This was the 2nd year I’d heard Gary Vaynerchuk speak at SXSW and he brought the house down again. I filmed the keynote (broken down into 4 parts) and posted them all to YouTube. The quality also gets better as it goes on. Part 1 is below, and links to the additional sections are below that.
I’ve been trying to focus all my attention lately on producing not only the best possible record I can but also a good marketing strategy for it. I remain convinced that video, audio and ‘making-of’ content is a route that can really help your audience bind with your project.
That being said, I’ve been keeping a video blog on the making of The Flood here – tons of videos, text and photos later I’m hoping that idea pays off. I’ll be releasing the new record on Feb 26th, 2011 with a show that I’m hoping is going to be the hottest ticket in town. But beyond that, I’ve still got an amazing amount of video / audio and other thoughts to share to help get the word out and promote the record.
But what remains to be seen is if having all this content will really make a difference in terms of awareness, sharing of content, and ultimately listeners and sales. I don’t know. One lesson I have seen is that there does appear to be a diminishing return the more videos I put out via social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Though this isn’t universally true – some videos seem to hit harder than others, but I’m wondering if it’s more timing than content. But I have to ask if I’ve know if that’s because I’ve started to promote the project too early, if people are losing interest or if it’s a reflection of the content. Hopefully it’s not a reflection of the songs (which I’ve been doing a good job of keeping under wraps).
Next week will be the start of the bigger announcements for the project, and I’ll be tracking metrics a bit more carefully to see what works, what doesn’t, and ultimately if it impacts interest in the release. There will be a fire hose of content coming and I have to wonder – is there a point when you can put out too much content? I’ll keep you posted.
And of course I’ll be letting you all know how you can pre-order a copy of The Flood and get all sorts of goodies with it.
This past week I had the chance to sit down with Rick Short, director of Marketing / Communications at Indium Corp. Rick has been blogging and using social media to help Indium build contacts and grow its business well before social was on the map. I’ve got the full videos over at the Romanelli Communications blog.
The conversation was so good, I had to break it up into parts. Really great points, especially for peeps whose business is B2B. You can also connect with Rick by visiting his blog or following him on Twitter.
