Stop Shouting At Me!

"A shouting Seagull in Domburg. They make quite an annoying sound"

Photo Credit: Husky

All to often in the real world and online we are constantly bombarded with intrusive advertising. You know those annoying banner ads on MySpace that everyone hates? Well, now the majority of us have jumped ship to Facebook, where such abusive advertising is rare to find. I'm not sure about my international readers, but here in Australia every year without fail there is a rug liquidation sale in Melbourne. The advertising consists of a very poorly filmed TV spot, comprised of nothing more than rushed handheld footage of rugs in a warehouse and, the most annoying, loud, incomprehensible shouted sales pitch. Needless to say it's not only annoying, but barely possible to know what he is talking about, other than rugs.

Your blog posts, random pictures, tweets... they are all advertising

That TV spot is granted, an extreme example of intrusive advertising and whilst it wasn't the sole reason I stopped watching television. It, and other TV ads, are a contributing factor to my continued absence from the 'idiot box'. My generation, Gen Y as we have been labeled, and the ones following it (Gen Z, etc) just cannot stand intrusive advertising. Hell, I don't think anyone really can. The difference between my generation to the ones before, is that we are much quicker to switch off and find something else. There is simply so much content vying for our attention, obstacles like intrusive advertising often provide the reason to find something else.

Mail, be it in the post or the inbox on your computer. Mail always has some form of spam associated with it. In fact any place you can send and receive text usually suffers from spam. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, Blog comments, and so on. This intrusive advertising is not only frowned up on the internet, it is unequivocally ignored. The click rate would be estimated well below 1%, though for a few billion hits of spam a day 1% is still a big number.

Back to TV and similar content (podcasts) for a moment, old style TV advertising (3-4 mins of 30 sec clips) appears to be fading away to less intrusive methods. Think video content on the web, sites like Hulu and others favour a pre/post roll advert. Whilst this is still intrusive it is not interrupting the video like traditional TV advertising. Then we have Revision3, who are arguably at the forefront of the future of independent video programming. They are very much a modern online TV station. The advertising is still intrusive, but not to the extent as broadcast, not is it as annoying. No, Revision3 favours a more natural flowing advertising style. In which the presenters themselves read the advertising copy, and the adverts whilst being clearly identified as advertising, become part of the show rather than dominate it.

This is really the key, if your advertising does not interrupt the natural flow of the content it is supporting, and is interesting, people will pay attention.

Advertising is Content

Techdirt said last year: Advertising is Content; Content is Advertising. Think about it. Good advertising is content in its own right. Even I, an Australian with no interest in the Super Bowl, seek out and watch the ads. Why? Because they are entertaining. They are, content. Sure they are advertising something aswell, but like most I'm fine with that as the advertising is interesting. This isn't to say all you indie musicians out there should blow your budget on a superbowl ad. Far from it.

Every little piece of content you make, every song, every blog post, every tweet, even every comment you leave around the web. Its all content, but its also advertising. Depending on your approach to this, this content may be treated like intrusive advertising. This about the next tweet or status update you send out. Firstly, are your SHOUTING AT ME? To all but, digital natives and digital immigrants, using the caps lock key may not be seen as that big a deal. But believe it or not, it is not only offensive and annoying it reeks of intrusive advertising stink. It is natural to want attention, but if you try and garner it with old rude advertisng techniques be prepared to be ignored. En masse.

Caroline Aiken wrote in a comment on Derek Sivers similarly themed article 'Barking', "Tonal is another…and no matter how soft or loud, if your tone is pleasant to the ear, your message has more of a chance to be heard by those who want to know." It's not intrusive advertising if you don't want it to be. The web is said to be one big conversation, a concept that I believe Andrew Dubber is writing a book about. Take part in that conversation, rather than just becoming the shouting lunatic off the side whom everyone trying to ignore.

Content is Advertising

Re-read that last paragraph. It is advertising. It is also content. They work off each other. I was not paid for any of it, nor even asked. An amazing fact about the web, is the more attention and reputation you have, the more self-sustaining they become. People will promote you because they feel they are sharing something of value. Both Sivers and Dubber are leaders in their the new music industry, so it's mutually valuable to everyone involved for me to link (advertise) them.

But how does this all relate to an indie artist? Well, as Alex Shalman wrote on that same article "the world of permission marketing is born." People don't hate advertising, they hate annoying unsolicited advertising. We will explore the marketing relationship further in future posts, but for now think about how you are adding value.

In advertising to potential fans, think about how what you are doing or saying is valuable to them. Your songs, freely streamable, are not only advertising they are adding value to your potential fans. After all, advertising is sessionally buying attention, and the best tender in the attention economy is freely accessible content. Your blog posts, random pictures, tweets... they are all advertising. And they all have the potential to add value to a potential fan. Then, you need to get your potential fan to opt-in to your advertising. Or to use another word, your conversation. Think about your followers on Twitter, your email list, your facebook 'fans'. They have all opted into your conversation.

The fans you have are essentially a captive audience. They have given you their permission to advertise to them. They has requested to be part of your conversation. Think about how you communicate with them. Are you giving them a sales pitch, or are you trying to communicate with them? Impart value, not demands. Give them a reason to care, not some cheap stab for their attention. And please, honestly please, stop SHOUTING AT ME. Communicating something of value is not the time to unleash the fury of the caps lock key.