Music Business and Trend Mongering

There is no other way to learn

Mike,

This video got me thinking as to how well YouTube can be used for marketing purposes today. Chicago band The Fold recently made a parody titled “Every Band in the USA”. This is, of course, making fun of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA.” If you haven’t heard about it, the video created a big buzz and The Fold are now being sued. What was interesting to me is that The Fold then continued on to use YouTube to communicate to their fans in a comical way what was happening to them. They made a new no-budget video that made fun of the entire lawsuit.

Let’s look at another YouTube case. Back in 2006, OK Go became video stars when they released a video of them doing a choreographed treadmill routine to one of their songs. It was a huge success. Just recently, their new videos were released on YouTube but this time embedding was disabled so fans were limited to watching them only on YouTube. There was a big outcry and OK Go apologized for everything and basically blamed it on the record label trying to keep a close handle on their music and videos. I think the record label is blowing a huge opportunity here. Let’s talk about Facebook alone. Facebook users can share their favorite videos and other Facebook users can watch those videos right on the page (if embedding is enabled). With embedding disabled, this is not possible. It is doubtful that many people would take the extra step and click on the link to be redirected to YouTube. At a time when direct communication with fans is very important, it seems that the record company is kind of squashing that with this move.

How well do you think YouTube can be used for marketing? On one hand, I think it has a lot of potential. But on the other, I feel that if a band becomes a hit on YouTube, they may not be ready to handle all those extra fans they may receive because of it.

Sweet treat! This is indeed a treasure to be shared. Thanks — I’ll be passing this around.