- Image via Wikipedia
Over the summer, I read Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes. Tribes makes the case that it has never been easier to create and lead a tribe around a product, a cause, or in the case that I would like to make here, music. In it, Mr Godin references Kevin Kelly’s blog post on The Technium, 1,000 True Fans, where Mr Kelly argues that an individual artist only needs 1,000 fans to make a living as a full time musician. He cites strategies musicians like Jill Sobule employ to “underwrite” their music production. This is analogous to technology startups conducting market research before spending millions creating a product that nobody wants.
But, what if you’re name is not Jill Sobule and you haven’t invested years (with the aid of the old establishment) building your brand? This begs more to Mr Godin’s premise that with social media this becomes a much easier task than ever before. However true this is, every musician would need to employ the same, or largely similar, tactics. And then convert casual admirers into “true fans” that will presumably plunk down $100 a year for whatever they produce. Let’s hope that they are prolific creators because a $100 is not exactly milk money. And, an effective social media (self-promotion) strategy demands a considerable time investment leaving little time for the plethora of content that I’ll expect for my $100.
This model is very difficult to sustain and to scale for an individual artist.
Idea: Coopetition
Coopetition is a way a group of artists can form a collaborative to benefit from the effort of the group and from economies of scale.
Let’s Call it: BandOfBands.com
At BandOfBands.com, I (the consumer) can join the tribe of a group of artists by “subscribing” to their channel. I can download or stream (see Pandora, iTunes Genius Mixes or Apple buys Lala for why this will be important) content from my american folk music tribe. From time to time I also get exclusive content, tickets as well as limited access to the artists. Assuming that there are 10 artists in the channel, I feel that I’m getting a pretty good deal for my $100 a year. Admittedly, the BandOfBands needs to acquire 10x the “true fans” they would otherwise need on their own but I contend that it’ll be easier as a combined effort. Individual artists will always out grow the group making way for up and comers. As well as deadbeats will be naturally jettisoned by the tribe.
For more ideas and dialogue on this topic, check out the great people at Musicians for Music 2.0. They have all forgotten more about the music industry than I’ll ever know. I’ll defer to them to determine the efficacy of Coopetition and BandOfBands.com. And whether it already exists.
