Artists are increasingly embracing Twitter as a great way to connect with their fans. But its not just its simplicity as a communication tool that is attracting ‘celebrity’ users, it can also be a useful tool in helping you grow your fanbase.

US indie band Jimmy Eat World accumulated some 200,000 new Twitter followers in just over 30 days around their recent US tour, by encouraging their fans to use a specially built Twitter site that allows them to chat to other concert-goers at the gig they are attending. To use the system fans simply send a tweet to @jimmyeatworld, followed by the date of the concert they are attending, allowing them to be part of the twittering for that specific show. The band have also recorded one of the recent gigs and are selling it as a souvenir of the tour to its fanbase via it’s twitter site, offering it up as a $8.99 download in a range of formats - MP3, Apple Lossless, FLAC, and WAV.

The band now have almost HALF A MILLION fans following their tweets…

Writing regular blog posts for your fans is not up everyone’s street. But who said you had to write?

Kanye West’s blog is a great example of what you can do by developing a visual approach to blogging. Kanye regularly posts up images and videos that have grabbed his interest - be it some arresting architecture, a You Tube clip of a new track he likes, a cool new pair of trainers…or some bootlicious ladies!

A few months ago we posted up a picture of the anatomy of a modern musician/music manager that showed how complex their role has become. Tom Williams (a New York based online marketer and publicist) has tried to map out the complex role that social media plays in a bands overall business strategy. What is interesting is not just the range of social media tools that you need to able to manage these days (and his diagram is by no means complete), but also how many roles each tool plays in delivering the strategy…

Tom states that the SIX goals of a social media campaign should be:

1. reach more people
2. keep the fans informed
3. allow people to sample the music
4. sell their music and merchandise
5. provide content that people can pass-along to their friends
6. engage the fans to keep them coming back for more

Whether you like it or not fans expectations have changed in terms of the type of relationship they expect to have with their favourite acts these days – many of today’s fans expect Access All Areas from their favourite artists, so the need for Artist Generated Content is key in how you communicate with your fans and build loyalty.

But where do you find the time to keep all of your fans informed on what you are up to? Whether your life is made up of endless recording, touring and promotion work, or you’re trying to fit in your musical career in alongside a day job, connecting regularly with your fans can seem like just another task that can wait till tomorrow, or the day after…

Artists, managers and labels generally buy into the concept of Artist Generated Content, but in practice find it hard to deliver. Now this may be down to how you choose to communicate.

Writing a regular blog post is not for everyone, so what other simple methods can you employ to regularly communicate with your fans and make the whole task a little bit easier?

With recorded music sales in decline, many artists are increasingly having to turn to the live arena to make their living. One manager of an internationally renowned singer told me that even after platinum album sales she was still making very little money from her record sales, making her increasingly reliant on a punishing touring schedule to bring in the money.

However, touring is not always the easiest way to make a living. In the current economic climate many artists are finding it hard in an increasingly competitive market. So it’s no surprise that some artists have started to rethink what they do in the live arena, by better utilising their relationship with their fans, who are now becoming their business partners rather than punters!

UK folk duo Show of Hands decided that they had had enough of some live agents and promoters taking what they believed was more than their fare share of profits from the gigs the band were playing. They decided to cut out these middlemen from the equation and work directly with their fans, who have become the bands’ new promoters.

And the way it works is pretty simple. The band work directly with some 20-30 fans across the UK, who find and book the venues themselves and publicise the gig locally, as well as acting as the box office on the night of the gig. In return the band bring their own PA and lighting rig, and heavily promote the gig via their extensive mailing list. The fan who promotes the gig take enough money to cover their costs plus a small percentage of the profits from that night’s gig, and the band takes the rest.

The band told BBC6 Music’s Tom Robinson that they are can now take home some £1500 from a night’s work, where before they may have been paid only a few hundred pounds by the more unscrupulous promoters. Some 80% of their gigs are now put on by their fans, who are becoming increasingly more ambitious, moving on from putting the band on in the their local village hall, to promoting gigs in 500 seater-venues. And the band also keep their costs down by staying at the homes of their new promoters!

Solo bass player and ambient maestro Steve Lawson has played venues as big as the Royal Albert Hall supporting the likes of Level 42, and toured in the UK, Europe and the US, but his preference these days is to play in the more intimate setting of his fans homes rather than the more traditional pubs, clubs or music venues. Like Show Of Hands he has his own PA system which he takes with him wherever he plays. Steve recently played a gig in a fan’s front room in Edinburgh to 16 people, who generously paid almost £200 for him to come and play. Steve also managed to stream the gig live on the internet via a friends laptop and USTREAM, which he promoted to his followers via Twitter, allowing another 200 fans around the world to also enjoy the gig.

And it’s not just bands that are working with their fans to put on gigs.

When I first met Richard Davies he was an intern at an independent label back in the mid 80’s. After a spell working for Universal Music, he left to set up one of the UK’s first digital agencies, Good Technology, back in 1995. Richard hasn’t lost his passion or interest in music, and via his new company Vexed Digital, launched owngig.com last year. The website brings together people with similar musical tastes in the same geographical area who club together to get their favourite band to play an intimate gig just for them. The first event last November, with a specially reformed Blow Monkeys, was a huge success for both the band and their fans.

SO WHAT?

All three examples show how with a little bit of trust and creativity you can bring the fans and the artist together to deliver something that is mutually beneficial. How can you get your fans more invovled in your music?

Is is just me or has anyone else noticed that out of the 37 categories that you can sort the music in your iTunes library by, not one of them is by the record label.

While at the iTunes store things aren’t much better. At least it does tell you which label any specific track comes from, but when it comes to searching by label, well forget it.

Are Apple trying to tell the music industry that the only brands the fans care about in the digital space are the artists and iTunes itself, or did Apple get it wrong in assuming we that we don’t care much about which labels are responsible for providing the music we love?

For any music fans who grew up in the 60s, 70s or 80s labels were important, providing a stamp of authority, a guarantee of quality or just an easy way to discover new music. But in the new digital age do labels mean anything to the majority of young music fans who get their music via P2P sites, or if you are lucky download the odd tune from the likes of iTunes?

Or maybe the labels themselves are to blame for the demise of these once much loved brand names, by not cherishing their own once great heritage. The merger of once iconic labels such as Island, Virgin, Elektra and Veritgo into the four major labels has slowly destroyed their identity as they became no more than a separate department, or worse just a few lines on the holding companies P&L statement.

It wil be interesting to see how the boutique labels of the future tackle this new identity crisis.

Music and politics aren’t always the easiest of bedfellows. When artists get it right (be it Woody Guthrie or the Last Poets) it can be truly inspirational, but when done badly (do I really need to give examples?) it can do a lot more than just make you cringe. However, it doesn’t seem to stop political parties, especially in the US, from using music as a key part of their campaign message. Why? Because music is great communicator, it can say something about a candidate that other forms of communication can fail to deliver. Music has the ability inspire us, to communicate often complex messages and emotions in a really simple and poignant way that we can all understand.

So it’s no surprise that both Obama and McCain camps have been fighting over the right to use the music of John Mellencamp. Mellencamp like contemporaries Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle, is unafraid to comment on what is going on in society. This is not floury florid poetry, this is heartfelt social commentary.

Mellencamp has found it hard to get arrested in the UK, metaphorically speaking. Maybe it stems back to the days when he was being sold to us as the new Springsteen, under the name John Cougar. I’m not sure how many acts that have been labelled the new Dylan have benefited from that particular badge, so it’s no surprise that Mellancamp hasn’t benefited from being pronounced as the new ‘Boss’, especially as we weren’t bored of the old one!  However, Mellencamp has made some very laudable blue collar rock and roll since his critical breakthrough (at least in the US) of his 1985 album, Scarecrow.

So come the latest presidential election it was no surprise that  Democratic candidates Hilary Clinton and John Edwards used his song “Our Country” at their rallies. When Clinton finally seceded to Obama she greeted her supporters to Mellencamp’s “Thank You”,  while Joe Biden, on being announced as Obama’s running mate the Democrat’s used another Mellencamp song, “Pink Houses”, to welcome him to the stage. And the power of Mellencamp’s music to communicate was not lost on the Republicans, with McCain using both “Pink Houses” and “Our Country” to communicate the Democrat party’s own values, till he was asked to cease and desist by Mellencamp’s camp.

Knowing Mellencamp’s own personal politics I’m sure he will do anything to ensure a Democratic president is inaugurated in the White House come the 20th January 2009 . However, I’m surely not the only one who is curious to find out what impact all this exposure has had on Mellencamp’s record sales in the US?

One of the big issues for all record companies at the moment, and one we spend a lot of time working on for our label clients, is helping them identify and effectively exploit all the potential revenue streams that are available to them via their artists and the package of rights that they control. The easiest things for any label to monetise is their existing catalogue. So the moral dilemma for any label is would they as far as trying to influence a political party on what music they use at the next election? Or is the simplest solution to never try and mix music and politics…

citizensound sound says:

Although the next UK general election is unlikely to happen until 2010, I was wondering which artists or songs would provide the perfect soundtrack for the UK’s three main political parties? So get voting, and let us know who you think should get the job for Labour, the Tory party and the Lib Dems…

Going to a pre-launch party of a new London club should be by definition a must thing to do. A club created by the people behind Fabric…even more so. But after going to MATTER last night, the new club based at the O2 Arena in Greenwich, I am ready to change my mind.

I come from a city where people really don’t dress up for these kind of events, but living in London I found myself having to pull on a fancy dress and dig out my highest of high heels. Big mistake.

When you go to MATTER you not only have to take a 40 min tube journey, a bus, a taxi and a lift, but you also have to walk about another 40 to 50 min to get inside the club. Once inside..to go from one room to another, you walk again… It is like going to a shopping mall, and the thing is, it looks like one - And that is what Matter is. A big club mall.

Does that really matter? Of course it does, girls will stop wearing heels, or they will never go back to Matter.

If it wasn’t for:
Jamie Liddell’s concert and James Lidell himself; Tim Exile’s spectacular performance playing a strange music instrument and his backstage rider of kit kats and spicy chips and tasty sandwiches; the open bar (with no queues); and me inviting Bushwacka (from Layo and Bushwacka!) to come to Lisbon and play on my 30th birthday…
…it would have been a disaster.

To go backstage we had to walk again 40 minutes, (not joking) and every Dj had a map on the table to guide them back to the club.

The best bit was probably travelling on the Clipper boats on the Thames back home…but then again.. guess how long we had to wait for the fist boat to arrive?

40 minutes.

Citizensounds says…

Matter has so much of what makes a great clubbing experience, but on the night it simply didn’t deliver. The bouncers are very nice, it has a big outside smoking area, a powerful sound system, an incredible list of Djs ready to play there, good looking people with funky hair cuts, so definitely a place to go back to…if it wasn’t for the walk. If only in the cloakroom girls could change their heels for a pair of roller blades..that would be amazing.”

Here is Tim Exile playing with some of his weird instruments…

In my time at the NME we cover-mounted loads of different freebies, including some now very collectable 7” singles, and a pack of playing cards featuring images of some of the readers favourite artists. I even managed to get David Bowie to sign his card one year at the Glastonbury Festival (a story for another day, dear readers)!

But one thing we never got around to was giving away sheet music. However, the Arts Council Of England have decided to use some of the taxpayers’ money to give away free sheet music with this week’s copy of the magazine (Sept 17). Now if we haven’t got enough budding musicians and artists in the UK already, thanks to the likes of X Factor, the Arts Council has decided to encourage the Guitar Hero generation to pick up a real instrument and learn how to play it. Oh lordy.

And just to make sure it’s nothing too complicated for the land’s budding guitarists they have teamed up with Oasis to give away the sheet music to three tracks from the Gallagher’s new album ‘Dig Out Your Soul’. And not content with keeping those budding musicians in their bedroom’s till they have mastered their licks, the readers are being encouraged to film themselves playing one of the songs and to upload it onto Oasis’ website. I can’t wait to watch the results, although I’m not sure if I’ll be tempted to get my guitar out of the loft!

I wonder if any of these hopefuls will be used in the band’s latest marketing campaign for their new album, as this week the band’s record company employed 50 buskers to play tracks from the new record around the parks and public spaces of Manhattan, including Grand Central Station and Times Square. And with Noel bedridden after being assaulted by a so called fan at the V festival in Toronto the other week it looks like he could be looking to recruit a stand in for himself to play the rest of the dates on their current US tour. He’ll certainly have a ready supply of standbys on tap!

ELBOW….!

Well fantastic for them…anyone who records with Richard Hawley deserves recognition for having superlative taste!