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Innovation in Digital Music Distribution and Promotion
Following on from my recent post about the concept of innovation as something you do, and not just something you say, I came across an example of what I would consider innovation in action, courtesy of a newly launched digital music distribution / promotion service called Music2Text.
Music2text Logo
According to their literature, Music2text is a service that provides artistes and labels with the ability to sell or giveaway music tracks direct to fans, via plain old SMS (or mobile text messages). The proposition is simple, and can be summarised in 3 steps, as follows:
- First, take an existing technology, SMS in this case, and figure out a new way to use it for mass music distribution and promotion
- Make sure the service is fast, free and easy to setup / use (e.g. within 30 minutes, if you already have all the prerequisite information / digital files to hand).
- Then monetise it by allowing punters to associate their music (ringtone or full song) with a simple keyword which the fans can then use to access it by texting that word to a number – 60444 (UK only, at this time). The service replies with a link through which the track can be downloaded, bought or shared with others.
The music owners can choose to distribute their music or ringtones for free, in which case the service is completely free to use, (including links to their favourite mobile and social media channels). In my opinion, this free aspect makes Music2Text an almost perfect mobile, distribution and social marketing tool, with something to offer all key stakeholders, including: music labels, publishers, artistes and their customers / fans.
That said, and in true reviewer fashion, I requested and was given a guided tour of the service by the founders, and I even went one better to upload one of my own tracks onto the service with the keyword ‘Bring’ (yes, I produce music in my not so spare time!). And you can try it out for yourself too, but please be kind if you spot my ringtone track, and wish to comment on it
Overall, I think this is an excellent proposition. However, it is still very much a start-up service, (albeit a brilliant / creative and enterprising one), with the usual minor teething problems you might expect. The monetisation element, with its 90 day keyword limit, makes this a likely vehicle for promotional / marketing applications (e.g. release promos, live tours and competitions etc.), which is no bad thing at all. The music industry revenue model is slowly embracing other sources of income e.g. live performance, streaming (see this post / infographic for recent trends), and now SMS could get onto that list, if this all works out.
So what makes this a real example of innovation, you might ask. Well, if you’ve heard the adage about putting new wine into old wineskins, then you might be forgiven for thinking that this proposition is doomed to failure. However, the ability to reuse / repurpose an existing, and possibly boring, technology to new and profitable ends is right to the heart of innovation, in my opinion. I say well done guys, and keep the UK innovation flag flying!
Business ideas on social marketing
That was the title of Wednesday’s BCS event which as usual delivered some thought-provoking and excellent discussions by the two expert speakers who also revealed the secret sauce for successful social marketing (and indeed social anything). Read on to find out more!
It’s really rather simple when you think of it, because the answer is right there in the name, i.e.: Social Network. First, the social aspect involves people interacting with each other in a way that essentially provide some value to either or both parties. Secondly, the network aspect deals with the multiplier effect of the social graph, such that the value of each individual social interaction (a comment, shared picture or link) is actually magnified by the size of the network, and these two points were summarized by Headshift’s Lee Bryant (see picture) in a quote that went something along the lines of: “Small actions aggregated at scale create the network effect”, which is the holy grail of social networks.
Lee Bryant talking at the BCS Social Marketing event
And that, dear reader is what I consider the not-so-secret sauce for any successful social enterprise including: Facebook, Linkedin, Ecademy, and even newer upstarts like Quora.com. I’ll be interested to hear from anyone that thinks otherwise.
Twitter for Business, or is it. Really?
Last Wednesday, I attended an excellent BCSNLB event on “Twitter for Business”, and whilst it was bothengaging and well attended (indeed over-subscribed), I am still not convinced that Twitter has a legitimate place in business – for the very simple reason that people are still talking (or trying to convince each other) about it.
There is a school of thought that evangelism can be misplaced; especially if it is stating the obvious and preaching to the choir (e.g. that social networking applications can be beneficial for business 2.0). But if this is the case for Twitter then why does it appear to be taking so long to gain traction with businesses, and thus necessitating a seemingly endless round of “gee whiz, look-what-you-can-do-with-Twitter” brand of discovangelism (SIC). Ok, so there is Dell and a few other examples of the successful application of Twitter, but does that make it the ubiquitous Web2.0 business application that it is so often positioned? Hmmph!
Granted that just like mobile’s SMS, Twitter is a phenomenal tool for exchanging bite-size information and a facilitator of inter-personal interaction with a global community of users (much like the 300M strong FaceBook). All these technologies are being used by businesses as additional, personalised channels for marketing and customer engagement. However, that does not necessarily make Twitter the must-have requirement for businesses wanting to engage with potential customers.
Perhaps I am just being impatient and this will come to pass in time, as in the innovative use of SMS for mobile money, but it would be nice see some more tangible evidence fast. I just remember dot.com bubbles, irrational exuberance, and other more recent nasties. Oh dear, here we go again…
Note: The above is just a personal opinion, and not intended in any way to detract from the excellent event or brilliant speakers / enlightened Twitterati, i.e. Mario Menti (@mario); Judith Lewis (@judithlewis) and Guy Stephens (@guyatcarphone)
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Note: This post was previously published on my BCS DRM Blog, where you can find the original post, and reader comments, in the archives.
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