SXSW Website Analysis

http://sxsw.com/

South By Southwest is a series of festivals and conferences related to music, film, and web/technology.  Overall, the website is well organized and informative.  It manages to have a lot of information without being overwhelming.  It seems to be quite an expensive website.

Images/Representation

Cool, hip graphics & logo.   

The colorful design implies that it is fun, appealing to a younger, hip audience.

Images of sponsors' logos

The number & size of sponsors indicates that SXSW is a well-established conference with a lot of reach

They also have photos of bands who are set to play the festivals, guest speakers, and profile features.

Calls to Action
They do a good job of having a lot of call-to-actions without being overwhelming or cluttered.  On the front page they have options to see News, Updates, and many drop down menu options at the top.

Or you can register for the event, organize your stay, buy merch, listen to music, and find out about updates.

 This call to action is effective because it encourages viewers to get involved with various aspects of the event.  Rather than being purely informative, it's interactive.

They also have various guides to the festival and towards the bottom they have options to connect on various other social media sites, like facebook and twitter.  This implies that their website is probably their main hub, as it is so well organized, and they aren't pushing viewers to connect to their other social media sites.

Audience/Demographic

Their audience seems to be an 18-35 demographic of both consumers and industry professionals. Some aspects that give away this demographic include:

The design of their t-shirts & the fact that they're manufactured by American Apparel, which targets a similar demographic.

The fact that they have their own online radio station playlist.

And also, many of the bands are younger, indie-rock or electronica artists.

What Sold & Where

As mentioned above they have merch (t-shirts) for sale with a link to the store clearly visible on the front page.

They also sell tickets in the registration section, which is at the top right of the front page.

Relative Value/Image

It appears to be quite a high-status event, especially since they have such big companies as sponsors.  Also, the price of the registration indicates that it appeals to more of a middle class audience, since it's quite expensive for the average consumer:

Ability to Recommend or Forward Songs/content

They have a "ShareThis" option at the bottom of the registration page.  This option is present on several other pages on the site as well.  They also have a Youtube channel, which people can share.

Average Monthly Uniques to Website

They get around 70,000 unique views per month with a peak in March, which is the month in which the festival takes place.

Inbound Links

Some of the top inbound links on google include:

•  awfj.org  - Alliance of Women Female Journalists
• www.mezzoblue.com - Blog about Web Design
• nme.com - a news story about the band Muse possibly playing SXSW festival

According to Yahoo, inbound links include: 

• analog.coop - a collective of web designers
• www.internetgeekgirl.com - website for an internet marketer
• www.toursmart.tstouring.com - a website for musician advice

From this information we find that much of the traffic to the SXSW site is driven towards the Interactive (web/internet) portion of the site, rather than the music/film portion.


Social Media Spaces

The most interesting aspect about their Social marketing is that they have the "SWSocial."  I couldn't access it because I'm not registered for the conference, but it seems to be a social networking aspect to the site.  This is probably driving a lot of traffic to the site as well.  Because it's a conference, people are eager to network and meet other individuals in similar fields.


FACEBOOK
106,379 Likes
Their page features a short history of the event.  Lots of interaction from viewers with daily postings.


YOUTUBE
They have a Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/sxsw) that features film trailers, music videos, various videos about SXSW as a whole.  It appears that they upload videos frequently--sometimes almost everyday.  They do this year round, which surely gets people returning to their channel, and possibly visiting their website for more information.


MYSPACE
www.myspace.com/sxsw
31048 Friends

Similar information as their main website, just not as nicely organized.  It updates with a stream of blog entries that are posted to the main website.

TWITTER
84,926 Followers
They update frequently with news about the conference, or interactions with followers and sometimes they have contests.

 Email
They use createsend.com, an email marketing service.  The spot to sign up for the mailing list is on the bottom left of the front page, so it's not very noticeable.

Commerce
Music: no music for sale


Concerts: Registration for the event is available on the website


Donations: none


Merch: For sale through www.theconnextion.com
items include t-shirts, posters, and vintage t-shirts (from past years)

Events on Calendaring Services
They have events like Battle of the Bands: Road to SXSW on upcoming.yahoo.com, taking place in various cities around the country
The actual conference itself is also listed


Eventful.com has a SXSW kick-off party listed in the LA area


Overall
The website is well organized and maintains a steady stream of traffic throughout the year.  They do this through social media, videos, and articles.  It's worth noting again that most of the traffic to the website is drawn through other internet marketers, as they are more interested in the "Interactive" portion of the website.

Musician Internet Presence Analysis Part 2: Delta Spirit

deltaspiritbydeltaspirit.blogspot.com

Delta Spirit's blog-website is simple and sparse.   It contains mostly pictures and videos of recent shows/interviews and updates about where they currently are on tour or what they are up to.

I'd say that the blog is too simple; it could be more effective.  They're facebook, in fact, seems to be much more of the center for their internet presence.  But we will get to that later.  For now, let's take a closer look at their blog:

Images/Representation & Audience Demographic

Delta Spirit seems to be playing a bit on nostalgia.  In addition to their folk-rock music, which sounds like it could have come out of the 1960s,  they have images that also look like they've come out of another time.  Some examples:

This is on the cover of their EP as well

Some of the band members while on tour.  Poloroid itself is a nostalgic concept.

They even have a video of them recording in mono out on what looks like a farm:

(I can't get the video on here, so here's a link to it & a screen shot)

http://vimeo.com/12198208

Their demographic is a little hard to determine based on their website.  While both Delta Spirit and Best Coast have somewhat of a nostalgic aesthetic, Best Coast's seems a bit more playful, a bit more ironic.

The clean layouts and muted colors makes Delta Spirit's nostalgia seem more sentimental.  In this way, they seem to have a bit of an older demographic, perhaps in their late 20s, and early-mid 30s.

Call-To-Action

A positive thing about their call-to-action is that it's at the top right corner of every page--this is where it will be most effective.

The downside is that the only things offered are links to other social networking sites:

They'd perhaps have a more effective marketing strategy if they included sign-ups to their mailing list, links to purchase their music.

What Sold & Where

• Album for sale on their facebook

• Merch Store link on their Myspace
• But nothing linked to from their blog

Relative Value/Image

They seem to have a pretty loyal fanbase, based on their facebook interactions.  They have somewhat of a local vibe, but they do tour both nationally and internationally.   They do magazine interviews, television shows and the like, so their value seems to be relatively mid-range.

Ability to Recommend

The only links are those to their facebook, myspace and twitter.

Average Monthly Unique Visits

• Around 500-600 views per month with a peak of 1400 in August:

In August they did an NPR performance, they played on Conan O'Brien and they released a new video.  All of these surely contributed to the peak in views.  However, they didn't manage to keep the momentum going, as you can see from the graph above.

Inbound Links

• According to my Yahoo search, both their myspace and their last.fm accounts link back to their blog
• Various blogs link back to it as well, including  
• www.sandiegoish.com (local San Diego blog)
•  www.playbsides.com
• abclocal.go.com

• In google, the #1 inbound link was a torrent site called filestube.  This implies that Delta Spirit might have a lot of people illegally sharing their products, which would lead to fewer album sales
• Other sites that linked back were facebook, rockband.com, musicnews.net

Social Media Spaces

• Facebook likes: 13,115
• They update regularly, posting photos and facts.  Lots of listener interaction

Because of this, facebook seems to be their main hub for communication with fans

They have a BandPage App on facebook, which has a media player.  In addition, they have another player that links to purchase the album.

• No official Youtube Channel

• Myspace: 22893 Fans.  Good links to buy merch and albums, links back to their website.  However, the new myspace layout makes their page look cluttered & some images are cut off
• Twitter: 4,039 followers with fairly casual updates.  Sometimes about upcoming gigs, other times about trivial things

Commerce & Music For Sale

• Physical CDs available on amazon and at their merch store
• 2 albums and one EP
• T-shirts for sale with a simple design, no speciality merch
• Mp3 downloads available from both Itunes and Amazon.com
• related artists include Dr. Dog, Arcade Fire, Deertick--all of which are indie bands with an 18-25, mostly white and middle class demographic (based on my experience and observations of these artists)

Overall
They've managed to gain a fairly loyal and steady following.  However, when I compare their internet marketing strategy to Best Coasts,' I see that they could improve in some areas.  They could have better connections between their sites, have more speciality merch, and improve their Myspace.  They should definitely have a link to purchase their music on their blog and have more Calls to Action.  All of these combined could potentially lead to a more successful marketing strategy.

Best Coast & Her Internetz: An Analysis of Bethany Constantino's Band/Project's Internet Marketing Presence

bestycoasty.blogspot.com

Best Coast is big on California.

Her logo is a map of LA.

She has tattoos of California.

And she shot a music video in front of In-N-Out:

She's pretty laid back & chill, kinda like LA...

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that she's my stoner friend next door.

Keeping with the casual California vibes, her website is a blog: hip and personal, like talking to a friend:

But not just any friend. She wants you to do something, too. A call to action, so to speak.

The vital Call-to-Action keeps viewers interested and engaged, and it keeps them coming back. 

She wants you to follow her on myspace, twitter and facebook.  

She wants you to buy her merch.  

And she wants you to sign up for her mailing list.

All of which are conveniently located at the top right of every page on her blog:

If we lose 10-15% of our audience with each additional they have to make, perhaps she would sell more albums if she had a direct link to buy right on her blog.  

Then again, she has some pretty cool, specialized merch, the most interesting ones being:

Cat Cozy for your beer/soda when you're chillin on the beach

Sunglasses, 'cos it's always sunny in Los Angeles

Tote bag, 'cos you need somewhere to keep the cozy and the sunglasses when you're not using them

So maybe getting people to click on the merch link gets them to buy more product that they otherwise wouldn't have noticed.

But she doesn't just sell specialized merch....
She also sells vinyls and CDs of her album "Crazy For You." 

If you're not into the physical thing, you can go to amazon.com or Itunes and buy downloads of the album/tracks off the album.  

Amazon even has a FREE download of her song "Each And Every Day."  I would have had no idea if I didn't take the trouble to go to Amazon of my own accord.


Itunes has her under "Alternative," where similar artists include Vivian Girls (another fuzzy, girl band) and Beach House (a mellow indie group, which also came up on Amazon's related artist list).


Yet she doesn't have any links on her blog that lead us there.

Is she losing business that way or is she getting more people to buy the physical product?

What if you want to buy a concert ticket? You can't even find her tour dates on her blog...(unless they're buried somewhere in an old post, but who looks back that far?)

Well, she is on sites like stubhub.com and ticketmaster, but it makes fans work a bit hard to find out where the best place to buy her tickets is.

While her tour dates aren't on her blog, she is on other calendering services including Eventful.com and Songkick.com, and her dates are listed on her Myspace (myspace.com/bestcoast)

The layout of her myspace is simple: just a couple videos, contact information for her managers/booking agents, a list of past/current releases and a calendar of her tour dates.

Interestingly, her myspace hides her friends as well as comments.  

While perhaps in some way this might encourage people to comment on her blog instead, she only receives a handful of comments for each post....not anywhere near as many views as she gets.

On average her blog gets about 1500-2000 unique viewers a month (all measurements from compete.com), but in April 2010 she peaked to 4300 viewers....most likely because this is when she released her video "When I'm With You"

Looking at this video, we can see that irony and kitsch play a big role in Best Coast's image.  Combined with her lightheartedness and summery, fuzzy indie-pop sound, she definitely speaks to a younger 18-35 demographic who are probably mostly middle class and white (though I'm basing the "middle class" and "white" on mostly experience rather than research, so it may be a bit of a generalization...)

Other peaks & things that happened that month which might have caused them:
July: 3300 viewers
Feature in NME
Released a collaborative song with a Vampire Weekend member and Kid Cudi

September: 3200 viewers
Nominated for Venus magazine's "Best Breakthrough Band of 2010"
Video feature on Amoeba Records' website.

November: 5400 viewers 
Was on tour in the States, and she had announced another tour with fellow fuzzy hipster project Wavves.

How are people finding her site? What are the pages that link to her blog--the Inbound Links.


When I typed link:bestycoasty.blogspot.com into google's search field, I got quite different results than when I did the same on yahoo.


Google gave me some websites such as 

• Time Out NY
• monstera.com--a booking agency site
• gimmetinnitus.com (an mp3 blog)

Most seemed pretty random, though, and some were in foreign languages.

Yahoo, on the other hand, gave me an overwhelming number of blogs and magazines:

• Pitchfork (news about her debut album)
• owlandbear.com (a music blog that mentioned her tour with Wavves and included an mp3)
• magnetmagazine.com (this was highest on the list, which mentioned a rerun of her performance on Jimmy Fallon's show)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Coast

So overall, it seems like other blogs and magazines talking about Best Coast and linking back to her site bring in much of her traffic.



As for social media sites besides Myspace, she is on Facebook and Twitter, but she doesn't seem to have an official Youtube channel

• 20,633 Facebook likes.  She updates frequently with news/photos/tour dates or trivial details about what she's doing
• 25,169 Twitter followers, her tweets are different from what is on her blog and her facebook

None of her sites demonstrate an ability to share/forward content, such as songs/photos (unless you do something like retweeting her tweets)

Interestingly, her email list isn't a standard mailing list, but rather a notice email that informs subscribers when her website has been updated.  
Perhaps that also brings in a lot more viewers per month?


Summary
Overall, Best Coast appears to have a strong internet presence.  She has an all encompassing style, which permeates her website, social networking sites, her music videos, songs, merch, album art work, you name it.  In essence, she has created a brand out of herself, similar to someone like Lady Gaga, though targeted to a different audience.  Perhaps she can do a better job of having her music readily available, such as directly linking to Itunes from her page.  In having a personal, down-to-earth approach she has carved out a decently sized niche audience.