B&M connection: The Creative Economy and Permanent Media
In the constant quest for connection (for personal and business reasons), most of us turn to online social media because it feels good and seems easy to connect with the things we like and the people we know. This dopamine hit works fairly well with our connections but there is little guarantee that we can reach the wider audience we hope for.
The difficulty occurs when we try to build relationships on platforms that we have no control over. The solution is to use social media as a funnel to permanent media locations that you own or where you have full control over your content.
Permanent media are platforms and links like your website and a fully owned URL. This includes your custom email address that reinforces your presence and internet legitimacy. But you can also include a US Postal mailing address as permanent media. The Postal Service is charged with insuring that your mail gets delivered as addressed. With quarantine, direct mail excelled at reaching people where they were and in many ways those who produced compelling pieces had above average results. Timely delivery was and is still a problem. Also rising during this time of extended physical separation were the number of podcasts broadcast on many different topics. Podcasts and video content have the potential to be in the permanent media category as long as you can embed it in your website if you desire, and you retain copyright and placement capability. “Permanent Media” excludes Gmail, Facebook and Google properties whose rules change without consideration for your needs.
This permanence creates the basis of building a brand if you are a business or a good solid reputation as an individual or as a provider of goods or services. The pandemic, from which we are cautiously emerging, gave us a chance to make an assessment of what was truly important and how we might want to proceed forward. Podcasts and remote work have shifted focus to the individual as contributor and provider of solution when there is no big office complex hierarchy to rely upon.
The Creative Economy is all economic activity that depends on the creativity of individuals. Hard hit by the pandemic, musicians, actors and artists have been forced to reimagine their in-person concerts and shows as virtual and video productions. While many have turned to eventbrite and Spotify to be heard, the greater difficulty is in being found. As potential audience members, we search for the familiar and therefore drive popularity to already known entities. Emerging artists and new to us seasoned performing artists are everywhere and need our support.
My friend Jeff Pulver has created and has created and been hosting the first live global internet music channel where he introduces new talent to a growing worldwide audience. You can find more information and artists can sign up to audition on his website https://www.graftonstreettv.com/ Grafton Street is famous in Dublin Ireland as the place where buskers interact with passerbys. Like what you hear – there’s a tip jar and a way to connect further.
Here locally, you may not be on your way to Dublin anytime soon but Bath Maine is host site of a new and different Friday series of concerts out behind the Grant Building off Centre Street beginning June 18th. The result of a new collaboration between Union + Co and Bath residents Dylan and Mandy Metrano, this series offers world class performers an opportunity to perform in Bath for the first time and now in front of a live audience. Dylan Metrano has been booking and promoting performers since the ‘90’s and insuring that artists are paid fairly for their work.
Experience in person what of late has only been found on the internet and through channels like Spotify. Here’s the community’s opportunity to strengthen the long history of a broad range of arts and culture right here in the midcoast. These artists have their own following and you can sample their work on channels like Spotify but like that old commercial – you have to ask for them by name. Here’s your chance to build the creative economy locally and strengthen creators permanent media access to us, their new audience. Different Audience. Different Vibe.