Up and coming bands should benefit from social media

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As part of my public relations degree, I have to put together a portfolio of work to be submitted in a couple of months. My sister’s boyfriend is in a band called ‘Billy the Kid’ and they are doing really well at the moment, they’ve just been signed by Oasis’ management ‘Ignition’. As they are just starting to get their feet in the door of success, they haven’t yet had any real public relations work done for the band. Therefore I got really excited at the thought of doing some work for them and started brainstorming some ideas. I really wanted to do a stunt of some sort; something different and exciting, but then I became stuck. What sort of stunt could I do that was unique and completely free? Celebrities such as Paris Hilton get caught drink driving (arguably a PR stunt) which excites the press, but surely it’s a bit too extreme to ask the lads in the band to risk their lives in order for some coverage. They might be eager to promote themselves but they’re not that desperate!

So this got me thinking, my target audience is people aged between 17-35, what sort of PR works best for them? I believe the answer lies mainly in social media.

They already have their own Myspace page where friends can listen to their songs and so on which is a start. Young people nowadays want to be able to talk to each other about their favourite bands, share in discussion and swap information about them which is why I think creating a blog would be really beneficial for them.

Technology such as ‘Technorati’ (a blog search engine) also makes it so much easier to find the blog you want to be part of. Other methods of social media I could use would be to create a bespoke YouTube channel for them and upload videos of the band and creating groups and profiles in the social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo.

It will be interesting to see if the boys do gain anymore popularity (however small) after I take advantage of the huge audience these sites have to offer. This would again prove the potential the world of social media has to offer.

Some other cool up and coming bands from the North East are:

· The Cutters (indie)

· Twisted Wheel (indie)

· We Start Fires (punk/electro)