Love her or hate her, what could we learn from this?

Any video or news story that goes viral has a memorable and home-hitting story attached to it.  Even the inane stuff.  For Boyle, it was the emotional connection between her and the people who are too scared to live out their dreams.  Those people that believe they aren’t good enough, or that no one will take them seriously (a large percentage of the population, in my opinion) – Boyle gave those people a voice and those people roared with applause when she got off that stage.  Not only was there an emotional connection, but it was the type of emotion that made the masses want to show support, whether it was through re-tweets or through CD sales.

I don’t think Boyle cared about the result of her audition.  You could tell from the minute she walked out.  This was about that moment, right then.  No formal training, no aspiration to have a hit record.  Just her, a stage, and her creation.  This is precisely the attitude that brought her to her current level of success.  By doing it, she had already opened a door that most people in her shoes would’ve run from.  Remarkable.

Boyle separated her audience into two crowds:  believers and non-believers.   And the believers, most of them, admitted that she wasn’t a Mariah or a Whitney.  The non-believers were annoyed that there were any believers at all.  And it’s this duality that made Boyle’s story even more remarkable.  The non-believers found the story to be an illustration of how silly humans can be when their expectations are shattered.  The believers found the story to be a reminder of how the underappreciated can win through perseverance and courage.  Neither story is more important than the other; what is important is that both stories exist and are re-told daily.  If it were only one or the other, she would’ve been a passing YouTube phenomenon and that’s about it.

Though there are many success stories related to someone’s talent, this was not one of them.  The fact that Susan Boyle’s voice isn’t remarkable is what makes her story remarkable.    The fact that she is adored and also despised is what makes her story interesting.  But most importantly, the revelation that it’s not always about raw skill is what makes her story valuable.

It was about doing it, knowing that there will be those who laugh at you and that there will be those who wildly cheer you on.  It’s boring, otherwise.

Huh?

Do you really want to associate yourself with something that lifeless?  Do companies want to hire a neutral, bland robot?  And if they do, is that the type of place a person like you wants to work, anyway?

I propose a new movement.  Instead of filtering out our content, provide more of it, but let’s make it really good.  Instead of worrying about our co-workers, bosses, and future employers stumbling across our Twitter accounts, let’s be ourselves, even if your content isn’t completely relevant to whatever job you’re doing/applying for.  Let’s make our e-presence a true representation of ourselves, because no one wants a phony.  And if you trick someone into hiring/working with a phony, how long can you keep up the act before the real you comes out?  Surprise.

I’m not suggesting that you post pictures of yourself as Frat King on top of Beer Pong Mountain.  I’m just saying that we know that our bosses, clients, and partners use the web, and that they might be searching for us.  Sure, we don’t want to embarrass ourselves, but it’s probably more embarrassing to have an e-presence which says you’re boring and lifeless.  We don’t want to hurt our chances by posting off-color YouTube clips, but how about the opportunity to help our chances?

If you’re given the opportunity to design your online brand, do you opt for tasteless, boring, or true?  Would you rather have the google search take 10 seconds when they find out there’s nothing new to learn?  Or would you rather have them drawn in to your strategically presented yet authentic world?  Who would they feel better hiring?  Seems obvious to me.

1. user-friendly digital download
2. fans have the ability to name their price
3. fans have the ability to download the album for free in exchange for marketing data (email address/location)

That’s not an enormous list, but you’ll learn later that I had some other requirements that I didn’t even know about when I was planning the release.

I looked at Tunecore, which distributes your record to sites like iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic.  I did end up using Tunecore as a secondary distribution channel because these services are familiar (requirement #1 was met).  I didn’t want to alienate fans* who only know how to use the iTunes store to download an album.  But I couldn’t allow my fans to control the price, so these distributors would become secondary to whatever I chose.

There were places like Amie Street, which would allow my album to start off free but would increase in price as it got more popular.  It would be a stretch to say that this meets Requirements #2 and #3, because it’s the community that is technically controlling the price and not the individual fan.  I also didn’t want to punish those who just happened to get into the music later than the early adopters.

I took a look at some of my favorite musicians.  Glen Phillips had just released an album through Bandcamp.  Bandcamp would let me meet all 3 of my requirements, so it seemed like the perfect choice.  My only qualm with it was that it wasn’t exactly widget friendly.  You could attach a widget to your own web site, but it’s a small player and it just links back to your Bandcamp page anyway.   It was important to me to have my own site.  I wanted to run my own analytics and be able to make it a central hub for my fans.  Nonetheless, Bandcamp still met my basic needs, so I kept it as an option.

Then I stumbled across Noisetrade.  It met requirements #2 and #3, but it had the added feature of requiring the downloader to tell 5 friends about the album (via the widget) if they wanted the album for free.  I figured this was absolutely the way to go.  Every time someone downloaded my album for free, 5 people would get an email alert and would possibly check out the album as well.  And it was extremely widget friendly (in fact, the entire thing IS a widget), so I could embed into my site seamlessly.  I took a big breath and shelled out the $200 set up fee that Noisetrade required at the time.

I began working on the record, picking out good songs, re-working old demos, and finally it started to take form.  In the meantime, Noisetrade dropped its startup fee and refunded me, which I thought was a good move.  I was reading Seth Godin’s Purple Cow at the time, and Seth tends to make me re-think marketing.  I thought, how would Seth Godin digitally distribute my record if he was in charge?  Seth’s way of life is to make the product remarkable, and that viral spread will happen naturally (this became Requirement #4).  He believes it’s more effective this way, and I’m with him all the way.

The first thing that got me thinking about not using Noisetrade as my primary distributor was the interface.  Pretty, yes, but the entire thing is a flash widget.  It’s almost 2010, but there’s a possibility someone won’t have a flash browser and in that case, they wouldn’t even be able to listen to samples, or see the cover art.  It might not load quickly on a slow internet connection.  Noisetrade also creates 30 second samples from the first 30 seconds of the song.  For some of my songs, that’s a horrible place to demo a song.

(To be fair, I still use my Noisetrade account in case someone is browsing the Noisetrade store and sees my record and decides to download it.  No takers yet.  Though I did get some downloaders when I released an ambient record on the site called Still Life as a placeholder while I finished my folk album).

But more importantly, why should I require my fans to tell others about the music?  I’m giving them the option to pay nothing for the album because I don’t want to dictate what my music is worth to them.  If the music is good enough, I figured, they’ll tell anyone who they think will enjoy it.  If not, I didn’t create a product that can go viral naturally.  Bandcamp does feature a big Share button on the artist page, so Viral spread is just as possible, but not forced.

Bandcamp also streams the entire album for free (no 30-second samples here), which turned me off at first, but their explanation is quite convincing.

“…whether it’s a pop tune, a heavily political punk album, or an experimental, avant-garde suite — the key is very simple: people have to hear music, then they will grow to like it, and then finally, if you’re lucky, they will engage in an economic relationship in order to consume (not just buy and listen to) that music…

And a 30-second sample is a waste of your time and bandwidth. It’s worse than useless. That’s not enough to get to like your music. Let them hear it, keep it, live with it. And then bring them back as a fan.”

I think of it like this:

Approach #1:  Hello.  Would you like to stream my record for free?  If you like it enough to make it portable (downloading the MP3s), you can pay whatever you want and make it happen.

Approach #2:  Hello.  Would you like to check out these 30-second clips and somehow figure out from those clips if my music is worth buying, let alone worth the bandwidth/time/effort required to download it for free?”

What would you want as a fan?  I’ll take Approach #1 any day of the week.  Bandcamp has got it right.  So why aren’t other digital distributors following suit?

Well, I understand Noisetrade’s point of view.  That whole tell-5-friends thing is super attractive to artists.  The only problem is that, to the fans, it can feel forced.  I’d rather one of my fans take the time to think of two people that will really like my stuff than just send email blasts to the first 5 people they think of in order to get a free download.  I don’t want to force my fans to be viral marketing tools.  I want to create good enough material that they choose to go out and spread the word.  Not only that, but Noisetrade has to stay small and relatively unknown in order to not be annoying.  Can you imagine if that was the only option for free downloads?  Spam city.

I also understand iTunes’ (and the other big players) angle.  Letting artist control the prices will shrink revenues, and I imagine it takes a lot of money to keep those huge stores afloat.  It’s similar to paying $15 for a CD in the old days.  Some people only know iTunes for digital downloads and $10 seems completely reasonable to them.  ‘

But, for the reasons outlined above, neither of these methodologies are as simultaneously advantageous for the artist and the fan.  Bandcamp wins.  Not to mention the amount of customization you have access to is really exciting.  You can set a minimum, you can have the site collect e-mail addresses or not, you can make the download completely free, it can come in any format, you can bundle extra goodies into your digital pack, and you can now sell physical merch.  If you were on the fence before, it’s not even a choice anymore.

The moral:  when marketing your music, forget about forcing anybody to do anything.  They don’t owe you anything until they become a fan, and that’s on you.

*I don’t use the word “fans” to make myself sound important and famous, but “users” seemed too unnatural for a digital album.  I consider you a fan if you enjoy the music, and evidently some people out there do.

This is a valuable lesson.  Alfredo managed to turn his harshest critic into a raving fan by activating a memory and creating an emotion bond between his critic and the work.  The experience for the critic was simultaneously fresh and familiar.  We can integrate this philosophy into whatever it is we do.

If you’re a composer, what bank of past experiences are you drawing on when you write a melody?  And if you’re a computer programmer, when was the last time your user was ecstatic about a piece of software?  What type of stuffed animal should a toymaker produce to activate memories of comfort?  How should your bar look if your audience’s happy thoughts are ones of coziness?  Of crazy drunken nights?

Beyond business, we can apply this thinking to experiences such as picking out a birthday gift, having a conversation, introducing a friend to a new band…

If you know your audience well enough, you can allow them to lose themselves in your creation.  There’s no such thing as creating emotion through our work.  All we can do is stimulate.

Facebook conditioned us to think of “connecting” on a social network as a 2-way system.  One person initiates the request to become connected, and once the other approves it, the relationship exists.  This makes sense within the context of Facebook because on some level, Facebook manages our relationships.  Within our circle of friends, we can see all the interactions/exchanges/dialogues, and this is what makes Facebook a great tool for keeping in touch and staying updated on the whereabouts of our contacts.

Not so much with Twitter.

On Twitter, we don’t “friend” someone; we “follow” them.  Example:  I follow @pamslim because I get value out of her tweets, which are directed towards people like me.  I wouldn’t expect her to follow me back because most of my tweets won’t hold much value to her.  She doesn’t know me and I don’t tweet about one particular subject enough to cater to a niche.   Twitter requires no approval (unless you prefer it) when someone is followed.  It’s an RSS feed for many micro-blogs.  It’s not a two-way connection.

Of course, this means that following someone to get yourself noticed is also a counter-intuitive practice.  That’s not “following” – it’s “hey, look over here.”  Maybe I’m a purist, but if your content is really that relevant to my interests, I will find my way to you and I will follow you.

So is it ever appropriate to follow someone because you think they’d be interested in your tweets?  As long as you’re truly interested in what they’re offering.  For instance, if I tweet mostly about tea, then it makes sense for Adagio to follow me as I’m in their target market and probably useful to them.  If I tweet about my own life and happened to have one tweet about how much I enjoyed Adagio’s sencha, it’s appropriate for them to Tweet at me to thank me for my business, but following me makes little sense.  They don’t care about my music, my friends, or the concerts I go to.  It’d be strange if they did.

The rule of thumb is simple.  On Twitter, if the content is relevant to your interests, Follow away.  No more following to get followed.  Focus on being relevant and the right people will find you, eventually.

Give your CD to coffeeshops and tell them they can keep all the profit if they sell it.  They can run promotions, do specials, two for one sales.  It’s all up to them.  Think about this.  No cost, pure profit – who wouldn’t take you up on this?

How is this beneficial to you, the artist?  Since coffeeshops would love to sell the CDs and cash in, they’ll be more than willing to play your music in the store, display your CD on the front counter, and invite you for frequent performances.  You won’t make money using this method, but your music will spread like wildfire if it’s any good.

How many books showed up in my search?  None.  Only video games, and really expensive ones too.  Maybe the people getting rid of the books don’t like to read, and the people getting rid of the games don’t play very much.  It reminded me of trying to put the negative sides of two magnets together.  Granted, this could be a completely isolated instance, but it was intriguing.

We could call it “indirect friend requests.”

What do you think?  This could be useful if you’re putting someone in touch with a contact a company to which they are applying, or if I’m interested in Latvian Folk Music and you happen to have a Latvian friend, etc.

We are SO LinkedIn.  I think we should start a new site called NowWhat?

I wish I could say that I’ve used this site to connect with relevant professionals around the globe, but unfortuantely, I haven’t gotten anything but spam.  Not to say this service will be useless for everyone, but so far, it’s been useless for me.

Maybe that’s becuase I already have  a job.  I imagine the correlation is strong between decrease in income and number of logins to LinkedIn.

What’s the point?  It grabs my attention so much that I become completely unattentive.