Summer music series: How brands engage with live music fans

I've enjoyed creating this week of blog posts centering around live music, a passion of mine.

Today we talk about how brands engage with live music fans. I've had several conversations about this with my friend Jay Blakesberg.

Jay is a well-known rock photographer who has shot rock royalty for more than 30 years. His photographs have appeared on numerous album covers, in Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He also produces video and other content for brands and bands.

Jay's photos appear in my book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History which I co-wrote with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

People like me are passionate about music. We make live music an important part of our lives. Being the geek that I am, I have a database with a listing of 436 live gigs I've caught since 1976.

The challenge for companies is to tap into this passion. There's a music lifestyle for brands to engage with, if they are clever about it. Music can connect a brand through mobile, the web and social media.

In this video, I speak with Jay about his ideas for social media engagement, especially with Facebook. It's simple really – if you create some great content, fans will share it. Better yet, the bands will share it with their fans! Some artists have 100,000 or even 1,000,000 Facebook fans.

The power of the Facebook share worked for me just this week. On Tuesday, I posted as part of this summer music series: Do what you love which included my video interview with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart. Well, Mickey shared my video on Twitter and on Facebook (where more than 60 people "liked" it in just one day). This drove a bunch of views to the video and gave people I didn’t know yet exposure to my book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. How cool is that?

Direct link to Jay Blakesberg on how brands engage with live music fans on YouTube.

Summer Music Series

• Monday: What YOU can learn from the music business. People are passionate about music. How can you tap into that passion?
• Tuesday: Do what you love. I interview Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart to learn what has kept him pushing his work forward for more than 50 years.
• Wednesday: How music fans support nonprofits and causes. Draws on an interview with Andy Bernstein, executive director of HeadCount.
• Thursday: Always move forward. I write about the Gathering of the Vibes music festival and how it moves music forward. Includes an article I wrote for Huffington Post and a video with quotes from Perry Farrel, Elvis Costello, Wavy Gravy, and Ken Hays.
• Friday: How brands engage with live music fans. I interview rock photographer Jay Blakesberg and we explore how to tap into music fans and the bands themselves to promote your work.

Photograph shot at Gathering of the Vibes 2011. Copyright David Meerman Scott

Comments

[Rolando Peralta]

David, this was a fantastic article. I think truly musicians are engaging even more with fans. Foo Fighters Garage Tour was an amazing example of how being iconoclast can make a difference in engaging and getting great buzz around a brand, too.
thank you for pointing this topic.
cheers,
@RolandoPeralta

[Gborgford]

Working in the area of music sponsorships for many years, it was clear that brands see the value of making deep emotional connections with consumers through live music experiences. With the advent of wireless interactive technology and social media, this experiential brand environment now has the ability to easily convert those music fans to active participants in an ongoing conversation over time and true brand advocates.

Music lives in the heart and let's face it purchase decisions aren't always made with our gray matter.

Guy Borgford

[David Meerman Scott]

Rolando and Guy -- thanks so much for jumping in and I'm so glad that you guys are seeing the same opportunities that I am -- both for brands and for bands. And of course all of this social sharing makes the fan experience far better than in the old days when I started to go to shows.

[Chase Sherman]

This post drives home a point you alluded to in your last post... The concept of taking on real-time opportunities to ride trends seems to be a great way to generate new visits to your site.

Although in your case you had leveraged the network of Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, I think the same concept applies.

Companies honing their online marketing and content creation efforts around real-time opportunities that pop up in the news can create great exposure for their brands.