Discuss the impact of technology within the music industry
London Grammar uses a variety of social networking sites to market their music, this is demonstrated on the official London Grammar website. The website is divided up into different sectors, the second line features sites such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook; using these free social sites have promoted the band virally and made them known. As a result Social networking encourages small bands to be heard by marketing through these sites for free.
For more information into the band I searched on Wikipedia, the band formed through Facebook, Dan Rothman(guitarist) saw a picture of Hannah Reid(vocalist) and messaged her to see if she would be interested to collaborate; this message lead to the two meeting at the University of Nottingham during their first year in 2009. Social networking has majorly helped the band, from marketing in other sites such as YouTube and SoundCloud but has also played a big part in the formation on the group. They started off playing in local bars and pubs but on December the 12th 2012, the trio posted their song "Hey Now" on YouTube;as of 27 November 2013, it has received over 2 million views.
The main article ‘if you wait’ states, in February 2013 their EP metal & Dust made the top five of the iTunes chart in Australia. London Grammars marketing had been very effective in getting the band known, it’s quite amazing that this small band without any help from the oligopolies has reached the other side of the world let alone hitting number five. This indicates just how these free social networking sites promote independent bands so effectively. Word of mouth is flocculating more and more on social sites leading to an increase of bands becoming known by various people such as Disclosure, they heard of London Grammars music through SoundCloud; SoundCloud allows bands/ artists to market their music for free. Disclosure and the band collaborated together producing the track ‘help me lose my mind’, this song was features on Disclosure’s album ‘settle’ which was released in June 2013. Furthermore the song had 1,986,892 plays on Disclosure's account on SoundCloud.
Another article I have researched is by Paul Lester and the article was published in the Guardian, April 22 2013. ‘London Grammar's secretiveness and quietly dramatic rise as a blog buzz band’ this quote reinforces the effectiveness of word of mouth over social media to market small bands, moreover the hype about this new band has provoked the media to write articles such as this one, leading to more publicity which can increase potential sales. Lester goes on to state that their first track ‘Hey now’ was released last December, which has had, 1,022,023 plays on SoundCloud. The use of synergy is beneficial for both SoundCloud and the band as London Grammar can promote their music for free while the band features SoundCloud on their site which leads to further promotions of their site to other small bands. The article itself has links to SoundCloud which is further promoting both the band and music site. The use of 'reading on mobile? click here to listen' this gives a choice of reading the article on a laptop/computer or is accessible for people using their mobiles, giving more of a variety. This means more people can access the article, which leads to effective marketing once again, further promotion of the band is through comments saying how good the band is; which can lead to an increase in potential sales. To reinforce how successful the band are, they have a gig lines up for 2014 in Brighton, with the tickets selling at £65 each. The price is quite expensive for a new band, however this just shows how much of a success the new band is.
A personal account of a 42 year old NHS manager, she accidently came across London Grammar by watching a fashion blog however she liked the bands music she heard on the blog which enticed her to listen to more tracks such as ‘hey now’ on YouTube. She then downloaded their album onto her phone and played the music through Bluetooth when driving to work. Later on she then shared a Facebook status expressing her love for the band, the status lead to likes and comments this is further word of mouth as people have seen the status and taken time to comment about the band; the status made people go on to buy and download their music, her cousin (29) mentioned that she has downloaded the band’s music. This primary research shows that the target audience ranges from teenagers to middle aged people, moreover it’s not just teenagers that know about social sites. Word of mouth has dramatically helped artists and bands become known and promoted, this proves how this technique is effective as over 70 million people have a Facebook account which leads to countless status’ which can lead to further buys also twitter has a tending page this page shows ‘what’s new’ and mainly spoke about, anyone can access this page.
Another use of primary research is a questionnaire, this was on the Claredon and Chatham house Sixth form, the age group is from 16 to 18 year olds. A massive 70% of sixth formers have listened to music based on a recommendation from a v/blog, whereas 30% have brought music based on a recommendation from a Facebook friend or other social media sites. The figures produced does show that London Grammars use of marketing was effective and successful as many people have heard of the band through social sites. However 80% of sixth formers have illegally downloaded music based on recommendation from a Facebook friend or other social sites, even though it was illegally purchased people are still aware of the group and still buying their concert tickets, as long as the tours make a profit the free downloads shouldn't be a problem.
Marketing is an ongoing change in the music industry, from actual word of mouth; involving human to human communication to now keyboard to keyboard. This is due to technology becoming so essential in our everyday lives, social sites are now the main way to promote new artists and bands.
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