Romancing Your Favorite Music Bloggers
In the last two Daily D.I.Y. posts I talked about the importance of music bloggers and how to find the ones that matter to your music via special search techniques and blog directories. But once you've found them, what's next?
Start slowly. Just like dating, a little tease and a strong first impression are important.
Begin by commenting intelligently on some of the bloggers posts. Most allow you to link your signature back to your web site. Be sure to sign each comment including your band name or affiliation (Bruce Houghton of Hypebot). Adding a few sincere kinds words about a band the blogger likes or about the blogger's writing never hurt. Asking a question that provokes dialog with the blogger or other readers is also a good strategy.
After a few days or weeks contact the blogger directly with comment or better yet include a piece of
information that they might find useful. Helping others is always a good thing. You can mention your band including a link or two, but don't ask for anything…yet
Next, send a little music. Don't ask permission. It's too easy to say no or ignore a request. Include a few words on why they might like it. "I know you love bands like….". Let them know you've done your homework and not wasting their time.
Bloggers also love free stuff for themselves and for their readers. A t-shirt in the mail goes a long way and the offer of a contest prize (4 tickets and backstage passes) goes even farther and gets you more coverage. If things are really going well, offer to contribute to the blog. Most music bloggers work free and all of us could use help producing strong content. Road diaries and photos from the recording studio or OK, but maybe you've got a more creative idea.
Lastly, don't forget to say thank-you. A handwritten note (you remember…the kind you put postage stamps on) go a long way because no one does it any more. Give them props and a link back on our own blog (You do have one; don't you?) and web site. Refer to them in a comment on someone else's blog. Chances are they'll find out about it.
Just like dating, romancing a blogger is about building a relationship. Take your time, don't expect too much and you just might be surprised by the results.
Another great way to befriend influential music bloggers is to follow them (and by extension, to get them to follow you) on twitter. If you picked the top 100 most influential music blogs, to the best of my knowledge about 20+ of them are on twitter. It can take some searching to find them but they’re out there. The same rules apply towards approaching a blogger on twitter as they do for e-mail. Take your time, be tactful, don’t spam or annoy, and gain their friendship first before approaching them with any music.
– Tom from Hit Singularity
The original intent of music blogs was for fans to write about what they really love. Your concept that somehow the blogs can be conned, tricked, or bribed into posting about some band’s lame music is counter to the very nature of music blogs.
Sadly in the present state of music blogging I think this idea of first flattering and then bribing the critic might very well work. But unless the band in question is creating high quality, lasting music any attention they receive will be fleeting at best.
Furthermore music bloggers have caught on to these ploys and don’t take kindly to bands giving false praise and then, surprise surprise, hitting us up for coverage a few days later.
The one point that is valid concerns the need for content. The road diary thing is a good idea and is similar to something I did with Songs:Illinois for SXSW.
Music blogging is too important for you to write these kinds of articles about it. This is a movement, not a move-meant to be extorted by bands that are below our standards. As a longtime blogger (I started before all the new bad blogs started)I think I have the authority to say we (old, good blogs) live by a code, much like that of the samurai, and this article is akin to an old shabogun in the 9th century writing a scroll on how to cut off a samurai’s top knot. It’s disrespectful and cheap and reeks of post-holiday posting block. If you are really that hard up for ideas to write about why don’t you try doing what we (the first music blogs to exist) do: put on a Godspeed album loud enough so you can hear it outside and then go outside, then come back inside and google backdoor passwords for SuicideGirls.com. It’s a sad day when I have to stop cropping the cover album for the new Animal Collective record and spend 2-3 hours reading and revising a vindictive comment on an article that devalues the cause on a blog I thought was above it. Sad day, in deed.
Craig and Rich, Sorry if I offended. As a blogger I respect what you are saying.
But to defend myself a bit, I did pay “sincere” praise and if the writer is writing about music one finds good and similar, that shouldn’t be that hard.
My point we to find just the right bloggers, try to get to know them and then give them your music. Is that bad?
Or better yet, if either of both of you would give me a paragraph or two about the right way to approach you, I’ll print it.
Thanks for reading.
No hard feelings, Bruce. As per your request, here is how I’d like to be approached by an upstart band.
1. Write a great album. Something classic like 80’s no-wave down-wave up-tempo electro or something jagged and fresh like the Clap Your Hands self-titled.
2. Don’t tell anyone about it.
3. Tell me first.
4. Send me your album along with a signed certificate of authenticity saying I am the first blogger to hear your album.
5. Mention my blog (or my full name will do as well) in subsequent interviews with SPIN and ‘the Stone’.
6. When I go on stage to take pictures of you on that expensive digital camera I bought that is really difficult to figure out how to use, stop playing midsong and introduce me to the audience as the “sixth member” of your band.
7. Introduce me to David Letterman.
8. Introduce me to Mickey Rourke.
9. Tell Jive I AM knowledgeable enough to run an imprint label.
There are 182 more steps but I will post them on my blog (can’t waste too many potential hits on this comment talkback).
I suppose, Bruce, at the end of the day we aren’t so different after all. We both give so much of ourselves, so selflessly, in the name of keeping art from dying. It’s just the nomenclature- the jene sais qua if you will- that we might not agree upon.
(P.S. I re-added you to my blogroll)
I must have missed something… I thought that blogging was all about giving the fans of music, i.e. a music blogger, a way to express how they feel about the music, to write what they felt. I don’t want to date but I’m willing to take a bad (as well as good) review or mention if that is in the cards. The idea that I should walk on egg shells to pimp my art to some whore who wants t-shirts and other freebies in return for whatever is very offensive and just creates another layer of Payola… is that really what we want?
I must be a little slow.
Other than that…