Audio Futures
By Ed Shane
I was pleased to
have been in the audience at researcher Mark
Ramsey’s invitation-only “Hivio” conference the
first week of June. Ramsey calls it an “Audio
Future Festival”; however, most of the
information relates to today as well as to the
future (whenever that is).
If there was a
theme to Hivio, it came during opening remarks:
“Don’t fall in love with distribution. Fall in
love with content.” Distribution channels will
morph. Content is what people want, regardless
of how they receive it.
Mark also urged
content developers to “Go big or go home.” His
recommendation for content – actually, it’s more
a mantra: “Big, Unique, Meaningful, Star-filled
Things, Everywhere.”
“Big” reflects
what movie companies do – putting sizeable
investment in a smaller number of assets.
“Everywhere” reinforces the distribution remark:
Put your content where the content consumer will
find it.
Talent Search
Internet phenom
Andrea Russett, whose YouTube views total 50
million–plus, was approached by radio’s Phil
Becker of L&L Broadcasting to deliver her huge
fan base to his station when he ran the Oasis
Group in Ft. Wayne. Thanks to him, Andrea’s
fame spread to other stations, then reality TV
came calling, and Andrea moved to Los Angeles.
The recommendation is to use YouTube to find
emerging talent for local stations.
Many musicians
have found YouTube fertile territory to help
listeners discover new music.
To me, Andrea’s
appearance underscored the large number of
sub-cultures that lurk below the surface of
mainstream media. For example, DigiTour and
DigiFest create meeting places for “YouTubers.”
A recent New York area DigiFest attracted 12,500
people. Becker joked, “I’ve seen fewer people
than that at a Jason Derulo concert!”
Andrea began her
YouTube postings at age 15 and she’s 18 now.
Cross-Platform
A high point of
Hivio was Robert Rose of the Content Marketing
Institute, which stages trade shows for content
creators. He outlined the importance of
cross-platform marketing and pointed out that
several organizations are creating content
factories to promote their brands:
The Wall
Street Journal produces videos for their
advertisers and acts as an in-house agency
(competing with agencies that buy the paper).
Coca Cola has a
content division called “Content 20/20.”
Kraft took their
free Food magazine to a subscription
model and now people pay for information that
once was free. (“More cume than the Food
Network,” Rose said.)
Red Bull has
concert and event marketing arms plus video
production. (“A marketing company that happens
to produce an energy drink.”)
Rose has a test
for content: “How are we delighting them?”
Facebook
Jerry Rocco of 22
Digital feels that Facebook is more important
than a Web presence, in spite of recent changes
in Facebook’s newsfeed policies. Programs on
the CW network, for example, bypass their own
websites in favor of direct engagement via
social networks while their shows are on the
air. (TV shows are a different breed, of
course; however, the need for “engagement” is
not specific to any medium and involves us all.)
Mark Middo, a
“Growth Hacker” from Australia, feels that it’s
not about how many customers we get to our
Facebook page. Rather, it’s how many additional
connections each customer brings.
In his words,
“Shares make the sharer look better” among their
peers.
Middo has a
perspective on “local.” To him it means a
“target group,” not a geographic group. People
of like interests are “local.” So his
priorities are (1) local, (2) mobile, and (3)
social (using social media).
Both Rocco and
Middo are in favor of paid positions on the
newsfeed. “Sharing is not contagious,” Middo
said, meaning you have to create a reason to
share.
More
Emma Coats, a
former Pixar story developer, stressed the
importance of story telling, a point reinforced
by several presenters. What’s the most
important element of a story? “The end,” she
said.
A Pandora sales
rep said that apps are more engaging with audio,
even audio with no graphics. This should be
encouraging to artists.
There’s
streaming video of the conference (you’ll notice
buffering issues) at
http://hivio.com Registration is required,
but they only ask for name and email.
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Ed Shane is publisher of
Best In Texas Magazine and the Texas Music Chart |
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