Artist Sp@m to Kill ReverbNation Email Marketing?

Though one email account is not a sufficient tool for diagnosing a trend, I did get a reminder today that many artists are creating sp@m lists, knowingly or not, using ReverbNation's email marketing services.

Here's the deal, people get the clyde(at)prohiphop(dot)com email wherever they find it, for example, off someone else's batch email sp@m that exposes all the sendees' addresses.

So, though I've learned to always say "send all hip hop pr to me at hiphoppress(at)netweed(dot)com" whenever I mention the above email account, I'll still get the clyde@ address added to hip hop newsletters and mailing lists, sometimes even by folks who've read my quite explicit contact instructions.

When that happens I email the sender and ask them to change my mailing list address and use the hiphoppress address since I allow anybody with hip hop pr to add that address to their mailing list.  I've found that if I use the term "address change" in the subject line rather than "please remove", I get a much higher level of compliance.

If they have an unsubscribe link, I also go ahead and unsubscribe.

I used to not unsubscribe right away because some people, even people that seem otherwise clued-in, don't get that I may be getting their news elsewhere, for example, at the hiphoppress address, but I can't be responsible anymore for that kind of cluelessness.

[Side Note: that's particularly annoying when a blogger with RSS feeds feels dissed because you unsubscribed from their unrequested email since you are already tracking them through their feed and don't read any blogs via email.  It ends up making me want to diss them for real for being so foolish.]

In the case of ReverbNation, they say their services are supposed to be used for opt-in email lists only, which immediately eliminates the majority of urban mailing lists from what I've observed.  So I'm being added to artists' ReverbNation email lists in a move that violates both ReverbNation policies and my quite generous offering of an email address for all hip hop pr, hiphoppress(at)netweed(dot)com, that I actually check and clear out every business day.

[Side Note 2: I'm screening more and more emails using the subject line.  Another good reason to learn to write smart subject lines though one could argue that I would have to look at it if it's unclear.  That used to be true but is becoming less so on the daily.]

So why am I picking on ReverbNation's brand when it's their users at fault?  Because a large percentage of the new artist subs I've been automatically subscribed to have come through ReverbNation, which normally would be good news for RN.  But, at this point, they're starting to show up in my bulk folder rather than in my regular email, and that makes me wonder how many people are marking these emails as sp@m.

Since, at least a few years back, it was shown that people were much more likely to mark unsolicited email as sp@m rather than searching for an unsubscribe button, I imagine there are all sorts of folks hitting the sp@m button when they get ReverbNation mailings. 

What's sad is that most of these artists seem to be seriously trying to promote themselves, rather than starting sp@m operations, and ReverbNation looks like a great service, though I haven't taken a serious look under the hood.

So now we have a situation where I'm starting to think "sp@m!?!?" when I see ReverbNation in my inbox and, to be quite frank, the artists' names don't even register.  All they know, if they check and care, is that I've unsubscribed and that the haters seem to be growing in numbers!

I was actually considering using ReverbNations' email services at the time I started seeing all these sp@m subscriptions start coming in that are undermining the service and the brand.  Now I'm just observing to see what happens long term and hoping for the best for ReverbNation cause I think they're trying to offer real services that artists can use productively and that's so much more valuable right now than starting yet another social network focused on music.

Update:
Heard from Jed Carlson at ReverbNation.  He clarified what they're doing to fight sp@m and I'm going to speak with him some more and do a follow-up post.

I partly want to follow-up because it's not good to leave folks hanging with such concerns but also because ReverbNation is one of the companies that's caught my eye of late due to the way they're integrating services.  I'm trying to keep up with this space relatively closely and ReverbNation is definitely on my short list of key companies to watch.

Social Media Marketing: ArtistData, FanDoodle, Beginner's GT MySpace

ArtistData sounds like a great marketing tool:

"ArtistData is a free service that allows artists and managers the ability to post information only once and have it updated across many online destinations simultaneously, including Eventful, Jambase, MySpace, Pollstar, PureVolume, ShowClix, VIRB and recently added Last.fm, Mojam and Musi-cal. ArtistData's synchronization network continues to expand and will soon include AmieStreet, Buzznet, Beta Records, Famecast, indie911 and Hoooka."

FanDoodle offers what HypeBot describes as a "straight forward and artist friendly" service that "enables fans to distribute downloads for artists and labels and get paid for it....Once music has been uploaded, fans place banner code or text links in their emails, websites, MySpace or Facebook pages, blogs, or forums."

In case you're just getting into this social network marketing thing, check out Wired's How-To Wiki: Promote Your Band on MySpace

Wired Wiki via KnowTheMusicBiz.com.

MySpace Still > Facebook for Music Marketing

Couch Sessions points to some of the differences between MySpace and Facebook that suggest that MySpace will remain the leader in music marketing.

In a related perspective, Erick Schonfeld takes a negative view of a possible Facebook music service while considering widgets and Thisis50.com.

Denmark West Interview on BET's Ad Network

Black Web 2.0 has an interview with Denmark West, President of Digital Media, BET Ad Network.

Official Site:
BET Interactive Ad Network

Tele2 Beatboxing Promo: A Marketing Mishap?

Beatbox: Tele2, a project of Swedish telecom Tele2, is an online interactive marketing thingie featuring a beatboxing dog!!!

GRANDGOOD describes it as a marketing mishap.  Guess it depends on the market in question.

Saul Williams, NiggyTardust! & Pricing Option Mistakes

So the press release headline announces Saul Williams' new album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!,  from The FADER Label produced by NIN's Trent Reznor is available for free.  The subtitle offers an additional pay $5 option and those two are your only options though one might interpret these choices as following in the spirit of Radiohead's choose-your-price approach for In Rainbows.

I go to NiggyTardust.com and suddenly I'm faced with a moral dilemma, I can pay $5 and according to the website that states that:

I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music.

If I decide to download it for free that means:

I'm not concerned about that. I just want the music.

Problem.  I don't want to buy this album for $5 at the present time.  It's spoken word or something, right?  I have difficulty listening to that kind of thing and there aren't any samples so I'll pass on that option.

But if I download it for free and take a listen, something I don't do nearly as often as most artists and publicists wish, then I could say something nice about it or avoid the topic of liking it if I'm just feeling supportive.

But the artist and his people would interpret that as lack of support.

You know what?  I'm being really silly.  Why am I sitting here splitting hairs when most people in my position would just go ahead and download it?

Well, I've got some work to do.  Maybe I'll check out what Saul's up to these days another time.

Note:
A lot of people decided to pay more than one might expect for Radiohead's In Rainbows release as a clear show of support.  But I don't recall Radiohead asking for support.  They offered their work with variable pricing and they got the support of the people who cared in the form in which those people wanted to give support.

Seriously, two options with a guilt tripping message?  That's what I'm seeing and it's not a good look.

Discussion Continues Regarding Crank That (Soulja Boy)

Thaddeus Clark digs in to the topic of the popularity of Soulja Boy.

TC makes a good point that no one's actually explained it in previous blog posts and then he manages to not really explain it himself but does return the discussion to the music while apparently discounting the dance craze as an interesting phenomenon.

Sorry but going through a list of things that Crank That has (hook, danceability, etc.) is pretty much the same as saying he succeeded on YouTube by following the same template everybody else is using and then producing a generic list of attributes to explain that success.

If you're going to say it's a hit because it profiles like a hit then you really should be willing to explain why you can't just take a list and get a hit.

TC and RK get into an extended discussion including some other folks in the comments section that's also worth a look.

Back at ProHipHop the discussion in the comments took an academic turn with MIT's Xiaochang Li weighing in.  Plus, Hashim stops in to raise the specter of the Black Swan!!!

Actually, the Black Swan concept is worth considering, i.e., the Crank Dat phenomenon may be an exceptional event from which little can be learned, though I disagree.

I do want to point out that I haven't attempted to explain the phenomenon myself.  I've been discussing methods of researching the phenomenon and pointing to a specific aspect that I felt was discounted in previous posts as well as emphasizing that, yes, it's got to rock to be a hit.  If I've made it look like I've been answering the question, "Why?" rather than the question, "How do we get to why?", then I've been misleading.

On the real, though, if the YouTube dance craze aspect didn't exist, it would just be another big hit and we wouldn't be discussing it.

To Understand Soulja Boy's Success Go Beyond the Web

Oh Word's Rafi Kam makes some good points in critizing both Lynne d Johnson and Xiaochang Li regarding their thoughts on the success of Soulja Boy's online marketing featuring YouTube.

However, in all fairness, Lynne's post is a "look over here and start paying some attention" post while Xiaochang is a straight-up academic.  She'll work through it piece by piece and we can forage for useful bits along the way or gain deeper understanding if the work matures but it's a mistake to expect her to produce anything immediately useful.  That's like hoping to find some ripe tomatoes or fresh flowers when you're still clearing out the rocks from a new garden bed.

Unfortunately, after a promising introduction that successfully paints a clear picture, Rafi doesn't offer much more than don't target 13 year old white girls and there's not much new here for "your average indie musician" who is "just looking to use the technology to get their music [to] an audience".

Honestly, if you just see technology as a distribution medium or a marketing tool, then you're missing what's going on and haven't adjusted to the current media environment.  And I would guess that Rafi would tell you the same thing if he wasn't focusing on other concerns.

As Rafi notes, chartreuse does make some useful points around the targetting of 13 year old white girls, though leaving you to work out the details for yourself unless you want to hire him.

What do I have for you?

I'd say take a much closer look at the dance craze and try to understand what that's about and how that fueled the Crank Dat phenomenon.  Don't just use it to sketch a pretty picture at the beginning before moving to the more comfortable issue of technology.  Find out about dance.  Think about the fact that people often equate dancing with not thinking, with being fully in the moment, with being fully alive.

But also remember Chuck D's lyrics about reaching the bourgeois and rocking the boulevard.

Public Enemy was the best when their beats not only rocked but brought cutting edge sounds into the mix.  And those that still wanted to think had plenty to work with.

If you really want to understand the Soulja Boy phenomenon, you have to go much further than how one works the web to one's marketing advantage.  You'll have to consider actual fans and their actual experience of the music and the place of that music in their actual lives.

And if you really do want to target 13 year old white girls, then hit up Rafi or chartreuse, they seem to know a lot about the topic.

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Hitwise Called Soulja Boy's Success Back in May

Hitwise Called Soulja Boy's Success Back in May

Lynne d Johnson opens up at Black Web 2.0 with the topic of Soulja Boy's web marketing and Hitwise's early call on his success based on web traffic patterns.

Have to be honest, though, I hadn't really picked up on Lynne's huge interest in Souljah Boy's web game but it's communicated strongly and clearly in this case.

She also references an extended post at MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium titled Hustling 2.0: Soulja Boy and the Crank Dat Phenomenon with additional resources.

Blogger Xiaochang Li follows that post with "Meet me at my crib . . .": Reading the official "Crank That" video.

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Souljaboytellem.com: Soulja Boy's Dot Com Marketing

More from Lynne d Johnson:
A Study: Soulja Boy and Web Marketing & Distribution, but Don't Forget Radiohead

Online Marketing & the Kanye West vs. 50 Cent Campaign

FastCompany.com's April Joyner discusses use of the web by both marketers and fans in the Kanye vs. 50 campaign and reveals signs of change in marketing and demographics:
"There's been a change in the past couple of years. New media was the underdeveloped stepchild. Now it's first on the marketing plan," new media specialist Greg Trani, whose company The Room Service Group has worked with 50 Cent, rapper Ghostface Killah, and R&B artist T-Pain, says. "As opposed to the old media, where you pay to play, to get radio spins, the Internet's larger, it casts a larger net, it has many more niches. A blogger doesn't really care how much a song's been on the radio."

In another sign of change:
John Bartleson, vice-president of digital media for Island Def Jam, who worked with West to promote his album, is well aware of such support. "You close your eyes and envision the typical rap fan, and then you see Kanye, and they don't seem to match up. Who are the consumers? Where do they live? My answer is that they live on the Internet."

I spoke with Ms. Joyner earlier today about the launch of Global Grind.  I'll update you when her piece gets posted.

Souljaboytellem.com: Soulja Boy's Dot Com Marketing

Promo for Soulja Boy's Souljaboytellem.com Due Oct. 2nd

Radio Kills loves the marketing approach for Souljaboytellem.com, Soulja Boy's upcoming debut album [Patty]:
Props to Interscope for living on the edge and naming his actual physical album souljaboytellem.com. Hats off to interscope for making a ballsy move and placing there bets on his official website. They bypassed pushing the single on radio and went straight for where it counts these days. The Internet!

They just did a major overhaul on his official site (www.souljaboytellem.com) and made a mini myspace to embrace Soulja's nationwide Superman sensation. Type in Soulja Boy in You Tube – you'll know what I mean. Fans up the yin yang are doing the Superman dance to his single "Crank That".

Radio Kills hates the marketing approach [Jay]:
This kind of short-sided marketing is exactly what has put record label's like Interscope in disarray...

Naming your CD after your website is blatant marketing in the face of the consumer. Its so obvious its repulsive. People want to be marketed to but they do not want to feel like they are being marketed to...Naming a cd after a website lets the listener know the artist is purely commercial, in a consumers mind the "artist" has sold out completely therefore loosing all credibility. There is no future for this artist past me writing about how sad this effort is.

ProHipHop's Quick Take:
It's a lame title for an album but it won't really hurt them when all is said and done.  Soulja Boy's online focus will pay off both in short term sales and in long term presence and the title will promote the official site.  I just don't think fans of this kind of music are going to stress on the dot com approach.

And the dance craze is as good as it gets for marketng purposes.

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Top Singles: Crank That (Soulja Boy) & Kanye West's Stronger

ReyShizz The Student: Self Promotion w/A Video Blog

ReyShizz The Student is a young rapper using a video blog format to both develop and promote his music.

What especially interests me here is the fact that though his work is still developing, ReyShizz already has a sophisticated range of web tools available that are easy to access with some nice Web 2.0 features.

The videos are hosted and streamed via Revver, offering YouTube type support and portability with the added potential for revenue.  Copyright issues are clarified via Creative Commons, donations via PayPal and a community feature via MyBlogLog.

ReyShizz is also offering a free mixtape for download with strong encouragement to provide feedback and to register for future updates.

That's a pretty impressive array of tools with some smart choices but nothing out of the reach of most folks these days.  It's kind of amazing when you step back and look at it in relationship to the previous limits on emerging artists' self promotion even as recently as the 90s.

Official YouTube Channels Promoting New Albums: Timbaland, El-P, Rich Boy, Linkin Park, NYOIL

More and more artists have official channels on YouTube and the following five are all promoting new or upcoming albums.

Timbaland & Nelly Furtado on The Today Show

Timbaland has been dropping a well-selected assortment of videos in support of the upcoming release of Timbaland Presents Shock Value.  It must be nice to be able to pop some tv footage up on one's YouTube channel.

El-P f/Trent Reznor - Flyentology

El-P's video promos typically drop on the audibletreats channel as he promotes his new album I'll Sleep When You're Dead.

Rich Boy - Boy Looka Here

Rich Boy is promoting the second single off his self-titled top 10 album.  Note the ringtone and homepage cross-promotions in the video subtitles.

I really like this single:
"big cake, big shrimp on a big plate"

Trailer for Linkin Park's LPTV 2007

Linkin Park is doing a documentary series called LPTV as they record their next album and do all the other stuff they do.

NYOIL Live Clip

NYOIL recently posted this live clip from SOB's in preparation for the April 10th release of HoodTREASON.

ProHipHop has the beginnings of a decent selection of YouTube hip hop subscriptions.  Please connect with me at YouTube with your recommendations.

El-P's Smithereens Video to Premier at NYTimes.com!!!

El-P's Smithereens Trailer

A trailer for a music video?  That seemed really pretentious and off the mark when I saw it until I found that it's a trailer for the video''s premier at NYTimes.com.  On the homepage?

This feels like big news to me for independent hip hop.  In fact, Def Jux is one of the Hip Hop Signs of LIfe about which I'll be posting next week.

Congratulations to whoever put this together!

Harlem Hip-Hop Tours Knows Their Clientele

After checking out the news about Harlem Hip-Hop Tours new premium tours, I went to their website and found it really satisfying to see a company that knows its customers so well. Obviously, it would be hard to miss if one got a large number of Japanese tourists, but the language options make a satisfyingly clear statement about their clientele in a time when so many still guess at who they serve.

Free Download Resulted In Strong Press For Talib Kweli & Madlib's Collab Liberation

Graphic Included in Free Promo Download for Liberation

I'm wishing I'd written about the free download offer for Talib Kweli and Madlib's Liberation album when it was actually available but it's also good to look back at the promotion and some of the results.  Stones Throw Records offered the album for free download for the first week of January only at Rappcats.

Unlike Roosevelt Franklin's free giveaway of Bare Food, this one week release offered a zipped download of music and graphics as a promo with a possible cd to follow.

.PDF'd CD Cover for Liberation

What was particularly cool to me, in addition to the MP3s, was the fact that the download includes cd cover art in a .PDF that can be printed out and used in a cd case.  I wouldn't do that but I loved the gesture and other people certainly would.

This free release resulted in coverage and reviews in such media outlets as The Village Voice, Pitchfork, MP3.com, Fader and in what seems to be a NY Times podcast [as linked from Madlib's page at Stones Throw].  In addition, a search on Icerocket for madlib + liberation currently brings up numerous posts about the release.

Assuming that all those MP3s floating around won't undermine sales of the CD, which may be different if it comes out, this free MP3s and graphics release served as a truly productive early preview and announcement.

Update and Correction:
It looks like this project was not intended as an album but was a promotional release:
"This 9-track collab was a free download for the first week of 2007. Stay tuned for possible release."

On the speculative tip, perhaps it was intended for promotional purposes but got such a positive response that they're considering doing something more with it.

Thanks to DJ Miratek for helping clarify.

Chopped & Screwed Albums Usually Not Identified At Amazon

While putting together this week's new hip hop releases report I've run into numerous chopped & screwed versions of albums that it looks like Amazon is carrying, some of which I would normally list, but that aren't identified as chopped & screwed versions.  While not getting listed here won't destroy anyone's career, it also means that fans that shop on Amazon won't have a clue that there's a chopped & screwed version available through that outlet.

Since chopped & screwed versions of albums don't usually get much of a marketing push, you'd think folks would want to take advantage of simple free ways to increase their visibility that go beyond getting filed in the cd bin next to the unchopped version.  It's so consistent that I think it may have something to do with how Amazon deals with the item registration process but it's been going on so long that it's ultimately a failure on the part of record labels.  Basically, it looks like a whole lot of labels aren't checking their Amazon listings.

That's also too bad because there's an increasingly broad range of older albums that are being chopped & screwed and I don't see them getting much, if any, attention.  On the other hand, labels may be treating chopped & screwed versions as the equivalent of mixtapes, good only for some cheap publicity and quick returns with minimal outlay.

Text 100 Tech PR Firm Opens Office In Second Life

Text 100 Meeting in Amphitheater

For those of you interested in marketing in online worlds, Sam Whitmore has a pretty open discussion with CEO Aedhmar Hynes about Text 100's efforts to set up shop in Second Life by being and working there on a regular basis.  Since Text 100, a "global tech PR agency", has many offices worldwide, they are organizing meetings at their Second Life office.

What's nice about this discussion is that it reveals an executive being open about her own learning rather than claiming to understand all this already because she "gets it".

Text 100 Top Level Interior

Text 100 has more information available.

I don't think I've mentioned this before but Federated Media also has a "virtual ad-sales office" in Second Life that they opened a few months back.

Official site: Second Life

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Marketing Music In Second Life: SoundScape, Chamillionaire, Talib Kweli

Marketing Music In Second Life: SoundScape, Chamillionaire, Talib Kweli

Second Life, an online world inspired, in part, by Neal Stephenson's conception of the Metaverse in Snow Crash, is becoming a venue for musicians to promote themselves via performances and interactions with fans and potential fans.  I hadn't realized rappers were getting in on the action but, according to this Wired article by Robert Andrews, Chamillionaire has already put in an appearance and Talib Kweli has one planned.

Apparently Talib Kweli has already appeared in Second Life via an inworld feed of an offline awards show that appears to have been sparsely attended by Second Life inhabitants:

Photo courtesy Ian A. Young

[Mr. Young has added some background information in the comments that clarify that the real action was going on in Second Life's Teen Grid.]

3pointD.com considered the implications of Universal Motown Records Group's creation of SoundScape as a Second Life venue for their artists prior to the late June performance of Chamillionaire and took a look at the space created by InWorld Studios.

InWorld Studios: Chamillionaire at SoundScape in Second Life

MTV has more on the creation of SoundScape featuring InWorld's Jordan Bigel aka Dire Lobo.

Snakes on a Plane Campaign May Be More Interesting Than The Movie

Two areas I try to follow for marketing developments relevant to ProHipHop are film and gaming.  Though I'm trying not to post too often on non hip hop related endeavors, like everyone else interested in online marketing, the saga of Snakes on a Plane has caught my attention.

I'm mentioning it now primarily to refer to one of the more surprising development revealed in these excerpts from a press release:

Landmark Merchandise Licensing Agreement Between New Line Cinema and CafePress.com Allows Fans to Design and Sell Merchandise Inspired by the Much Anticipated Film Snakes on a Plane

FOSTER CITY, Calif., Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- CafePress.com and New Line Cinema announce the launch of a partnership allowing fans the opportunity to create merchandise inspired by the film Snakes on a Plane. Creating a unique program in the true 'citizen' spirit of Snakes on a Plane, New Line is partnering with fans to permit them to become official licensees of Snakes merchandise. An interactive promotion with CafePress.com will permit their network of over 2.9 million members to unleash their creativity to transform Snakes artwork and ideas into unique gifts and share in the revenue stream. This completely unique approach to fan licensing has never previously been embraced by any motion picture studio.

What particularly caught my attention was the concept of "partnering with fans to permit them to become official licensees of Snakes merchandise".  It's a rather startling development in licensing and takes a variety of emergent threads and ties them together quite nicely.  From what I can tell, CafePress.com shopkeepers are still making their tiny cut while the promotion will benefit both CafePress.com and the makers of Snakes on a Plane.

One of the things that's especially important is that this approach allows content owners to create a legal context for fan created content while monetizing that activity in a reasonably non-restrictive manner.

By utilizing CafePress.com, they can also extend the process to folks that would never get around to making a bootleg t-shirt but might consider buying one if the opportunity arose as well as letting affiliates like me run ads that link to Snakes on a Plane products.  It's really one of the smarter moves I've seen of late.

However, checking the CafePress.com site, I was surprised to not initially find anything on the home page though a search for "snakes on a plane" took me to the "Portal" but with one of those long nutty database addresses that caused me to turn to Google for the Snakes on a Plane Portal url.  Rechecking the home page I finally saw the Portal ad in rotation with other ads so it was quite easy to miss.

Since there are already 1,320 designs in the Portal, I assume this has been set up long enough to include the domain in the press release, but apparently I've got a lot of funny ideas about such things since they simply included the CafePress.com homepage.  Let's just say that sending journalists to a home page where they may not necessarily notice a rotating ad sounds like an odd lapse for a campaign that has worked the Internet to filth.

Unfortunately, I don't have time for a roundup of all the folks writing about this campaign, but did find that the Wikipedia entry seems to reflect the involvement of Snakes on a Plane marketing entities.  Whatever the deal is there, the entry goes into quite a bit of detail about the marketing campaign.

Chris Thilk at Movie Marketing Madness also takes an extensive look at the campaign and remarks that among his "favorite decisions by New Line" was their decision to work with CafePress.com.

I'm really struck by the fact that the movie itself doesn't sound nearly as interesting as the campaign and that the campaign itself suggests interesting artistic possibilities for marketing products that don't yet exist.

By the way, saying the campaign may be more interesting than the movie is not an insult, by any means.  I mean, would you go to a movie called Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson if everybody kept telling you it was interesting?  I'd be looking for funny, creepy, scary, lightweight, entertaining, etc.

Indie Rocker Compares Print Versus Online Coverage

AdPulp excerpts the same parts I would have excerpted from an interview with indie rocker John Vanderslice that includes a comparison of getting coverage in print versus online, for example:
You know, it's weird, if someone posts something on Metafilter, I look on my website and all of a sudden, we're getting like 25,000 unique visitors in one day, you know. And we got a review on Pixel Revolt in Rolling Stone. And the day that that review came out, there was no bump whatsoever. And that was a good review. And we got no bump in traffic on the website. That's insane. . . After that I was like, "f*ck paying a publicist to work your record, lets just email all the bloggers and send them a record or some MP3's."

While I do think the Internet makes it possible for an artist to be much more easily involved in their own marketing, I think good publicists are including the Internet in their mix of activities. I also think that a review in Rolling Stone can be useful beyond traffic to one's website but it does raise the issue that print media needs to prove its ROI not only to advertisers but also to the artists themselves.

Of course, some artists are going to do much better reaching out online than in print, in which case, online is definitely the way to go, whether the artist, the publicist/marketing agency or, ideally, a combination handle the matter.

A Geek On Steve Stoute's Online Self-Marketing

There's an odd gap I'm encountering between many successful folks in hip hop and their online marketing strategies.  Actually, I've encountered the gap in other fields as well, so I don't think it's unique to hip hop.  But discovering how difficult it is to find a website for Steve Stoute's company Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging seemed especially strange to me.

Of course, I regular encounter comments from Mr. Stoute about his activities in media outlets like The New York Times and other major sources.  Yet, I'd never been able to find a website or any information from the company itself online.  But I did not have a strong need for the information and never pursued it.

Recently a representative of American Apparel wrote me hoping to get contact information for Stoute's company.  Although I couldn't help him, he made some guesses at a possible domain and came up with translationmarketing.com.  Later, a management representative for country musician Tim McGraw also contacted me seeking this information and so I passed on the website.

In the last couple of days I've contacted a couple of folks with Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging and eventually got the response from Hannah, apparently Stoute's assistant who would not give her last name, that the site was under construction and would launch fully at the end of September and that their business was mostly word of mouth.

I suppose I could have pushed to talk to the big guy but I guess I was just thrown off by the fact that I was corresponding with and talking to marketing people who didn't seem to understand what I was asking them when bringing up the issue of not being able to find their company's website or any contact information online.

Peep the site, there's nothing that would allow you to find the company via a websearch.  Actually, part of the problem may be that the company may have had a different name in the past that's still used on the site.  The site itself is headed "TRANSLATION MARKETING" and the relevant metatags follow:
meta name="description" content="Translation is a marketing and brand imaging firm that ignites contagious behavior for Client brands."
meta name="keywords" content="Translation Marketing, Steve Stoute, Entertainment Marketing, Branded Entertainment, Consulting, Advertising, Marketing, S. Carter, Harajuku Lovers, Translation, RBK"

But the current name of the company, as I understand it from press accounts, is Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging which is only revealed in a graphic image, i.e. search engines won't pick it up, especially with the absence of an alt tag.  And, since there clearly is no linking strategy for the site, the use of metatags is pretty useless because one gets other sites, including mine, when searching for terms directly related to the company.

Prior to being contacted by folks representing American Apparel and Tim McGraw, I would have assumed that such people had ways of finding somebody like Steve Stoute.  But I guess that's not the case.  You know, it really is strange to see such a well known marketer without an Internet self-marketing strategy.  As one person wrote me, "who's ever heard of a marketing firm you can't find?"