Corporate blogging in the music industry

While I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing, apparently so is the music industry. Or more specifically, major record labels. I was a bit surprised to come across this article from Wired Magazine to find out that only one major label has an official corporate blog. That would be EMI Australia, which recently launched the blog The In Sound From Way Out earlier this year, becoming the first major label to do so.

While it's a step in the right direction, it certainly speaks volumes to the slowness of the industry in adapting to and utilizing new technologies in general. It does, however, gives EMI a giant head start in the field. As they state in the About section, they are "the only major label with this level of openness about who we are and what we do." This will no doubt help them differentiate themselves from their major label brethren and perhaps project a more positive and "hip" corporate image. They go on to state, "We hope you respond to that with openness of your own." While it's refreshing to see that level of candor displayed, it certainly underlines their intention of using the blog as a marketing tool in which they can interact with fans and attempt to sell and market their catalog.

The most notable and striking thing about The In Sound From Way Out is definitely the use of visual elements. From the layout, to the color scheme to the abundance of pictures and videos, it's clear that the blog is intended to function as a user-oriented interactive experience. The end goal seems to be to promote the EMI brand and catalog. It emits a surprisingly informal tone that contributes to the desire of projecting a more open and inviting corporate image, rather than being thought of as stuffy and uptight as most major labels are.

In terms of the blog entries themselves, all of them contain visual content such as pictures and embedded videos or have links for the user to stream or download MP3s. Because of the abundance of peripheral content, the entries seem to vary quite a bit in length. The actual text is usually only a few lines or so, though some can be a few paragraphs. The frequency of posts is a bit puzzling, as there only seems to be a few each month and they all seem to fall around the same time. The blog clearly encourages audience interaction by having a comments box and "share" tool at the end of each post, though only a handful of entries actually had reader comments.

While The In Sound From Way Out (or TISFWO as I like to call it) is the one and only blog run by a major label, it seems that just about ever indie record label out there employs this communication tool. This certainly makes sense, as indies have traditionally been ahead of the majors in terms of openness and innovation. One indie blog I found to be particularly interesting was the Matablog by Matador Records, one of the biggest and most successful indie labels.

The Matablog takes on a much more personal and conversational tone than TISFWO, and some of the bloggers seem to speak directly to the readers as they would to a regular friend. They frequently use the first person "I" when writing, as if speaking only for themselves, while the bloggers on TISFWO almost always used "we," as if representing the company as a whole. This definitely illustrates the difference between the bottom line, business-oriented mentality of the majors and the more independent and maverick nature of the indies.

As with TISFWO, the Matablog seems to be intended for the fans and consumers of Matador Records, however, they employ less clear cut marketing and sales efforts. The intent of most of the posts seems to be more informational than anything else; a lot of them are simply updates about current show and touring information. The entries are also a bit longer, usually a few paragraphs, and are posted much more frequently.

This is not to say that the Matablog is not used as a marketing tool as well, as there are still plenty of links to MP3s and ways to order and pay for music. Visually, it's not quite as busy as TISFWO, though it still has a lot of going on; there are a ton of pictures and a some embedded videos too. As with TISFWO, comments and reader participation is encouraged, with a link at the end of each post. Overall, the feel of the blog seems to project the image and aesthetic you might expect from an indie label: laid back, honest, and not necessarily obsessed with selling their product down your throat.

Clearly, blogging is an important communication tool that can be utilized productively in the corporate world. It offers a new outlet for companies to interact directly with their consumers and to further market their products. While the independent entities of the music industry seem to have embraced this new technology, the major label behemoths seem much less interested in creating a blogging experience for their consumer base. Hopefully, they'll soon follow EMI's lead and not underestimate this technology the same way they underestimated the rise of the Internet and the transformative effect it would have on their industry.