Speaking of viral videos and online song sharing, having a Bandcamp page and other vehicles that allow you, your team, fans and casual listeners to share your material on various social media is amazing and instrumental in giving the sense or feeling of a “happening” or building buzz surrounding your project for an individual user. The only thing is it has to be more than you, 
your manager, and/or your P.R. consultant sharing these links on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter on high rotation; it needs to come from fans or at the very least all of your friends, family, and team members so that it doesn’t seem so obvious that the only buzz being created is being generated by you or the same couple of folks. That’s not hot. If after say a week or two of repeatedly sharing the same song or video link over and over in the same Facebook groups over and over to the same people in that group, you aren’t creating new impressions or impact, you’re preaching to a choir that, if they haven’t been converted after a couple of weeks of seeing you post the exact same cuts repeatedly, they aren’t going to be. Move on. It’s not about avoiding overexposure (unless you’re Beyonce or Kim Kardashian there is no such thing anymore). It’s about not annoying folks and linking your brand to that sour taste that appears in their mouth every time Facebook notifies them that you posted that same video to their music group AGAIN. Move on to new bodies, new groups, new online vehicles, new eyes and ears that need to hear from you (the Internet gives you access to the globe, so there is always a new group to conquer). Here’s a great rule of thumb: If others post your material ad nauseum its buzz. If you do it ad nauseum, it’s hustling turned desperate. Nobody buys desperate, everybody buys buzz.
Be Creative On & Offline
The lyric video before a story video—and sometimes serving in place of a narrative video—wasn’t a standard part of a music project launching strategy until it was (Thank’s Cee-lo!). Mixtapes weren’t free, downloadable projects of original material from 
a single artist until they were. The EP wasn’t an in-between way to keep feeding a hungry, but attention-deficit public new product between the times an artist’s single and album were finished —until the EP was. Coordinated twenty-five city listening parties that launch on the same day or as a series, often without the actual artist present, weren’t a thing until they were. Now, I see artists like Daron Jones of 112 doing limited edition web cam concerts for rotating sets of fans who tune-in for live streaming of an acoustic or studio set right in the studio or in an artist’s home. I see artists like Syesha Mercado filming “candid,” pre-show dressing room rehearsals of pop hits like “Love on Top” and yielding more attention than she received as an also-ran on American Idol. So, what’s next? What’s the new novel rollout and long-term promo strategy? Who knows? Let’s see what you come up with. Be creative, be fierce, be original. Let us follow. Just remember that as much as there is a world online, there is a world offline too. Make sure you’re selecting those choice markets that we discussed last Critical Matters, and hammering them with fresh and inventive… What was our word for today? Content! So that a potential fan’s/buyer’s world suddenly seems filled with you and your project, not just for a few weeks or months, but for a few years, at least until the next project and rollout begins, until you and your material are the stars you want to be.
By L. Michael Gipson
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