Audience Preferences On Various Websites

Until I began uploading original song videos to the Internet a few months ago, differences in audiences were not something to which I paid a lot of attention. The thought was: Write a great song that people love, and you're on your way. Sure, all writers have heard the maxim, know your target audience. But until a number of different audiences began to "rate" my song videos by viewing them, the true importance of that statement escaped me entirely.

What brought the concept home was when some folks at MetaCafe discovered Black Hills Saga. After sitting passively on the site for weeks, it suddenly garnered over 200 views in a single day and was really "humming" for a week or so. Current view count on that one stands at 999 as of this writing (6-18-08); my wife and I are keeping an eye on it for the day it tops that "magic 1,000" mark!

BULLETIN AS OF JULY 9, 2008: BLACK HILLS SAGA DID IT! 1,017 VIEWS AND COUNTING!!

Based on that info, one might conclude, Black Hills Saga is definitely the way to go!

But...only on MetaCafe, as it turns out. Another song, The Devil In Blue Jeans, while ranked only 10th on MetaCafe with 79 views, turns out to be way out on the lead on several other sites, YouTube and Revver among them. Then again, Pen Pal Paradise, which has only one view on MetaCafe, is actually in third place on MySpace.

And like that.

On reflection, it all reminds me of an early evening at a Little League baseball game in Custer, South Dakota, circa 1993. I'd just recorded my first full length music album, Platonic Love, and was enormously proud of the result. When a neighbor--and father of one of the better players--heard a cut from the album, he immediately smirked a cliche' response:

"Don't give up your day job!"

The interesting aspect of this interchange was the song itself: Cause and Effect, probably the most popular song with teenagers that I've ever written. Not surprisingly, what tripped the trigger for countless fifteen year old students did nothing for their fortyish parents.

But...back to the central topic: After studying results for several months, I've come up with a tentative Preference Guide indicating audience viewing desires on a number of sites, as follows:

PROTEST SONGS: MetaCafe.com

Black Hills Saga is not just a protest song, but it could be--and probably is being--viewed as such.

I've only written that one "protest" song to date...and only one true "rock" song as well, that one being titled The Devil In Blue Jeans. Constructed around an E Minor chord and a driving rhythm, it explores the mystery of those times when you feel hatred coming at you from a roomful of total strangers. Oh. Never happens to you? Well, it has to me!

Anyway, there are several sites where Devil is viewed more than any other video I've posted. So far, those sites are:

ROCK SONGS: YouTube.com...Revver.com...Veoh.com

Of course, there's always the question of whether viewers on these sites like Devil because it's a rock song...or because they, too, have wondered at the reactions of people who were meeting them for the first time. This Hub is definitely not reporting on a scientifically controlled experiment in survey statistics!

Even so: Here's the Devil song--you be the judge:

The comedy song, considered a "novelty" song by many purists in the music industry and thus beneath notice, has nonetheless done well for some truly talented singers, with Ray Stevens being the best of the bunch. And, while I might never compose a masterpiece capable of going head-to-head with The Streak or Hello Again, Margaret, I'd be more than happy to settle for second place.

About twenty-five percent of the songs I write turn out to have a comedy element in them, or even to be out-and-out knee slappers (by my own highly prejudiced evaluation). One of those, What's Your Story?, tells the tale of the fellow who wonders about a hitchhiker who went to a truck stop restroom and never returned. Story now has a firm hold on the lead in views on two sites, those being:

COMEDY SONGS: MySpace.com...StupidVideos.com

Um. See. Now there's an interesting fact: Although a fair chunk of my songs are love songs, not one of them is holding the lead on any single website. Maybe they're just not good enough? Possible. The Rose In My Heart, however, does get rave views from reviewers who know what they're talking about. Reviewers, yes. Viewers, no. Sort of like refried beans, yes; fried beans, no? Hard to say.

There are also tribute songs (such as those to parents who have passed on from this world), fess-up songs (Not Even Half A Man, about one day I did not step up to the plate). However, no matter how you look at it, the bottom line seems to be:

Different Strokes for Different Folks.

Before living in California during the 1980's, I thought of the Golden State as more or less "all one place". Hardly. It's more like a complex Universe unto itself. Northern California and Southern California, for that matter, don't always seem to even like each other that much--and the media reports on the not infrequent surge of interest among Northerners in the concept of Secession from the State of California as such. Sort of a reversal of the War Between The States.

Bottom line: If you have music you want/need to get "out there", it definitely helps to be able to publish each song to many different sites. I use TubeMogul.com's free service to accomplish this, with a special salute to their tracking capabilities--you're able to tell at a glance roughly what your overall view count is doing on a number of sites with a single glance.

Overall, no complaint: Just a few months ago I "couldn't even spel KamKorder and now I are wun", or something to that effect. If this ol' cowboy can handle one, after a few weeks of angst, internal self-criticism, and false starts--bet you can, too. It's even fun!

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32

P.S.I held off publishing this Hub because is simply felt unfinished--perhaps waiting for this week's video as an endpiece. After Third Generation Oilfield Trash has been online for a few weeks, perhaps we'll have an update. Will one particular website have a cache of enthusiastic viewers? And if that happens, will the cause be the subject matter, the simple three chord runaround arrangement...or the fact that I shaved?? The results (if any) certainly will not be scientifically conclusive... but they might be food for thought!