The Internet is Not Your Enemy!

(Huge post I just went off on in my MySpace blog. So much has been stewing around in my head lately that I feel like I might need another blog that just deals with the music biz/social networking aspect of things, but for now it's going here too.)

I've been running into a lot of artists in the past year who bemoan that they "have to do all this darn internet stuff!" They're having people tell them from all sides that they HAVE do this or that thing online to be successful. And learning how to use all the new sites, plus keeping up with them, seems like a major pain-in-the-arse timesuck, not to mention the totally valid cry: "How will I have time to be creative?! I can't even keep up with the stuff I'm already doing right now! I just want to play guitar!" (or whatever it is they do, write songs, practice piano, etc.)

It's totally true. Maintaining a current profile and even superficial relationships on even just the few most popular social networking sites CAN easily eat up all your time. And there are new sites being created every day, most with good intentions to help artists, and some not-so-good intentioned ones. With so many rabbit holes to fall down, hours later you can end up somewhere barely related to where you started out, and nothing checked off your to-do list. (guilty as charged!)

Here's the thing though - according pewinternet.org 75% of Americans use the internet. I don't know how accurate that is exactly, but really, that's huge, and it has to be pretty close. So yes, if you want to be a performing artist as a living in today's world, you HAVE to have an online presence. (You can be a music maker in plenty of other capacities besides as a living, obviously. But it's good to be clear on which it is you want.)

So, you have to have an online presence, but you get to choose what that means for you. There's no one way to do it. Fans just want some sort of relationship with an artist, if it's not personal interactions, they want to feel like they matter as part of the team. Of course there are bands on big labels that have people running their social sites, but indies like Ani DiFranco and Dar Williams have had their interns blog about them - it's totally transparent, fans know they aren't chatting with the artist, but they still get an insider perspective. Imogen Heap makes 10 minute video blogs every couple weeks or so, updating fans on the progress of her latest album.

Online tools should be an extension and support to offline life, not a hindrance. I mean, how cool is it that you could give an online concert to someone in Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon at the same time, from your cozy nest in the middle of a tiny town in Iowa, no schlepping of gear or filling of gas tanks required? Sometimes it helps to remember that there are other people on the end of those internet connections, who WANT to be connected to you. But it helps to be smart about it and find the right communities. If your music is best heard in a coffee shop environment, you probably aren't going to have much success playing at a punk rock venue right?

Here's something I left as a comment over at Gayla Drake Paul's blog, when she was saying how she started a Facebook page and keeping up with it PLUS MySpace was making her crazy. I brought it over here because I think it relates to the thoughts I was writing about above, which have been stewing around in my head for a while now, because she's not the only one who has been having a hard time keeping up with all the online stuff:

"Yeah, you don't have to do any of those games and such on Facebook, they're pretty much just silly and you can hit the ignore button on them, really. Unless there's a few you like.

The thing that's neat about Facebook is it can be sort of like going to a virtual coffee shop, connecting with people, having conversations, overhearing conversations and joining in, sharing things. It's more two-way than MySpace (which is maybe something you'd rather not have!). But it's perfectly ok to set up your own ground rules like "I don't do games on Facebook". I mean, in the offline world, if you don't play football, it's not like people expect you to play football. But sometimes you have to let people know in the online world what you do and don't do, cuz it's not as obvious to them. You're the hostess of your online party, you can tell people what kind of party it is. :)

I was reading these articles the other day by a pretty smart guy named George Howard about how "random acts of improvement" generally do more harm than good, and going into these networking tools without a game plan can lead to sense of "oh, I tried that and it doesn't do any good." or even "I made a Facebook page and I didn't sell any albums, maybe my music just isn't any good/people don't get me." etc, etc. Not that you SHOULDN'T have a Facebook or MySpace page, but that your other pages should be part of a bigger strategy.

Anyway, I think they are worth a read (you may have to copy and paste the two halves of that first one and stick 'em together. And just swap out the word "entrepreneurs" for "musicians" when you're reading it, the same principles apply.)

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/the+importance+of+setting+goals+and+tracking+progress+for+entrepreneurs

http://tunecore.typepad.com/tunecorner/2008/12/conclusion.html "

The internet has TONS of powerful tools that can help you further any sort of career, musical or otherwise. But there really IS way more information being put out than you can possibly keep up with! There's something like more than ten hours of content was uploaded every minute to YouTube alone! We have to start learning how to put filters in place for ourselves. I heard the analogy applied to Twitter that it's best to treat it like a cocktail party, and I think it applies to plenty of other online sites as well - don't expect to follow every conversation in the room. Drift to the ones that engage you naturally, have a good time, make connections that you may strengthen or deepen later in a setting more appropriate to doing so.

OK, so this has been really long, and I have a lot of other thoughts on the subject, but I think the main point is: YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF YOUR ONLINE LIFE! You choose how to use the internet, don't let it use you.

This is something I need to work on for myself this year. One of my friends said she's going to try setting a timer for certain tasks, and then just walk away for the day when the timer goes off. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Anyone else have time-management ideas?

Huh

It's funny, you know, posting things to the web. Sometimes you work really hard on things, put a lot of time and attention on them and want to share them with the world, you post them up and no one comes. No one responds. It's like shouting your head off to an empty room.

And then other times, you just do something random and innocent and they flock to it.

I have a video on YouTube, just a minute and a half, of some streets we drove through on the way back from class in Barranquilla. I actually made it because a video I'd posted previous to it was showing some of the really poor areas of the city and I didn't want people watching my channel to freak out that I was down there in such craziness, where there's a full range and high contrast between the wealthy and poor areas of the city. But somehow some site about B'quilla used my video on their front page, and now I have 26,469 views and 84 text comments, most of them fighting about whether the town is any good or not.

Or some of my most viewed pix on flickr are of the Vintage Power Wagons I took sort of on a whim during the rally on the square a couple years ago. I was inspired by the pretty shininess mostly. And big trucks driving up on the wheels of other big trucks is pretty cool too. :)

The thing is, neither of those popular "social objects" (as they call stuff that goes "viral" (relatively speaking, in my case) like that) is part of a genre or theme I'd want to maximize on. They were total one time flukes. Someone subscribing to my content streams expecting to get more of the same would be sorely disappointed.

So then my question is - is my content that I consciously create in hopes of getting a response just not good enough, or have I just not found my audience yet? Or does the world just like big trucks more than music?

Oh blog...

It has only been 5 days. I have missed you, and yet been relieved not to HAVE to post anything (though granted it was my own idea to participate in NaBloPoMo). So much and so little has happened during our time apart!

I've been temporarily laid off my part time gig due to lack of funding. (so has everyone else, I haven't been singled out). Due to "the economy" as they say. It should pick up in January, there's lots of promising promises being made that I believe. So I'm not worried really. Just knowing I should make ends meet in the meantime, but without the same fire under my butt that not believing would ignite.

I also have some leads on some temporary part time work to fill in the gap, but none of that has really started quite yet, so I'm floating in limbo this week, not really getting anything done at all, not even my homework, and I'm very, very far behind in that. ARGH. Been visiting and talking and planning and having meals with people, which is very good, because I'm also alone. So I guess that's not nothing.

The sink totally backed up today, made a mess of making dinner for my brother and his gf. Embarrassing, but they seemed to take it well. I prattled on a lot, a little nervous, wanting them to be happy and comfortable. I managed to ask some questions towards the end, I hope I did alright. So silly, isn't she supposed to be the one nervous to meet me? Maybe she was. They are super cute together in any case, and the food was tasty, so yeah. It was an "extra Thanksgiving" theme, because I personally did not get enough Thanksgiving, because it was a potluck and I didn't bring home any leftovers other than stuffing.

G's friends and family have been chatting with me a lot more lately, wanting updates about him in Dubai. I honestly don't know much more than they do, but I AM impressed at how well my minimal Spanish is holding up so far with them. I was worried I'd totally lose it after focussing on music stuff to the exclusion of Spanish, but so much of it is still there. Thank goodness.

It's been rattling around, several people now have told me that I should write a book (maybe a whitepaper?) about about music social marketing and/or to start a service for musicians to help them with it. The thing I haven't figured out yet, is that a huge part of it is BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. And I can't do that for them, can I?

I mean, I guess big companies have evangelist/mouthpiece/marketing people, and if being a musician is running a small business, no reason they couldn't have someone doing that part for them, but it would be a delicate balance - how transparent would it be? Ghostwriting? Just a representative, openly doing the work/gatekeeping? Depends on the artist? Some like the social networking, some hate the idea of even turning on a computer. I have the patience to coach people through this stuff, but it's only as useful as you use it... You have to actively participate in the community to build a community. I can set up your accounts and show you around, but you oughta be the one maintaining them right?

The tricks are (and this is not necessarily the order of priority):
1. To get them to understand WHAT the tools are - explaining things (what's a widget? Twitter wha'?) from the ground up is tricky, need to find the common denominator things they DO know and build from there.
2. To get them to understand WHY the tools are useful and important (do I really have to do ANOTHER online thing?)
3. To get them over their fear/confusion/frustration with the internet/computers/technology in general (I just want to play my guitar!)

My brother suggests that I do my book with cartoons, people like comic books and they're more likely to pay attention. :-)

Writing a book is NOT ever something I thought I would ever, ever do. Books are what other people do. Books take too long to write. I want to write songs. Right? Hrm.

Like I Really Needed to Join Another Social Network...

And I'm sure it's nothing new, but it's new to me and I'm finding it damn cool. It's called Last.FM and it's all about music. Keeps track of what you listen to on your computer and helps you find similar music and people with similar tastes in music.

Here's my profile:
Last.fm

Sheesh. One more thing to do online. Although some are really exciting in the beginning and then fade off, and others stay strong - both personally and as a group. So we'll see about this one for me. :)

Is anyone else on Last.FM?