By George Howard
We hear the near-constant drumbeat of the importance of direct-to-fan marketing from virtually every corner of the record business. The sentiment is undeniably correct. Eliminating middlemen, and their accompanying transaction costs, is certainly good practice in any type of business. There is, however, something not quite right with respect to current thinking around direct-to-fan marketing. In short, if all we’re doing with D2F is eliminating the middleman, we are only improving efficiency within an inherently flawed system; we’re still “marketing at” people instead of “marketing with” them.
As Hugh MacLeod correctly states, “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face.” What’s right about this statement is that we know when we’re being “marketed at,” and we don’t like it.
We know now that while we took it, we really didn’t like it. We know this because the Internet — the first pillar of the “lean forward” age — was the fastest adopted technology since fire. In other words, the moment we no longer had to lean back and take it — the moment we had access to the conversation via the Internet — we leaned forward and began creating, commenting, discoursing…conversing. Now we are pre-disposed to interact with our content. From a simplistic level, we lean forward and use our DVRs to fast-forward over commercials, or, perhaps, we use Boxee, and lean forward to filter our content via what our friends have “favorited” in their Boxee queue. More actively, we lean forward and grab content and remix it, or mash it up, or repurpose it to help let others know us better by Tweeting a link to a song, or highlighting a salient piece of text on an Amazon Kindle, and sharing that with all others reading the same book.
All of the great Internet success stories realize that it is about conversation, rather than commerce. These companies — be they eBay, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Flickr, delicious, Groupon, Yelp, etc. — began with the premise that their customers were their allies. Rather than “marketing at” these people, these companies created “architectures of participation.” If you really think that Amazon, for instance, is only about commerce and not about conversation, ask yourself what you look at prior to making a purchase. If you’re like every other person on the planet, you look at the user submitted comments and star ratings. What do those who submit those ratings receive? Nothing. It’s not about that. The Amazon star ratings are an example of civic sharing at its most fundamental; it’s people doing what they’re hard-wired to do: share/converse.
Music is something that people have always loved to share and converse about. Even in the “marketing at” era, architectures of participation emerged — one thinks of, for example, The Grateful Dead’s encouragment of tape traders; or the ‘zines (truly precursors to web blogs) that acted less as marketing tools and more as a means to disseminate information of interest; to genuine gestures of community such as R.E.M.’s long-running fan club.
Our greatest challenge and opportunity with respect to the new tools — tools which make it possible to directly connect to fans — is to not use them simply as replacements for the mechanisms employed by the “marketing at” system. Twitter/Facebook cannot become a PR feed from an artist to her constituents lest it lose all its value.
Your constituents are your greatest, and when all is said and done, your only allies. It is they who will compel their friends to check out your music, and, in so doing, grow your base. You as a content creator, therefore, have the responsibility to empower them in a genuine, non-jive manner. What bothers me about the current direct-to-fan approach is the air of condescension. There still seems this false hierarchical attitude: “I, creator, deign to give you, “fan,” access to ME…aren’t I great!”
As Bruce Springsteen famously said, “The audience and the artist are valuable to one another as long as you can look out there and see yourself, and they look back and see themselves.”
If you’ve followed this article at all, you’ll know that there’s simply no way I can tell you how to authentically converse with your constituents. I can, however, point you to some artists who are doing this: Kristin Hersh, Roseanne Cash, Jonathon Coulton, Sage Francis, Zoey Keating, Mark Isham, The Hold Steady….there are others, please leave your examples in the comments below.
Study their approaches, and then determine how you can begin really utilizing your constituents as allies, rather than thinking of them only as consumers. Once you do this, you begin to realize that you’re not alone in this; it’s not you going direct to your “fans” in some sort of one-way anachronism, but rather you and your fans working to build something together.
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George Howard is the former president of Rykodisc. He currently advises numerous entertainment and non-entertainment firms and individuals. Additionally, he is the Executive Editor of Artists House Music and is a Professor and Executive in Residence in the college of Business Administration at Loyola, New Orleans. He is most easily found on Twitter at: twitter.com/gah650
Shameless here: www.myspace.com/yvesvilleneuve has a good way to converse one-way with listeners.
Posted by: Yves Villeneuve | January 06, 2011 at 02:58 PM
Another excellent article. I definitely, will be re-thinking how I, approach sharing my music. I guess that's why I closed all my social networking websites two years ago. Orginally, because I felt I wasn't using it properly. Now, I have some new idea's on how I - can better approach sharing with the world. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Milton | January 06, 2011 at 04:13 PM
Excellent article George, thank you.
Indeed there is a temptation to talk 'at' vs. 'to'. In part I believe it is because we are so used to being the recipients of marketing speak that, when roles are reversed, we end up doing the same thing.
Another factor is the simple fear of losing your position. The power paradigm is a tricky one. Once people are in a position of strength (be that an artist or politician) they usually want to remain there and often end up proclaiming rather than asking as, opening the floor to others also opens you up to be challenged.
Somewhat supporting that is the fact that people like their heroes and don't want them to be weak (except morally so we can equally love and loathe them). So, back to your point, it is essential to learn the subtle differences between positive and negative engagement and when and how to use them for everyone's benefit.
Thanks again for this important and provocative piece.
Posted by: Prince Perry | January 06, 2011 at 05:37 PM
Really great comment, Prince Perry. thank you.
George
Posted by: George Howard | January 06, 2011 at 09:52 PM
This IS a great article. I find that one good way to engage your fans is to, as much as possible, acknowledge any feedback that you get from them. A simple, "Thanks for your message, always great to get good feedback.". Or "hey, got your message, thanks for writing.". I don't know about you guys but I always love to get a reply from someone I hold in high esteem.
Posted by: David | January 06, 2011 at 11:47 PM
It's a good point, David. too often people ask their constituents questions, their constituents answer, but the person who asks never acknowledges the answer(s).
this is a mistake. we wouldn't like this offline, and we don't online.
the key is conversation. it has to be: we asked, you answered, we listened.
thanks for the comment.
George
Posted by: George Howard | January 07, 2011 at 09:48 AM
How do you start the conversation, and how do you keep it from consuming your life to the point that you can't get off the Web and make some music?
Posted by: Bob Bethune | January 10, 2011 at 09:57 AM
Great information here and well written George...
Posted by: jgluskin | January 10, 2011 at 01:00 PM
Good question Bob Bethune. The internet is the most stressful, neurotic compulsion in my life. It's great to walk away from it for holidays with the sky and birdsong - real light!
Posted by: Nevis Cameron | January 10, 2011 at 02:10 PM
Yea, totally agreeing with this. Fans are your best friends. Not only will they support you if they like you, but they will offer suggestions on good venues to play if you ask. My fans dont just come to my shows, they help me book my shows...and I love them for this!!!
Posted by: | January 18, 2011 at 01:33 PM
I think this is a good article but I'm also thinking Bob Bethune has a good point. Its easy to get consumed by everything and everyone around the music and end up spending less and less time on the music. Maybe its romantic of me but I tend to think that if you put the effort into the art so that its fantastic then people will gather to it much faster. I don't disagree with this article at all. But it can't be ALL about the fans
Posted by: Fronz Arp | March 04, 2011 at 03:54 AM