Social Networking: “Online buzz correlates to better album sales”

“How well do you support your favourite bands and artists online?”

…Especially those independent?

Bloggers may be the most important music critics of all, as a new study shows that online buzz from everyday people (ie not marketers) correlates to strong sales in the music business.

Jacqui of arstechnica writes a good article (relating to a survey done by New York University’s Stern Business School), about the strong influence online blogging and social networking can have on artists and bands album sales, especially pre-release.

How can online “chatter” help?

• We’ve heard some success stories from bands who released their music online first, to then have their albums debut in the charts @ No 1.
• And we know the power of MySpace for introducing you to new music.

Personally (so far), I only use MySpace for checking out artists and their music, guaging whether I want to go see them live or buy their CD. I also tend to check how often their songs are played and how many friends they have listed.

So, it comes as little surprise that the survey found that things like the number of online posts; and the number of MySpace friends a band had, influences album sales, “like a public badge of popularity”.

The survey goes on to note:

That trend doesn’t just apply to music from the Big Four, either. Albums from independent labels enjoyed the same level of success. But if an album was from a Big Four record label, sales increased five-fold after 40 legit blog posts. If blog posts crossed 250, album sales turned out to be six times the average, regardless of label.

I think it’s fantastic proof that we can all do our bit to help give independent musicians a leg up…

So, now armed with this powerful knowledge and stats -> go forward, post to facebook and blog to your hearts content about your favourite independent musicians.

Rock on groovers!

x0x

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