Capitalize on photo sharing via Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace: Visual endorsement; the new way of advertising?

Much of product placement research concludes that when the product and the plot of the scene are congruent then memory is affected along with attitude change. But there is also a negative effect if the product and the plot seem to be unrelated. Then the consumer will detect the product as being out of place and discredit the product. More times than not, consumers can detect product placements leaving them thinking negatively about the product.

“It’s like people only do things because they get paid, and that’s really sad.”

Check out this clip from Wayne’s World exploiting product placement:



In this example of Wayne’s World, Wayne doesn’t want to harm the reputation of his show by adding a segment in about his sponsor. He then continues to mock product placement by showing how obvious it really is.

Marketers have been using product placement since the 80’s to reach their audience, and now consumers can endorse the products, services, and people they believe-in by putting their own credibility on the line to do so then brands can pay them for their contribution. New start-up companies such as Udorse are capitalizing on visual endorsement by connecting brands and Facebook. Here is how it works, from Facebook you click on your picture and endorse an item, a service, or a new favorite band. If your friends then take action, such as visiting the endorsed products’ website, then the brand will pay you.

Whether Udorse is exploiting social media sites or creating a web version of word of mouth advertising, it is in deed another phenomena to the social media world.

-Annie H.

Capitalize on photo sharing via Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace: Visual endorsement; the new way of advertising?

The New Media Ark (under construction)

While a lot of the old heads stand in the raging rains waiting for it to pass, we have these new media sites which are becoming an ark. So when the water eventually passes over everybody's head, only those that focus on what's "now" and keep building on their ark will survive.

Everybody knows about declining record sales and feel as though their drowning in their past strategies. From several counts it can be to lack of good music- But with countless different genres and many variations with the lowest near 200,000 and top over 2 million on MySpace artists I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Some call it over saturation which could be the case. Could it be the overall quality?

Well in hindsight we see where we went wrong when we find the finished ark of our new media, but I don’t think there will ever be a finished ark. With media and software always changing, so should the ark. Those who stick to the old ways will fail and those who are late on what's new will just miss the ship (i.e. those who don’t use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace [which is quickly becoming old], Pandora Radio, and/or any other start-up sites that use a word of mouth approach to marketing).

Right now the best sales pitch is friend-to-friend, not billboard-to-billboard on the highway. A lot of new media is free. It's just a matter of standing out, which is why the ark will never be finished, just like in DC it’ll always be under construction. We must continuously be on the lookout for what's new and jump on the ship before its time to build another.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The New Media Ark (under construction)

MySpace is Dead? (2): Rich's Rebuttal

At least this graph is more credible than the last one Rich sent me:


Yes, obviously Facebook is winning the race, but this actually shows that for the most part traffic has stayed steady on MySpace over the last year. Mere fluctuations. For MySpace to die they'd have to experience a little more dramatic drop in its 60 million (!!!) monthly visitors.

Besides, of course Facebook is leaving MySpace in the dust. Everyone and their grandma has started joining. Seriously, someone's grandma added me the other day!
Love you Rich.

-Tooth

MySpace is Dead? (2): Rich's Rebuttal

MySpace is Dead?

My friend and I had an intense argument the other night (somewhat alcohol induced) about MySpace . He thinks it’s “dead” and I felt he had no support for this claim, so he sent me this overview of the site's users today:

The picture it paints is sort of funny and only partially true, but I still hold that MS is in the top 3 (far from dead) behind YouTube and Facebook as far as social sites that intro people to new music. So Rich, quit hatin:) Thoughts?

-Tooth

MySpace is Dead?

Why Should I Care about your Music?

I’ve been getting bombarded recently by MySpace bands telling me they are the "best" I’ve ever heard (and a few saying they are the worse). As well as at my job where I cashier I had a customer tell me that he knows a great rap group. So I listened to him talk about them, but he said nothing that was out the ordinary, just shit I hear on a regular basis. So I ask you, the viewers of my blog, why should we care about your music or anybody’s when everybody and they mama is now doing music? Just speak your mind and I’ll keep this short.

PS- No spammers

From the mind of
Keveeno Reeverts

Why Should I Care about your Music?

A Brand of Band - Part 1

Throughout my short music career (about 7 years if you include me writing songs and recording artists through a $20 4-track, and $20 radio shack microphone), I had many artists that were a favorite because of their “off camera” lifestyle. They had a brand, an image that has been latched onto them that surpassed their music and sometimes surpassed real life. Their image made them seem larger than life and it made fans spend money to go see their “god comparative” performances. Where did all that go wrong? It seems now because of the internet, we as fans of music know some things about these artists that they probably forgot. Being a fanatic takes a lot of work and those “god comparative” performances became just something else we can see on Youtube now.

Right now there is no God figure because a god would last longer than a year or two. We saw the god in Michael Jackson try to break out and look what happened to him. What happened to the large marketing teams? What happened to the people that made gods out of musicians? To break a god costs money that not many people have any more. We turned to demi-gods of niche’s, or The Long Tale. I finally got to read this book by Chris Anderson and I’m learning that in today’s world there almost can’t be that “hit” anymore. We broke genre’s up to the hundreds and now they are breaking into their own thing. Underground rap is not underground anymore if billions have a chance to listen to it. Same thing with punk rock. You are fighting the “man” yet you are on Rupert Murdoch’s Myspace!
To be continued...

From the mind of
Keveeno Reeverts

A Brand of Band - Part 1

Give a Mouse A Cookie (Keveeno's Look @ Myspace Music) Part 1

*May require a service download, a lot of commercials, and the same shit you can hear on the radio free.

Myspace Music will launch for the first time in about an hour or less, so it will launch before I finish this. So I will write about what I know of the leaked version. Basically its a new music service where everything is on myspace, and you can hold up to 100 of your favorite songs (good idea) on your page. Share your music and through a means I don't understand, they will pay the artist (label/manager/distributor/their mama/their rent/and even pay for a new cookie) a sum of less than a penny for a hit. That takes a step back from the millionaire artists to thousandaire artists through this method. Now being a thousandaire is no joke. That can buy you chipotle and maybe a year or 2 of rent. Information on this is scattered, but this is one of the screen shots I got from Tech crunch:

It shows the music player looking different. Can't tell but it seems you can buy the DRM free (meaning you can transfer it anywhere) from amazon.com and it has a add function that if added hopefully can pay the artist per play as well. Imagine a top hit song, added by a million people, played 20 million times… that can get the artist maybe a few thousand dollars. Which is good considering CD's probably will not get you anything anymore, and after free… most people don't want to pay anymore (the majority does not pay, and if you do thats good. But by "majority" I mean people around the teen to older teen (24 and below). We'll see how this goes on launch, and I call it "give a mouse a cookie"* because after being able to download music for free, why would you want to listen to it with restrictions and all these rules after pretty much being able to do anything. They should start calling them Record Labels* because do they even want records as their main income anymore?
To be continued...

From the mind of
Keveeno Reeverts

Give a Mouse A Cookie (Keveeno's Look @ Myspace Music) Part 1

Why Myspace is Still Essential

Alright so I have a lot of artists who come to me, and ask if they still need Myspace. Some come to me and ask if they still need any physical distribution of their music. Personally, I say why not do both, but just like in college have a major and minor. Figure out which one you will devote 80% of your time/money, and 20% to the other. Going in 50/50 has gotten a lot of people fucked (excuse the language, but its just the truth). Going 100% in one direction is no good either for your losing revenue from a potential of millions. A potential because it all depends on talents and consumers' tastes.

Now comes Myspace. This to me seems a little low, but all the statistics are from January 2008. Myspace has over 110 million users around the globe, with an average of 300,000 new people a day. There has been over 14 billion comments, and more than 8 million artists.

How do you stand out with 8 million artists? Easy, be better than them. Have the 7 second rule for your starting song, if the song just doesn't catch my interest within 7 seconds I move on. There has been a few successes, but do not use your Myspace as the only selling tool for your album. You can promote it, but don't have people buy off Myspace. Instead you should link them to your official page. Myspace is really a promotion site for your artists, not generally a selling tool. Every artist I have seen selling off their Myspace using Snocap or something else doesn't know of the better tools like Nimbit, Reverbnation, or even Amazon. Plus why should I be interested in your music if the artists themselves do not invest the time/money into their art? I mean doing a little research can be great. You can find so much great stuff that can be essential to an artist's career, but not too many people do that. Why? They think "talent" alone can get you a deal and make you money. Wrong! You need sites like Myspace/Facebook and other social networking websites to network and get your music in the ears of listeners.

Myspace is so over saturated that every time I get a band's request now on my personal page I just decline it unless they have a cool name or profile page looks legit. On my business page, I accept everybody but rarely check their music unless the friend request is followed up with a comment or a message. This shows you're interested in every fan. Mass friend adds is so "last year". Now you have to express personality with the message. Anybody can copy and paste to make it personal, but what if you search for… let me say a random artist, Jay-Z. Lets say I still hate Jay from the studio beef between him and Nas, so in my favorite artists section I put, "Nas is the best, fuck Jay-z" (excuse the profanity again, that was taken from somebodies profile as is.). Now you do a search of profiles for Jay-Z fans, and my name pops up, and you say Hey, saw your a fan of Jay, I sound similar check me out. I would probably delete and report spam just because your trying to be personal and your not.

So pretty much, use myspace for a marketing tool to promote your music/shows and have links to pages where fans can purchase music/tickets. Merchandise is in the same boat. If you do all of the above and you still are not getting a piece of those 14 billion comments from your fans now "friends", than check your style of music, the way you added people, your quality, or just the people you send the request to. Be smart with your Myspace, and Myspace will pay you back. Be dumb with your Myspace, and your one of the people who still think it doesn't matter. It's just a tool, use it, don't live it.

From the mind of

Keveeno

**Based on stats found HERE

Why Myspace is Still Essential

Music I must check out

So I've been spending a bit of time on MySpace checking out new bands. I know I'm slow to the party, but it's brilliant that you can listen to all this great music before you buy it or go see them live! When I think of all the music I've spent my hard earned ca$h on over the years that sucked, I can't help but think how BRILLIANT it is that you can listen and decide for yourself.

Shows I'm going to see soon: White Light Riot at a private party, The Kooks at Fine Line, Grand Old Day on Sunday, Old 97s at First Avenue, Stone Temple Pilots at Roy Wilkins and The Von Bondies at First Avenue. Can't wait, you've gotta love summer in the Midwest!
--Mistress AMG

Music I must check out