For the past 6 months I have been honored to serve as the Social Media Consultant for Berklee College’s Rethink Music Conference. Music has been a life-long passion of mine, so I jumped at their offer. What better than to combine my social media and content marketing skills with my love of music? It has been a great experience and one that pushed me to learn even more than I thought possible, reading music industry blogs, following new technology developments, and feverishly hunting every music business trend I could find. Attending the conference itself heightened my love of music, but more than anything—it reminded me of the power of truly creative innovators.

Paul D. Miller aka. DJ Spooky © Phil Farnsworth via Rethink Music Blog

The takeaway? Technology will continue to drive innovation via disruptive business models and challenge the larger institutions who cannot be as nimble and who are struggling to find their place in the industry’s new climate. Thank you Berklee, Midem, and Harvard University’s Berkman Center for this opportunity. Special thanks to Allen Bargfrede, Janelle Browning, Ardie Farhadieh, Cathy Kitlasz, Jef Frenette, Bruno Crolot, and James Martin for their support; Seth Godin for inspiring my career, and DJ Spooky for being one of the most intelligent human beings to ever bum a ride off me.

The Lumineers © Dana Córdova

Green River Ordinance © Dana Córdova

Echo Nest Launch Party (featuring Biz Markie) © Dana Córdova

See more photos and content on the Rethink Music Blog. 

In a recent Venture Beat article, they state the following stats:

Pinterest: 11,000,000 registered users with 32,400,000 pins.
The Fancy: 250,000 registered users with 16,700,000 fancies.

That’s 66.8 fancies, or dare we say “pins” per person, on The Fancy versus approximately 3 per person on Pinterest.  The Fancy has also had 1 million fancies in the last 7 days (150,000/day) and 100-200,000 unique visitors per day.

I will continue to use both and watch the battle unfold, but my first friend is still winning and I’m rooting for them…

The Fancy: 60% male audience, with a more urban demographic interested in design, luxury goods, and technology.

Pinterest: 98% female audience, with a demographic interested in home decor, fashion, and food.

Follow Me on The Fancy

Follow Me on Pinterest

Read my Interview with The Fancy

__________________

Learn more:

You think Pinterest is big? Here comes The Fancy

Pinterest vs. The Fancy: Social Media Marketing for Brands

I first came to discover H&G as a prospective client and was immediately drawn to how they set themselves apart by demonstrating a real understanding for the individual brand. With a solid 15 year history and a client list that includes Bravo TV, Esquire Magazine, MTV Networks, Boloco and Puma, I am already salivating at the wealth of content just waiting to be utilized. I look forward to applying my skill set to help further grow their business.

On a separate note, it should be said that this is also a bittersweet moment, as it also means I will be leaving OSP/New American Paintings, a company that has afforded me a tremendous wealth of experience for nearly 10 years. I also say a heartfelt thank you to the president, Steven Zevitas, who has supported me personally and professionally, and helped me to achieve my career goals no matter where they might take me.

I encourage you to visit the Hunt & Gather site and I hope that you continue to follow me through this next phase in my career.

Happy New Year!

Top 5 Blog Posts of 2011:

3 Steps to Get Found Online with Blogging

The Science of Social Media Timing

Content Marketing & SEO

Social Media 101

Living Proof of Inbound Marketing Success

Last year I made a resolution: to only read non-fiction for one year. I’ve always enjoyed reading and I’ve done a lot of it—I loved Swan’s Way, actually enjoyed Crime and Punishment, struggled through Infinite Jest, and nearly fell off the bed reading Naked, but I have never been much into non-fiction. Nonetheless, it seemed like a good idea and a fun way to further educate myself on topics I was already involved with and wanted to understand better. Little did I realize, however, is that what I really made was a resolution to change my life. Now, I’m not suggesting switching from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to the Wall Street Journal will revolutionize your life, but what I found is, if it is knowledge that you truly seek, you are bound to find what you are looking for.

Fueled by my experience with Sloane, and a desire to take my career in a new direction, I toyed with the idea of going to grad school. But, it seemed like an expensive risk in a bad economy where an MBA doesn’t mean as much as it used to. So, I decide to put myself through my own version of graduate home-school. I read lots of content marketing and social media books, business journals, case studies, consumer research reports, technology blogs, Futurist predictions, music blogs, the WSJ RSS feeds, and followed countless thought leaders on social media. It has given me immense satisfaction and reawakened my critical mind. So, if you haven’t considered a resolution yet, or worse—picked one you already know you’ll fail at—
I suggest you try a year of non-fiction.

Dad, this is for you.

Working on social media outreach for the Rethink Music Conference is off to a great start. And I find as I read, research, tweet and post, it doesn’t feel much like work at all. Tandem to contemporary art, music has been a long-time love of mine, so I find it isn’t difficult to get excited about the material at hand. With the current climate of technological advances, the debate over music streaming, and cyber law issues it is an especially ripe time for Rethink Music’s mission and aim. If you love music, be sure the follow the conversation with major industry leaders such as:

Chris Kaskie, President, Pitchfork
Jim Lucchese, CEO, The Echo Nest
Kenneth Parks, Chief Content Officer, Spotify
Gerd Leonhard, CEO, The Futures Agency
Ken Hertz, Senior Partner, Hertz and Lichtenstein LLP
Kevin Kusatsu, A&R Representative, Warner Brothers
Cecily Mak, Vice President and General Counsel, Rhapsody International Inc
Rio Caraeff, President & Chief Executive Officer, VEVO
Jim Griffin, Managing Director, OneHouse LLC

Join the conversation:

Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Blog

I am ecstatic to announce that I will be the Social Media Consultant for Rethink Music Conference 2012. Rethink Music is an annual event held in Boston by Berklee College of Music and Midem, in association with Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, that aims to bring music stakeholders together to discuss business models for the future, examine copyright challenges in the digital era, and analyze the impact of technological innovation on music. Music has been a lifelong love of mine, so I couldn’t be more thrilled to work on this project. Berklee’s rich educational heritage coupled with the current climate of rapid technological changes within the music industry is sure to make for a wealth of great material to work with. And, their energetic marketing team is sure to make for a fun experience.
If you’re a music lover, be sure to follow their various networks for lots of interesting content, useful resources and upcoming conference information.

> Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and rethinkingmusic.org (coming soon).

Turn your company into a content machine >

RSS symbol: Make sure there is clear “subscribe” button on your blog. More people than ever consume information via a reader on the go.

1. Identify Keywords

Brainstorm and come up with a list of keywords associated with your business. And, don’t forget to consider how people may look for your business rather than just the way you think of it—for example, if you are an organic skin care company you may consider not only “organic” and “skin care,” but also “natural,” “chemical-free,” “non-irritating,” and so on. Be sure to consider and balance these 3 aspects:

• Search Volume: how often a word is searched
• Relevance: how closely a word relates to the products/services your are offering
• Difficulty: how much competition you will be up against for a keyword

Once you have come up with a concise list, plug each into the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and make a note of how each ranks. You should also do a regular search and see what companies you are up against. Do you think you can rank higher than them? If so, go for it. If not, consider focusing on what sets your company apart from the leaders and generate content that highlights your company’s distinct qualities and advantages.

2. On-page SEO

Once you’ve identified the strongest keywords, start to develop and schedule content around those words and be sure to include them in the following:

• Page title
• URL
• Headings
• Body text
• Meta data
• Image title, file name and alt-text

3. Off-page SEO

Since search engines place a considerable amount of weight on pages with authority it’s important to devote some time to link building from other sites to yours. It’s essentially free advertising and it can be very powerful if a page with a high rank links to yours. The best kind are links that are in context and linked to the anchor text of that page.

• Networking: start to follow other blogs within your industry and engage bloggers and influencers on a variety of social media networks
• Directories: submit your website to the big search engines’ directories and consider using news sharing sites like StubleUpon and Digg
• Downloads: develop some free resources for your visitors such as how-to videos, ebooks reference guides, ect.

When you position your company as a thought leader within your industry you’ll be harnessing the amazing power of search marketing. Good luck.

More Info: 

Content Marketing & SEO 

Social Media 101

Videos