Industry Leaders Distill Formula For Creating Viral Smash
Next MusicTank: It Started With A Click: How To Spawn A Viral Hit
6.30pm March 3rd 2011 Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster,Regent Street W1B 2UW London• Panel to include [PIAS]’s Darren Hemmings, The Viral Factory’s Matt Smith and filmmaker / 20jazzfunkgreats blogger Dan NixonIn the third of their ’Year Zero’ event series, the University of Westminster’s music business network MusicTank investigates the viral marketing boom hitting the music industry and how to harness the movement.With more and more songs reaching fans through social channels, the recordings business en masse is slowly wising up to the growing impact of group recommendations and its phenomenal affect on music marketing.YouTube, Vevo, Muzu and Soundcloud are all major players in the making of a ‘Viral Hit’ but how it’s done and the impact it has on release process is still the stuff of myth.Joining MusicTank Chairman Keith Harris on the panel to debunk and expound are [PIAS]’ Digital Marketing Manager, Darren Hemmings; The Viral Factory’s Director of Strategy, Matt Smith; and filmmaker and blog editor Dan Nixon. Dan created the ghostly viral video for Echo Lake’s Young Silence single, released this week, which was shot on a hacked Microsoft Kinect Xbox accessory. He also writes for the Brighton based fanzine and blog 20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk.Label and distribution giant [PIAS] is deep in the throes of plotting their next release, the Diplo/Tiesto/Busta Rhymes track ‘C’mon’, which is currently sitting at 2,770,000 YouTube views.The Viral Factory are a digital marketing and media company working in all facets of viral video production from inception through to production, marketing and analytics. With over a billion views to their credit, they have worked with the likes of Paramount, Diesel, Skype and Samsung.More speakers to be announced shortly.Link to event - http://www.musictank.co.uk/events/it-started-with-a-click-how-to-spawn-a-viral-hit---Event Details Date: 3rd March 2011Time: 18:30 to 21:00Venue: Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, Regent Street, W1B UW LondonCost: Standard – £35 / trade body members – £30 / members – £25Tickets must be purchased in advance from www.musictank.co.ukPresented by leading-edge companies, breakout groups will follow the first half of speakers, each to be led by one of these experts. The results of these brainstorm round tables will be fed back to the room.It is hoped this may inspire fresh thinking and that those present may learn from other sectors that have successfully deployed the techniques to drive exposure and engage fans. Q&A with the panel will follow a mid-evening break. Full Event Copy The third of MusicTank’s Year Zero events aims to demystify the little-understood area of the business that is the viral hit.Midday on a Thursday late in January, the rumblings of an exciting new Hip Hop Rave track began to reverberate around cyber music halls. A week later, the rumbling turned to a roar and by the 1st week in February, 2¼ million people had viewed ‘C’Mon’, the Busta Rhymes/Tiesto/Diplo collaboration on YouTube.As DIY fever took hold in the early naughties, MySpace was heralded as the future of music online, being the first widely available, easy-to-use platform for artists to promote their music. With its popularity and relevance now fast fading amidst a rapidly evolving social media landscape, where do artists now turn to get themselves heard? YouTube is leading the fray, breaking a new breed of runaway hits and artists, from ‘F**ck You’ now sitting at 38 million views, to ‘The Vaccines’ billed as one of the hottest breaking acts of 2011.Building on MySpace’s foundation, media hosting sites with social networking capabilities have become ubiquitous; from SoundCloud to Muzu there is no shortage of online space to upload or listen to the latest breaking song; even Spotify has entered the fray incorporating social elements to their interface. YouTube though, is becoming synonymous with viral smashes, putting it at the forefront of viral marketing - a discipline garnering a reputation for pulling results and eyeballs usually associated with marketing campaigns many times the budget.Much of YouTube’s success to-date lies in its embeddability - on Facebook alone, 46.2 years of YouTube videos are watched every day and over 3 million people connect to the auto-sharing feature on YouTube’s site - allowing easy sharing of videos through the individual networks. Despite a number of competitors nipping at its heels this site has enjoyed unprecedented loyalty and a surprisingly long lifespan in an industry of constant startups and failures.It is convenience that makes videos such a strong viral tool. Free and seemingly uninhibited by the need to license, YouTube’s encyclopaedic catalogue helps make it the first stop for many when seeking to listen to a favourite or recently leaked song.SoundCloud, a YouTube competitor, offers a music hosting site with social aspects and might lay claim to creating its own viral successes such as XXXY. But a purely audio track can’t realistically offer the universal pull of a video, as was so eloquently demonstrated by MTV in the ‘80’s.But despite Vevo’s planned launch in the UK in April, video won’t necessarily always be the ultimate viral medium. As mobile becomes a more common means for listening to music it is likely a more convenient medium will become available, video remains large and unwieldy for many on limited bandwidth.Whatever the future holds, the fact is that today, now, viral multimedia can already help break an artist or track. Yet how it’s done remains largely the stuff of mystery, with some very successful labels admitting to still feeling their way.When it comes to breaking new artists, this relatively low cost and often very successful means of marketing also has the cachet of being below the radar and so cooler than splashing an artist all over the London Underground. So it’s unsurprising that so many majors use the medium to covertly build an artist’s credibility in the months and occasionally years before record release – Little Boots being a prime example.Social tastemakers and vloggers play an important role in the new landscape with a mere mention of a clip by a popular figure often leading to hundreds of thousands of views. How have labels exploited this kind of word of mouth to maximum effect? What tools have they used and how has social media led the rest of the marketing mix?This think tank will inform and inspire those looking to understand how to make music go viral over social media. Lifting the lid and debunking dogma about how to create a viral hit, this illustrated session will combine panel-led debate with open round table discussion providing all with pointers, next step suggestions and an eye on how music will broken in the future.Allowing plenty of time for Q &A, we’ll be getting the lay of the land and asking what all this means for the future of music marketing.-ends-ABOUT MUSICTANKMusicTank is the UK’s music business network, an initiative of the University of Westminster, set up with the support of 14 UK music industry organisations.MusicTank aims to foster new collaborations and circulate innovative ideas, best practice and cutting-edge strategies to increase innovation and productivity across the business. Regular think tanks bring hot topics into sharp focus and help pinpoint the opportunities created by disruptive technologies.MusicTank conferences deal with everything from record production to copyright review while occasional social evenings blend the entertaining recollections of music business virtuosos with the opportunity to develop valuable industry contacts.MusicTank aims to override traditional partitions by providing improved access to expert knowledge via musictank.co.uk, the leading music business web-site, offering free industry discussion on new business techniques alongside useful reports and comments from leading lights. MusicTank also produces a free monthly newsletter to keep subscribers up to date with all the latest music developments.www.musictank.co.uk