File Sharing with Music Files

     From time to time you’ve noticed I bring up the subject of viral marketing.  You’d probably think that all that can be said about this subject has been covered.  However, some of you may be new to this technological age (?) and not understand what I am talking about.  Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses.  WHAT?  Just stay with me and continue reading.

     There are probably ten million people online looking for downloads at any given time. Of course, a lot of them could be looking for pornography or free software but still, reaching a minimum of a million people or more on any given day does offer some rather intriguing possibilities when you think about it.

     I’m going to take the specific topic of downloading music.  People like using file services to download music for two simple reasons, they’re free, and there is an incredible selection. The fact is concerning the internet craze Pandora’s Box has been opened. In Napster’s wake, other quasi-legal services quickly emerged… a lot of them. Even if some of them are now closed, others will succeed them very quickly.

     Major record companies would like to think otherwise but they are never going to stop file sharing. Net users are file sharers…plain and simple. Long before the Internet came into being, people made cassette tapes (ask your parents or grandparents) of their favorite music for their friends…cd burners are so much easier and faster for people to use today.

     So how can you use this to help your viral marketing campaign along? Think about this. Once someone downloads your MP3 or MP4 files and those files are available on that listener’s hard drive, viral marketing begins. After two users start sharing your files, suddenly, your music is on the hard drive of a second computer…then a third… and on and on. When users are searching and they find your music on a lot of different computers, they are more likely to download the files. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll find your files showing up in more and more places.

      No matter what genre music you play…Rock and Roll, Country, Tejano, Mozart sonatas, Heavy Metal, or Brazilian Jazz, there is an audience for it somewhere.  In this new paradigm, you aren’t hawking a product; you are offering free music via a medium that lets you be directly connected with your audience.  A great way to get your music files into the hands of MILLIONS (literally)!  Thereby your name and brand are also passed along.  It doesn’t get any better than that!

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"Music is the movement of the soul

through the moments in which we live."