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.

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.

Lets face it… if you’re a musician, you like the music you make.  You know it, you live with it, it swims around in your head all day long.  Other people don’t know your music at all.  I’m going to assume your goal is to try and change that fact.

The problem is, people (your target fans) are so inundated with things thrust at them, in hopes they’ll buy it, they have their guard up, and getting them to let down their guard is what you need to do in order to get them to pay attention to your music.  And make no mistake, the odds are against you.  I mean, can you pinpoint why you like any one particular artist’s music?  There might be some reasons, like a certain genre is more to your taste, or whatever, but for the most part, it’s a very instinctual thing.  You either like it, or you don’t.  Once you’ve found where the people who are most likely pre-disposed to liking the type of music you make, you need to go there, and try to sell them on yours.

Now, there’s three forms of currency that you want from people, in exchange for your music.  The first, is attention.  You need to get their attention, before you can get anything else.  The second currency, is conversation.  You want them to have conversations about your music, with their friends.  And thirdly, the last and final currency, is… well… currency.  Money.  Ultimately, the idea of supporting your lifestyle through music, is going to involve selling it (or ancillary products based around your music) for financial gain.

Now that we know what we want from our fans, attention, conversation, and money, and we know what we’re offering up in exchange for those things, our music, and our ancillary products, we can formulate a transaction.  The trick is, to ask for the right currency, at the right time, in exchange for the right item.  You’re not going to be very successful selling your products for money, if the customer has never even paid you attention yet.  So first, try to get people to pay you with attention.  What if you devise products specifically to sell in exchange for attention?  ”Free” samplers, “free” downloads, busking, rooftop concerts… these are all previous ways that musicians have tried to get people to pay attention.  Can you think of something else?  If you’re the first person to try something, you’ll get even more attention paid to you for it.

Even though people are inundated with marketing messages blasted at them all day, they still do want to give their attention to things that interest them, so make sure you’re offering is interesting.  And the people are still more willing to pay for something with their attention than they are with their money.  It might even be easier to get someone to have a conversation with their friends about you, than to get them to cross that hugest of hurdles and reach into their wallet to give you their money.

So keep in mind that when you’re trying to peddle your wares, put some products out there that people can buy with just their attention… if those products are interesting, you might get paid extra with conversations…. and finally, after they’ve bought everything they can get with those two currencies… then and only then will you be able to sell them what you’ve got up your sleeve that costs money.  But by then, they’ll be ready and willing to pay you for it.

So what’s the secret fourth currency?  Not so secret really… if you manage to get someone to cross that chasm to give you money for your wares, make sure you don’t let them get away without leaving you a way to stay in touch with them.  Contact information, and permission for you to communicate with them on an ongoing basis… that’s the fourth currency.  And quite possibly it’s the most valuable of all.  Get it whenever you can, treat it with the value and respect of diamonds or gold, and don’t ever misuse or abuse it.

Many bands and musicians are chasing a goal that is intangible at best, and perpetually unattainable at worst.  They want to “get big.”  There’s this unspoken definition of “making it big” and just by saying those three words, people think they have a general understanding of what that means, and that it’s what they want.  The fact this “making it big” has become an actual goal for people shocks me.  It’s vague, its a moving target, and there are no specific steps you can take that are guaranteed to help you achieve it.  That doesn’t really sound like something I’d want to spend my life trying to attain.  How about you?

In contrast, take the goal that’s the bane of many young musicians… and something people might hear from pressuring parents…. becoming a doctor… It might be the last thing you want to hear from your parents, but the truth is that’s an attainable goal.  Maybe not for everyone, but at least it’s specific, there’s a definite finish-line, you KNOW when you’ve achieved it, and with a little research you could probably figure out what steps need to be taken in order to achieve it.  There’d be some years of schooling, specific courses, some tests, and an internship at least.  Then, if you pass all those obstacles, you could become a doctor, and achieve the goal.

“Making it big” is a sentiment, not a goal.  Keeping with the doctor example, imagine you’re a kid in high-school who does want to become a doctor (a very noble profession for people who want to pursue it) and when someone asks you that dreaded question, what do you want to do with your life, you reply “I want to save people.”  That’s not a goal, it’s an emotional sentiment, and a noble aspiration, but it’s the same as saying “I want to make it big.”  It doesn’t really say anything specific.  There’s a billion ways to “save people.”  Becoming a doctor is one of them.  But it’s a quantifiable, and attainable goal.  Not necessarily easy, but that’s why not everyone who goes to med-school actually become doctors, and it’s why not every band is going to become successful, regardless your definition.

Try to think in more quantifiable terms and apply that to your music career… don’t just grasp at straws, and don’t chase intangibles.  Set new goals for yourself.  There’s long-term goals… I want to have a song I write become a hit song played all over the radio.  I want to get nominated for a Grammy.  I want to sell-out a concert at my hometown arena.  Those are very difficult, long term goals, but at least you’d know when you’ve achieved them!  But also consider that future doctors also have in-between goals… like passing midterms, or landing internships at their hospital of choice.  So as a band, set in-between goals for yourself too… things like… I want to play 50 shows in 25 states by the end of next year.  Or, I want to sell 5,000 downloads of my song.  I want to create a mailing list of 10,000 fans.  (note I said 10,000 FANS, not 10,000 people…. big difference).  I want to double my merch-dollars-per-head in the next six months.

Quantifiable goals will help focus your efforts, plus give you some satisfaction of accomplishments along the way, which will only motivate you further, to set more goals, and accomplish more things!

I was recently watching a fascinating documentary called “Connected: The Power Of Six Degrees”  that focuses on a growing field of science called Network Theory.  It’s origins stem from the celebrity-game “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon” that challenges people to connect two seemingly random actors through the movies they’ve been in and via their co-stars.  The documentary focuses on how the world is much smaller and more connected than we ever thought it was.  They even perform an experiment on the doc, where 40 random people around the world are given the task of getting a package delivered to a specific Harvard University Professor, the caveat being you can only send the package to someone you know, who you think can help you get the package closer to the target recipient.  Then that person has to send it on to someone they know, and repeat the process until the package arrives at the intended person.  In the documentary, four of the 40 packages mailed, actually end up arriving at the Harvard professor’s office, including one that originated from a random woman living in a small village in Africa.  The documentary delves into how network theory can potentially help the world accomplish such widespread goals as combat terrorism, prevent viral pandemics, cure cancer, and more.  It’s a really fascinating documentary and I highly recommend everyone watch it any way possible.

Relating the topic of the documentary to the subject matter of this blog, it’s easy to see how the network theory principles outlined and demonstrated in the documentary can be applied to music marketing.  The package experiment truly proves that by spreading something organically, step-by-step throughout your network, it is very possible to reach a great number of people.  By travelling along a bridge that exists between you and your contact, then hopping onto a bridge that exists between them and their next contact, and continuing that process repeatedly, along these pre-existing bridges, it seems that it’s possible to reach almost anyone and everyone in the world.  Given that, it would seem that focusing on the network to which you’re already connected (friends, family, co-workers and fans), and creating something they then feel compelled to share with each of their networks is a very effective method of spreading your message.  It would seem to be far more efficient to strengthen and utilize the network connections that already exist, than to try and build new network connections where ones didn’t already exist.

It may seem obvious, but why not try spending your energy creating something remarkable that your current network truly wants to spread, and then help motivate them to do so?

trying to help bands avoid communication fails...

Back in February I published an article, “Building Fan-Band Relationships In 420 Characters Per Day” that put forward some tips on how bands could take better advantage of the Twitter platform, and utilize it to more effectively communicate with their fans.

Since then, I have seen a large growth in the number of bands who are using Twitter, and have seen many examples of good practices and some examples of not-so-good practices, some of which I’d like to call attention to here.

Some great example posts of good use of twitter by a band:

- “We’re #1 [national] artist for most views on Youtube today!! You guys rock keep checking the [song title] video! -N

This is a great post because it’s informative, yet promotional, but doesn’t sound egotistical, in fact it has a thankful tone, contains a directive inciting fans to perform a desired action, and the post is “signed” by the band member, so a reader knows which band member logged in to Twitter that day.

- playing at 1714 XXXX street in LA at 2pm. directions at http://XXXX.com – only room for 50 people so come get in line asafp!!!

Another great use of twitter, in that it announces a promotional message that your fans would care about, (a secret show), gives specific details, conveys urgency, and excitement.

- @username What exactly is a garbage plate?

This is a great example, because it’s a conversational response to something one of the band’s fans actually said to the band.  Interacting with the fans is crucial, because the Twitter platform is not meant for one-way communication.  It’s meant for conversations.

- http://twitpic.com/XXXX- yes, you can play with the mac, just don’t touch the keys or drool on it.

This one is great because it uses a twitpic, and everyone loves to see pictures posted from their favorite bands.  Especially when the photos and caption provide insight into what you’re doing, showcases your personality, or something that you’re passionate about, and has an interesting caption.  The immediacy of Twitter makes the photos seem even more special because there’s the feeling they are happening right “now.”

- sick with flu, in bed, brain full of emptiness. watching DVD of doctor who and drinking hot toddys. life, love & time are great mysteries.

Another post that shows personality, talks about some non-music related interests, keeps fans updated in a very intimate way, and still manages to contain a profound thought.

- What are some new bands/artists that don’t suck? I need some new music that doesn’t sound like some regurgitated crap I’ve heard before.

Okay, so this one isn’t articulated the best, since its a little negative, but the idea of polling your followers to get them to talk about other bands they listen to is a great idea.  Not only does it engage your audience, get them talking about music, but it actually also gives you useful info about your fanbase that could help you better market your music.

In general, posts that inform, inquire, engage, and interact are the best.  For a really great example of an artist who is being extremely effective on Twitter, check out @amandapalmer.  She’s the lead-singer of the band The Dresden Dolls and also a very talented solo artist.  Whether you like her music or not, you could learn a lot stylistically from her twitter account.  She does twitter-based Q&As with her fans, holds impromptu secret shows announced via twitter, does quick promos like “first five people to @reply me get on the guestlist for the show tonight”, surprise fan meet-ups, polls her audience, talks to them, has conversations with them, posts lots of twitpics, and demonstrates many other lessons in effective online fan-communication via Twitter.

So just before I wrap this up, I think it’s only fair to comment on a few bad practices, however I’m not going to call anyone out or anything like that, but here are a few “please don’ts” to keep in mind…

- please don’t publicly thank people for their support when really what’s happened is that you followed them first, and now they decided to follow you back out of courtesy.  Note, this is especially bad when you do this with famous musicians.  @depechemode is not showing their support of your band, by returning a follow.

- please don’t REPEAT OVERLY PROMOTIONAL TWEETS THAT ARE WRITTEN ALL IN CAPS.  PLEASE DON’T REPEAT OVERLY PROMOTIONAL TWEETS THAT ARE WRITTEN ALL IN CAPS.  PLEASE DON’T REPEAT…see what i mean?

- if someone follows you, don’t automatically assume they’re now your fan.  Don’t auto-DM them thanking them for their interest in your music, or make any other assumptions like that.  Consider that the online equivalent of someone saying “hi, what do you do?” and you’re response being “Oh my god, it’s so great you talked to me, because now we’re best friends, and we’re gonna hang out every day and you’re mom’s gonna bake me cookies.”  It’s a little weird.

- please don’t ignore questions or comments from your followers.  Even if it’s only 140-characters worth of attention they gave you, that’s still effort they didn’t have to bother making, so if they’ve gone out of their way to do it, you had better pay them the respect of replying.

I’m sure there are more of both good practices and bad practices… but I’ll tell you what… I’ll stop here, but I invite everyone to continue this post through the comments section.  What are some more good and bad practices that you’ve seen?