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By New Torch Entertainment & Merce Jessor
After partnering with Pigeons and Planes and producing pieces on sync licensing, streaming, touring and brand partnerships, we’re back to continue the Inside Track series with a fifth piece dedicated to digital PR.
Digital publications and blogs are a crucial piece to breaking new releases and generating a story around an artist. But what does it all really mean? What short and long term impacts does digital PR have?
We turned to three industry insiders to give their thoughts—Rick Moreno who oversees a diverse roster that includes ZHU, Jack Garratt, Rationale, and Gallant at publicity company Whiteboard, Zach Gurka who manages Phoebe Ryan, and Austin Rice, a Director of A&R at Atlantic Records. We also spoke to Jacob Moore, EIC and founder of Pigeons & Planes, to get a perspective from the media side.
What is the value of digital PR to you, and how do you measure its success?
Austin Rice: A solid digital press campaign can be very effective in terms of telling an artist’s story around a particular release and building a presence online. It helps to identify sites that will target fans of similar styles of music so it feels more organic and less like a campaign. I’m more intrigued by a new artist that hits a blog or site with a really well defined and loyal audience, rather than a site that may have a bigger reach but feels less personally invested in pushing the artist or song.
Zach Gurka: Digital PR is massively valuable probably for every level of artist but especially for newer/developing acts. Early on in an artist’s career you don’t necessarily have access to the full spectrum of press/promo tools. You are potentially limited by budget as well as reach, but digital PR provides an opportunity for exposure with far fewer gatekeepers. I try and never look at a press campaign as a failure. At a bare minimum it should be a tool to better identify the demographics for your artist and begin to paint a picture of which mediums or outlets work better and which don’t work as well. As long as you’re aggregating data I think it can always be considered a success.
Rick Moreno: I think the value of a good digital PR campaign is constantly up for debate depending on where you are in your campaign. It wasn’t too long ago the online publicists update in a major label planning meeting was an afterthought if there was time left at the end, whereas now it’s right at the top of everybody’s agenda of any campaign on the rise. Everyone, whether we like it or not, is engaged in the digital world. Leaving an impression with a digital campaign helps out with the pitching beyond online media, as anyone worth their salt at radio, TV, and streaming partners, along with gig promoters, are switched on to what’s happening online. A massive part of audience people are trying to reach live on social media, so much of the success of campaign is measured by how many people you manage to reach.
Jacob Moore: I think the value is just reaching the media outlets that you want to reach. So much is having relationships. When I started P&P, it seemed like it was easier for independent artists to get coverage and build their own buzz because there were so many little blogs that were pretty influential. It seems like over the past five years, a lot of those blogs have disappeared, so now there are just a few bigger sites. I don’t think those bigger sites are looking at emails from small artists, instead they’re taking submissions from PR companies who have been working with editors and writers for years now, and have got that connection. I think it’s super valuable for a new artist to have somebody who knows people and can call people on the phone and make sure the music is in front of the right people.
In terms of how you measure it, I think it depends on the goals. I think some artists know that they have a niche lane and they are going for a specific market. At the end of the day success comes down to whether you’re reaching the people that you want to reach or not.
I try and never look at a press campaign as a failure…As long as you’re aggregating data I think it can always be considered a success.-Zach Gurka
Do exclusive premieres and Friday release days help or hurt digital PR campaigns?
AR: I’m not a huge fan of exclusive premieres. Unless you’re getting an amazing look as a brand new artist I’d always advocate to push wide. Anything that limits your fans’ ability to share and spread the music is not what you want. I think it also depends on the release. I feel like SoundCloud is a great outlet for new artists to put out more material and be less precious with releases. If you feel like a particular track is really picking up traction it may make sense to do a visual on YouTube and eventually put up on Spotify. If you have a particular song or release you really want to push then go to all services at the same time. Each service serves a different set of people so if you have the music everywhere the better chance of connecting with more fans.
ZG: I don’t think the Friday release has impacted me personally yet. We’ve had a good amount of success with doing the premiere/blog push earlier in the week and garnering as much support as we can heading into Friday. This helps provide leverage for us in conversations with iTunes or Spotify to try and get their support on the new release. Additionally, with all the major “A-list” artist dropping music on Friday I find it helpful to choose a different day to try and cut through all of the releases.
RM: Friday Global Release Day is probably not the best idea the music industry has had. The likes of Spotify and iTunes are sent thousands of submissions weekly making playlists very competitive in an industry which is hugely subjective as to whether a song is worthy or not. From that experience, I can only urge the world of new musicians not to upload music on Friday and use the week to build the track to the point where the track is naturally coming to the attention of playlisters and writers.
JM: I don’t really think it affects it one way or the other. I feel like premieres are still a thing, but I’ve noticed personally that it seems to be less important now. If the music is good, people are going to cover it, and we’ve kind of realized that just posting a song on a blog in 2016 is kind of becoming pointless. Everybody is so connected with social media now that if you like an artist, you follow them on Twitter, and you know when that artist is dropping a song.
P&P and other publications too, are moving in a direction of trying to make more impactful features and bigger stories and interviews and exclusive content with artists, instead of posting a premiere and then having 20 other blogs cover that same song. I think it can be a good thing for an artist to reach out to a publication and build a relationship. I don’t see any effect with the Friday releases, but I could definitely be missing something. In general the actual release date doesn’t matter as much anymore, because it’s not as if many people are going out to the store and buying a physical album.
How much emphasis should artists put on landing a big exclusive premiere vs. pushing a track wide to all press at the same time?
AR: If it’s a new artist getting a bigger feature or profile I can understand doing an exclusive premiere. I think the most important thing is connecting with the right audience. Hitting a site that has a smaller reach but with followers that will genuinely connect with the music is going to benefit the artist more long term. The real word of mouth and sharing that will result is more important than hitting a bigger audience in the first 24 hours but not making any real authentic connection.
ZG: I definitely don’t like giving long exclusives. I like to limit exclusivity on a premier to as short as possible, keeping it to hours not days. With that said, I also think directing traffic to one location as opposed to many different ones has an obvious upside. This is especially true at very early stages of an artist’s’ career when the number of hits and analytics can be important in leveraging opportunities later. Additionally, I also have an old school mentality sometimes when it comes to loyalty and long term relationships. I don’t have an interest in breaking an artist as a “one hit wonder.” I only try to work with artists and writers that I believe have a long career in this business ahead of them. Therefore, I try to create mutually beneficial relationships with partners on all sides of the industry that can pay dividends long term; exclusives can be one of the ways to do that.
RM: There’s no harm doing a premiere or not doing a premiere. As mentioned above, much of the aim is picking up the attention of the potential audience—there isn’t really an identikit approach as every artist has different needs. Some will appeal to certain key tastemakers, and some will not, which needs to be taken into account when plotting any campaign. Time exclusivity for any premiere feels like a bad idea for any artist. The success of the premiere should be in its write-up, if the journalist has connected with the song enough to inspire and reach their readers and other media, explaining why they should pay attention to the song.
JM: We’ve always gone back and forth on if our premieres should have exclusivity or not. Sometimes if it’s something big, we’ll like to have the exclusivity, but no, we don’t really ask for it. A lot of the times it’s a newer artist, and we’ll tell them that we appreciate if you share our link first, but we’d rather more people be able to hear this, and more people be able to share this than anything else. For us it’s important to maintain that positive relationship with artists, and we’d rather see them getting posted everywhere than for us to have an exclusive and get a few hundred extra views because of it. I don’t think it’s that important anymore.
The success of the premiere should be in its write-up, if the journalist has connected with the song enough to inspire and reach their readers and other media, explaining why they should pay attention to the song.-Rick Moreno
How does Hype Machine factor into your press strategy?
AR: It’s a nice added bonus if you chart well on Hype Machine, but not worth targeting an entire strategy around it. It’s a talking point and a lot of A&Rs do pay attention to it, but I feel like charting high on Hype Machine holds less weight now than it used to.
ZG: Hype Machine has been massively impactful for us with artists like Phoebe Ryan and Bryce Fox. We’ve garnered a ton of attention to what they do after good showings on the Hypem charts. I also really enjoy it personally because it’s dictated by the audience. There are so many parts of a press strategy that are dictated by big publications, publicists, and gatekeepers. It’s nice to have an outlet that is curated and generated by the fans. What better way to gauge what songs people actually like?
RM: Hype Machine is great for the unsigned acts as it’s an industry hang-out for A&R scouts, promoters, and writers/producers looking to collaborate. The story behind the artist is equally important, and the real success of a track for a new artist is mostly determined by what happens off-line after the online reaction created by the PR. Did radio pick up on the music from the reaction online? Did a super cool, more popular artist hear the music and ask our artist the support them on tour? All these things and more start a bigger story for our artists.
JM: I think Hype Machine has changed. I don’t know if they have changed anything, but personally I feel like so much of it was built around the community of blogs, and I feel like that community doesn’t really exist anymore. When I was coming up with P&P in the late 2000s, there was such a community of blogs. We would all talk to each other, we all knew the other bloggers, and we’d help each other out and coordinate things together. Now you’ve got Pitchfork, Fader, Complex, Noisey, Billboard, all these big media outlets who’ve basically figured out that they need to be posting songs every day and posting news constantly. They’ve caught up to that hustle that used to only exist with the smaller blogs.
So, Hype Machine used to be able to build this big picture that reflects a wide blog community. Now that the community doesn’t exist, I don’t know what they are capturing. I don’t feel as if the Hype Machine charts reflect what’s buzzing as much as they used to. But I think there is a certain type of music there that does seem to always do well on it, and I think if you’re into that kind of music you can count on Hype Machine to always post cool stuff. It’s a good place for discovery and I still love Hype Machine but I think it has changed over the years.
There are so many parts of a press strategy that are dictated by big publications, publicists, and gatekeepers. It’s nice to have an outlet [like Hype Machine] that is curated and generated by the fans.-Zach Gurka
Does signing to a label affect a press campaign in any positive or negative ways?
AR: I don’t think press campaigns necessarily change once you sign to a label. Everything is case by case depending on the artist, momentum, and overall strategy around a release. It may open up a few more opportunities with certain relationships at the label but it definitely doesn’t fast track anything or mean you get to skip any steps of artist development.
ZG: There’s definitely an obvious change that comes with more support both in terms of manpower and money when you sign to a label. Because of the generally large rosters of the labels, they are able to leverage one artist for another or use their relationships to help secure different opportunities that an artist would not be able to get on there own. Sorry for the cliché but it’s a business of relationships, and having more advocates in your corner with years of experience is only a positive.
RM: Yes I’ve noticed the differences in campaigns, but I think it depends on the artist. What an artist creates is the most important facet. The flow and decisions of a campaign may be more radio driven (especially if a major label is involved) where the songs are different from what the online community fell in love with initially. However some bigger sites chasing bigger traction from their news stories may in turn be more interested as the campaign progresses.
JM: I think hearing from artists directly is always the coolest for me, just because being able to talk one on one and know that you’re getting the story directly from the artist is great. But I don’t think it matters whether an artist is independent or with a major label. To me, the most important thing is transparency. I hate when there is some artist who I know is affiliated with a label but they’re like, “Bro we can’t talk about this, we can’t say this, we can’t say that.” I feel like in 2016, you need to be open and transparent.
I think hiding things is awkward. I hate writing about something when I know more than I’m allowed to say and I have to pretend that I don’t know something. That kind of stuff really irritates me. I think everybody is really open to anything these days and it all just depends on the story and making sure you’re honest and compelling. I love hearing stories about people who are totally independent and DIY and I also love supporting artists who got a big break.
I don’t think it matters whether an artist is independent or with a major label. To me, the most important thing is transparency.-Jacob Moore
Do blogs have a tendency to post (or NOT post) a song if a competing blog has already premiered it or written about it?
ZG: In my experience I think blogs are more likely to post a song if they see other blogs that they like or respect post it rather than ever NOT post a song if they see it on a blog they dislike or is a competitor. Maybe this is just in the utopian universe side of my brain but I believe that people are in this business because they love music and if we send a song to a blog, radio station, booking agent, or anyone else, I’d like to think the only questions are: Do I like this? Does this fit what we do creatively?
RM: I’m sure it’s the case for some websites.
JM: If I see something pop up in ten different places, then I’m probably going to be interested to at least listen to it. I don’t think it affects whether or not we cover it, but it definitely piques my interest. I think generally the people who are professional music writers are in that position because they have some knowledge or taste, so if I see something popping up in a lot of places I’ll definitely be more inclined to check it out.
But I think we’re also very aware that with P&P we want to stand out and be different, so we’re not just going to jump on anything that’s hyped up or buzzing. But usually if something is showing up everywhere there’s a reason. Like Lil Yachty, we’ve never really covered, but I’m still interested in him because I see him everywhere, and the more I listen to him and read about him the more interested I am in him. Even if I don’t like his music yet, I’m still open to checking him out and giving him a chance and making sure that I’m not just missing something.
Do you prefer to hear from an artist or publicist before the song comes out, or do you like the idea of discovering something on your own after the fact?
JM: I think the more information the better. If they do have something lined up and they know they’re going to premiere it at a certain place or they’ve already gotten covered by certain places, I like having that information just so I can know too. If another publication just premiered a song and did a short blurb, I’ll want to do something to make our content stand out. It could be a short introduction piece, or a video, or an interview. I think that having that extra information is always good.
