Trent Reznor and the Direct-to-Fan Concept
Starting out at IPR, I only just had a small portion of knowledge regarding what goes on in the “behind the scenes” part of how an artist functions and gets to where they are now. After reading Trent Reznor’s post about “how I wish it had been” very interesting and extremely important for someone starting about in this industry. What I was taught when I was younger was from older people that I know, was that to make it in the music/entertainment business, the artist would produce something and maybe try to put it in the paper, on a bulletin board, or simply word-of-mouth. After the artist took this action, they would then wait for someone, like a talent agent, to notice them and then pursue the artist. I had a feeling that this was not how the industry works at this point in time and I turned out to be right, after I read Trent Reznor’s post. What I got from this post was that with all of these digital tools we have access too, along with the ultimate sharing tool the Internet, if an artist wants to get noticed they have to utilize these tools accordingly. Trent made it clear that OVERusing these tools, like social media, can be harmful to a certain degree because you could start to annoy the people that are following you on these digital platforms. He offered some advice on what was appropriate to post on these social media accounts:
- A few upcoming shows
- A tour
- A new record
- A new vlog/webcast
Heading back to that statement of annoying people on social media/the Internet, most people tend to have low attention spans nowadays, which means not being able to figure out how to navigate to the artist’s content to listen, read, or buy content can really be a turn off for people. This was a thing that Trent really stressed in his post because he realizes that time is money and if the customers waste time being able to not figure out how to navigate the artist’s page, the artist could potentially lose that customer due to frustration. If an artist loses a fan he/she is probably not going to receive money from that customer.
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