Month: September 2009

A couple of studies came across my screen yesterday.

First, the Nielsen Company announced last week that internet users spent 17% of their internet time on social media sites in August 2009, three times as much as a year earlier.

Second, Forrester Media reported last month that 4 of 5 adults now use social media, a 46% increase over a year earlier.

What this means is that the customers of most organizations are using social media in large numbers. Thus organizations of all sizes should be examining whether and how to use social media to reach out to their customers online.

I think cello is one of the most beautiful musical instruments. But I was surprised to discover that a “solo” cello player, by which I mean someone not connected with an “established” orchestra or other classical music institution, playing her own (beautiful but unconventional) compositions, has achieved financial success and enormous popularity in large part owing to her online marketing. Granted, Zoe Keating is very talented—but most of us have known extremely talented artists who have managed, somehow, to escape widespread recognition.

In Zoe Keating’s case, in addition to a blog and an impressive number of videos on YouTube, she has over a million followers on Twitter who have helped propel sales of her recordings into the top ranks of classical music on Apple’s iTunes music store. And all this without benefit of a record label. She’s not only making a living off of her music (mostly from downloads but also from gigs recording commercials and film scores), but is besting competitors’ cumulative millions of dollars of marketing budgets in the process.

Interestingly, she says she spends half of her time on business administration, and half creating product (music), a balance that many solo business people ultimately discover. She cautions that it took her a long time to get to this point, and that the key quality of online marketing is to “be yourself” and speak candidly as if to a few friends rather than pitching a product to a huge audience.

See her interview here and perform here.

(Via PressHereTV.com.)

MySpace has announced: “Any U.S. user can opt-in to sync their status so that any update created on MySpace will appear in your Twitter feed and any Twitter feed update will appear within your MySpace status & mood.”

Instructions for syncing are here.

I worked on a “white-label” social network startup a few years ago which almost but didn’t quite get off the ground. So I was happy to see that someone else succeeded where I failed: Stribe. Are you the center of your customers’ world? Maybe you are their “Cheers” bar, or their 3rd place coffee shop, or they’re crafters and your’re their craft shop, you are their favorite getaway, or many of the folks who take yoga classes at your establishment go out together afterwards? For a modest cost you can do them all a big favor by becoming their virtual social network as well. And, oh yes, you’ll deepen your connection with them also.

(via MG Siegler/TechCrunch)