I definitely broke up with Spotify

This week, I was chatting with a friend about Spotify. She was complaining because she was listening Pink Floyd and suddenly, a horrible country audio ad interrupted her playlist. And Spotify said that their advertisements are targeted. My eye.

Imagine, you’re with the girl of your dream, you had the bad idea to invite her to see a 3D film at the movie theater, and if she is still hot with these stupid glasses, you look like a jerk, so no way to kiss her. You invite her at your flat to have a last drink and put some cool music on Spotify. Happily no dirty socks on the floor, no musty pizza on the table, you make some stupid jokes and she is laughing nervously. JACKPOT MAN. You’re close to kiss her but after a track from the Doors, Justin Bieber with his pre-teen voice claims that you can buy his musical autobiography. And instead of seeing her underwear, you see your life flash before your eyes, announcing the abortion of your love life. She says she is tired and leaves the place. You’re gonna never see her again. NEVER.

Well, six weeks after the f8, it’s time to asset the partnership between Spotify and Facebook (and not your love life, I’m not your shrink).

Spotify + Facebook = ♥ 

The f8 took place on September 22 in San Francisco and Mark Zuckerberg officially announced a partnership between Facebook and Spotify, in order to promote Facebook not only as a social tool but as a concrete cultural ambassador. Yeah, Nielsen reported in September that the American and French spend 8 hours per month on Facebook, it’s maybe time that they use this social network to learn something. Noble feeling, which is also omnipresent in the video presentation below.

The 750 millions of Facebook users have already listened 1.5 billion of tracks, as more than 2 by person. The ability to see the musical activity of your friends in real time has increased the listening of more than 1350% and, of course, enables Facebook to collect a lot of data about what you listen.

Spotify announced that they gain 4 million of users since the beginning of their collaboration and 32% of monthly users engaging with it each day. It has became the partner the most integrated to Facebook, and the music app has even replaced its registration form by a direct connection to the user’s Facebook account.

Spotify + I ≠ ♥

I have Spotify for one year (for once that France gets something before the United States) and the first thing that I did when the app was on Facebook is to disconnect the “show the listened tracks to your friends” function. I don’t care if my Facebook friends see what I listen (and I bet that they don’t care too) but I don’t want they know that at this precise moment, I’m in front of my computer. I don’t want they know where I am.

Actually, the registration with the Facebook accounts is not a great thing for me. The software considers me living in a foreign country (even if I’ve changed my adress) and because of that, I can listen Spotify only 10 hours per month, or I have to pay 10 euros. It was the same in France but before the partnership with Facebook, I just have to fill a new form with a false name and a new email adress. Now I have to create different false accounts on Facebook but I’m too lazy for that and Mark Zuckerberg could get my knuckles rapped. And I don’t want to pay 10 euros per month not because it is expensive but because I don’t like anymore how Spotify works:

– The partnership with Facebook doesn’t bring me something new. If I really want to make listen a song to a friend, I prefer to share it on his wall.

– Now, you can’t register on Spotify without a Facebook account. The social network has already 750 million of users on 1,99 billion of cybernauts. Is it not enough? Zuckerberg said that this social network will always stay free but is it  become obligatory?

– I’m really fed up with these audio ads that it’s true, are not targeted at all, which is also pretty clumsy from Spotify.

– Artists are paid 0,00029$ per track played, to earn 1,160$ each month, the track has to be played more than 4 million of times. Demoralizing.

So, what do I do now? I listen Grooveshark and try to make the financial effort to buy albums from artists that I really like. Grooveshark is free, without audio advertising and you can answer to some surveys in order to get additional functions for your account.

And by the way, the chick left because she saw a picture of you and your ex-girlfriend in your room that you’ve forgotten to throw away.

Direct-to-fan, a good alternative to boring traditional advertising

When I saw Foals in concert, I was really surprised of the mass hysteria. I should have anticipated that because the show was sold out. I saw two boys nearly fighting in order to have the drumsticks and I couldn’t imagine how many girls wanted to have sex with the singer (yes, it’s often the singer, even if he’s ugly). I was nearly deaf after the concert but I still wonder if it was because of the music or the girls’ screams. Existencial question.

Fans, as essential for a band as a microwave for a student

Beatles' fans

Some of them are pretty creepy: horrible and huge Michael Jackson tattoo on their back (worse than a scar from Viet-Nam), who can’t pay their bills but who can afford Elvis’ hair. But a think is sure, without fans, you would still play in your parent’s garage and wouldn’t earn money (don’t be shocked, business is business).

Even some famous artists who are signed under a major need (or want, but I’m more dubitative with this verb) to adopt a direct-to-fan strategy. As, roughly, to be directly connected with their fan, without an advertising wall for example. Lady Gaga, even if she is the artist who sold the most of albums in the United States in 2010, is the Queen of Twitter and doesn’t hesitate to call affectionately her fans her “little monsters”. As my grandmother called me when she lost her mind. And it works. Some of my friends talk about her as if she was their BFF (Best Friend Forever) while I just see a pure marketing product, as a Coca-Cola bottle.

Why is direct-to-fan (DtF) marketing a good strategy?

I’ve already talked briefly about the direct-to-fan strategy, initiated with the Grateful Dead during the sixties which allowed their fans (the tappers), to record their shows and who offered to sleep for free at their house and gave them food. Even the direct-to-fan is democratized and used by some majors further to a heavy advertising campaign, the independent artists and labels are more likely to use it, because of a lack of money but also because it’s EFFICIENT.

Artists want to be heard and fans want to be involved in the band’s projects. Both can be happy with this strategy. When you communicate directly with your fan, you can know more about them, about what they want. A lot people ask you to do a concert in Austin? Maybe you should organize a show here. And according to a recent survey, only 33% of people trust ads which reduces considerably the impact of your communication.

Moreover, the most you are close to your fans, the most they will be loyal to you. And as I will explain it later, people ≠ customers. The definition of a fan is “someone who uses a band or a brand to define [his] identity” but is doesn’t include the act of buying. You need to transform people before in fans and after in customers, which can be a long processus.

The fact is nowadays, Internet enables artists to more easily share their music with their fans. The most famous tool was probably Myspace were fans could put directly their comments on the band’s page, see their updates, and globally, directly exchange with them. Today, there are Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud… and others platforms that you can see here in a very good explained diaporama. And most of these tools are free and easy to use. The time of fan clubs is so far.

I would like to have a fan club and to sign dated pictures of me when I was a child, how can I do?

Well, if you don’t have David Hasselhoff’s charism, the dated pictures are maybe not a good idea (and I told you that fan clubs are has-been), but this is four useful tips that can help you to promote your band. Some of these advices are picked up from Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media (a DtF digital marketing and web development firm) and Virginie Berger, CEO of Don’t Believe the Hype (french website).

• To develop your awareness: Take the music where the fans are, and where they are susceptible to discover you (bars, campus, forums…) and make a lot of concerts. Internet is nice but people need to see you play, because nothing would replace a show. You can also launch a small event every week (a blog post, an acoustic video) and a big event each month (to play a show, start a fan contest). Then you have to be sure that it is easy to share your music. Develop some content on some platforms as Youtube or Soundcloud, popular and easy-to-access.

• To contact your fans and chat with them: You have numerous free tools in order to be connected with your fans, as
  Twitter and Facebook. And before to sell your music, you should create a fan base and develop a link between you and them because people are fans before to be buyers (and there are not wallets). Have you seen anybody buy a CD of a band that he didn’t know? Take at least one hour per day in order to answer to your fans but also to generate content. Ask them questions: in which city that they want you to play, what song they want to listen during your next concert…Roughly, take them in account and make them participate.

• To transform your fans in customers: Well, now you have a good fan base, try to create something that has value for them: limited edition T-shirt or album, with different prices (free from 50$ for example), in order to create offers for fans at every levels.

• To Analyse your data to optimize your strategy: Yes you are a musician and maybe for you marketing is a dirty word but you need it. Measure your statistics, try to see what works and what doesn’t, what are the most listened songs..

Until now, I was only talking about business (Yeah, I’m Howard Hugues) but think about the feeling to play for a crowed place and not in front of 10 people who will leave before the end. But even if digital direct-to-fan could be efficient, don’t hide you between social networks, don’t hesitate to speak with some people after the concert and as I advised you before, make a lot of shows.

And because I know that you really want to take a look at it, You could find David Hasselhoff’s fan club here. You’re welcome.

Foursquare and the gamification: how it’s nice to be tracked down

I don’t have a smartphone and I never had one. I had always this kind of phones that if you lose it (at a party, in your toilet bowl…) it won’t be the end of the world or of your wallet. And I lost mine. 3 times. Until nowadays, I’ve never really understood the usefulness of a gadget  that enables you to take a picture of your trendy brunch (“These pink muffins are so cuuute”) and to share it instantaneously with half of the world (or your 4 followers) . Anyway, I don’t like muffins and I always get up too late to have a brunch.

Foursquare is watching you. And you like it. 

I’m only able to call or to send text message and that has always been enough for me. But recently, an app has called my attention. Foursquare is a location-based social networking not very known in France and created in 2007. It enables you to check in where you are and also your friends in real time. Great for your wife when she tries to guess if you are at a seminar for your job in Seattle or in Florida with your neighbor (Fred, the insurance agent) ‘s wife and some ridiculous flowery bermudas.

However Foursquare is much more than a radar, is also a life-size game. The more check-ins you have, the more you see your user status increasing and win rewards and badges. For example, if you want the School Night badge, you have to go out after 3 a.m several times.  In June 2011, Foursquare got more than 10 million of users with an average of about 3 million check-ins per day.

It is not advertising, it is gamification!

But, if a certain number of people uses Foursquare to show that they have succeed to go in this trendy-hype-select nightclub (and not you) and more generally speaking, to show that they have a social life, it is also used by a lot of brands as an advertising tool.

For example, in 2010, Jimmy Choo, the famous shoes brand used Foursquare for its advertising campaign in London. The operation “CatchaChoo”. An employee of the firm wearing Jimmy Choo shoes walked in the city, making several check-ins. The person that success to find her would win these ugly but expensive snickers. In 3 weeks, 4 500 girls of 16-year-old and more has participated to this scavenger hunt and the brand saw its sales increase of 33% during the campaign.

Jimmy Choo's Foursquare page during the CatchaChoo campaign

I encourage you to go to see here the work that the advertising agency Fresh Network, specialized in social networks, did for Jimmy Choo campaign.

The same year, MTV also launched a campaign on Foursquare. The channel wanted to promote the Jersey Shore, a reality show focused on 8 housemates living in the city of the same name in New Jersey. People could unlock the GTL badge after checking into a tanning salon, a gym, and a laundromat, “the beauty regiment from the show”, as MTV said. This campaign was really successful because at the end, more than 250 000 people were following the MTV page, which became the most followed one on Foursquare.

Personally, I’ve understood that why I have to use this app with Jimmy Choo (“Follow the white rabbit with the expensive glittered sneakers!”) but why should I go to a laundromat to get a – virtual – badge? To make my boring live less boring? Well,I don’t know if it is more exciting to take the rubbish out with Foursquare but it enables you to know that if your husband is not doing a check-in at your neighbor’s house.

But if you like rewards, some shops also offer you some reductions on their products with Foursquare. For example, Angelo and Maxie’s Steakhouse, a restaurant in New-York used the local-based app in december 2010, to run a check in “special” that offered a free dessert to foursquaremembers who bought an entree. People were alerted to the Special via Foursquare but Angelo and Maxie’s also placed a Foursquare window cling on their front door in order to draw in more people. More than 400 people used this check-in, that enabled the restaurant to get an estimated return of investment (ROI) of 18 000 dollars. But it also enabled Angelo and Maxie’s to obtain statistics of their foursquarmembers (gender, age…) in order to improve their communication.

Foursquare seems cool but (there is always a “but”)…

However the main problem of Foursquare is that the app is not present everywhere but only in big built-up areas. My parents live in a city of 7 000 people and even if I’m pretty sure that there are a laundromat, a gym and a tanning salon, I don’t think that they could win a Jersey Shore badge. So the advertisers would have a geographic problem to reach their target. Moreover, people who use Foursquare correspond to a very precise audience, more than Facebook and Twitter. Not every brand can use Foursquare in order to have an efficient advertising campaign.

Here there are ones of the only demographics about the foursquaremembers that the firm allowed to show:

Personally, I find Foursquare very useful for promoting a brand because it works on the gamification principle for which people are very receptive,much more than the traditional advertising. But as a personal use I’m a not really convinced, as my article shows it, and I prefer to play Tetris and I advice you to ask to your husband on Facebook if he has an affair (you’re starting to be creepy).

Please, don’t try American Idol but crowdfunding!

Yesterday I was listening my MP3 player in the bus and I was thinking how I listened music before I get Internet, when I was about 14-year-old. I remember that actually I didn’t know a lot of bands. My parents had about fourty CDs and I listened their music: Iggy Pop, Dire Straits, Police and melancholic-poet-french singers as Alain Souchon, Serge Gainsbourg or Barbara.

The main conflict was always to put the CD in its case after its use “BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO SCRATCH IT”. But this summer, when I came back to my parent’s house before to go in the United States, I’ve seen Raw Power, The Head on the Door,  Ghost in the Machine and Brother in Arms hanging from our apple tree in order to afraid birds. (I’ve also seen inopportunely my old neighbor, tanning and naked in her garden, but it’s an other story). Thanks to Iggy Pop, my parents will be able to eat apple pies. Great.

Today, if I want, I can let music plays on my computer during 29 days, 3 hours and 42 minuts before all the tracks would be listened. No fear to scratch anything, no anymore dramas because I’ve forgotten all my CDs at home and I have only one in my car (Britney Spears, my sister loved her) for a six-hour drive.  Well, this is ones of the advantages that Internet offers to the music fans.

I’ve never diabolized Internet concerning its impact on the music industry (especially on the musicians and the independent sector ) even if it has encouraged some practices that I don’t approve. But because I’m a bit depressed this week (I’m trying to quit smoking you know), I prefer to talk about one way, among many others, and full of  goodwill in order to help music professionals than something that would make me have a cigarette: the crowdfunding. So, Internet maybe helps music fans in some ways but how can it also help the musicians?

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding

As you certainly noticed it, crowdfunding has the same root than crowdsourcing, because it is the same principle. In my last article, I wrote that crowdsourcing is the fact to put in common different kinds of cybernaut’s ressources. You use all the diversity that the cyber crowd offers you in order to realize a project. In return, people could be paid, win gifts or simply have the satisfaction to have participated to something.

We can say that the crowdfunding is an under-category of the crowdsourcing, because it is a way to rase money from people on Internet in order to create a project. You can do it for everything: to create a book, a firm, to finance a band…Even if I’ve never heard somebody get a new house with a swimming pool with crowdfunding, because by principle,  it is not for financing your personal life. .

We have money to buy a new guitar but not enough to produce our CD or some shows

The crowfunding is very used in the music industry. The first major operation of crowd funding was in 1997 with the British rock band Marillion, thanks to their American fans. They took the initiative to raise some money in order to enable the band to be on tour in the United States. This operation looks like to a fairytale: Marillion left the major company EMI in 1997 and thanks to a strong and direct relation with their fans on Internet, this crowfunding operation raised more than 60 000$ and they made a very successful tour in the United States.

Gashcat’s Kickstarter page. They want some money for their van during their tour.

As this example illustrates this, the crowdfunding is essentially used by independent bands who don’t have a label. The most famous american crowdfunding website is probably Kickstarter. Sponsored by Wired, the New-York Times, Pitchfork and CNN, this funding platform groups different kinds of project as art, dance, design, music, theater…People give money to the project that they want to support. But one of the golden rules of Kickstarter is people won’t receive money in return but rewards such as copies of the work (if you financed a book for example) or just fun to take part to a project.

To give you an idea of the success of Kickstarter, since 2009  the platform has raised 75 million of dollars for more than 10 000 projects. And they can be really, really  well-supported. For example, the singer Julia Nunes wanted to 15 000$ in order to produce a CD. She finally raised 77 888 $. But not a lot of projects are expensive, as Joel Howard, a musician who needed only 500$ in order to produce his first EP. The only main problem of Kickstrater is that the bands are not well classified, cybernauts have to be very patient in order to find a group that they would want to finance.

A french platform, MyMajorCompany, was especially created to help independent musicians to raise funds. Cybernauts give them money and in return, they can earn 20% on the album sales. Gregoire was probably the most successful artist (but not the most talented), he found enough money to produce his EP and sold more than 1 million of albums. But the thing that most of people doesn’t know is that MyMajorCompany signed a physical and digital retailing contract with Warner Bros. The royalties for the musicians are only 20%. TRAPPED.

Sorry I was trying my new guitar, I didn’t hear you. Basically, why is crowdsourcing great?

Without taking in account MyMajorCompany, most of these platforms gives to your band a total independency, far from the labels. More globally, this system delete a lot of intermediaries between you and your fans, your are not dependent of your producer, your label…

It also allows some bands to be discovered directly by the public, without necessarily fit in the standard criteria of the majors. Thanks, not everybody wants to sing like Lady Gaga.

Them, For most of the bands that people give money, at a certain amount (about 10$) they will send to their fans the produced CD with some goodies or limited editions that enable musicians to “sell” some CDs at the same time.

And probably the most important thing is that groups have to convince people to give them money, but then it ensures them to have loyal fans. Once people finance your project, which is a very high consumption engagement, they will want to follow you in order to see the potential returns on investment or just because they feel connected to you. They will want probably see you in concert, which also ensure you a public and incomes.

Well, maybe if my parents financed Iggy Pop or the Cure, they would have take care of their CDs.