I suppose generating BUZZ has, up to now, been thought of as a one way street - you get people to be excited about what your doing. But what if it was also the other way around? What if your FANS and sympathetic others, interested in your BRAND, were calling the shots? Would you still idolize someone when you know what they had for breakfast this morning?
A recent New York Times article had an intriguing title: Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog which track how the dynamics of being well known cuts both ways - the artist as manager of his or her fans, who also manage them. It's old hat to me because my wife has been following Clay Aiken for 4 years and he's very much a model for an artist created by his fan base. The record labels haven't gotten it right yet, often trying to co-opt and cross-promote artists who literally are in it for their fans.
I first heard about the Times article from FutureLab - who suggests the artist - fan - relationship is going to continue to evolve:
"...There will be further stages in the evolution of artist-fan relationships, and the chances are that they some of the most interesting developments will be led by the artists with what you might call 'human scale' fan-bases — that is, small enough to be able to treat fans like people instead of numbers. "
To me, that means "quality" over "quantity" and that one artist does not need 60 million fans - maybe they just need a couple of thousand fans - and one artist can interact with that many fans.
Interesting and very true. My girlfriend is a clay fan too, and there is a very different relationship with artists that communicate through blogs and those that allow fans to use the message boards as a way to expand that, than those that rely on radio and more conventional ways. .
Clay uses the fans Cellcerting and "clack" to become accessible to all as a tool , no matter where they are in the world. He has a lot of fans overseas for an artist who has never been promoted there or even set foot outside the US and Canada to preform in any copacity. He seems to be able to use it as an alternative to the fact that he is not supported to radio by his label, youtube and video sharing sites have been as an improtant marketing tool for him in his current labal situation.
The same would be true for those artists that communicate through blogs to their fans. It has a huge market reach, and it's how the artist will need to communicate to their fans in the future, but as you say less fans to communicate with can make things more personal.
Posted by: justin | May 15, 2007 2:16 PM | Permalink to Comment