Using Social Networks to Find the Best New Music

Using Social Networks to Find the Best New Music

by Christopher Benton

It is very easy to get music online. Legal or illegal, there are hundreds of means to download entire artist’s catalogs from the superobscure to the superstar. But with more decision comes indecision, and the question for the music fan becomes: what should I play?

Like the music industry itself, social networking has revolutionized the way in which consumers experience new music. Here’s some of the best social networks to discover your new favorite band.

MYSPACE MUSIC

In blogyears, Myspace Music is a dinosaur, but it is still one of the best sites for music lovers. Practically every artist has a Myspace page that allows fans to stream a couple songs, find out about tour dates, and even contact their favorite artists.

LAST FM

Like Pandora, but much more powerful, Last.fm allows users to build their own customizable radio station based on artist, song, or genre. Based on the characteristics of your radio station, the site will recommend other artists to you. Last.fm can even plug into your iTunes so you can play your library remotely. Access to iTunes also means that you can make friends with Last.fm profile and make recommendations to them, while Last.fm determines how “music compatible” you are based on similarities in taste. It’ll even tell you the last thing your friends have listened to.

RATE YOUR MUSIC

Rateyourmusic is a music critic’s social network, no credentials necessary. After you make a profile, you can rate millions of artist’s albums and even write your own review if you wish. This seemingly simple setup has many implications. From the rating system, RYM compiles lists, so you can easily search through the highest rated albums by year, artist, and genre, as constantly updated. The whole idea is very democratic and the best music gets pushed to the top. These are real music fans here, so anything in the yearly top 100 is always awesome and frequently on the fringes of mainstream. Users can also make their own lists, friend others, and recommend music to these friends.

DROWNED IN SOUND

Drowned in Sound is music criticism at its finest, or at least at it’s most Web 2.0. The British website posts reviews, features, and interviews like any other online reprint music publication but also contains a strong community component. For instance, users can post comments on any article or review, so listeners get in their own “two cents.” There is also a discussion board where readers can compose articles, look for band mates, sell equipments, host music forums, and debate the merits of staff-made articles.

HYPEMACHINE

Hypemachine is MP3 blog aggregator. Better than your RSS feed, Hypemachine is a constantly updating site that reposts streamable MP3s from all over the web. Hypemachine probably puts it best when they write: “To put it simply, the Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. We handpick a set of kickass music blogs and then present what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high.”

BLIP.FM

Twitter meets Last.fm with Blip. The whole service hinges on the question: “What song do you want to Blip?” With millions of songs in its catalog, you can type any song you want (be it a MP3 or its accompanying music video) and then push it online. You can either play the song you Blip or play any song someone else Blips. The site is basically a series of user song recommendations.

MNTWITALT

The Twitterverse:

Twitter? What the heck is that? Twitter lingo has become a second language to thousands of teens, adults, celebrities, businesses and beyond. Here’s the breakdown:

Tweet: A tweet is a post or status update on Twitter, a microblogging service. Because Twitter only allows messages of 140 characters or less, "tweet" is as much a play on the size of the message as it is on the audible similarity to Twitter.

At Reply: A direct message donated with @ before a specific user name that is sent only to the Tweeter that was mentioned.

Direct Message: DM is used to send a private message to someone that the rest of the Twitterverse cannot see.

TwitPic: A Web site for users to post pictures to the Twitter service via tweet by uploading pics from mobile devices onto the site. Primarily used to capture moments as they are taking place in real-time.

Blog: A blog is a form of online writing, picture-taking, journaling, etc. for people to implement as a means of expressing thoughts, ideas, job opening, whatever! While a blog is not exclusive to Twitter, many users will add links to blogs as a means of sharing and distributing information to followers.

So that’s it! There are hundreds of other definitions within the social media world but these are a few you will hear the most of within this article and when first starting out with Twitter. If you don’t have a Twitter account already, jump on the Twitter bandwagon and go set one up at twitter.com!

The New Political Wheel

Kristen Luca

Politics and political campaigning may be developing a new face on the Internet with the expansion of online social media.

Social media services like Twitter and Facebook allow users to quickly get messages out to large groups of people. According to a recent New York Times article, the tracking firm comScore has measured Twitter’s traffic at 54 million visitors a month. For politicians and political candidates who are committed to getting their names and messages out to their constituents, these Web sites might hold potential.

Samantha Jose, communications director for the Young Democrats at the University of Georgia, said that the Democratic Party has already taken advantage of social media. She referenced President Obama’s 2008 campaign, and his use of Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about his platforms on issues and updates about events.

Jose also thought the Democratic Party takes more advantage of social media services than the Republican Party does. “I’d like to think we’re a little bit quicker on the uptake,” she said.

Matthew Ralston, PR Director for UGA’s College Republicans, said that he thought the Republican Party as a whole was not using social media as much as the Democratic Party. Ralston said at the moment few Republicans were utilizing the services.

“It’s like the wheel has just come out of the sky for them,” Ralston said.

However, he also thought that in the future more Republicans would come to use the services. He pointed to the low cost of social media and their ability to reach many people in just a few clicks.

But social media is not useful only to campaigning politicians. In June, Reuters reported that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay an upgrade that would have shut the service down during the day in Iran. Iranians protesting the presidential election results were using Twitter to speak with each other and get past communication blocks set up by the Iranian government.

Private citizens like the Iranians, more traditionally associated with the expansion of social media, have the opportunity to use social technology not only as an audience but as active participants.

Samantha Jose, of the Young Democrats, thinks that the greatest advantage in using social media to spread political ideas is that citizens are more informed. “Social media allows for debate to be way more instantaneous,” Jose said.

She added that on the Internet, there is no filter for information. Access to publishing software on the Web is cheap and often free, allowing anyone with a connection to upload their thoughts and hold a conversation. However, Jose thinks that the benefits of using social media outweigh the risk of encountering less substantial or non-credible information.

Users can find other benefits to having politicians on Facebook and Twitter, too. Allison Clark, an Advertising major, used social media to find out what political ideas and beliefs her friends and acquaintances held. She looked on Facebook to see what politicians her friends had become ‘fans’ of, and even became a fan of a politician herself.

Allison Clark said that she also believed Democrats used social media “better” than Republicans. “Democrats target a younger audience, so they have to be more knowledgeable” about social media, Allison Clark said. She added, however, “Republicans are getting there.”

People using social media for political purposes can also send messages to their online network in the process. Ben Clark, a UGA student and member of the Young Democrats, says that he ‘friended’ several politicians on Facebook during the 2008 election season. He follows President Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd and former Sen. John Edwards on Facebook.

Having his Facebook accounts associated with the politicians’ is not entirely to read through their updates and messages, though. “During the election,” Ben Clark said, “I wanted everyone to know who I supported.”

Edited by: Megan Niager

Twitter Establishes Presence in the Hunt for Jobs

Megan Niager

“There are a lot of Twitter naysayers out there. Until you start playing with Twitter, it’s hard to understand the value of it,” said Sloane Kelly, content developer for BFG Communications in Savannah, Ga., who used this social media tool to invite job seekers to post their application for a recent job opening at the company.

Kelly works in the content department at BFG, “a nationally ranked, brand building creative solutions machine,” according to their Web site. Kelly arrived at the company roughly three years ago and while BFG already had blog as a means to get their feet wet, there needed to be more of a social media presence, she said.

BFG has several social media accounts, including Facebook, Flickr and MySpace and while the content department works as a collaborative force to update their social media, Kelly maintains the Twitter account. “Twitter is the world that I like to play in,” she said.

Twitter is a social media networking site that gives users the opportunity to post “tweets” about whatever they wish in 140 characters or less. In the words of the service, “It is what you make of it.”

BFG had previously mentioned job openings via Twitter, but this was the first time they specifically asked for interested parties to apply for a position as Assistant Content Manager without the traditional cover letter and resume, she said.

After posting the opening via Twitter, BFG Communications wrote on their blog, “We decided to do things differently this time around with the application process… The job requires a great deal of social media savvy. So the hope is applicants will not only show us why they’re perfect for the job but also their understanding of Twitter and the social web.”

“It’s been awesome and an interesting way to get to know people,” she said. There was a lot of creativity in the way that people respond, Kelly said.

BFG received highly positive response from an impressive group of people, she said. There have been several applicants who stood out creatively and made good use of the social media space, which is exactly what they’re looking for, Kelly said.

Nicole Galletta, 27, saw the tweet posted by BFG inviting job seekers to apply for their opening via Twitter. Galletta had been recently laid off from Sojo, Inc, a branding and marketing firm in Atlanta, Ga., and used the social networking resources she was already a part of to find a new job.

Galletta replied to the BFG tweet by posting a link to a blog she wrote as a means to sell herself to the company. Her tweet was public, meaning it could be seen by all users on Twitter. “It was pretty bold,” Galletta said. She said she's never put a job out there like that before.

Galletta said she’s definitely benefited from using social media, especially Twitter. Just as in real life, people benefit from the connections they have with people, she said. “With Twitter, you establish a connection and reap the benefits,” Galletta said.

“Twitter is the place to be,” she said. She explained a lot of people are still confused about Twitter, thinking, “it’s like just updating your Facebook status a bunch of times.”

Janet Fouts is an expert in the field of social media. As a "social media enabler", she defines her job as helping people understand what social media is and figure out what their goals are within the social media world. She then helps them implement those goals.

From an article on her Web site entitled “Job Hunting with Social Media”, Fouts pointed out that “everything that is written on Twitter is archived in just a few minutes by the search engines.” Fouts encourages her clients to perform a Google search on themselves and analyze the message and perception they are delivering to the virtual world.

Many people are adopting social media already in job searches, she said. “Pretty soon, you’re not going to be able to ignore it because it’s going to become the norm,” Fouts said. Fouts said to use Twitter to let your loyal followers know that you’re looking for a job, and be specific about what you’re looking for.

Heather Huhman is the founder and President of Come Recommended, which is an online community that connects the best entry level candidates with the best employer, she said. Huhman also tweets and post public relations related job openings on Twitter.

Huhman said she has heard from 100 new hires this year who said they obtained a job through a tweet or link that she posted. "I need people to tell me," she said. She said that there's really no way to track the success rate if she doesn't hear from applicants.

Sloane Kelly of BFG Communications doesn’t know if this form of job application will become a trend for everyone but it has worked for them. "We’re always trying to push the envelope and break the typical mold by thinking outside of the box," she said. "That’s what we’re all about."

Edited by: Kristen Luca

Athens Music Industry Adopts Twitter

Athens Music Industry Adopts Twitter

By Christopher Benton

The blank (screen) generation is all atwitter about Twitter, tweets, (hash) tags, and other jargonic miscellany associated with the “micro” blog. With its sub-text-message mantra of “140 characters or less,” Twitter is breaking down the former walls of communication and eliminating the middleman. The effect of this is clear in the music industry, which is rapidly adopting the technology for various forms of promotion. Many local members of the Athens music community are finding ways to use Twitter, too.

“I just got one,” Andrew Dykes, a solo folk artist who plays under the pseudonym Green Gerry, said. “I was hesitant to use Twitter at first, but then my friend made me one. I mostly use it so fans know what I’m up to…”

For Dykes, Twitter is not just a one-way interface with fans, but a dialogue. And while he may use Twitter to publicize himself and reach out to fans, his fans have also reached back, even sometimes helping him while on tour:

“Whenever I’m on tour, the question is, like, ‘Do I have to sleep in the car again tonight?,’ and there’s this mad search to find someone to stay with and couch-surf. But when I started posting on Twitter that I was looking for somewhere to stay in town, I’d sometimes get like 5 replies.”

Twitter may frequently be about self-promotion but sometimes, the self-promotion needs self-promotion. This need for meta-promotion is one of the service’s main drawbacks, at least, that is according to Daniel Clower, a local booker and band manager.

“When I was an intern working with social media for a PR company…we made a few [band] Twitters but the problem we had was getting people to follow. Even for our larger groups with tens of thousand of MySpace friends, we couldn’t even break a thousand on Twitter…The question was, ‘How do people know this Twitter even exists?’”

Clower tried advertising various Twitter accounts on other social media sites like MySpace and Facebook, but still to no avail.

“We quickly realized we were pushing the wrong content…publicists may run MySpace pages but when fans see a Twitter I think they want a personal connection to the band, so bands should operate their own accounts.”

While the “If you build, they will come” adage may not work in the Twitter world, there does seem to be a correlation to the amount of the “Tweets,” or posts a user makes, with the amount of people who follow.

Adrian Zelski, lead singer in the reggae band DubConscious agrees. “We have a twitter but I stopped tweeting when we got really busy and I purchased the club [New Earth Music Hall]…last time I checked, I think we had at least one thousand less followers."

Consistency may be the key, and while his band may have stopped “tweeting,” Zelski hasn’t given up experimenting with uses for the service for his other ventures. Zelski’s newly opened music venue “New Earth Music Hall,” on West Dougherty St. has a new Twitter account. So far, it’s mostly a forum for announcing shows and drink specials.

It’s not just the artists, their publicists, and the symbiotic venue system that has the Twitter bug, the publications that cover the whole thing has it too. Michelle Gilzenrat, music editor for local magazine Flagpole, has been tweeting for over a year, mostly announcing secret shows and posting local music news. The speed of Twitter’s service was especially useful this May: when the Georgia Theatre caught fire around 7 am, Gilzenrat’s Twitter was constantly updated with instantaneous news about the event, hours before Flagpole’s official site could post the same news.

Twitter may be a useful tool for music industry, but it is still just one pillar of a much more vast structure needed to promote music. Publicist Michelle Roche, who runs the local PR firm Michelle Roche Media Relations, likes the new tools offered by the Web 2.0 paradigm, but issued a warning in her address to UGA’s chapter of International Association of Business Communicators a year ago:

“Although MySpace Music, Facebook and Twitter and all these other so-called ‘social media’ tools are allowing musicians to connect directly with fans, and publicize themselves, there is still a definite need for music publicists.”

Twitter is far from the ultimate promotional tool, but it certainly has been a game changer for the music industry. And as Twitter further develops, it seems local musicians will find even newer, cooler ways to utilize the service.