Yeah post is very nice but i don't agree with the title of ur post ....
Rose
· 3 months ago
I completely agree...title is off.. social media star - I know the title was for the flow tho
UGenya
· 3 months ago
Diddy has always been the marketing guru!
David Rankin
· 3 months ago
It's all about being an internet star.
Facebook Guru
· 3 months ago
I do agree with the idea in general, musicians, sports person and other celebs need to really get a grab on how to form their brand identity.
Marcello
· 3 months ago
> Diddy is onto something that the record industry > as a whole still largely ignores: “You have to > understand how to be able to brand yourself,”
Huh? The record industry has been doing branding -- and doing it well -- for at least fifty years! How do you think they managed to sell all those records?
macewan
· 3 months ago
Could mean how to brand online.
Marcello
· 3 months ago
Even if that is what he means, it still doesn't make sense. Look at all of this week's best-sellers -- on iTunes it's Miley Cyrus, Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z -- they've all got very strong online brand identities. In the music biz, no-one does branding better than Disney. American Idol does a pretty good job of it, too. It's easy to sneer at the music, but not so easy to sneer at the profits!
Chris Clayton
· 3 months ago
i think we have different views of 'branding'. what your saying, i call that 'advertising'.
Erik
· 3 months ago
Since he started the #Godismyhero crap I can't take this guy serious anymore.
manivel
· 3 months ago
that's right..
IgnacioK
· 3 months ago
Oh, come on. So this guy buys a Marketing for Dummies books, says the things anyone with a brain can come up to, and we are supposed to be on our knees because of truth revealed? If any average Joe said this, would it be an article in Mashable? Jeez...
nwjerseyliz
· 3 months ago
The more you turn yourself into a "brand", the less authentic, spontaneous, real & human you become. Brands are products that you sell. People are full of complexity, contradictions & unpredictability and it is a pity that some celebrities flatten out their personalities to label themselves as a brand and become predictable like a Big Mac or Starbucks coffee.
I'm not sure that this step is inevitable or necessary although I'm sure the pressures for artists to think of their selves (not their work) as commodities to market is enormous.
DeAnte
· 3 months ago
"The more you turn yourself into a "brand", the less authentic, spontaneous, real & human you become. Brands are products that you sell." Yea...no i don't agree with this comment at all. I think if a artist is branding his or here self on social networks like facebook it actually gives them more personality and makes them sort of tangible by there fans. Before it was as if the only way you can see your favorite artist was in concert or TV. Now you can get to know them directly through facebook and twitter to see what they are up to on a day to day bases. P. Diddy is always one step ahead of the game which is why he is on of the leading Entertainers of our generation.
eugene ripper
· 3 months ago
I think it is worth making the distinction between "entertainer" and "musician" when it comes to all the self serving "branding" hyperbole from talented cats like Diddy. It's an easy socio editorial trap...most consumers of music and entertainment don't really understand what it takes to be a professional musician which is in fact a subset of being a professional entertainer - to over simplify it...it's not about being a "rock star" like Diddy. This is something that only musicians seem to get...most of the public just get the stars in their eyes and are stuck by with P.O.V
Fundamentally, Diddy is right--musicians need to embrace social tools that allow them to connect directly with fans. Keep the communication open and honest; it's not about hype. It's about letting the fans in, allowing the fans to be a part of everything and not just consumers at retail plunking down $$. Record companies-at least the 4 majors-are OVER. Sorry Marcello, but that model became terminally ill when Napster et al hit the scene. Record sales have been in double-digit decline for a decade and continue to do so. The future, happening right now, is direct fan-to-artist and vice-versa engagement. There'll be far less superstars and far more successful artists catering directly to their tribe of fans, mainstream be damned.
Marcello
· 3 months ago
Sorry, Gins, but the marketplace has spoken, and the winner, not surprisingly, is corporate media. Radiohead is big, but Miley is much, much bigger.
Of course the marketplace has changed, it's always been changing, but the "major label" model has been replaced with the "global entertainment conglomerate" model. That's why companies like Disney, Bertelsmann, and Sony are thriving. They've got their fingers in music, radio, television, movies, video games, merchandising and a dozen other industries. They're signing entertainers who can cross-promote all of those products on a global scale to maximize their profits. Just because they're not "selling records" doesn't mean they're not wielding an enormous amount of power.
The web 2.0 fantasy of independent music rising to the top while corporations languish in the background just isn't happening. There always have been and always will be independent musicians -- I'm one of them -- but we will always have to struggle to get heard over the corporate noise.
It was a nice dream while it lasted.
Gins
· 3 months ago
I cannot disagree with you more. Corporate media is waning before our eyes. Miley in 5 years is an afterthought, a memory. The Top 40 fluff is just that. The amount of money spent to create the Jonas Brothers is obscene, and their popularity is already waning. You cannot get the attention of the mainstream anymore, because there isn't a mainstream. It's thousands of niches. There's a huge difference between "entertainers" and musicians. None of those players you mentioned are going to break a career artist. They may propagate iterations of Miley's, et al but those are product movers, not musicians. They're commodities. Quick flashes in the pan, sure. But long-term career artists are being built from the ground up and will thrive by catering to their fans, not trying to be some mass-appeal phenomenon selling everything to everyone, saying nothing, a contrived image built by that same corporate media that more and more people are tuning out precisely because it's all a facade. Those video games cost upwards of $25 million to create; Nintendo admitted that they need to sell a million copies of a game to break even. 16 out of 486 games released in 2008 sold more than 1 million copies. How long until that model is over? There are plenty of DIY success stories built on the strength of Web 2.0. You may have never heard of them; but folks like White Williams, Kero One, Jonah Smith and many others have built careers this way and thousands more are doing it too. The corporate noise is fading fast...remember when radio mattered? Exactly.
bustedkeys
· 3 months ago
like marketing is to sharing as branding is to identity, i wonder if we really need to create a distinction between what we brand ourselves and who we really are. it almost feels like branding is just another alter-ego that we've created, and 'authentic' self is played/dumbed down.
DeAnte
· 3 months ago
P. Diddy is always one step ahead of the game. Social networks has transformed from talking to friends and family just to catch up to actually becoming one of the lead marketing tools today. The more people and businesses that understand this will ultimately transform to greater success.
abdallahkwekathedon
· 3 months ago
yeeeeh! a gat da message from sean and I join him ma hands dat being a star not only be shouted on da stage by fancies but there are many things attributed with it like having capacity of live performing on stage. I again say dat I like the message and its really
All Comments
> as a whole still largely ignores: “You have to
> understand how to be able to brand yourself,”
Huh? The record industry has been doing branding -- and doing it well -- for at least fifty years! How do you think they managed to sell all those records?
I'm not sure that this step is inevitable or necessary although I'm sure the pressures for artists to think of their selves (not their work) as commodities to market is enormous.
RT
www.web-tools.us.tc
Of course the marketplace has changed, it's always been changing, but the "major label" model has been replaced with the "global entertainment conglomerate" model. That's why companies like Disney, Bertelsmann, and Sony are thriving. They've got their fingers in music, radio, television, movies, video games, merchandising and a dozen other industries. They're signing entertainers who can cross-promote all of those products on a global scale to maximize their profits. Just because they're not "selling records" doesn't mean they're not wielding an enormous amount of power.
The web 2.0 fantasy of independent music rising to the top while corporations languish in the background just isn't happening. There always have been and always will be independent musicians -- I'm one of them -- but we will always have to struggle to get heard over the corporate noise.
It was a nice dream while it lasted.