Consumer brands, branded entertainment and technology are merging like never before. The days of getting something for nothing are over. Brands (including musicians) are demanding greater control over their destinies, and they are harnessing the power of technology to achieve it.

In the latest branding development, musicians have begun customizing social networking sites dedicated to their brand. Why? For a larger influence, a tailored message and a way to control the information their fans give them. And the added advertising revenue doesn’t hurt.

More and more acts, from Kylie Minogue to Ludacris to the Pussycat Dolls, are launching their own social networks, which are becoming a sort of next-generation version of artist Web sites.

“(Artists) think about MySpace and Facebook as funnels for their own social networks,” says Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, a company that provides social networking tools for Thisis50, Sara Bareilles and others. “They take and use services where they don’t know the users, don’t have access and don’t have full control, and funnel those fans to something they do control.”

- Billboard: Musicians Take Social Networking into Their Own Hands http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080329/en_nm/social_dc

The above article is a necessary read and one of many continued brand invigorations in today’s changing environment.

Ronn Torossian

5W PR

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am and is filed under BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT, SOCIAL NETWORKING. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.