Social Media Impact in the Music Industry -

Labels and bands

BINTV1050U.LA_E14

Prof. Ravi Vatrapu

Student: Mihai Andrei Tiu

CPR: 230494-3133

Submission deadline: 19.12.2014

2014-SocialMediaManagement

Contents page

1. Introduction – Social Media in the modern age

2. The case: Music Labels and Bands

a. General Environment

b. Warner Records and Avenged Sevenfold

3. Theoretical Framework

4. Methodology

a. General Overview

b. Social Media Goals

5. Analysis and Results

6. Discussion

7. Conclusion

8. Appendixes

a. Content division infographic

b. Platforms Interaction

c. Music Streaming

d. Digital Albums Sales Chart

9. References

a. Books

b. Websites

1. Introduction – Social Media in the modern age

“The times, they are A-changing” a popular singer used to say a couple of decades ago,

and indeed he was right. During the past half a century, technology suffered an

exponential growth in the development rate, and together with it, human behaviors, in

relation to all aspects of life. However, one of the most major shifts was the invention of

the computer, followed by Internet.

In the past decade, as the online presence of companies and costumers has become an

usual, even demanded aspect of everyday life, social media platforms started to heavily

develop and expand due to the increased exploitation from both sides. This, as well as

other changing aspects of the modern life and living in an era of technology affected the

marketing communications traditional models as well as the customers’ behavior, and a

new aspect of business emerged: social media management. Wisely used, this can be a

very effective tool in business, bringing a plus of value in various departments, from

Marketing & PR to HR and Communications. However, the main role of this

communication platform is building and maintaining the brand-customer relationship,

enhancing engagement, informing and building trust – all of these supporting brand’s

communications strategy towards general growth.

2. The case: Music Labels and Bands

a. General Environment

The music industry is one of the most dynamic and fast-paced at the moment.

With the quick progression in tastes and music genres, thousands of bands are constantly

trying to get out of anonimity and push their way towards the top of charts. Music labels

and companies are therefore responsible of spotting the talent and promoting it in such a

way as to bring success to both the bands and themselves. Considering the fact that they

have to handle the promotion of both more traditional, already popular bands and also

new emerging ones, bringing on the modern influences of the young new generation, the

promotional mix and the channels used for targeting the right people are always an

important choice to be made.

As stated before, social media has become an integrated part of most individuals’

lives, and therefore provides a very good communication and promotion platform,

helping in creating the relationship between both the label and its customers, and the

band with its fans. Not only this, but in the case of a band, due to the strong relationship

that is created with its listeners, a continuous, accessible and cheap (free) communication

channel is demanded in order to maintain and get new audience. Taking the example of

new bands, that need to raise popularity quickly and from scratch – from a label’s point

of view, according to Barbara, W (2002) we can expand on the diffusion of innovation

cycle to the music industry, and assume that most early adopters in general are young

people, as they tend to be more and more open-minded and curious. Therefore, it is easy

to understand why the new emerging bands aim to target this category of people. Going

further on this idea, it is easily understandable how in order to make the communication

efficient, it has to be shaped on their behavior, and, as they are the most exposed to social

media, mainly through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or

Sound Cloud, it is clear how these have to be an important part in creating the marketing

mix and advertising planning, as well as the integrated communication plan (Smith N,

2011).

b. Warner Music Group and Avenged Sevenfold

Warner Music Group (WMG) is one of the biggest music labels group in the

world, being linked to artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paramore or Avenged

Sevenfold. Having its main headquarters in New York, it is also part of “The big 4”

music companies. With roots going back in time as far as 1800, linking to Ludwig Van

Beethoven and Chappell, Warner is a strong name globally, activating in more than 50

countries, which due to its longevity became a symbol in the entertainment industry,

incorporating record labels such as Atlantic, RoadRunner and many others (WMG.com).

This broadness in the activity field, that ranges from artistic services to publishing, as

well as their long history, provides them with a strong experience and know-how

regarding music promotion and public engagement.

Avenged Sevenfold is one of the most popular names in the modern rock scene at

the moment, and surely one of the most rapidly growing. Formed in 1999, the band

released six albums to the date, the latest one being “Hail to the king” in 2013, album that

charted as #1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish,

Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. After winning the title of the band with the most

dedicated fans at Revolver Golden Gods Awards in 2012 (loudwire.com/), the band used

this to its advantage and incorporated this into its marketing strategy, by linking one of

their next new singles, “Carry On”, to the highly-anticipated “Call of Duty: Black Ops II”

video game, further using this to promote and raise awareness in regards to the release of

their next album, “Hail to the king”, in 2013. Ever since, the band has continuously been

involved also with the video and mobile games industry, now preparing the launch of

their own “Hail to the King: Deathbat” RPG game.

The reason why I chose these particular subjects for my project is because, as I

will discuss further, Warner, and Avenged Sevenfold, originally targeted and developed

communications and advertising plans using social media, boosting their popularity and

success with new releases. Furthermore, they had an even bigger return of value for the

band not only in terms of expanding the fan base but also financial investment from them

and engagement using more points of contact. On the top of this, Warner Music Group is

also the company I am planning to work with and Avenged Sevenfold is one of my

favorite bands, so I think that considering this, the quality of research and analysis will be

better as I have a genuine interest in the case subjects, and also I can use it in

understanding how marketing and PR can be used in various creative ways to bring value

with the help of Social Media, enhancing the return on investment.

3. Theoretical Framework

For analyzing and understanding the impact that social media has in the Music

Industry, and how a band can exploit this platform for increasing their success, I have

chosen to combine concepts exposed in the book “Social Media Management Handbook”

by Nick Smith and Robert Wollan, with relevant information from other marketing and

communications books and articles studied for this course and for previous ones. I have

also chosen to refer to books studied in Marketing & Marketing Communications and

Digital Marketing, as well as Consumer Behavior in order to expand the boarders of my

study and make it more relevant

Some of the key concepts that I will touch and get into detail with will be:

Marketing & Advertising

- Social media role in raising awareness on events and products

- Social Media Business - Facebook

- Social Media and PR

Management & Integration

- Integrated communications optimization through social media channels

Engagement

- Customer (fans) retention and engagement

- Using the fan-base for expanding reach towards new audience and social

influence

4. Methodology

a. General overview

To emphasize and contrast the specific use of social media platforms by both

Warner and Avenged Sevenfold, I have chosen to focus mostly on Facebook, Twitter and

Instagram, and how the posts are either consistent or linked to each other, as well as try to

identify the most efficient communication strategies. I will also look into the way

Avenged Sevenfold exploited the opportunity of expanding and differentiating its

revenue streams, as well as how each supports the others. Moreover, I will study the type

and depth of relationship the band is able to create with its fans, as well as the additional

exposure they gain from it. I will often refer to the band by using the short form of its

name, A7X, which is used by its fans.

In support to these findings I will refer to relevant articles about the band’s and

label’s strategies and also academic framework supporting the concepts analyzed. I have

also gathered marketing suggestions and examples from relevant articles and writers in

the industry.

b. Social Media Goals:

Avenged Sevenfold has always been a band that based its growth in popularity on

its fan base, and they repeatedly mentioned this in their interviews and documentaries.

Considering this, it is easy to understand why their online presence is vital in order to

maintain the brand image they created, and continue to expand their popularity. Having

as the main purpose building and maintaining their relationship with the fans, the band

also uses social media for keeping them updated and attract them to their shows, as well

as promote new materials and merchandise.

A very relevant example in this cse is the launch of their new video game “Hail to

the King - Deathbat”. Carrying the name of their latest album, besides supporting it in

terms of promotion and raise awareness upon the name, the video game also contains the

band’s most popular songs as backing tracks, and some of their names are included in the

levels the players have to achieve. This creates a very deep level of interactivity with the

brand (Fill C. 2009) and contributes towards gaining new fans from a different market:

the Video Games Markt. Also, by being so familiar with these things about the band, a

new prospective customer that plays the game is way easier persuaded than someone who

knows nothing about it. Therefore, we can say that by all these means, the social media

goals of Avenged Sevenfold are interacting with the current fans, while gaining new

ones, making the fan-band relationship deeper while maintaining a high degree of

effective communication and feedback.

Considering the additional PR gained from fans and music publications, in the

latest period one of the big campaigns that engaged the fans in sharing content related to

the band was “Avenged Sevenfold Hail To The King: DeathBat Contest” in which

players were asked to post covers of music themes within the game. The direct

involvement of M Shadows certainly played a role in raising interest in the competition,

and the results were “pretty amazing” (Loudwire.com).

Just as well Social Media is a very good platform of getting feedback from their

public and make necessary changes where needed. For Warner, it is also a good way of

monitoring all the bands within their labels, see how they’re performing and gain

information from the market

5. Analysis and Results

By correlating and analyzing A7X’s posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I

managed to come these conclusions:

- The band is most active on Twitter and Facebook, followed by Instagram, as it

requires photos and not only text

- The posts can be divided into:

- Posts that are present on all 3 platforms in the same form,

- Posts that are present only on Facebook and Twitter, which are usually

text and/or text + video

- Twitter posts that have as a goal generating a buying behavior towards

merchandise and tickets, or audience engagement in live online interviews

and performances of the band

I have approached the Marketing perspective by firstly looking into Warner

Music Group’s strategy, in order to see the influences on Avenged Sevenfold’s. As they

set the directions, I have decided to go straight to the decision-making units, and I have

found an article citing Snowden, the vice president for digital creative and technology of

Atlantic Records - one of the labels within Warner Music Group. He says there he sees

fans acquired through Facebook or Twitter as “at the beginning of the journey”, and he

wants to get them further on the artist’s website and ultimately engage them in a buying

behavior. Furthermore, they track the Social Media data and try to separate the more

influential fans from the others, discussing about different approaches to bands depending

on their level. (informationweek.com). Translating this into A7X’s advertising, we can

assume the goals to be the same, and moreover in line with their message that “fans are

like family”. Also, considering the band is more popular, from Snowden’s words we can

assume driving the fans to the band’s own domains is increasingly important. This

approach is also suggested by artist Parrish K in her article regarding effective use of

social media, being one of the key elements of an efficient, well-thought strategy. From

her perspective, consistency in posts, approaching more social media channels, having a

more visual manner of posting and also a good frequency are also important ingredients

in the recipe of success.

A key aspect in Warner’s approach to Social Media communication is also

encouraging artists to post themselves on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, for increasing the

authenticity of the messages (informationweek.com). However, according to Keller, K. L.

(2008), this is rather risky from a managing the brand point of view, as the band

members, PR and everyone posting on their behalf have to be sure the content is in line

with the brand values and objectives, in order to build towards their objectives and not

derive from their purposes.

Returning to the integration of Social Media within the advertising mix, Facebook

offers a very viable way of investing money for extra exposure. Actually, what happened

was really interesting. Over a period of a couple of years, while the platform was gaining

popularity and bands started to see the value their presence could bring, Facebook left

them develop freely. Then, in the past years, they turned it into a proper business,

developing multiple revenue streams. Firstly, they limited the reach of audience to only

15%, while not explicitly saying so. At the same time, they started to advertise Facebook

Ads,, that allowed you to reach specific customer segments from locations chosen by you

- a very customizable tool for promoting. The second revenue stream that they developed

was the one regarding messaging popular figures. In general, if you do not have any

common contact with someone and you send a message, this will go into the “Others”

message folder. However, Facebook offers you the opportunity to pay, depending on the

number of likes the person has, and get your message in the main inbox folder. This can

be highly efficient for new emerging bands that want to get in contact with bigger names,

able to help them. Having considered all these, we can definitely say that, in the case of a

band that would want to expand its reach, a part of the budget can be invested in social

media as it can prove highly effective. Relating this to Warner Music Group and

Avenged Sevenfold, this can surely be a highly efficient method to introduce in their

marketing campaigns, also because they can boost only specific posts, that can increase

traffic and maybe contribute more than others to the overall popularity gained.

From a management perspective, the integration of all the channels must be done

in such a way to raise awareness, reinforce, promote and engage the public, therefore, as

different social media channels behave differently, it is essential to engage on each of

them accordingly. First of all, the content posted has to be divided in categories to fit

each specific platform, and then scheduled for posting. Also, feedback must be gathered

at all times for ensuring the efficiency of the process. It is also useful to leave space for

spontaneous interactions with fans, however the representatives of the band must be well

informed upon the business objectives of the communications, so they can tailor their

posts and replies accordingly.

In support to this, I have also researched and analyzed the specific roles of

different social media platforms that professionals in the industry use in order to raise the

effectiveness of their campaigns.

By comparing the different websites categories with food ingredients in a diet,

this infographic shows how posts should be diversified and spread across multiple

platforms. In other words, it discusses the fact that even though the direct engagement

through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and so on should be the base of the communication,

it still has to be combined with others. (Appendix It also discusses the content, and the

importance of visual elements, as well as appreciating others in the industry and not

always focusing only on yourself. Digging deeper into this aspect, I consider it to be very

true, as often by helping others with promotion and to achieve success in general, not

only they will have a great opinion on you, but also is more likely to get help yourself

from them when needed. It also keeps the public engaged and stimulates curiosity, while

creating an overall good impression. Having a look back on Avenged Sevenfold’s

website, we can see how the band understands the importance of social media well,

offering access to their pages from the first website page. Also, being present on other

channels, such as Spotify or on.beatsmusic.com offers them the opportunity of sharing

relevant media.

Considering the Customer engagement, as we can extract from the previous

interview both Warner Music Group and A7X count on their social media platform not

only to increase the fan’s engagement but also to encourage visits on their own platform,

where a buying behavior can be enabled. Looking on their websites, this can easily be

observed as they have quick links to Apple Store and Google Play Store for reminding

fans about buying their materials, and encouraging them in this way by making the

buying platforms very easily accessible.

This approach is very smartly mapped in this visual as well, showing how different

platforms should relationate and work together, while all of them having as a purpose

driving fans to the band’s own website.

6. Discussion

From a holistic marketing perspective, we can say that A7X’s rich online

presence is a very big competitive advantage, as it carries through all the values the

”brand” they have become promote. The reason for this advantage is the cost

effectiveness of the communication channel, and the fact that it contributes a lot in

maintaining and strengthening the relationship with fans that is one of the main

emphasizes when thinking of the band’s values. Furthermore, it represents an additional

marketing channel that supports all the other advertising messages transmitted through

press or broadcast media (Fill, C.2009).

Solomon M (2013) also touches in his book about the social influence on a

person’s decisions. Also, in the present days, marketing in general has drastically

changed from a position where people were considering the message transmitted by the

brand, towards the people’s opinions upon the brand. This can also be translated to bands

and music, as they are an important social element mainly for young people, many times

groups being created based very much on the musical preferences. Having this in mind,

we can say that the opportunity of sharing on the social media platforms offers a great

opportunity for a fan to influence or encourage other potential others to try listening to

the band. This is automatically a good opportunity for bands to take advantage of these

factors and encourage the fans they already have to share information, music and other

content on their pages as well. Some common ways of doing so are contests like the one

Avenged Sevenfold had for Hail To The King: Deathbat video game, but also concert

tickets, invitations and different other merchandising can represent valuable prizes in the

eyes of the listeners.

Also, through social Media, a band can “brand” itself more continuously and

cheaper, according to BeDell C. (2013). While showing examples of marketing

promotions support, she also brings into discussion popular examples such as Lana del

Rey, that used Social Media to become popular even before launching an album. To

A&X, this applies in the way that they can continue to maintain their image of “cool”

guys, heavy and “free-spirit” by shaping the nature of posts they release in order to sub-

communicate this message. In the same article, she also talks about the way in which

albums purchase has changed in the past decade, and what a big importance social media

has in the buying process.

As in the present the general tendency of buying music is mostly online, there are

also multiple social media platforms that stream music. Even though Avenged Sevenfold,

in our case, doesn’t have direct links from their website, their music is always present of

such platforms. These work closely with the label and the artists for obtaining their

authorship rights and share the profit made from both ads and paid versions of these

apps/platforms. A more comprehensive list of these and how they work can be found in

Appendix 8 c. What’s more to these platforms, artists can promote themselves and their

music not only by being present there, but also by paid-for advertising.

Taking the example of Spotify, while using the free version of the app/platform,

certain songs within a playlist cannot be skipped, so you are forced to listen to the whole

song, while some ads between songs advertise new releases. Also, photos of certain

artists can appear as covers for specific playlists, which offer them a bigger exposure and

raise awareness in the minds of the public. Overall, considering these apps we ca say that

is mostly the decision of labels how to use them, as they are the ones handling the

marketing strategy as well as part of the copyrights. Furthermore, they have a better

insight into the market and can take a better informed decision about which artist should

be promoted in which way so they gain the biggest return on the investment.

7. Conclusions

After analyzing all these aspects of social media and how it can bring a very valuable

contribution in the music industry, it is clear why every band should pay close attention

to it in order to maximize the outcomes. The online involvement of fans with bands is

one of the biggest trends at the moment, Twitter having its most popular subjects always

around the music area (sproutsocial.com), and this is why especially in this domain,

several platforms have been developing in the past years. As customer behavior models

have drastically changed, it is highly important to understand how to mix these social

media tools in order to increase their value outcome and achieve an ultimate goal of

directing fans to the band’s own domain and directly engage them. Moreover, we have to

understand how a buying behavior must be encouraged and how Social Media can play

an extraordinary important role in creating and maintaining the relationship with the

brand/band. Collecting feedback is also a key element in developing a social media

campaign, and using it to continuously tailor the communication so it can get across well

to the audience, as well as represent their interests, is key.

However, while doing all these, there is also a very important element to be

reminded. Even with all this access to public. The best advice a band should consider still

remains: Make. Great. Music. (midtnmusic.com). As long as you have a good product to

market, and you are doing it wisely, people will find and appreciate you.

8. Appendixes

a. Content Division Infographic

b. Platforms interaction

c. Music Streaming Platforms

d. Digital Albums Sales Chart

9. References

a. Books

- Smith N, Wollan, R. (2011) The Social Media Management Handbook

- Fill, C.(2009) Marketing Communications. 4th edn. Essex : Person Education

Limited.

- Fill C (2009) Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and

Content 5th Ed. London: Prentice Hall.

- Keller, K. L. (2008), “Best Practice Cases in Branding: Lessons from the World’s

Strongest Brands”, Prentice Hall

- Engel, James F., Blackewell, Roger D.and Miniard, Paul W. : Consumer

Behaviour, 8th

edition (Forth Worth TX, Dryden Press, 1995)

- Solomon. M., Bamossy, G., Askegaard, S. and Hogg, M. (2013) Consumer

Behaviour: A European Perspective Harlow: Prentice Hall.

- Social Media Management Lecture Slides

b. Websites

- Avenged Sevenfold news available at http://loudwire.com/tags/avenged-

sevenfold/

- WMG information available at http://www.wmg.com/timeline

- Carr F. D. (2011) How Warner Music Turns Social Media Fans Into Customers,

Information Week, available at http://www.informationweek.com/how-warner-

music-turns-social-media-fans-into-customers/d/d-id/1100814?

- http://www.avengedsevenfold.com/

- Parrish, K (2014) “5 Tips for Marketing Music With a Comprehensive Social

Media Strategy” available at http://hypebot.com/hypebot/2014/09/5-tips-for-

marketing-music-with-a-comprehensive-social-media-strategy.html

- BeDell, C (2013) “Music Insiders tell us how Social drives Album Sales and

Revenue” available at http://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-music-

industry/

- Smotherman J (2014) “ My best advice for bands using Social Media for

Marketing in 2014 available at http://www.midtnmusic.com/my-best-advice-for-

bands-using-social-media-for-marketing-in-2014/