Need To Build Your Audience, But Not Sure How?

Modern day system disruptor and the real life Tony Stark, Elon Musk doesn't understand the word, no.

Success can be measured in a variety of ways. Do you have money in your pocket? Are you ultimately enjoying what you do or best of all? Are you creating new ideas and content instead of hacking up other folk's concepts, to call your own? 

We tend to think that if you challenge the norm and push forward with new ideas, you will be rewarded for the long haul. It may not be monetarily, or it might not happen for quite a few years, but putting skin in the game is the key to survival. I was told once that if you can last 10 years in the punk rock game, then you will have a name for yourself. This is partially true and holds the most weight by simply sticking to your guns. It takes more than just time to achieve solid results, you also need to add know how to your never adding stack of tools. 

There was a cool article that just popped into our inbox from an email blast about a write up in the Huffington Post about push and pull marketing. Never heard of this jargon? Well, surely you have experienced it and not ever known what was going on. Read the article below and think on new ways to capitalize on opportunity. The content creators will always rise above.

Check out original article over at HuffingtonPost.com 




"A common argument in the digital music era involves whether the Internet has empowered artists to control their own destiny. Now more than ever, there are incredible opportunities for artists to distribute their original work directly to their fans, with the goal of acquiring new fans and taking their act global. However, piracy has made it difficult for artists to sell their music, and the vast sea of young and buzzed-about artists has made it even harder to break through the noise so live performances are more important than ever for artists to make a living.

So how do musicians reach audiences, and where are they? Long gone are the days when music fans would pick up a copy of Time Out or City Guide to see who is playing near them that weekend. We know fans are shifting to online services like Spotify and Pandora to stream and listen to music, but the main question is how to engage them and alert them when artists are on tour?

To begin, it's essential to understand the two basic forms of music marketing: Push Marketing and Pull Marketing.

1. Push marketing requires you to create demand by actively distributing your music and events. Push marketing helps musicians both new and established rise above the fray, whether for recorded music or for tour dates.
2. Pull marketing effectively pulls fans to your website or band page who may already be looking for new music and hoping to "discover" you. Pull takes advantage of pre-existing market demand.

Fortunately, musicians are beginning to control the means of distribution through the Web, mobile and social networks allowing them to market directly to fans relatively cheaply and easily. And concertgoers are responding, preferring direct communication from artists where information is "pushed" to them rather than searching it out themselves. Given that social media provides a layer of data and analytics about fans like location and musical preference, artists can target their fan base as they never have in the past. This solves a critical issue in music marketing -- your most dedicated customers need you to find them, not the other way around. 

It's important to note that what we call music "discovery" is actually a passive activity for consumers. Streaming music sites like iHeartRadio and Songza are great examples of this, since listeners simply click on a station and let the service do the rest -- providing hours of endless curated entertainment. The same way the discovery of recorded music is a passive activity, so too is the discovery of live events.

In the fall of 2012, Bandsintown commissioned a study of American concertgoers to better understand what brings people out to shows and how to reach them. The results determined that music fans prefer to receive "push" notifications, such as Facebook posts and email blasts about upcoming shows, rather than "pull" notifications from artist or event websites. More than 80 percent of music fans surveyed said that Facebook posts and email blasts inspire them to purchase concert tickets, compared to more traditional outlets like magazines, newspapers, or even blogs. The survey also found that the majority of all fans buy concert tickets in advance when notified -- about 75 percent of the time -- because they don't want to risk missing the show. That's guaranteed revenue since artist's most dedicated fans have paid up front, and there are still countless artists in and out of the mainstream that are ignoring this tactic.

Musicians typically believe that because push marketing requires an investment of their time it will get in the way of what they love most -- make great music. It's true that with today's virtually unlimited choice of music, interacting with fans is now a part of the job if you want to be successful. However, there are inexpensive online tools available -- from Mobile Roadie and Bandsintown to Sonic Notify -- that effectively utilize social networks and automate the push marketing process, freeing up valuable time for other important things.

So while there has been a hazy cloud hanging over artists, managers and labels relating to how digital music and the Internet affect their sales and bottom lines, the opportunity provided by push marketing remains an untapped well for a wide swath of artists, from no-name garage bands to arena headliners. The bands are there, the fans are there, and the technology is there -- it's time that the dots are connected in a way that ensures success and exposure for artists of all stripes, while ensuring that fans are more plugged in and aware than they've ever been before."

Tough Chicks From Chinese Propaganda Posters

Being a dictator has its privileges especially when it comes to having artwork or propaganda created in your honor. Leave it up to General Mao Zedong for being a believer in the power of a strong woman. These propaganda posters are damn cool and what could be better than women throwing grenades while looking like pirates out to sea or shooting an Ak-47 on horseback. Please, you strong and proud American women, forget about the Kardashian's, fashion and whatever other girly outlet you desire, we need more femme fatales. Yall should be practicing throwing hand grenades, racing motorcycles or shooting from horseback. These skills are much more in demand and to be honest far hotter.

We found these images over on DarkRoastedBlend.com

What could be hotter than a woman on a horse with an Ak-47

Women racing motorcycle, gasp, without a helmet

Women charging into the sea

Woman firing a bazooka and looking hot while doing so

Who knew that Chinese female pirates had hand grenades, Awesome!

  
More info on General Mao Zedong from Wikipedia

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung About this sound listen (help·info), and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion,[1] and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's KMT in the Chinese Civil War. Mao established political and military control over most of the territory formerly contained within the Chinese Empire and launched a Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries. He sent the Communist People's Liberation Army into Xinjiang and Tibet but was unable to oust the remnants of the Nationalist Party from Taiwan. He enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes.[2][3] The Communist Party's final victory had come after decades of turmoil in China, which had included Great Depression, a brutal invasion by Japan and a protracted civil war. Mao's Communist Party ultimately achieved a measure of stability in China, though Mao's efforts to close China to trade and market-commerce, and eradicate traditional Chinese culture, have been largely rejected by his successors. Mao styled himself "The Great Helmsman" and supporters contend that he was responsible for some positive changes which came to China during his three decade rule: these included doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy.[4] A prodigious personality cult was built up around Mao, and community dissent was not permitted. His Communist Party still rules in mainland China, retains control of media and education there and officially celebrates his legacy. As a result of such factors Mao is still officially held in high regard by many Chinese as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary,[5] while anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.

In foreign policy, Mao initially sought to align China with the Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union - though the Communist nations diverged after Stalin's death and towards the end of his rule China began to open to trade with the West. Elsewhere, Mao sent Chinese forces to war against the United Nations in the Korean War and saved the North Korean regime of Kim Il-sung and, despite financial woes in China, financed and supported Communist insurgencies across Asia - in Burma, Cambodia and elsewhere.

Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious legacy that is subject to continuing revision and fierce debate. Nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are often considered catastrophic failures. Mao encouraged population growth and China's population almost doubled during the period of his leadership[6] (from around 550 to over 900 million),[3][4] his rule from 1949 to 1976 is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people.[7][8] Severe starvation during the Great Chinese Famine, mass suicide as a result of the Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns, and political persecution during both the Anti-Rightist Movement and struggle sessions all resulted from these programs. His campaigns and their varying disastrous consequences are further blamed for damaging Chinese culture and society, as historical relics were destroyed and religious sites were ransacked.

While Mao's stated goals of combating bureaucracy, encouraging popular participation, and stressing China’s self-reliance are generally seen as laudable—and the rapid industrialization that began during Mao's reign is credited for laying a foundation for China’s development in the late 20th century—the harsh methods he used to pursue them, including torture and executions, have been widely rebuked as being ruthless and self-defeating.[3] Mao is still regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history,[9] and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time magazine.[10

Andy Warhol propaganda "pop" art poster of Mao Zedong