Promtoion, advertsing and the radio and money
[inlink]jessbob,40[/inlink]
I have thought about his issue a lot as I knew it would come up at some point. I am also really curious what everyone else has to say about this.
[size=m]What to do about promoters?[/size]
In my opinion, it really doesn't affect the site too much when people use journals to promote their band, etc. If people attempt to commercialize by having promo journals, they still need to maintain an interesting journal in order to have any real lasting effect or to get the hundreds of daily readers interested enough to go to events or examine and purchase products. If they don't provide that, they lose out. It's the way I intentionally designed the system to work. By not writing continuously, a journal drifts off into a space that puts it several clicks too far away for the casual reader to find the intended message.
In this particular case, I can't complain though, because we have been looking for local music for elmwood radio, in an effort to remove corporate music from our station. However, it has been really hard to find bands. Mostly, because I am not into very into non electronic (pronounced computerized) music and don't go to many concerts. In this case, both bands contacted me about getting airtime on elmwood radio and I suggested they start a journal.
(e:hanabi) also put a link on his site to ours, which drew a little extra traffic to our site.
Perhaps, in the future I will make another route avaible for people who just want their music played. But like I said earlier, without the accompanying journal, people are not very likely to pay attention to the music.
[size=m]Business Chronicles[/size]
The same thing happend a while back with this artist who made fancy custom bicycles. He started a journal but then never followed through. It definately would have been a great way to promote his bike business. Especially, seeing as he was opening a business in the elmwood area. He could have chronicled what it was like to start a business, and really gotten people interested in his bikes. I often wonder why the poepole from Coffee & don't start a journal to promote their coffee shop. It would have been really neat to see the chronicles of owning a local coffee shop on elmwood. I am sure it would have drawn more people to the store as well.
[size=m]Advertisments[/size]
I guess I should probably just have accepted advertisements. I know I could have made a lot of money at this point but in reality I can't compromise on the ethics behind it. Say I offered a local business advertsiing space that they paid for in order to raise money for a new server, etc. Then, someone writes a journal slandering that business. I instantly have a conflict of interest and I don't want to deal with that.
[size=m]What I need[/size]
I have no idea how to manage the social and business side of things on the site, I am just a programmer! What I really need is a PR person. Someone who could deal with issues like this and interface with musicians for me. Someone that could go to events and hand out flyers and get new bands interested in playing on our site and writing journals.
I also need someone to make a promo video, design and distribute flyers, organize and host fundraiser events,as well as, find out what people like and don't like. I also need someone who can start doing more street videos and interviews, someone to contact local papers about writing a review of the site, and most important a grant writer to help me get grants so we can take this project to the next level.
First off I would use the grant money to hire the PR person, then for example, I would really like to see a place in town where the latest journal is projected onto some public space, thereby making the meaning of public journal even more public and in a way maki
ng the whole journal thing more
ta
ngible to the average citizen who is used to televsion. I would also like to see kiosks where people can update around town ( i would build these), but without any money or a grant nothing is going to change. Any ideas?
Anyone intersted in helping out with the PR side of the site?