WWE World Champion: G-Ro

For the past week Orlando has been consumed by Wrestlemania. If you weren't following my live Tweets, well then you might have missed the fact that I indeed walked out of the Citrus Bowl as the WWE Champion!

Marketing 101 – Internal Cross Promotion

Today’s lesson is a simple one. If you are promoting something offline, you should promote it online and vice versa. Makes sense, right? What about something that you build online, would you or should you promote it offline?

I read a great article today from Debra Mastaler about Starbucks, you know the McDonald’s of coffee, and their new Social Site, MyStarBucksIdea. In the article, Debra says she went to Starbucks and the minimum wage, tip hawking workers had never heard of the site. There were no signs, banners or excitement. What a shame. :(

Didn’t this thing cost money to make?
What about that online PR campaign?

photo courtesy of baslow

I don’t know about you but Starbucks is pretty well know for marketing products in their stores (Starbucks Records anyone?). Why wouldn’t they use their humongous in-store customer base to get attention and users on their site?

What about you? Did you make a great product and fail to take advantage of your strengths in marketing?

Do you have a CD and forget to sell it at your live shows? Oh, you must have forgotten them, right? Or if you have them at your shows, are you selling them online where you just told 300 people to go to find out more about you and your music?

Do you have a website that could use traffic from a print publication, or vice verse?

Do you have an opportunity to become an industry leader instead of just another face? Are you promoting that on every site you have a profile on?

What about widgets and applications? Are you using your homepage to promote them? I remember when Career Builder launched its Facebook application. Great concept and cool app, but no mention the application on the Career Builder website. It was buried in the CBCampus section with a bland press release. No wonder it didn’t work or gain the users. There is no reason than it couldn’t succeed and monetize if they put the same effort in building the application as to how and where to put it.

Why spend time developing something if you aren’t going to share it with everyone that you possibly can? More eyeballs = more money. Simple, I know. That’s why it’s so important to know where your potential and current clients / fans are.

What do you think? Where have you seen other companies go right or wrong in the marketing of new products? Join the convo folks!

Greg Rollett

Music Marketing - Meet SEO

I spend a great deal of time working up proposals and talking to bands, musicians and creative types about blogging, Social Media, Myspace and all these other great tools that can help you create an online brand, get people talking about you and creating a Google search for your band name that you can not only be proud of, but be truly and completely informational to your fans, labels, prospective business partners or anyone else typing into the world's most famous search bar.

Recently Aaron Wall, one of the most respected SEO guru's around announced that he was taking open interviews, where you could ask him questions about search marketing and his experience in the business. Problem was, there were a few guidelines and my blog failed one of them (it's hosted with blogger and not on my own domain, something I need to do anyway).

Luckily, a blogger friend and fellow internet music marketer, Eric Hebert of Evolvor Media, met the criteria and jumped at the chance to talk with the master of SEO and author of SEO Book.

Here is a quick look at the interview:

Eric: A lot of my time is wasted explaining the pros of having a optimized website versus a real flashy one (which many, many bands and acts have). The flash heads always argue that you have to be “interactive”, and they do so with all kinds of moving objects, sounds, and other nonsense. Could you elaborate on what YOU think works on a website as far as interaction is concerned?

Aaron: If you are marketing art or music you at least need to have some static links to text pages on the site if you want to use text to connect with readers. The homepage can still be mostly flash but it helps to have at least a few text rich pages so people can buy your concert tickets on your site, buy posters from you, buy cds from you, and subscribe to your newsletter as well.

As the search marketing world is coming more and more into the mainstream, and the music industry becomes even more flooded with acts and competition, these artists are going to have to take a look at SEO and Social Media Marketing as part of their complete package. You know the saying content is king, well in the music business, great songs are king. The problem is that a great song that no one hears is as good as a tree falling in a deserted forest.

Head on over to Eric's post and if you want to know more about SEO, subscribe to Aaron Wall's blog and learn something or 2. I promise that it is worth your time.

One last sentence from the interview:

Every artist who wants exposure is either a promoter or a failure.

-Greg Rollett

Oh and Eric did just name me and this blog one of the top 7 blogs that every musician should be reading. Thanks man!

BarCampOrlando - One Week Away

So stoked for BarCamp Orlando! After partaking at BarCamp Miami during the FOWA weekend I can say that I am now BarCamp ready. I plan on presenting something to do with the stte of the music business and how we (bloggers/social media kids) can make an impact on the future of music discovery, distribution and sales.

Just got word that Orlando's own IZEA is hosting an afterparty. Here is the flyer. Oh, and in case you are having trouble reading, it does say Open Bar!

For those looking to help promote the event, here is the official BarCampOrlando flyer.



Oh and if IZEA gets a hold of this post, I would love to chat with you guys (possibly at the party) to learn about how you guys got in the door with Inflexion. They look like a great group and we would love to keep our business Florida based and funded!

Here's to BarCamp Orlando!

Life Lesson 101: Treat Everyone the Same

Go back to grade school for a minute. Think about what your parents, teachers, church folk and Mr. Rogers told you. Treat everyone the same, even if they are different.

This holds true in the strongest sense when it comes to running your business. Seth Godin talks about it in his restaurant rant, The Bad Table, and I think a lot of what he says can be true for small business and the music industry.

Seth says,

"who should get your best effort? Should it be the new customer who you just might be able to convert into a long-term customer? Or should it be the loyal customer who is already valuable?"

His reply,

"Sorry, but the answer is this: you can't have a bad table."

Musicians, you cannot have a bad show. Someone paid money to see you perform, wherever it may be from a dive bar to Hard Rock Live.

Businesses, you cannot set up a bad meeting in a bad setting. You need to win over everyone, especially at the start.

You cannot wait till you release your next flyer, next t-shirt, next website launch to make a first impression.

You cannot afford for your website or RSS feeds to go down. Your loyal followers may jump ship. It's easy to get lost amongst the 1,000's of blog we follow.

You cannot afford to get that great suit for the next interview. Get it for this interview.

Don't clean up your office tomorrow, clean it up today.

Don't skimp on your emails just to get them done. Make them personal, professional and respond to everyone. If Gary Vaynerchuk can do it, so can you.

You get my drift. Everyone that sees your business is making an impression. I love Olive Garden but everytime I go back, I never get that great experience that I got in the past.

Your employees are your front line. If they suck, your company and your brand sucks. Just because a couple looks like the "non-tipping" or "I don't have money for your services" type, they are still going to talk, blog and discuss your brand. It's 2008 people, stop hiding.

Make sure your brand tastes like champagne and not flat club soda.

Till next time!

Is This So-Called “Recession” Affecting Gen-Y

You can’t talk to a business, watch the tv or enter into a conversation with anyone that has stock in real estate and not hear about this “recession.” Working in the advertisement business, I am seeing first hand the spending cuts that are going on. Being in the tech world I am seeing the free spending going on ($850 million for Bebo?).

But what about the kids in college, the Gen-Y workers and well, the general public (let’s say younger, spend happy Americans)?

Some observations:

Friday night in downtown Orlando is not short of patrons, who are willing to shell out $10 to walk into the door of a bar, drop another $10 on 2 bottles of Miller Lite and buy a round of shots for $50.

I have been to the movies quite a few times in the last 2 months and apparently so have a lot of teens (StepUp 2 The Streets), millennials (Jumper + SemiPro) and even their parents (Hannah Montana movie anyone?).

A band we are developing sold 100+ downloads of a newly released single in 1 day last week at $.99 each. That doesn’t include the physical CD’s, t-shirts, buttons and other merch that they had at their sold out show ($10 admission) last week.

CareerBuilder just signed a super deal with Facebook to bring job listings to the 2nd largest Social Network in the country. I guess there are jobs here after all. (Cheezhead with the scoop.)

I keep finding artists willing to shell out advertising money to give their music away. Heck, I even wrote about it here.

Every one of my colleagues and friends is a member of a gym. By member I mean they pay in upwards of $60 / month to workout an hour a day / 3 days a week.

*Orlando specific, however you might have a plaza/situation like this* Have you been to Waterford Lakes on a Friday night and try to find a place to eat? Yea, how about you wait an hour. What about trying to maneuver around Target on Sunday afternoon. I’d rather work a 12 hour shift in a cubicle with my boss breathing down my neck!

Now I know, this post is biased towards the younger generation, but I work, I pay a mortgage, own a car and yes, I go out on weekends and spend money in the economy.

Here’s a great article that explains how the sub-prime mortgages messed everything up for the good guys. (Hat Tip to Lindsey Pollak) It actually makes sense. Read it, please.

So, Gen-Y, Brazen Careerists and Music fans and artists, here is the million dollar question: How is the economy affecting your daily life? Light up the boards with this one!

Greg Rollett

Let's Talk About The Music Industry

(This post can be summarized by stating that I am looking for guest posts on how you live with music, consume it and find it)

photo by: a DELL

So this is post number 111 in the saga that has been my blog, company website before we officially launched and now back to a discussion about the music industry, gen-y entrepreneurship and social media.

Lots of things have changed in the past 6 months, not only for me and my career but the entire business world. Social media is becoming accepted by more and more people and the music industry continues to disappoint and reinvent itself at the same time.

With all that said, I am looking to expand and start new conversations. One thing I think people in the tech industry forget is how the everyday user is experiencing something. So, I want to open up not only the comments but also guest posts on how you experience music; How and why you buy it or steal it.
Listen to it.
Discover it.
Get annoyed by it.
Do you listen to the radio?
Do you hate indie bands that SPAM your pages on Myspace?

When the day comes to an end, music is an experience for the listener. It brings out memories, sparks emotions, and alters moods. For me, music is an essential part of my life. 5 minutes do not pass where a melody doesn't ring in my head, or I'm sifting through a friend's iPod.

So send em in folks! They can be anonymous, full out posts with link juice and all that good stuff, or just an opinion. The music business is now ours to develop. We are dictating how music is being sold, distributed and listened to. We, the music listening to public, killed the DRM movement, we created iTunes out of the creation of Napster and we are putting commercial radio out of business because they don't play music anymore.

I look forward to what you have to say and hope that I can help you in your quest to find great new bands, new ways of getting that music into your car, your vacation and your life.

Here's to the memories of the music we love and to the music we will discover that will lead to new memories and moments.

-Greg Rollett

send all requests or posts to info@rollettmarketing.com

How Myspace Records is Changing the Music Business

What if a Record label had a mailing list of over 100,000,000 individuals, who all saw the message you are trying to get across every time they opened their web browser?

What if a record label had other labels sending over truckloads of cash to advertise on their competition’s home page?

Why don’t they use their connections to land their artists tv gigs, cross promotion, oh and a tv station of their own?

Oh, did I mention that they are owned by the world’s largest media conglomerate.

What if this label already existed? It does. It is called Myspace Records. Yes, that Myspace.

From a KidzWorld interview with Myspace Records artist, Kate Voegele;

Signing with MySpace was such a cool experience for me. I basically got hooked up with them when Tom (yes, "the" Tom who is everyone's first friend) *laughs* sent me a message asking if I was signed yet.

So how did Myspace and Myspace Records help Voegele, a new age pop princess, get to the top of the iTunes (number 4) and Billboard (number 5 on Top Digital Albums) charts in February 2008?

1. Sent a nice message to their over 100,000,000 million users stating that Kate’s new record is now available.
2. Landing a 6 episode gig as Mia on the CW hit teen drama ‘One Tree Hill’
3. Having 6 of her album’s tracks featured on the re-occuring episodes
4. Launching her album on the same day her role as Mia came to life on tv
5. Pricing it fairly in retail outlets (I got a copy at suggested retail price of $7.99 at Target)
6. Video blogging on her Myspace page and on MyspaceTV
7. I’m sure there are more, but you get my point

What can this mean to the music industry?

1. It can be run by kids who start internet communities in their dorm rooms.
2. Artists are empowering themselves through online promotional tools.
3. Internet communities can possibly start to monetize their sites. Build the community, build trust, sign an artist and promote it over your network. Genius.
4. Major record labels will attempt to build communities; they will do it wrong and possibly sue their users for copyright infringement.
5. Major record labels will use and abuse the power that the Social Networking communities have and turn more users away.
6. Indie labels will continue to prosper through viral marketing on these community based sites. They will use their bands to help promote other bands within their label. Look at all the Fueled By Ramen bands on Myspace. Help the team and everyone wins.
7. As the social networks integrate more and more of the internet into their communities there will be more opportunity and more competition with which you are competing against.
8. Labels will start partnering with application and widget builders much like how film and tv licensing is working now. I can see it now; Pirates vs. Ninjas becomes 50 Cent vs. whoever he is beefing with the moment.
9. Labels and indie artists will start making their tracks available for free on revenue sharing widgets on all of the social networks. The key is collecting enough data from the downloading party for future use (e-mail, location, etc).
   

Can you think of more ways that Social Networks will help shape the face of the music business? Let’s think outside the box and help change the game.

-Greg Rollett

New Media vs. Old Media Advertising from My Gen-Y Mind

photo credits to Mickie Flick

Once again this blog post stems from a few conversations that I have had in the last few days. It's a talk that has a lot of advertising agencies worried and playing catch up. It's an unknown format to many even though it is everywhere from Newsweek covers to 60 Minutes segments.

New Media Advertising vs. Old Media Advertising.

My talks with fellow co-workers, prospective clients and even my boss at the ol' 9-5 have all resolved over the fact that old media types are still behind on the times and still very skeptical of advertising online, well maybe not everything online, but certainly with Social Media.

I am not one to say that old media is dead, I think it's fading. The Orlando Sentinel is getting smaller and smaller as the months go by and classified sections are becoming non-existent. I still pick up free magazines such as AXIS or the Orlando Weekly and they have a healthy readership and sometimes some good content (sometimes).

Most advertisers that I have encountered are skeptical of the web. They think that if they can't touch it, people can't see it. Yet my biggest rebuttal is when you place a print ad or tv commercial, the user / viewer must do at least these 4 things:
1. See the advertisement
2. Pay attention to it
3. Asses the call to action (if there is one)
4. Perform the call to action (like go to a website, call a number or go to a location)

Most old media has great tracking. They know how many issues they print, the pick up and return rate, number of viewers, etc. However, there is no way to tell how many of those that picked up the paper, looked at your ad.

New Media, however has that tracking and more. I can tell you how many impressions your ad has, how many page views, click through's, the IP address of the clicker/viewer, how they got to the ad and where they went after they saw the ad.

That's a lot of stats and knowledge to know if an ad campaign is working or not. If it's not, we can fix it immediately, no waiting until the next issue or run comes out. We can change graphics, text, landing pages instantly and track those results as well.

What's even better, if it is an ad campaign coupled with a search campaign, you are targeting users who are looking for you. They are trying to find a business that is doing what you are doing.

Now take the steps of a viewer online looking for you (or your competitor):
1. Searches for a topic of interest
2. See most relevant results thanks to the good folks at Google
3. Visit site
4. Signs up, orders or moves on to find what they are looking for

Same amount of steps, but the medium has changed.

Take an ad in the Orlando Sentinel. Great reach in the Central Florida region, no doubts about that. You have an ad for a major retail chain. It's placed in the local section. Page 2. Full page at that. Problem is that the person who bought the paper was looking for last night's box scores, not the local weather or police report. That eye ball has been lost.

Take that same campaign and blog about it. Start getting organic rankings for Orlando department and retail stores, or whatever key phrases you find to be effective. Now you might be getting less distribution, but the eyeballs are targeted and more likely to be buyers.

Back to an advertising campaign. Find websites that are in your niche. You sell baseball equipment in Orlando. Look into blogs, message boards, community sites and such that target local ball players. Look into guest blogging on the Orlando Sentinel sports blog or another community leader for local athletics.

You are geo-targeting your ads and will see better return on your investment.
This is New Media folks. It is very powerful when you play your cards rights and focus your efforts not on the whole, but on the parts that are going to make your business profitable.

Where do you see issues in the New Media vs. Old Media debate? Old Media, how can you adapt and make a comeback (or have you not even left the building yet?)? Looking forward to hearing from you and getting to the route of the problem and the possibilities of the future.

-Greg Rollett

Hustle 2.0

Two big Social Media occurrences have happened in the last few days that have led me to this post. There are countless others everyday that lead to this argument as well, but we’ll highlight 2.

The 2 big events:
1. Hearing Gary Vaynerchuk speak at FOWA Miami '08
2. Mark Zuckerberg making things right with a Q&A session at SXSW following a disappointing interview with Sarah Lacy (I didn’t think the initial interview was that bad)

Why are these 2 events the epitome of “Hustle 2.0?”

photo courtesy of briandewitt

Gary Vaynerchuk, host of WineLibrary.tv is the rock star for the online video generation. Let me tell you why.
1. 5 shows a week in a growing niche
2. Answers every comment and every email that comes through his inbox
3. Promotes his ass off – Brand Ambassador
4. Passionate about his product, his show and his life
5. Thinks, or better yet, knows his product, his life and his show are cool

If you have a brand and are putting yourself online to start a conversation, take part in that conversation. What good are you doing to your company if someone writes a whole hearted response to your post, your video, podcast, etc and you deaden the conversation by being too busy to reply? You are creating an editorial not a conversation.

Gary was onstage on FOWA talking about how he needed the host to kill a few more seconds because he was responding to a few last emails before his talk. That is dedication to his brand and that is “Hustle 2.0.”

photo courtesy of b_d_solis

Mark Zuckerberg on the other hand, is the off again, on again poster boy that shows the positive and negative sides of “Hustle 2.0.” From his lackluster performance on 60 minutes to his handling of the Beacon fiasco, Zuckerberg has not been a fan favorite in public as of late.

This week at SXSW, he was invited to take part in the Keynote, being interviewed by Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek. They have a long history of working together and Lacy is said to have interviewed Mark at the ripe age of 19. The SXSW interview turned into a disaster and twisted into a mob as the crowd was not pleased with the sappy questions and conversational style that Lacy was throwing out. It almost took down the Twit-o-sphere.

In a comeback, Zuckerberg came back the next day with an open Q&A session. Distraction adverted; the blog-o-sphere is at rest once again. He came back on Hustled 2.0 to make things right.

I have 8 main objectives that make up Hustle 2.0.

1. If you ask for participation, participate.
2. You are never too busy to reply to fan mail, questions or concerns. Turn these beginner fan questions into great answers and conversation and you will have a fan for life.
3. Produce content that is true and original to you. Find your niche and become a superstar. Rachael Ray loves cooking and became an international superstar for cooking. Gary Vaynerchuk is defining the way that wine is promoted and has become famous for it. Pete Wentz took Fall Out Boy from a dive bar playing band to one of the biggest bands in the world by blogging and being himself.
4. If you are going to do something, make sure you love what you do. It will make it more fun for you and the viewer will know that you are genuine.
5. Find a face for your company. If it’s not the CEO find someone who can represent your company in the blog world, at conferences, on video, tv interviews, etc. When you think Apple, you think Steve Jobs. When you think Facebook, you think Mark Zuckerberg. When you think of U2, you think of Bono. Find a leader, someone that people feel a connection to. Someone memorable. And then have that person really reach out and talk to people.
6. If you are making great original content, keep pushing it. People will find it. People will talk about it.
7. Be easy to access. Make it easy for me to find you. If you don’t want emails, leave your Twitter account. Leave your Facebook or Myspace profile. Be sure that whatever contact info you do leave, you answer. Responding is the ultimate factor in making Hustle 2.0 work.
8. Network offline. Meet with your Twitter pals, your Facebook friends. Attend conferences, BarCamps, local shows, festivals. Be seen. Nothing replaces personal connection, not Facebook, not Twitter, not IM.

It all boils down to creating great content and interacting with your audience.

Are you ready for Hustle 2.0, are you already there or do you need some guidance?

-Greg Rollett

Using AdWords for Free

Everyone is so hung up on the concept of free. It's the cover story on Wired Magazine. Radiohead might have changed the game with their pay as you go (or free) download model. Trent Reznor also launched his latest effort as a free download (although it was only 9 of the 36 tracks that were offered for free.)

I'm a fan of this model. I think ad supported music has a shot. One of my biggest clients is working to support himself on tour with an ad supported blog. I also think options are key as well and NIN proved that it can be done.

I was actually importing some AdSense on this blog (sorry folks) and I came across a very surprising ad, one that I actually clicked on.

There is a band, Torman Maxt, originally from Ft. Meyers and recently located in LA that is taking the concept of free to a new level. They are using PPC advertising to drive traffic to their site that is giving their music away for free. Granted, I am sure that they are spending pennies per click, but in essence they are spending money to give something away for free.

I tried to contact the band but have gotten no response. Their website is not revolutionary and their social networking presence isn't top notch. This is a curious case study and hopefully I will be able to talk to the band soon to see some of the analytics behind the AdWords move.

I would love to know what everyone thinks of this move and the whole Free model that is going on.

Oh and go download the Torman Maxt CD, it's free. They deserve the plug for their attempt at this model.

Have a great weekend and please open up the comment threads. Could be a great discussion.

-Greg Rollett

Lounge Battle 6 - A Conversation With Madd Illz

I recently had the chance to run into Mad Illz before his performance at Backbooth with Astronautalis to talk about Lounge Battles 6. Madd Illz is a local Orlando hip-hop artist and legendary Battle Rapper who is gearing up to host the 6th installment of Lounge Battles, Florida's longest running hip-hop competition and festival.

The event takes place over 3 days in Downtown Orlando. March 7th at Taste, March 8th at AKA Lounge and March 9th at Backbooth.

The highlight of the weekend is the MC Battle Saturday night for $1,000 cash.

Also on the bill is a performance by local hip-hop sensation Kap, who is releasing his solo debut, 'Over.Rap.Music' at the event.

For more information on Lounge Battles or to pre-buy tickets please visit http://www.myspace.com/loungebattles.

In the video listen to Mad Illz break it down, from the who's, what's, when's and where's.

Gen-Y Bloggers vs. Reality

This is almost a follow up from the post on interviewing Gen-Y candidates last week. I had 3 of my new employees in the conference room and we conducted a beginner’s training for the services Rollett Marketing offers.

After the initial welcome, greetings and introductions I jumped right into it. Problem was that I assumed my Gen-Y counterparts knew about blogging, RSS feeds, Facebook opening up its backend, even basic SEO. How wrong I was.

None had written a blog post before. Only one was on both Myspace and Facebook and they thought RSS was the acronym for “Really (that) sounds stupid.”

Being in the new Brazen Careerist Blogger community, I take for granted the things that I use everyday, from Open Social, to Google controlling my mail, calendar, search, RSS feeds and blogging platform, to opening a new Social Networking account everyday for the last 6 months (not totally true but it sure feels like it).

Then came Twitter. Am I a bad teacher or do folks in the real world just not get it? Heck, come to find out that some Gen-Y bloggers are just getting it. (Welcome to Twitter Meg Roberts)

Sometimes I think I am way ahead of the curve. At FOWA Miami I felt like I was way behind. In talking with friends, colleagues and my new co-workers I am truly finding out that Social Media has really not hit the masses despite constant attention from mainstream media.

Sure we all use Pirate’s vs. Ninja’s and get countless other requests from Facebook every morning, but we have no idea where they came from or that we can create them from our dorm room.

As people become educated or intrigued in Social Media, it is up to us, the pioneers, the daily users and kids who might just know what’s going on to help, teach and explore this medium with other users. I am confident that the 3 people that I am training will be amazed at this new world that is opening up to them. There is such a great advantage to using this technology, not only for networking and playing Scrabulous but for learning about ourselves and taking control over our careers and lifestyle. And heck, if you throw up some AdSense you can make a few bucks in the process.

So, Gen-Y bloggers, what do you think? Are you experiencing some of the same things in your career, your start-up and even from mom? I’d love to find out!

Greg Rollett - Twitter me folks, I love a good laugh