The Online Revolution

The online revolution has helped many artists climb the music charts, but more importantly it has enabled many talented artists become known and gain record deals.

For example The Arctic Monkeys have risen to fame through the online revolution.

In 2003 the band decided after a few gigs that they would demo 17 songs and burn them to CD's and give away to fans at gigs. This promptly followed by file sharing by the fans using the Internet to spread the music of the band. This generated much interest and the fans set up a Myspace site for them with their music and information on it. Myspace is a social networking site that is used to promote many artists music as it is free and it is used by millions of people. Therefore it targets many people for free.

Social Networking Sites

Other than Myspace, artists are now using a range of social networking sites. For example there is now Facebook and Twitter. These are used by a number of artists and it is good as on Twitter their audience can 'follow' them and therefore find out about what they are doing on a day to day basis. Artists also use it as a promotional tool to let their audience know when their new album/song is released etc.

Facebook is almost used by artists as a mini website. Most of the artists Facebook pages give information about tour dates, where to buy music and new releases, where to buy tickets. It is also a bit like twitter where you can 'like' them and then you then therefore receive updates and most artists sync there twitter and Facebook, so we know where they are and we know what they are doing.

For Example: Katy Perry

YouTube

This is again used by artists and bands to promote their music. YouTube was made in 2005 and it is a website where people can upload, share and view videos. Music companies use it to upload their artists music videos and therefore many people can view the music and share it. This gains interest in the artist.
Also new and up coming artists use it to promote themselves for example Esmee Denters was discovered on youtube. She was a regular cover artist, performing songs by Justin Timberlake and Natasha Bedingfield and uploading the videos on YouTube, this gained the interest of Justin Timberlake and he signed her on his own record label Tenman Records. He co-wrote all her songs and produced them, her debut album 'Outta Here' reached nu,ber 5 in her home country of the Netherlands and 48 in the UK. Therefore YouTube helped create her carrer and is therefore used by many artists and bands to promote themselves.

Viral Marketing using the Online Revolution

The band Nizlopi had their first number 1 single just before Christmas. This happened with the help of the online revolution and would never of happened without it. They commissioned a small Internet web design company called Monkeyhub to make a video to illustrate their song. They sent this video that they made to 20 people, these people then sent it to their friends and so on. This is known as Viral Marketing. This therefore raised awareness of the band and they then made their song on their own record label, shunning major record deals. Therefore the online revolution enormously helped Nizlopi.

Traditional forms of advertising

Before the online revolution many artists and bands had to use other forms of promotion like leaflets and posters. For example The Beatles had to use these forms of advertising. They Put posters up all over towns of their forthcoming tour dates and appearances and they also promoted their albums and songs through newspaper adverts.

Today artists still use more traditional forms of advertising, for example many artists use newspapers, magazines and the TV to promote themselves and their songs.

Alexandra Burke

She has become the face of Sure Deodorant, in the advert she sings her new song and she appears singing it at a gig. This is all while she is promoting Sure. This is good as many more people now know her and her new song. She also would have got some money for being the face of Sure and therefore it is the best of both worlds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=3_Hs2oqItFQ&feature=related

Pixie Lott


She has promoted herself using celebrity branding. When nokia made a new set of phones, they put some of Pixie Lott's songs onto the phones and they got Pixie to advertise them at photo shoots and the launch of the phones. She also performed some of her songs at the launch party and therefore generated more interest and she was able to promote some of her news songs.