Concert Window 101: Elegant Live Performance Streaming

ConcertWindow

I’ve written about the platforms StageIt and YouNow, where indie artists can stream a live music performance and even make money doing so. Concert Window was launched in 2011 by Harvard grads and musicians Dan Gurney and Forrest O’Connor to provide the same service. Still running a bit under the radar because they’ve only been live for about 9 months, Concert Window is gaining praise and growing quickly through word of mouth buzz in the indie musician community.

CoGar Kickstarter Concert

Last week, I attended a streaming performance on Concert Window by Austin singer-songwriter Alex Winters. The event security was a little strict but that’s okay, it went so well that I thought it would be interesting to interview Alex about her experience and try setting up my own artist profile.

Alex and I met through GoGirlsMusic, and while she was here in Seattle recently, she mentioned she was about to do her first Concert Window performance. I signed up on the website ahead of time as a viewer so I could tune in. One of the things I noticed right away was that I could watch Alex’s performance on my iPhone while away from my desktop. I  think this is a smart feature, and no doubt increases audience views significantly. Mobile is where it is at.

After a few minor glitches on both her end (Alex’s PRO TIP: “When you’re ready to broadcast, hit the BROADCAST button!”) and on my end (my AT&T phone signal was weak at first), I was able to enjoy her concert on my earbuds with no problem. Note that all the viewer features of the desktop version are not there on mobile, such as chat and tipping.

This post has three parts. First, an interview with Alex about her experience with Concert Window . Second, my walkthrough of setting up an artist profile and a performance on Concert Window. Last, I give my assessment of some of the features that make the Concert Window platform stand out.

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Walking The Dog Episode 6: ConcertWindow and Facebook (Again)

Every Friday morning, I walk my dog and record a podcast about music, music marketing and whatever is on my mind that week.

In this week’s 19 minute episode, I talk about two things:

Look for a more in-depth review of Concert Window, including an interview with musician and songwriter Alex Winters, in a later longer blog post form on my website. In today’s podcast, I cover an overview of what Concert Windows is and a few of the features that stand out to me to differentiate Concert Window from StageIt.

The majority of today’s podcast discussion comes from a free ebook available from social media consultant, Kim Garst of Boom Social, entitled “9 Ingredients For Dominating Facebook’s News Feed… Without Giving Them a Penny… Shhhh”. I love Kim’s blog posts about Facebook marketing. She does research and shows examples of her experiments with her own Facebook page, and she also works with clients, so she focuses on real life data and situations.

Frankly, there is also something perverse in me that enjoys the idea of sharing Kim’s tips on using Facebook WITHOUT paying for advertising. Plus, the meta-lesson here is that  or order for you to download her ebook, her landing page is, well…. on Facebook! She’s using her own marketing principles to drive traffic to her Facebook page for free. Smart.

In last week’s podcast, I highlighted an article from Social Media Today about why it may be smart to ignore Facebook as part of your social media strategy, or at least why you should only consider it as part of your integrated marketing plan for your music.

As a social media marketer, I remain professionally ambivalent about Facebook, to say the least. I enjoy using it personally, but I hate it as a marketer, and I don’t respect the way the company treats its customers. And it also scares me a bit how much personal data Facebook collects online.

[Tweet “”I remain professionally ambivalent about Facebook””]

I cannot, however, in good conscience, suggest to musicians that they completely ignore Facebook as a marketing tool. However, with

  • 1.26 billion users worldwide
  • 757 active daily users
  • 138 million active daily users in the US alone

you can’t ignore the fact that

[Tweet “Facebook is the dominant social media platform on the planet,”]

Listen to my podcast to hear Kim’s 9 tips and tricks for maximizing engagement with your Facebook fans and see how you can make the most of Facebook to market your music – without paying for advertising.

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