Music industry marketing teams embrace online participatory culture

So a topic that comes up in a lot of my Communication courses is that of how the entertainment industry is adapting to today’s “changing media landscape and new media technologies,” by which they mean of course consumers’ power to share music and video and download entertainment illegally free of charge. The entertainment industry has been doing everything they can make up for lost profits as a result of illegal file sharing by hitting every clueless (and not so clueless) thirteen-year-old with an internet connection with a lawsuit that their parents will have to pay for and undoubtedly suffer the ramifications of.

BUT, something savvy advertising and marketing teams are picking up on is the power of social media and online participatory culture to capture online fan bases and fan communities. Fans love nothing more than to express whatever it is they’re interested in, be it a particular band or TV show or the latest vampire franchise. And online fans in particular are by (unofficial, urban dictionary) definition, overly enthusiastic, moderately creative geeks who use their free time to consume and contribute to the content of online fan communities. So what better way to tap into this market than through the use of online participatory culture?

Blogger Alphonse Ha writes about how artists’ marketing teams should capitalize on social media sites like YouTube to increase exposure, connect with fans, and promote live concert. For example, he encourages music artists to:

Set up a contest! Encourage your audience to submit their best cover over Youtube, supply them with the instrumental. Ask visitors to vote for the best cover and have the winner win tickets to his next show with a VIP pass, an autographed CD whatever.  How many of these cover artists’ friends do you think will go to the website and support their friends?  The bigger the exposure, the more chances these visitors will want to attend Jason’s next show in town.
 [Here Ha embeds a popular fan cover of a Jason Mraz song posted on YouTube.] Notice the great annotations.  Unless the marketing team is behind it, you have free advertising.  The fan is a free postergirl and encouraging viewers to buy the album.  How great is that?  Capitalize on it!  The video has been viewed over a million times.

Me being a fan of 2NE1, I’m here to gush about how that’s exactly what they (or their big boss label YG Entertainment) did. 2NE1 has been using new social media to connect directly with their fans, both domestic and abroad. YG makes all of 2NE1’s music videos, television and concert appearances readily accessible to fans free of charge on YouTube. All three seasons of the reality television show ‘2NE1 TV’ that have aired on the South Korean music channel M-Net are available for free viewing on Youtube, subtitled for international fans.

As you can see, this is especially important for international fans—as 2NE1 is a South Korean band, and while they’re gaining huge success in Korea and increasingly throughout the rest of Asia, they have had almost no representation in the mainstream music scenes in the U.S. (Although in Europe consumers of mainstream music are already used to listening to songs with lyrics in a foreign language (with 75% of their mainstream music coming from the U.S., and the rest from European countries), so K-pop is even starting to pick up over there).

2NE1 and YG are also encouraging online participatory culture on these social media sites, and engaging fans directly by using, to use Ha’s term, ‘social media marketing’: YG and 2NE1 have hosted song and dance cover competitions promoted on YouTube, where fans upload their own user-generated videos for the chance to win tickets and backstage passes to 2NE1’s first live solo concert. Korean music labels are also developing a reputation for being more lenient on copyright infringement laws than their music industry conglomerate counterparts, which fans appreciate and creates fan loyalty, so that when they do put their merchandise on sale, fans will readily purchase it.