwards for the photographs]

Filed under Music | Tags: aria, big-sound, blogging, ed-st-john, gotye, hunz, interactive-minds, justin-edwards, management, michael-tomlinson, music industry, nick-crocker, online-publishing, public-speaking, showcase, songwriting, the-dead-sea, twitter, wally-de-backer | Comments (4)

Neil Strauss, Addendum

How I put myself in the position to spend 45 minutes with one of my favourite writers:

1. Read The Game by Neil Strauss in 2007. Love it; re-read it several times. Buy a used copy from eBay and a new copy from a bookstore to lend to friends.
2. Through Neil’s mailing list, receive information that Emergency, his new book, was due in March 2009.
3. Email several people to find the Australian publisher of Emergency. (Answer: Text Publishing)
4. Request a review copy of Emergency for FourThousand.
5. Inadvertently receive two copies of Emergency from different publishers. (I’m still not sure how this happened.)
6. Review Emergency for FourThousand.
7. Send review link to Text Publishing to solidify that relationship.
8. Through his mailing list, receive information of Neil’s forthcoming Australian book tour in June 2009.
9. Contact Text Publishing to request an interview Neil on behalf of FourThousand. (This request was a near-certainty, given my relationship with the publisher.)
10. Discover that Neil’s book tour omits Brisbane. Sadly, resign the interview to a 20 minute phone call.
11. Meet with Nick Crocker on Sunday, June 21 2009. He suggests the unforeseen possibility of flying to Sydney to interview Neil in person. (Nick: “Since he’s such a massive influence, why don’t you spend a couple hundred dollars to fly down to make a better impression?” Andrew: “…” [stunned silence, having not considered this option at all])
12. Later that night, book flights to Sydney to interview Neil in person.
13. Fly to Sydney on Tuesday, June 23 2009.
14. Meet Neil. Complete my biggest interview yet by having a conversation, instead of referring to questions point-by-point.
15. Begin transcribing the conversation at Sydney Airport.
16. Fly back to Brisbane, head full of inspiration.
17. Per Neil’s advice, outsource the rest of the interview transcription; in this case, to Israel, to an excellent transcriptionist named Tamara Bentzur. (I found her by Googling “outsource transcriptions”.)
18. Spend the next two-plus months pitching the interview feature to various magazines in an attempt to recoup the $300 airfares.
19. Get rejected.
20. Eventually post the entire interview - 8,000 words-plus - online, free.

Regrets? None.

Filed under Writing | Tags: emergency, fourthousand, inspiration, Interview, Journalism, Motivation, neil-strauss, nick-crocker, tamara-bentzur, text-publishing, the-game, transcription, Writing | Comments (6)