It Don’t Come Easy….

If you read any of the music industry trade publications, you know that 2007 was a terrible year for CD sales. Stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are devoting less shelf space to music product because there’s less demand, and they can use that space for more profitable items.

But now, it’s not just the music press that’s weighing in on the woes of the music industry. More and more mainstream publications have picked up on the story. My friend Larry Pareigis from Nine North Records tipped me to an article in this week’s The Economist magazine. You can check out the story here.

There are two ways you can look at this story. It’s either the worst time to be involved in the music business or the best time. It’s all up to you! There are still ways to get your music heard. But for the first time, perhaps ever, we don’t need to listen to people tell us “that this is the way it’s always been done”. It’s a whole new ballgame. And it’s time for the old rule books to be thrown away!

She Works Hard For The Money

I don't want to give you the idea that this blog is solely about MySpace, because it isn't. But as I've mentioned before, I do a lot work work with MySpace both personally and professionally.

It truly is an amazing marketing tool for artists, and I've personally seen how it can influence CD sales. Rising country star Taylor Swift even thanked her MySpace friends on a recent award show. But it takes work...lots of it. Most artists I know have a MySpace page, because they're "told that they need one." And yes, you DO need one, but if you have one, you need to spend time with it every day. The least you should do EVERY day is approve incoming friend requests and answer any messages. And if you can't personally do it, have someone you trust help you.

Back when I was in radio, it took me over six months to get one of country music's rising stars to approve me as a friend. I complained about this situation to the artist's record company on numerous occasions. I heard tons of excuses about why it was taking so long, but none of them made sense.

Throughout that time, all I could think about was what if I was just a regular fan, and had just discovered this artist and all I wanted to do was to tell the world how much I loved their music? They're surely not going to wait six months to give you free publicity.

Take the time to do it right! If you don't have the time (or don't have someone to help you), you'd almost be better not having a page at all.

MySpace Or Yours?

As you may or may not know, I spend a lot of time on MySpace....probably waaaaaay too much time for a man of my age.

But, in reality I don't spend a whole lot of time working on my personal profile: Kevin Mason MySpace. I actually spend my time working on behalf of artists, events, charities and businesses helping manage their profiles.

Part of that daily work is to leave comments on peoples pages...so every day I look at hundreds upon hundreds of people's top friends list, while doing my work. And the one thing that I see over and over again is that the majority of pages that I land on all have at least one scantily clad woman in their top friend's list.

Now, naturally you would think that it's usually young guys who would have MySpace pages that include these "hot chicks" in their top friends, but no....it's not only young guys, but young girls, and older men and older women too.... And these aren't just porn stars in their friends list, but actual friends.

I started feeling kinda left out....because I don't have one real friend in my list of 350 friends that has a scantily clad MySpace picture as their profile pic. Now yes, I realize that I could throw Tila Tequila or Jenna Jameson into my Top 20 and I'd be good to go, but that's not the point.

In fact of the 5 women I have in my personal MySpace Top 20, 2 of them don't even include a picture of themselves in their profile pic. So what am I doing wrong? Am I hanging out with the wrong people...or am I just a loser?! It feels like high school all over again.

Oh, by the way (shameless plug time) if your band, event, charity, or business could use help building awareness through MySpace, let me know. Social networking is one of the hottest new marketing categories and we can help you locate all kinds of people...including the scantily clad ones!

I Went Down To The Crossroads

The music business is at a crossroads. For decades the best way to get your music heard was to get signed by a "major" record label. Of course, we all know the real odds of that happening.

But today, chasing the dream of major label success may not be as important. Thanks to the digital download, it is becoming even easier to get your music heard by more and more people. Add tools like MySpace and you really can reach millions of people.

You can do a lot by yourself, but you still could use some help. That's where we come in. Let Intensity Media help with the marketing of your music.

No matter where you are in your career, we can help you at an affordable price. We can help you get your music exposed to more and more people.

Because, if you're gonna do it...you should do it with Intensity!