A week or so ago I posted a video
on my YouTube channel of the Lonesome River Band singing a song
called Bonnie Brown at the Dumplin Valley Bluegrass Festival
in Tennessee back in early October. Two days later I posted an
instrumental video by another very popular performer. A week later I
noticed that the LRB song had been viewed over 550 times while the
succeeding video only had 114 hits. I asked myself, “What could
have happened to boost the LRB song so high, so fast?” As I dug
around, I found that my video had been posted on LRB's Facebook page
as well as in their Twitter feed and their publicist's Twitter page.
This incident has encouraged me to try to put some elements together
about how musicians use the potential of publicity to build and
develop their careers, and the effect of social and electronic media
on them.
The era of social media has evolved
such that it requires a new set of skills for people functioning in
the public to learn and master. Entertainers, at every level of the
music industry find themselves competing for attention with a
bewildering range and number of possibilities for the public's scarce
entertainment dollar. Meanwhile, these new technologies have derailed
traditional means of gaining the attention of fans and encouraging
them to allocate resources in the desired direction. Changes in the
recording and music distribution industry are huge. Techniques for
garnering and effectively exploiting attention are bewildering and
continuing to change. The balance of traditional streams of income
(sales of recordings, performance, merchandise, film, television, and
so-on) has been upset by streaming audio and now video, changes in
how royalties are distributed, and a continually changing
entertainment environment. One thing is certain for bluegrass
musicians...it's not all about the music.
Several years ago, when Facebook
was roughly half the size it is now, and those of us who are of “a
certain age” were still new to the world it opened to us, I noticed
that the Gibson Brothers had little or no presence on that platform,
which was becoming important to me. I wrote to Eric about it, and he
virtually told me to mind my own business. However,
characteristically, he thought about what had been said, apologized,
and then, based on his own analysis of the possibilities, started to
become active as a personality on Facebook. Eric Gibson is, generally
speaking, a private person functioning in a very public setting. He
also thinks deeply about what affects the fortunes of the Gibson
Brothers band and helps them progress. He proceeded to become a
master at using Facebook to make himself available to the band's
fans.
Eric, on his Facebook page, observes
the world around him and writes about his interests: family, music,
baseball, and nature, among other things. He soon noticed that he
needed to strike a balance between posts about the progress of the
Gibson Brothers, the pleasure he finds in sports, his love of hard
work and the outdoors, and the need to provide privacy for his
family, and himself, as well disclosing those elements that would be
of genuine interest to others. In so doing, he helped build the band
through the authenticity of his posts, without being unnecessarily
self-disclosing where to do so might compromise the privacy he so
values. Eventually, the struggle his son Kelley has been having with
autism emerged, because Kelley wished to share it. That part of the
story is ongoing.
What Eric has accomplished is a neat
trick. I see many bands who post about where their next performance
will be or that they've added a musician, or that so-and-so has left
(always for personal reasons) but that all is fine and everyone is
happy. Such materials almost always either bore people, or is so
patently false it fools no one. Perhaps part of the problem lies in
allowing publicists or record labels to manage Facebook pages,
because the artists don't like the task or think it's not central to
their effort. Facebook is a uniquely personal platform requiring the
individual to manage how he or she is presented. It's important to
learn to be a character in your own story while still getting out the
crucial information at the right time. Although I haven't studied her
Facebook page, or her music, I gather that Taylor Swift is the very
best entertainer using Facebook to help herself. Facebook itself just
announced its monthly user-ship as exceeding1.5 billion. Even your
own little corner has enormous potential for effective publicity, and
it takes only a little time each day to cultivate. Remember Eric
Gibson's post about seeing an albino squirrel.
I don't know how many people broadcast
bluegrass music on terrestrial, Internet, or satellite radio or how
many people listen to their bluegrass music in this way. The range is
huge, though. Small college radio stations often have several hours a
week devoted to bluegrass broadcasts hosted mostly by volunteer broadcasters. Small market AM and FM stations
still exist, and their reach has been widened by the ease of access
to Internet streaming and its relatively low cost. (For an
interesting overview of this area check out the Prometheus
Radio Project) Sirius/Xm radio holds its data and ratings very
close to the vest, but its importance, at least in bluegrass, appears
to be huge. The future and strength of the platform, however, may
ride on whether Howard Stern renews his contract next month. Here's a
recently
published article exploring sirius/xm in the new Internet
environment that includes Spotify, Pandora, Apple radio, and other
streaming services.
Musicians can only benefit by appearing
as guests on these radio programs. But merely appearing isn't enough.
They need to do several things to increase the effectiveness of their
appearances. Particularly in the case of terrestrial radio, they need
to inform themselves about bluegrass broadcasters who can be heard
within a reasonable travel range of local radio stations near where
they're appearing. Having done this, musicians must reach out in
timely fashion to these people to arrange appearances on their radio
shows. They must then inform their fans that they will be making a
radio appearance. Finally, they need to publicly thank the deejay or
emcee who gave them broadcast space. In others words, radio
appearances don't represent a one way street to greater recognition.
Musicians, like all of us, appreciate
receiving positive publicity that helps forward their efforts. In
order to do so, their presence on various media, social, broadcast,
print and more, are essential for bolstering their careers and,
ultimately, their incomes. However, getting and keeping such
publicity is never a one way street. It requires a perspective that
includes recognizing, publicly and privately, the giver of that
publicity. To do so effectively requires some effort, which can be
assisted, but not completely carried, by a professional publicist.
Nothing substitutes for personal effort or direct contact. The
important concept here is to emphasize the need for a win/win
perspective in which attention received yields attention given. Even
recognizing individual plays as seen on playlists counts. In this
world of vigorous competition for attention in the media world,
nothing substitutes for personal effort and attention. No, it's not
“all about the music.”
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