The first thing any good band PR person should tell a new artist or band trying to promote their work is to create a free MySpace music page. Love it or hate it, MySpace is where musicians need to be. The site allows artists to embed music players and showcase their best work so that potentially millions of people can get a taste of the music. MySpace is all about “friends.” Similar bands and fans of those bands will send friend invitations, which will lead even more people to your page.
I became active on MySpace this week, and I’m already getting friend invites (and a backstage pass offer) from bands and fans who found me through other bands and fans. As long as I like the music, I’m willing to promote it (a backstage pass would be welcome!), no matter how modest my efforts. There probably are thousands of people like me online who want to help good bands promote their music. Free of charge. (Well, a backstage pass would be…see where I’m going with this?)
For new artists, exposure is more important than money, as counterintuitive as that may sound. Get people’s attention first, give away your music, build a fanbase, then start charging.
As cool as MySpace is, however, blogs have a bigger impact on music sales, according to a 30-page study by New York University. The number of blog posts about an album had a higher correlation to that album’s sales than the number of MySpace friends, although the number of MySpace friends also contributed to higher sales. From Does Chatter Matter?: The Impact of User-Generated Content on Music Sales (PDF) (emphases added):
If an album has more than 40 blog posts…it will have an above average level of sales…If an album has more than 40 blog posts and is released by a major label, then it is likely to have very high sales…
This is no surprise, as a large number of blog posts indicate a high level of buzz, and being released by a major label means it is more likely that there will be significant promotion of the album through channels other than the Internet. Interestingly, though, 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. In fact, albums with such extreme highs in chatter correspond to sales even higher than major label, high chatter albums…
However, even if chatter is relatively high for an independent label…sales will be higher than the average for the sample, but still relatively low if the 240 post level is not breached. An independent label with low blog chatter has very low sales…which is as expected.
The study is the first to “quantify the economic impact of user-generated content for the music industry.” Regardless of blog chatter’s higher correlation to music sales than the number of MySpace friends, all artists should have a MySpace page, especially unsigned and independent ones and those trying to build a web presence and create online buzz.
By the way, the study tracked physical album sales, not digital. Although the study isn’t exactly new (completed last May and published last October), it is timely and relevant and should be part of any online marketing person’s selling point.
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