Musicadium Blog

This weekend just past saw me (Tim) travel to Rockhampton to play at the largest annual All Ages event in the region, Rockfest, which in the past has been headlined by The Butterfly Effect, Kisschasy, Youth Group and Gyroscope - this year’s was headlined by the amazing Dead Letter Circus.  I played drums with The Origin Complex, the band who I played for before I moved to Brisbane.  Musicadium Artists The Short Fall and Epidemic…Over also played at this event.

I also do some “pseudo-management” for The Origin Complex, so in the lead up to the event, I was thinking in terms of online presence.  The Origin Complex already has a MySpace page and a Facebook page, but not a twitter account.

My first impulse was to not bother using Twitter for this purpose, as after a few searches via search.twitter.com, did not show up too many different tweeters in the Rockhampton region. Further research using location-based searches (rather than keyword searches) dug up quite a few more.

I saw this as an opportunity to perform an experiment on the takeup of twitter in a regional area.  I signed the band up for a twitter account and with the help of the internet and an iPhone with the twitterific application, I was able to twitter my entire Rockfest experience.  I have always said that there is no point to using Twitter without a purpose.  You need to decide exactly why you are using Twitter - this then determines the people you actively go to follow and also your “voice” when interacting with other tweeters.  I decided that the purpose of The Origin Complex’ use of Twitter was to spread the word about bands/artists making connections with fans and also to get more people in Rockhampton listen to our music and become fans.  A secondary goal was to make people aware of Rockfest in the upcoming week.  As the use of the twitter account will be ongoing, this was only a temporary goal.

The Origin Complex can be followed on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/origincomplex.

To maximise the fan connection, I wanted to avoid having any standard avatars (the logo next to your twitter name) or backgrounds.  I began by creating a background that included a picture of the singer, Glenn, and the band name and MySpace URL for the band.  I used a photo of the four members of the band as the avatar.  I wanted fans to see who the members of the band were.

Next, I used twitter’s search function to find people talking about Rockhampton.  I found numerous conversations about things going on in Rockhampton, including the local newspaper (The Morning Bulletin) and a radio station (ABC Capricornia - who, ironically, have a 40+ age group demographic and yet, are the only radio station in the region to use twitter - come on, commercial stations, you are already behind the times, please join us in the 21st century - you claim to be “down with the kids”.  From these connections, I leveraged a story (that I had to write) in the newspaper and a quick pre-record on the radio station, which aired on Friday April 3rd.  As it is a new technology and a new way of approaching promotion in the regional Queensland city, it was certainly a different spin on the other press releases, so it got a run in the local media.

I followed as many people as I could find from the local area, including Yeppoon, Rockhampton and Gladstone.  I got a few follows back, but the takeup was not massive, though still worth it!  Those who did follow the feed connected well with the band, asking questions and wishing us luck on stage.

I offered links to our various social networking sites, so there was opportunities for people to check out our tracks.  It would have been better leveraged with some more time and planning, such as the ability to give away tracks in exchange for email addresses at a website, for example.

I cannot say for certain that this is the case for all regional areas, but certainly the findings from my experience tweeting Rockfest has shown that there is a place for Twitter in creating genuine band-fan connections.

Read some post event press here: http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/04/06/thousands-turn-rock-out-and-mosh-music-bowl/

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Digital Distribution, General, Useful Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.