More Blog Chatter = More Album Sales

Apparently, the more an album is blogged about, the more it will sell. Yup, that's as obvious as, "if you promote harder, more people will buy." However, some NYU professor actually quantified the correlation between blog post volume and album sales performance. Here are the findings:

* When legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album's release, sales were 3X the average.
* If the albums blogged about were associated with a major record label, sales increased 5X.
* When blog activity reached more than 250 posts, sales were 6X the average regardless of an association with a major or independent label.
* The number of an artist's MySpace friends also contributed to higher future sales, but had a weaker correlation as compared to blog chatter.

Kinda interesting, in a random sort of way. (Spammers: Please note, the first bullet says, "legitimate" posts...no need for increased spam blogs, thanks.) Be sure to add me as a MySpace friend (see the link top right) so we can all benefit from the MySpace Friends effect. ;)

Comments

Good post. I took an in depth look at this on Hypebot too @
http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2008/02/blogs-more-than.html

Posted by: Bruce Houghton | February 11, 2008 02:07 PM

Thanks for the link, Bruce. Btw, nice overhaul of hypebot's look!
-Mike

Posted by: garagespin | February 11, 2008 02:35 PM

Are these posts from your own site or coming from outside bloggers? It would make sense for the 50 or so posts to come from others bloggers which gets the conversation about your album, single, band started.

However if it is you that is posting these blogs about your own album, with some great titles and SEO, you can begin pulling in new fans to hear about your album as well.

Either way, I think musicians need to be blogging regularly. It is a cross between keeping fans and friends updated as much as it is the fascination of celebrity lifestyle and knowing what is going on at all times.

Good find.

Posted by: Greg R. | February 12, 2008 09:57 AM

Greg: Great question. I believe the study was looking at blog post volume from blogs outside the artist's. SEO is great for helping posts to rank well in general, but artists will eventually need "taste maker" support to be convinced to purchase music (like Pitchfork, podcasts, DJs, etc.) But definitely a great quest that should be clarified...

Posted by: garagespin | February 12, 2008 12:56 PM

I am the drummer of a combonation 50/50 covers/original band Based in Washington,
DC. We are the house band every Thursday night @ "The BU Lounge":1426 L st.NW Washington DC 20005.
"King Cool"formally aka "Gringo Starr". we changed our name 6 months ago as we saw another band w/ the same name Gringo Starr based in LA. 1st question is it legal to keep the same name evan if the other band is from LA.Cal? We recorded our 1st cd in Feb 07' and need info on TRADEMARKING
our material my 2nd question. I would like to know if some songs were uploaded on myspace.com do we loose the copywrites to the material. We can prove it's ours. My friend, former guitarist @ graphic artist, "Joe Goltz",
(We played & put tog-ether 4 bands in the mid 80s-mid 90s) designed our first cd including the recording dates as well his Wroop Music seal all info is printed on the CD!
We have been playing together for 3 years and now have over 50 originals most of get a standing ovation from the audiance whom we are playing for never met & most or all don't know us but each week we play at this place more and more show up each week. we must record all of our music originals and coppywrite asap.
Thanks,
s.w.maryn
"KINGCOOL"

Posted by: steve william maryn | April 5, 2008 12:16 AM