I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving filled with great food and better company.  First and foremost I want to express my gratitude to those who read this blog, and all those I work with, and meet at music performances and through freelance work, etc...I value our relationship.  

...and that's the point of my blog today--valuing your relationships. You should value your relationships at all times of the year, and you should value all the different types of relationships you may have, not just professional ones.  However, if you're a musician, artist, or entrepreneur, who's business relies on relationships the holidays are a good time to let your fans or customers know that you appreciate their business and value that relationship.  

Do something to let your fans and/or customers know you value them and the relationship you share.  It could be subtle.  You could send a 'thank you' via email or an electronic holiday greeting to your fans/customers.  Or, you could send a physical card to vendors you work regularly with, or ask them out for a cup of coffee to simply chat and get to know each other better without talking about business.  These are just a few efforts that you may consider, but the holidays are a great time to reflect on the successes you've achieved throughout the year and those fans/customers/vendors that have contributed to those successes.  

I encourage you to think about how you can express your gratitude for the relationships that are important to you this holiday season.  Be creative, and remember it doesn't have to be a big deal it just needs to be genuine.  I guarantee it will go a long way.  

Earlier this week I spent a few days in Chicago, IL at an American Marketing Association conference.  The conference was geared toward the higher education industry, an industry in which I currently do some marketing and communications work.

The conference was pretty good, not great, but there were some dynamic key-note speakers and quite a few sessions about online social networks and how to join to connect with your audiences.  However, the information given was only enough to make one a bit dangerous with some knowledge, but not quite enough to immerse you in really great best practices.

One thing I enjoy is having knowledge, experience and simply involvement in several different industries--the indie music industry, art/design industry and higher education marketing industry.  For me, I find marketing and communications solutions in one industry that aren't practiced in another and I see where I can fill gaps making connections in one industry informed by another. 

Karlyn Morissette is an e-marketing strategist and web developer, specializing in higher education.  Currently she's the Web Producer in the Development Office at Dartmouth.  Karlyn blogged about and throughout the conference.  I personally enjoyed the key-note speaker Andy Goodman, who spoke about utilizing basic storytelling as a best practice to get your core message(s) across to your intended audience(s) in a way that is humanistic and compelling and doesn't muddy things up with jargon and non-sensical wordings.

Karlyn gives a great play-by-play of Andy's talk here.  

Think about how you can use storytelling to connect with your audiences as a musician, artist or entrepreneur.  Engagement is pretty key and once you understand how to engage your audience(s) your impact on them and potentially their pocketbook will increase.

Musicians, artists and entrepreneurs are often some of the best, most innovative marketers I've ever known.  This is probably because they are usually very creative thinkers who are resourceful, due in part, to minimal or non-existent funds.  However, I'm still amazed to find out that many of these creative folks are not taking advantage of the power of the internet to aid their resourceful marketing efforts.  I'm speaking in particular about social networking and Web 2.0 technologies.

Online social networking tools are a great way for musicians, artists and entrepreneurs to communicate and build relationships with those in and around their craft.

What is Web 2.0?According to Tim O'Reilly, a forward thinking software developer and open-source pioneer, who coined the phrase, Web 2.0 is the business revolution caused by business’ move to the internet as a platform for conducting business, and an attempt to understand the rules of success on that new platform.  In other words, Web 2.0 is the use of the internet specifically to connect and conduct business.

What kind of things on the internet might be considered Web 2.0?Certainly anything related to social networking where folks can connect, build interactive relationships and potentially conduct business. (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, Second Life, PayPal, eBay and many, many others) 

What drives social networking?By this point, unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, you have been exposed to social networking and have likely been sucked into to its addictive characteristics…and you probably have already figured this out, but I’m going to tell you anyway:  constant fresh content is what drives anything related to social networking (with the assumption that there are folks interested in consuming your constant fresh content).  By creating such content and having an audience waiting to consume it, that audience comes to expect your content and actively participates with feedback (comments) and the ability to instantly share your content with their friends around the world via the internet (it then becomes electronic word-of-mouth). If you don’t provide regular new content (even short and sweet bits of new content) traffic to your social network sites will drop off rapidly. Thus, it will no longer continue to be useful to connect with others or as a marketing tool.  

Why am I telling you about this? I'm telling you about this stuff because social networking is all about communicating and building relationships.  The best part is that you can do most of it for free online.  Getting involved in Facebook or MySpace is a great way to meet others who have a similar interest as you, to share your music or artwork, or share photos, or whatever.  The point is that you're inviting folks to be a part of your life, and you're offering them a peek into who you are.  This allows you to build relationships, which will potentially allow you market and sell your wares to folks interested in exactly what you are offering.  (Definitely read this blog post by Seth Godin, and pay attention to the 10,000 fans part). 

How can I make Web 2.0 work for me?If you're looking for ways you can market using Web 2.0 tactics then I would first recommend finding a way to generate some interest in who you are and what you do.  In most social networking sites you can become 'friends' with others also on that social network increasing your online contacts.  Also, if you're a musician, play live shows and get people to sign up on your mailing list.  If you're an artist and you're showing your work at a gallery do a similar thing and entice people to sign up on a mailing list.  If you're an entrepreneur running a business create a contest to capture people's contact info that they willingly give you by opting into the contest...basically, you need to gain people's permission to continue marketing to them (by the way, Seth Godin is the king of permission marketing tactics, so check out his sites).  Once you have permission, even if it's only a small group to start with, begin offering consistent fresh content via your social networking sites (blogs, show announcements, etc.) directed to those folks.  If they like the content you're offering they will spread the word on- and possibly off-line too growing your following.

How do I manage all these websites and social networks?Figure out exactly what sites you have the time, knowledge and ability to manage and only take on that which you can manage and maintain with a high level of consistency.

A quick practical tip to managing multiple sites:  Keep a folder with bookmarks of all of the sites and pages that you oversees, this maybe two sites it maybe 10 sites… When it comes time to update your sites, simply run down the list and don't stop until you've updated each one.  (I'm pretty sure I picked up that tip from a GarageBand.com email newsletter).

A general note about integrated marketing:
Web 2.0 tools, such as social networks, are individual marketing tools that increase their effectiveness when used in conjunction with other forms of on- and off-line marketing, such as direct mail & email, texting, live performances, etc.  Be creative about how you integrate your marketing efforts…try a few things, track and measure the effectiveness and if it works try it again, or tweak it accordingly.

How do I keep up-to-date about new sites and technology that may work well for me?My advice is to regularly block out whatever time you can—15 minutes, a half hour, two hours, etc.—each day, week or month where all you do is explore the internet, read and learn about Web 2.0 technology, best practices and how it might fit with your goals and marketing efforts.  This is where it is helpful to subscribe to email newsletters or blogs that you have an interest in…there are several out there (check out Digg, and Technorati, or simply Google some key words related to your interests and the word, 'blog' and I'm sure some relevant things will pop up).

 

I recently had lunch with Terrence Coffman, a wonderful painter and musician. Coffman has sold paintings from realism to more recent abstract works as well as his two independent folk albums, the latest of which is, Songs From Center Avenue Studio, 2008.

What was great about our conversation was simply talking to him about his life experience in art and music and discussing the successes and failures along his journey—a journey that continues to perpetuate forward.

It was a pleasure to speak with Mr. Coffman because he has some years of experience beyond me regarding self-promotion and being an independent artist/musician.  When I find myself in conversation with people like that I just want to absorb everything they say to later discern whether or not I can utilize some of their advice and experiences to inform and inspire my own music and artistic journey. 

One thing that stood out from our conversation that resonated with me was his thoughts on style.  Now, initially Coffman was referring to style as it relates to visual art, but he quickly began to parallel that with one’s style as a musician.  I’m paraphrasing a bit, but he said that young artists/musicians often get frustrated and caught up in finding their unique style (what differentiates them from others) that they allow that frustration to hinder their forward progress.  It’s best to pay attention to your influences and simply engage in the creative process to continually make music or your art, and eventually your own voice and style will emerge.  After a while your sound will be less like your influences and more unique to you, or your art will have less elements that are recognizable as another artist’s style and will be unique to you.

After hearing that, I thought to myself, “I would have liked to have heard that as a younger musician and artist.  It took me a bit of time to figure out Mr. Coffman’s sentiments about style on my own.”

As a self-promoting musician or artist Coffman’s style evolution can cause a little frustration in the beginning…here’s the question I had, “How do I articulate my style to promote it before I feel like I really have found my own style?”  My answer to that is to rely on your influences.  Look at the musicians/artist you are inspired by and aspire to be like—how do they articulate their style?  Don’t blatantly copy the way they articulate their style, but certainly get some ideas about how you can formulate your own articulation from theirs.  It’s also acceptable to actually identify your influences as you articulate your style, especially in the beginning.  I still do this when people ask what kind of music I play.  I say, “Think of a style that is something like Ryan Adams and John Mayer meet The BoDeans.”  I rely on the fact that a lot of people know who those musicians are and are familiar with their style of music, so without the benefit of me actually playing my music for those folks I can offer them some insight into what my music sounds like.  Your style’s articulation will evolve over time as it continues to develop, so don’t be afraid to change or update the way you articulate it every so often.