I had two chapters to read this week as I have the original version of the book and the new version. The main change being that in version two blogging has become a chapter in it's own right.
So news from the band before I talk about the learning from this week. We are on a sort of pre-recording holiday time at the moment with Martin in Italy, Calum just back, Ant visiting his family and me off to V Festival this weekend. Earlier in the week Ant and I spent some time working on a new song, sorting out some of the press and PR stuff that goes with releasing an album - like what should it be called, what should the artwork look like, should we have promo copies and fan copies, how can we get the best out of our very very small marketing budget. Which is why this course is so useful as I hadn't quite realised how much of a cyber impact we can have if we make the internet work for us in a meaningful way. I nearly forgot! The most exciting thing that happened this week was the release of our first sinc deal! My forgetfulness was because we did the work for this a while ago. We just weren't allowed to talk about it until the launch. The story behind the promotion is that a few weeks ago we were approached by the artist manager for focusrite (focusrite make lots of very good professional recording stuff). Anyway we were asked if we would like to feature on a promo video for a new piece of focusrite gear - the saffire pro 14 - and of course we said, yes. The whole process involved organising a date to shoot in London, choosing and re-writing one of songs to fit the time the guys at focusrite wanted the video to last, heading off to London to spend a whole day recording and filming. The result you can view here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1hh1aXifx0
The most amazing thing about it so far is that is been up 8 days, already had over 1200 hits and has also pushed people to come and find out more about us. Plus we were given some very nice gear for doing it. So thanks all round.
So to this weeks learning - connecting with fans and blogging (a sort of two for one read offer :)
It's certainly true that to be a successful artist you also have to be a successful business person. For us that’s about making sure that as we develop our music, our shows, our style and our fan base we also work on our business - managing our money properly, having goals and objectives and sticking with them until we achieve them or need to adapt them. It's also true that you have to think about your band business as much more than the music. Certainly without the music we wouldn't be a band and music is what brought us into being a band plus putting on a great show is what we want to do more than anything else. However, as a band we also know that to make living from being in a band means we have to look at all the ways in which we can support our fans to want to support us and bring new fans along too. Making an income is something we have to do from all the different things (T shirts Mugs, shows music, branding) that we can offer in a why that people can identify with, and, want to buy into again and again. So what is our identity, what are we selling to our fans - great music, honesty, high quality, having a good time, integrity are just some of the things that come into my mind to start out with. How we communicate that is where we need to do some more work. Yes we are using Twitter, facebook and Myspace and yes we have a mailing list. The trap we have fallen into though is not making our mailing list work properly as we have only ever sent messages to people when we wanted them to come to a show or buy something we have never done a proper news letter!!! Whilst we have a good idea who are fans are, their gender, how old they are and what the like I can't say that we have really thought through how make best use of that information meaningfully. So here's job number 203445 - Write a newsletter that tells people what we've being doing, shows how we are progressing, tell them what they've missed, included a fan opinion, and generally pit out a regular newsletter that brings the band to life. We know that we have an emerging following abroad and what better way to communicate with them until (and even when) we get out to them to play shows. So time to get writing it using the format - make it personal, guts, putting people into action.
And the extra blogging stuff. The new chapter on blogging certainly expands on the stuff I read earlier. I guess the main message that still hits me on the head about blogging is that if your are to be a successful blogger you have to engage with eh blogging community, It's one thing to blog it's another thing to get involved.
I can't say I’ve done much of this yet but I’m adding it to my list and as always will use my business head as well as my artistic head to get it done.
Cheers
Zak
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