Tate Music Group, viral marketing and nationwide TV exposure

At Tate Music Group, we continue to look for ways to be innovative and creative to best serve our artists. We are now offering our artists a :30 second commercial to be used in a viral marketing campaign and even nationwide television exposure. But more on that in a second...

Viral marketing has become an essential component to an aggressive marketing campaign. Although it gets its name from the fact that this kind of marketing spreads quickly and far-reaching like a virus, the results are anything but sickening! Facebook alone has 70 million daily active users sharing information and connecting with one another, and viral marketing is the process of tapping into that network of people and creating awareness for what you're doing.

Just a few years ago, it used to be you had to have a website to compete. Now, many people are replacing their websites with Myspace pages, Wordpress blogs and YouTube channels. Why? Because in the addition of making your content—your message—available online for the world to see, you gain the ability to network with a group of people already formed and connecting. It's "word of mouth" marketing on steroids, because you're already mixed in with a group of people sharing their thoughts and opinions in massive amounts of small, digestible sound bites.

So, back to Tate Music Group and our viral videos. We are now creating and producing viral commercials that will help promote the artist, album and single. Our team of multimedia producers will build the :30 second video around the artist's music, using their photos and album artwork to build excitement and visibility for the music. Then our artists can post these videos to their Facebook fan page, their Myspace page, their YouTube channel and use the power of sound and video to stand out among the crowd.

But Tate Music Group goes even one step further. Not only do we hand over the video to our artists in order for them to use as they see fit, but we will also use the video for national and regional TV exposure on major music TV networks (MTV, MTV2, VH1, CMT, BET, FUSE, etc.). Tate Music Group is running national and regional commercial spots based around album release date, events or for a blanket period of time.

There are many new and exciting ways all the time to create awareness for what you're doing, and its in your best interest to make sure you make use of all of them!

Kenny Rogers and Neal McCoy visit Tate Publishing

In the past few weeks, I've had the chance to meet not one, but two legends in the music industry. And it's so refreshing to meet artists who are at that level in their careers and yet are still gracious and humble. I can say that about both Kenny Rogers and Neal McCoy.

Kenny came to our Tate Publishing offices a few weeks ago. Many are already familiar with his songs like "Lady," "The Gambler" and "Islands In The Stream," but who knew he was a photographer—and an exceptional one at that! He has a beautiful book of photography that is breathtaking. We're currently working on the possibility of publishing his photography book as well as other projects he's involved with.

Neal McCoy has released ten studio albums over the past ten years and has released almost 35 singles to radio. Besides the possibility of Neal working with Tate Music Group in some fashion with his music, Neal is also interested in sharing his story as a book.

Both of these men are a joy to be around. They graciously signed autographs and took pictures with our staff, though you know they've been asked to do that sort of thing literally thousands of times before. Kenny shared stories about his sons, and Neal made it a point to ask people their names wherever he was. Their humility is contagious and their passion for their art is evident.

I'm excited to work with people like Kenny Rogers and Neal McCoy. Both are looking for a partner in the process, and I believe Tate Publishing and Tate Music Group will come through now and through 2010 like no one else can.