Amanda Palmer - Photo by Martyn Foster

Hi everyone.  So as I mentioned before, I moderated a panel at SXSW 2010, called “Too Much Information – Is Interacting Killing Rockstar Mystique?”

The goal was to have an open conversation about the strategies and various ways that artists are using social networking tools, and how it affects their fanbase, and their perceptions.  Is there such a thing as too much sharing?

The panel ended up being a ton of fun, and I think we had a great conversation, if I do say so myself.  Huge thanks go out to the panelists Jeremy Welt, Senior VP of New Media for Warner Bros Records, George Howard of Artistshousemusic.org, producer/filmmaker Dub Cornett, and musician Sam Duckworth, of Get Cape Wear Cape Fly.

I had also originally invited self-described Over-sharer, solo artist, and lead singer of The Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer to take part in the panel, and she was really enthusiastic about it, however she told me she would be in Poland on tour and unable to make it.  Unfortunate, but she was eager enough to do an email interview together before the panel, which I then referenced and used her answers and comments as the basis for the discussion at the panel.

As discussions are very fluid, and the room full of people were eager to ask questions, and add to the conversation, I knew there was no way I was going to get to all the great things Amanda had to say, so she graciously allowed me to publish our interview in it’s entirety on my blog.  Huge thanks to Amanda!  She’s got some great insight here.

So without further ado, here’s Amanda Palmer, word for word, on Interacting With Her Fans.  (My questions in bold, her answers follow.)

Amanda, I am aware of your use of twitter to correspond with your fans, organize impromptu fan meetups, announce secret performances, and host live auctions. How else have you used social networking tools and the online space to bring your fans into your world?

a huge part of what makes the social networking “work” is that i don’t use it strictly for promotion and business. i use it to connect and to peel my brain and emotional landscapes inside out in public during the touring process (and last month, during the recording process). if my followers are there in the room with me while i’m making a record, and they’re following by PMS days and pregnancy scares, they’re going to actually connect with me. this is not a style for everybody, but since i’m built to overshare, it works for me. you cannot create a formula for why your fans with emotionally relate to you (and therefore bring you income, when you do present them with product), but you can pretty much rest assured that if you’re open and honest, they will come. people crave honesty and authenticity, especially because they know that it’s not manufactuable in a board room of hip indie intenet marketing kids trying to pump up a band or an artist, even if all the kids in the board room just graduated art school and have the best of intentions. it has to come from the artist, to the fan. nobody can do it FOR the artist.

How has interacting directly with your fans in the online and realworld spaces impacted your career, and your personal life?

it’s made me feel incredible safe around my fans when i do tour, and increidbly well taken care of. i have no fears about hopping into a car with any of my twitter followers who volunteer to give me a lift to the airport, even though i have 400k twitter followers. maybe it’s a numbers game, and maybe my number will be up, but since i personally read all of my blog comments and monitor my twitter feed, i KNOW what these people are like, and they KNOW why i’m like. and we love and want to help each other. it’s a trust i revel in. i wrote a blog a little while ago about a ninja gig (ie a flash-twitter gig) i did on the beach in CA and i realized after a while of signing that i’d left my ukulele case with my phone and wallet wide open 50 feet away (people had been tossing tips in it). and that’s how much i trust my fans instinctively. i know they’re all watching out for me, for each other. funny story: some drunk fans stole that same uke case from my london dressing room after a late show one night. i twittered it’s loss and these kids actually twittered my assistant, and came to the address where i was hanging out and hand-delivered it, covered in shame. they got hugged by me and commended for their bravery. this is how it works.

and sometimes i need to turn off. and i do.

Was there a time in your career as a musician when you interacted with your fans less than you do now? If so, what made you change your habits?

no, there never was. back when we had a fledgling website and email list in 2000, we still signed after every single show and collected every fan’s email and send regular, personal, mailings.
and i was always blogging – that’s turned into an art of it’s own. i realised early on that music is never the end-goal for me. the human connection is. music is simply a tool.
so, funny enough, while everything out there is thinking that blogging and twittering is a tool to bring people to your music, i sometimes think my music is a tool to bring people to my blog and twitter.
for realz. with a z.

Do you ever feel as if your personal privacy is being invaded, or that you’ve given up some of that privacy in exchange for a closer relationship with your fans?

i think it’s a choice. and of course my personal privacy gets invaded. when i’m sitting in a restaurant and people come up asking for autographs, i could look at it as an invasion or i could look at it as a blessing.
i choose the latter. that said, i don’t have to contend with the level of fame that the madonnas and lady gagas of the world have to contend with, and i don’t think i’d want to. i enjoy sitting in cafes far too much.
i think having to hide in public sounds like a nightmare. so i’m in a very sweet spot: i’m invaded just about as much as i can handle and still enjoy.
there’s also the guilt factor of not being able to acknowledge and respond to everybody. invariably people feel left out and not heard and ignored. that’s just a painful part of this that never goes away.

Do you have any boundaries with how or what you share with your fans online? Why/Why not?

oh, hell yes. i have to be very careful to keep my sharing very amanda-specific. i do not share details of others lives and i try very hard to not ever speak for or represent other people,
or invade anybody else’s privacy and boundaries. this means i leave a lot of things out. i’m a filter. i think the amount of people listening to me puts me in a position of power, and it’s easily abused.
i try very carefully not to abuse it. neil gaiman, on the other hand, just goes around crashing people’s websites left and right with no regard (that’s supposed to be a joke. laugh.). it’s called a #neilwebfail,
and it happens every few days.

Have you ever thought about disengaging from the social networks, in the way Trent Reznor did in the middle of 2009? Why?

when i feel my brain being eaten by the incessant noise, i do unplug. i unplugged completely for a week a few months ago. it balances me out. but i plug back in.
disengaging from the social networking would be like walking out on a relationship. i’ve come to rely on my fans so much for what i create and how it’s possible, that
if i walked away i would expect that a lot of my infrastructure would fall apart. if i toured in london next month, i’d be just another band calling up a promotor and relying
on radio ads and a poster campaign to promote my show, with no personal input and contact from me. and when i got to that show, i’d feel disconnected.

the other night, i played to a bar of 300 people in christchurch, new zealand. almost NOBODY tours down there and they were really grateful i;d come. i was twittering to them all day
about this and that and the other thing and i mentioned that my record engineer from australia had insisted i try a PEANUT SLAB candy bar, since his family manufactures them.
so tons of people brought peanut slabs and i twittered back and forth, spy-style, with one really enthusiastic fan right before the show and we secretly rendez-vous’ed near a fence outside the
club and she wordlessly handed me the candy bar. it was hilarious. and it made her life. (and the peanut slab was delicious). i love being able to do shit like that.

What is your opinion on the recent CNET news article that is reporting musicians are starting to refuse to “tweet”, much to the chagrin of their labels?

it’s a choice, dude. it’s not for everybody. you can’t MAKE a musician, or a person, do anything if they’re not inclined.
and if those musicians DO tweet under threat, do you think their fans will feel a real connection with them? hell no, because they’ll sense how inauthentic the intention is. people are not stupid.

Do you feel that the days of maintaining any mystique or mystery around your personality/persona are over?

those days were over when i hit the second grade and started showing everybody my underwear.

Conversely, do you feel it’s possible to have a successful career as a musician without engaging in online/realworld interaction with fans?

yes. it’s totally possible. for every me there’s a pj harvey, nick drake and an elliott smith who doesn’t want to be the life of the party.
and the beautiful thing about THAT is that their fans, those who truly love their work and want to spread it, can now carry their music much farther the artist could themselves.
i don’t think artist or musicians should feel compelled to share anything they don’t fucking want to.
it’s not in the contract that when you decide to make art you have to share your process or your life with people.
but you CAN, and people since the dawn of time have been fascinated by artistic lives and processes – so do with that what you will.

Are there separate rules for interacting for major superstar artists, and undiscovered artists? If so, what do you think they are?

i don’t think there are ANY rules. but certainly, john mayer is going to get way more shit for saying something off-color in an interview than your average unsigned lead signer in brooklyn is, right?
superstars are under a different microscope, and because of mass hysteria they have to protect themselves far more. that;s just life.
and finanically, different things make sense for different levels.

i tell all the bands i meet you ask me WHAT TO DO to do this: collect every email. at the end of the day, reaching people by email is the most important.
myspace and twitter and facebook may come and go, but being able to directly talk to your fans over email is key.

Is there anything else you would like to say on this topic?

yes.
FUCKING FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER, SEND ME YOUR EMAIL AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY NEW RECORD BY THE SEMI-FICTIONALLY CONJOINED SISTERS EVELYN AND EVELYN, IT:S FANTASTIC.
the end.

• broadcast live from backstage before a show, interact with the fans in the audience, and build your set list together
• stream live performances from your rehearsal space
• video-chat with your fans no matter where you are
• give fans a live look at you in the recording studio
• post-concert wrap-ups live from the van/tour bus
• give your fans a “band’s eye view” of what it’s like to be on stage with you

I’m sure there are a ton of different and interesting ways you could use this tool to engage with your audience.  All you need is an iPhone and a free account at uStream.tv, which you can sign up for in seconds using the free app.  You can be broadcasting live video to the world in under a minute or two, using just your iPhone.

If you’re a musician with an iPhone and you want to check it out, download it now for free on the iTunes App store.

Add to all that, now the main ways artists are connecting with fans are all taking place online, where everything is trackable, and in comes web services offering email subscription tracking, myspace plays, youtube streams, blog-status grading, web-traffic measurements, “hit potential” analyzers, and more.

With more and more onus on bands to develop themselves, before working with business partners, it’s going to become increasingly important for musicians to become even more savvy marketers.  To understand all the different and powerful analytics that are available, and interpret the data into actions is going to become increasingly time-consuming (and potentially costly, if these services start introducing paid-subscription business models, which is the current norm for analytics services).

For a musician who’s looking to immerse themselves in information, and study their fan metrics intently, this onslaught is a dream come true, but on the other hand, when your main job it is to be creative, write, perform and practice, this could also become a real problem of time-management.

So what are services like the below doing to make this as easy and understandable as possible for musicians?

What services do musicians find provide the most useful and actionable information?

What are musicians saying about these and other services?

Is this type of information something a musician should pay for?

Are there other services out there that should be added to this list?

Music Metrics Services:

• Band Metrics
• Google Analytics
• Fanalytics
• Rockdex
• Artistdata
• MusicXRay
• Next Big Sound

In October I gave a talk on Communicating With Fans at the Halifax Pop Explosion Festival and Music Matters Conference.  I’ve received a lot of great feedback from that talk, and it prompted me to turn it into a free e-book, which I’ll make available here later in the new year.  But if you’d like to be one of the first people in the world to get it, all I ask is that you give me your input on the topic of my SXSW discussion.  See below…

The SXSW discussion will touch on the different ways artists communicate with their fans… raising and answering questions relating to sharing information, communication, and audience engagement… the how, the why, the when, and the what of sharing.

“A discussion on the ways artists use social networking tools to interact with fans, and how that affects their supposed “rockstar hero” status. Do fans really want to know every daily activity their favorite musicians do, or does sharing remove some of their unattainable magic? Can a balance be found?”

The panel will take place on the Saturday, March 21 and I hope anyone reading this who’s planning on attending the conference will attend.  I can’t say just yet who all will be on the panel, but it’s going to be great.

So now, I would like your input… I want to make the discussion everything you want it to be, so please email me or comment here and tell me your answers to the below four things… everyone who responds will be the first to get the Communicating With Fans e-book based on my talk earlier this year in Halifax.

Here’s what I’d like to know…

• what tools you are using to communicate with your fans?
• how often do you interact with them?
• are your fans happy with your level of interaction or do they want more/less?
• what tools/info/data/access that you don’t have now, would help you better communicate with your fans?

Thanks so much, your input is truly appreciated.

Is he an aspiring musician?

I heard a radio commercial the other day, extolling the virtues of the electronics and audio store’s vast selection of headphones. “And for the aspiring musician on your list… we have the… blah blah blah.”

“Aspiring musician”…. that phrase gets tossed around a lot, but what does it mean? It seems to me that it’s something someone calls you if they don’t think you’re very successful at the moment. It’s almost offensive really. Somehow, the word “successful” has become implied when talking about musicians. As if to say, you’re not a musician, unless you’re a successful musician. But really, if you pick up an instrument and create a sequence of notes that pleases your ear… you’re a musician. Or if you open your mouth, and intentionally make a melodic sound, you’re a musician.

You could be aspiring to become more successful than you currently are, but with so many different possible definitions of success, maybe you already are a successful musician.

Don’t let people call you an aspiring musician, because you’re not. You either are a musician, or you aren’t.

So… what are you aspiring to?

Letting the little things pile up is rarely a good thing

When you’re in a band, there are lots of things that have to get done, but aren’t the glamorous parts of the job… Sure when it comes time to get on stage, it’s no problem mustering the will to perform.  Or when you have to go on TV or the radio to do an interview, for the most part it’s not a hassle.  But there’s many things that need doing, like having to set up the facebook event pages for all your upcoming gigs, taking merch inventory counts, re-skinning the drums, entering all the email addresses into the database from the last few gigs worth of signup sheets… etc. All those little things that pile up because they’re not the most fun, most impactful, or most pressing things that need to get done.  The truth is, if you let them all pile up and become a big long list that’s going to take a ton of time to complete, you’re just making the task more daunting, which will most likely mean you’ll put off doing it even longer.

The best way to tackle those things is to just dive right in and do them right when you’re thinking about them.  Don’t sit on the couch thinking about all the things you’ve got to do… get off the couch and do one or two of them.  If there’s none that are truly more important than the others, just pick any of them.  Then do a couple more.

Believe me, we’re all guilty of procrastination… but it’s never a good thing.  Putting something off till later rarely has any benefit over getting it done right away.

And all it takes is one long-term thought or projection… “what am I working toward?” to give you the motivation to get those little things done.

It’s a great question, and sure it’s important, but the best way to get media outlets interested in you, and beyond that, the best way to get new fans interested in you is by engaging the current ones.  Too often it seems that musicians spend a lot of effort and time on spreading the word to potential new fans, and much less effort communicating with the fans they already have.  As an independent musician, you don’t have a staff supporting you, creating marketing campaigns, securing interviews and press coverage, and getting radio stations to interview you or play your music.  Those are some of the tactics that labels and marketing companies will use to generate enough media impressions so that it creates familiarity with your band and music, and the idea is that by reaching a very wide group of people, some of them will like you enough to purchase something.  But as I said, you don’t have access to those people or those methods.

What you do have, is your current fans.  People who have already stated (either verbally, or by voting with their dollars and attention) that they like and wish to consume your music.  And the thing about music is that people LOVE to tell other people about the music they’re excited about.  So respect your current fans, don’t look past them hoping for new ones.  Reward them and inspire them, and give them every reason to be excited about you and your music, and help them spread the word to their friends about you.  Engaging your current fans to spread the word is the best way to find your new fans.  And as the word spreads, the media outlets will want to talk to you, and radio will want to play you, etc. and the cycle will continue.

Sure it’s not a quick process, it’s an organic growth, but it’s effective, cost-efficient, and the best part about it is you don’t need to rely on anyone else’s help to get started.  You don’t need to hire a publicist, or a radio tracker, or get a manager or label before you can begin… you have control over this right now.

So what are you waiting for?

Of course, it should be mentioned that you shouldn’t be milking your friends either… they shouldn’t be expected to show up for every single gig, or buy every single new merch-item you release, but if and when they want something, or want to come out to support, don’t be guilted into letting them have it for free, simply because they’re your friend.

Just make sure they know how very much their support means to you.

Try adding a hook!

So if you’re in a band and you’ve decided that you need to post more updates on your site than you currently are, or if you want to try and make your updates a little more interesting (and who doesn’t?)… try applying more concept.  More of a “hook.”

Here’s what I mean… say for example, you just want to keep your site updated frequently, so you’ve decided you will write a daily blog for an upcoming tour… or you are going to implement a weekly update to post… don’t just write about what random stuff happened that day, or that week or whatever.  Posts like “so we woke up in the van, brushed our teeth in McDonalds bathroom, and set out on the road again… only to run out of gas, blow a tire, and overheat the engine all at once” are only okay if you’re REALLY interesting (best to assume you’re not), or if something really extraordinary happened… but for the most part, it will be generic updating of mundane life that isn’t going to really endear anyone to you, or make them want to come back to read the next one, or forward it to their friends…

One idea to make things more interesting, is to try coming up with a concept or theme for your updates… one band I know of wrote an entire tour blog where every entry was focused solely on documenting the unique filth and grunge that was the bathrooms at the bars they were playing in each night.  It was entertaining, and made me want to listen to the band, because I thought they were interesting.  Maybe you’ve got the opportunity to go on tour with your favorite band of all time, so you decide to write about your experience getting to know them, and watch them every night… even though it doesn’t actually talk so much about you or what you’ve done, that’s a great hook!  Not only does it show you’re excited about the tour, but you’re tapping into the other band’s audience as well, then they see how excited you are about seeing the other band, then they think you’re interesting and they’ll check your band out too.

Being more interesting isn’t the only reason to apply a stronger concept to your updates though… Something else happens when you’ve put the thought into it and come up with a hook for them too, and that is you’ll find them a lot easier to write because that extra bit of focus really helps to spur the creative juices on.  Before you know it, updates will be flowing out of you like crazy, they’ll be more interesting, more engaging, and more likely to create return readers.

And your own creativity is the only limit to what you could use as a hook, so since you’re all really creative musicians, this should be easy!  Have fun with it.

I don’t know how I feel about the value proposition, and what is the value of a single tweet?  It could be very attractive to developing artists, however it also seems like some of the artists they’re working with are fairly established… Moby, Imogen Heap, Travis Barker/DJ AM among them, though there are others who I was not immediately familiar with.

Might be a good idea, and the service seems to be a valuable one, although there’s no mention on culturejam’s website as to how much an artist/label has to pay to use their services.  At any rate, it’s worth a look.  You can check out other examples of their services, listen to a podcast by the CEO, and sign up for their mailing list, or contact them directly if you’re interested in trying them out.

www.culturejam.com

And if anyone’s worked with them already, post your experience in the comments section.