MySpace As a Marketing Tool

American Chronicle has a wonderful article about artists using MySpace to promote themselves. The 9513 has been on MySpace for a little less than half a month and it’s already apparent that artists realize the potential MySpace has as a marketing tool just by the sheer number that have added us.

“I heard from college freshmen who were learning about Country Music, not through traditional radio but through the Randy Rogers Band or Cross Canadian Ragweed on MySpace,” Foster said. “They’re telling me, ‘Dude! I learned about you from Randy Rogers! You’re so cool!’ And I’m like, ‘Great! I made a new fan.’”

That, in a nutshell, is the magic of MySpace, an online community on which members spread the word about their favorite new artists faster, and with more peer-group credibility, than most old-school publicists. Since becoming active in July 1996, the site has enticed more than 1.8 million artists to set up spaces, according to its official figures, drawn by prospects of achieving instant fame through word of mouth.

…

For young headliners including Miranda Lambert, a presence on MySpace is as much a part of Country stardom as riding horses and wearing cowboy hats. “It’s the new way for fans and artists to get in touch with each other,” she said. “I’m kind of old-fashioned, because I still prefer to get hand-written notes in the mail. But I do have 40,000 ‘friends’ now on MySpace, and while I wish I could write back to them all, thank goodness I can at least write one message to let them all know what’s going on with me.”

If you’d like to add us on MySpace, our account can be found at www.myspace.com/the9513.