The Power of Friends:
Making MySpace -
Your Space

By now all you up-and-coming artists, labels, producers and others in "the bidness" are acutely aware of the omnipresent MySpace.com. And whether you use it as a powerful marketing tool to build a grassroots buzz and to scout new acts/gigs, or as an opportunity to anonymously expose your most intimate thoughts and nonsensical streams of consciousness with complete strangers, its power cannot be denied.

Perhaps the secret of MySpace's success is the ingenious mix - one part regression therapy and one part spankin' good time - which creates the kind of community that amounts to gold for an artist or label trying to promote various acts. Hunt around MySpace's Music section, and you'll find countless obscure artists whose profiles get tens of thousands of "page views" by friends who referred friends who referred friends...... Who'da thunk it? MySpace is the definition of viral marketing. No wonder savvy artists are making such keen use of it.

Indeed, MySpace creates a yet another new twist for the music industry. "It was just so disheartening 10 or 15 years ago," says Rob Stone, founder of music and media marketing firm Cornerstone Promotion. "You would send your material to these record labels that wouldn't get back to you or would just send you a form letter. Fast forward to what MySpace has done. It allows musicians to hear what people are saying about the music."

Take Avery Storm, a New York City-based Hip-Hop and R&B artist who has co-written and produced songs for Nelly and worked with artists such as Notorious BIG, Diddy, Jagged Edge and others. Even though Storm recently snagged a record deal with Nelly's label, Universal Music-affiliated Derrty Ent, and will have a single out within a couple of months, he took the initiative to create a MySpace page just this last September without any label involvement.

In a few short months, Storm amassed more than 17,000 song plays from his profile page. Early legwork inviting people to join his network soon went on autopilot as word got around. "In the beginning, I started hitting people myself," Storm told me in a phone interview. "Then before I know it, people were just adding me, and it just started to grow and grow. The requests started coming my way. " Storm has been getting so many emails he recently posted a letter to fans apologizing for not getting back to everybody.

Storm says MySpace amounts to a digital version of old-school street marketing. "It's so incredible, " he says. "A few years ago, something like this would have been a dream. It's like selling CDs out of a trunk, but it puts the car all over the world. " Not only has Storm gained fans from Germany, the U.K. and other non-U.S. markets, he has hooked up with other music-industry contacts through the MySpace network-some surprisingly close to his NYC pad. "I've met some producers through MySpace, " he says. "If it were not for MySpace, it would have never happened. And I've met people within a three-block radius of my place in New York City that I would never have met. "

Of course artists aren't the only ones profiting from MySpace. Labels and managers also use it to find new clients. MySpace has actually become an important A&R channel "You can tell who is creating a buzz," says Paul Anthony, CEO and founder of Rumblefish.

"It is common practice for labels, promoters and music licensing companies scouting for artists to check out bands they're interested in on MySpace and 'measure' their popularity," he says. "Finally a way to show how many rabid fans your band has without having to show record sales receipts in the tens of thousands."

The downside is that there are thousands of artists vying for the fickle attention of music fans on the MySpace network. And I have heard stories about individual MySpace users getting so inundated with new band friend requests that they simply stopped answering them. Some have put all-caps messages on their pages telling bands not to bother adding them (In fact, MySpace now even has a special feature that allows individual users to automatically block any friend requests from bands!). That's not good. But then again, no artist wants to be a pest, and these things have a way of working themselves out over time.

Travis Clark, the lead singer for the band Broken Image, says he used MySpace to gain 20,000 fans from all over the world but "there are thousands and thousands of bands all trying to do the same thing, which makes breaking into the music industry very difficult. This means you need to be the best at what you do in order to receive any recognition from the music industry." In fact, the truly great artists generate interest organically through word-of-mouth and other methods-such as managing their MySpace profiles and playing as many gigs as they possibly can (and making certain that the dates are posted well in advance on their pages). "It's all about the little things you do," says Rob Stone.

Amy Vogt, owner of Atlanta-based music marketing firm Pandemonium says "the key to making MySpace work for any artist is actually taking the time to respond to all the fans. A lot of artists make the mistake of requesting to be added as someone's friend and then when the person adds them they think their job is done. There is an unspoken rule on MySpace: If I leave you a comment you better leave me one or you may just lose me as a friend. Thus, artists should really take the time to respond to messages, leave non-generic comments, and reach out to people they genuinely think would dig their music."

And, you must keep the information on the pages current to keep people coming back. "If you have any decent amount of activity, a MySpace profile is hard work to maintain," says Paul Anthony. "You'll need to spend countless hours at the computer on a regular basis in order to stay on top of things. It's simple. If you aren't current and interesting, people won't be interested."

Then again, that doesn't mean sending out friend invites without considering an individual's interests (If you're a Rock band, it makes little sense to send a friend invite to someone whose list of favorite artists includes only Country acts). "You can be everywhere," Stone says. "With that comes the pollution and the noise out there, so you have to be selective." But there's an even more important point that often gets lost in these virtual worlds of cyberspace: Artists have got to play live and tour to build a real fanbase! "There's still nothing like the live performance," says Stone.

In fact, MySpace can be a great way to beef up that gig calendar. "The other primary use of MySpace is connecting and networking with other bands," says Adam Leiter, lead singer for Boston-based Alt-Rock band Sad Marvin. "Putting together shows and matching with similarly-styled bands has been made much easier through MySpace. We can see their upcoming schedule on the calendar, listen to their songs to see if there's a match, and reasonably gauge how well a fit it would be."

Another thing to keep in mind, at least for now: MySpace is primarily populated by teens and twentysomethings, which may explain why so many of the postings resemble the "slam books" we used to pass around in 8th grade to rate and skewer our classmates, or the kind of things I used to read on the walls of the boy's room in junior high.

These kids generally listen to Rock, Hip-Hop, Pop and a few other specific genres. "I've seen much less success in genres such as traditional World music, Jazz, Alt. Country, New Age, etcetera," says Anthony. Of course, knowing your audience is critical to any marketing plan. Adds Stone: "You want to be where like-minded people are going to be. If you're Kelly Clarkson, I don't know if you want to be on HipHop.com."

In the end, the most unique and best music often has a way of cutting through the noise on MySpace-the same way it can happen in the offline world. "If you try to be an individual rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses, you can stay relevant and not get lost in the sauce," says Avery Storm. "I really believe that." That's good advice-not only in the context of MySpace but in the context of the music industry at large.

Editors note: Now that we've covered all its virtues, next month we'll take a look at the darker side of MySpace - with Rupert Murdoch now at the helm. And, can MySpace remain cool if heading up the mainstream? Got something to say about it? Send it along to Mike