“Panos’ Brew” is Sonicbids founder/CEO Panos Panay’s weekly (or more) post about whatever happens to be on his mind. Look for musings and observations on entrepreneurship, the state of the music business, his experiences with members, interesting things he’s seen in his travels, or just about anything else.
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I read a great story in the New York Times yesterday about how Obama’s understanding
of the Internet sealed his win in the US presidential election (”How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power, By David Carr).
Running for office is very much like being an entrepreneur or being in a band. You start out with nothing, you work relentlessly, and you tour the country and leverage all and available media to build an audience. Sad to observe, but historically, politicians have proven to be much more savvy about the uses of new media than the music business.
Franklin Roosevelt used radio to win, way before the music business learned to capitalize on it (back in the 20’s music publishers actually sued radio broadcasters); John Kennedy used television to reach a new group of voters, way before record labels learn to use MTV; Obama learned how to leverage social media, YouTube, and LinkedIn, all the while many in the music industry are still busy fighting them. Witness a pattern?
Check out this quote: “Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.” Substitute the terms “political” with “music” and “governing” with “selling music” and you get the point.
I’ve been on one too many panels where people keep talking about how your team as an artist should include a lawyer, an agent, a manager, a publicist etc. You could have gotten this piece of advise in 1968 too.
My point is that to win as an artist in the modern day music business, you (or your team) will also need to understand and command all things online: blogs and social media; search engine marketing; search engine optimization; knowing how to leverage sites like LinkedIn, and YouTube, and Sonicbids and Flickr and Facebook; putting out podcasts and Twitter feeds; etc.
Here’s a quote from same article: “Any politician who fails to recognize that we are in a post-party era with a new political ecology in which connecting like minds and forming a movement is so much easier will not be around long.”
Panos
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