The Staniblog

~STEP INTO THE DRIVER'S SEAT~

2010-03-18T21:47:00.013-04:00

With the launch of Ford's unique social media campaign promoting the upcoming release of the Ford Fiesta, the automotive giant has positioned their marketing in such a way as to offer significant advantages over any advertising initiatives lauched by their competitors.

See the article here for a summary of the campaign.

The major advantages of this campaign are:

By putting the promotion in the hands of the social media experts. Ford is able to access an alternate style of advertising/marketing not necessarily accessible through standard corporate channels. Through these alternate methods an entirely different market is opened up to Ford; moreover this market encompasses an age group which is going to soon be the primary demographic purchasing cars. consider the following statement from the social media news release:

"Chosen agents largely will resonate with Millennials, the next-generation consumer group born between 1979 and 1985. These consumers, which will total 70 million drivers by 2010, use social media daily and offer a prime opportunity for Ford to tap into a group that hasn’t yet established brand loyalty."

With the agents driving the Fiesta for up to 6 months, they will have the opportunity to deliver first hand recommendations to anyone they encounter in a face-to-face situation; therefore they can actually show-off the car as well as just promoting it through social media channels.

Arguably the biggest advatage of this campaign is that social media experts will generally be regarded by the public as more neutral in their opinion and therefore any recommendations will be taken at face value as oppose to being considered "paid advertising." Moreover, the SME's opinions are probably considered relatively reliable based purely on the number of people already following their blogs, tweets, videos and any other techniques they use.

For additional information on this campaign checkout the following blog posts:

Andrew's blog
Jackie's Blog
Megan's Blog
Mike's Blog
Johnny's Blog

Age Of the Enemy - Photos and Music Samples!!

2010-03-05T10:33:00.008-05:00

Just To give a brief taste of what we do, we've uploaded a short photo slideshow as our video compilation isn't quite finished, As well we've included an instrumental sample of the studio work we have completed so far (player on the left)....... wouldn't wanna give you too much now would we? ;)

Cheers!

Mike

A.O.T.E.

Age Of The Enemy kicks off Canadian Music Week early!!!

2010-03-02T22:10:00.014-05:00

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Every year for a period of five days in March, Toronto is flooded with music industry professionals, performers and songwriters from around the world. From March 10-14 this year there will be a multitude of events and performances across the city giving attendees an opportunity to network with some of the top names from every area of the music business.

The three major networking events planned for this year include the Rdaio Star National songwriting competition, the Songwriter Summit: music creator & publisher conference, and the Music for the Screen film festival. For additional details on these and other events click here.

In addition to the main events there are other festivals and conferences running throughout the week as well as a number of award ceremonies. Click here to go to the home page for CMW 2010.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR AGE OF THE ENEMY?

After three years of hard work and countless shows, my band (Age Of The Enemy) is fortunate enough to be attending some of the upcoming events for CMW 2010. As we run ourselves like a business this is a major opportunity to execute some of our PR initiatives including: Dispersing business cards, music samples and copies of our press kit.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

To celebrate the 2010 Canadian Music Week we will be performing this Saturday March 6, at Velvet Underground. 510 Queen St. W. In the spirit of supporting Canadian music we have invited our friends Special Ops down all the way from Montreal as well, our opening act are local boys Russian Roulette. Links to all the music samples can be found on the Facebook event listing. It's going to be a great night of music and a hell of a celebration.

FOR ALL HUMBER STUDENTS ATTENDING BRING YOUR HUMBER ID FOR ENTRY WITH NO COVER!!!

*POST SHOW WRAP-UP*

Great concert, amazing Music week, if I shook anymore hands my wrist was going to separate. Look for us in the 2011 showcases and on stages around southern Ontario!!!!

KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR THE ALBUM DROPPING JUNE 26TH 2010 @ VELVET UNDERGROUND!!!

Personal Brand: My music, my brand...my life

2010-02-28T22:54:00.006-05:00

The following slideshow summarizes my plans, objectives and critical path at the risk of sounding redundant in my introduction I'm going to leave the slideshow to tell my story. I suggest either downloading it if possible or viewing it in full screen mode as the text may be difficult to read on a smaller window.

Mike Staniforth's Personal Brand

View more presentations from Miker954.

I hope that this has given you a clearer picture of who I am as a product, person and brand. Marketability is indeed a major part of drawing attention to one's personal brand. However, I believe that unless you can deliver the steak with the sizzle, you're wasting your time.

I hope all viewers will take the time to follow the development of our music and hopefully the growth of my musical brand on Twitter and online. Samples will be available as indicated by the critical path dates.

For the full experience I suggest attending our upcoming performance March 6th, 2010 @ Velvet Underground in Toronto. 510 Queen Street west.

Happy listening

"The Story" - My Immersion in Social Media

2010-02-26T10:40:00.030-05:00

In order to trace the path of my complete immerion in social media, let's set the "way back" machine for roughly 1998.

MY EARLIEST PERSONAL EXPOSURE

1998

Basically everyone had at least one email account myself included. However, this year generated a true turning point in the development of social digital communications. The program was called ICQ (I-seek-you) it allowed the users to communicate with each other in real-time but was constructed in a far more user-friendly interface than any previous system. To this day ICQ has continued to update its software and adapt versions for mobile devices as well; therefore, past users can still use their old account number to reactivate their list of contacts regardless of how long they've been off the system. Like most users, my ICQ usage began to dwindle after Microsoft released the earliest versions of MSN Messenger was released, although the principle functions of both programs were the same MSN surpassed ICQ in ease-of-use replacing it as the number one communicator for me (and most other people at the time).

THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION

2004

After hearing classmates mentioning "facebook" this and "facebook" that I finally decided to look into it in early 2005. I was instantly hooked, by the end of the year I created a substantial size profile with my photos, information, messages and more. What captured my attention and drew me in the most was the brilliance of all the functions integrated into the interface. It provides a means to communicate; share photos, video, media; reach out and connect users all over the world through common interests...and so much more! I realize it's rather redundant to explain facebook to anyone reading this as you are likely all familiar with it so I will move on from here. Needless to say, Facebook did for the 21st century what online bulletin boards did for the 20th century.

PROMOTIONAL EXPOSURE THROUGH FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE

2007

In the interests of not having this become a singular document, view my YouTube video summary of this section.

For a detailed understanding of the promotional efforts I mentioned in the video, please look at the following sites:

VIEW the old Written In Red Myspace Page
VIEW/JOIN the Age of The Enemy Facebook group
VIEW/FOLLOW the Age of The Enemy Twitter feed

JUMPING FORWARD TO 2010!!

Please take the time to follow through the link posted on my personal Twitter feed, it will take you to the final discussion on these topics.

Age of The Enemy. "Got Metal?"

2010-01-30T16:49:00.001-05:00

As usual, the Toronto music scene is flooded with cover bands playing other artist's music. Of the bands actually playing original material, there are far too many who follow the genre of "screamo" when it comes to heavier music. I'm a fan of most music but "screamo" is beyond my tolerance. Ironically, it was from this genre that my band was born.

In September 2009, Age Of The Enemy rose from the ashes of Written In Red. During the lifespan of the latter we never suspected that by removing the screaming singer the result would be create such a difference. Age Of The Enemy is creating music that I am proud to claim as my own and we're experiencing more interest in the band from fans and venues than ever.

January 2010 has seen the band hit the ground running. Between playing a handful of recent gigs and re-entering the recording studio to lay the tracks for our first album, the year is likely going to pass in a blur. For the first time ever, we're going to be gigging on the road and are looking forward to playing Montreal this February. Besides the out-of-town dates, there will be a number of performances in Toronto. The closest will be Mar. 6 at The Velvet Underground and we'll be sharing the date with our friends from Montreal, Special Ops. So I hope to see a large Humber population that night! The DJ will be spinning rock and hip-hop and the dance floor opens up after the bands so be sure to stick around!

No matter what genre of music you prefer, Age Of The Enemy finds a common ground with everyone whether it's through our music, energy, or simply our antics on stage. If you come out and give us a listen, I guarantee you'll be hooked.

For show dates, pictures, music and more, check out our Facebook group or start following us on Twitter!

Stillepost - The independant musician's best friend!!

2010-01-26T11:02:00.000-05:00

As a musician who’s been involved in the Toronto live music scene for almost 15 years now I thought I was aware of most of the social utilities available to all the indie level performers. I had actually never heard of Stillepost until I met with my 2c counterpart Erica. After an initial basic demonstration of the site I was fascinated at what resources were provided with minimal effort. Used in association with the Wavelength music series – a weekly showcase for up-and-coming artists – Stillepost is an online messageboard created by the founders of Wavelength and was originally hosted at wavelengthtoronto. Now more than ever I believe all artists are looking for new ways to promote themselves and we’ve reached a point in time where there are just so many options available that it can become overwhelming which avenues to pursue. As well as performing I am also playing the role of the person who deals with the promotion for my band and booking shows. As I mentioned before, the avenues for promotion are endless. Major utilities like Myspace, Twitter and Facebook are ideal places to promote, simply for the volume of people who use them. What Stillepost offers is more for the musician than just promotion. The first thing I noticed was the overall layout of the forums; everything is divided by city. Within each city you have primarily all the same categories. Near the top of each of those lists were two things which immediately caught my eye and sold me on the site. First, there was a straightforward listing of every show going on for the upcoming months. In this list artists are asked to only put the basic information and because everyone follows the same format it’s very easy to follow; moreover, anyone can add their show to the thread. The second feature of this messageboard is an absolute gift from above for any musician in Toronto; open and accessible to everyone is a completed (and up-to-date) list of every live music venue in city as well as the name and contact email for the booking agent (if applicable). There was minimal registration required for Stillepost, and only necessary in order to post information. Anyone is able to view all site content making it a fantastic utility for those who simply want to keep up to date on their local music scene. Navigation through the site is EXTREMELY simple, everything is exactly where you would expect it to be from show listings, classifieds, and even just a complaint section. The loading time for the page was almost instant and I found that I had no problems or even loss of speed when running it from my BlackBerry. The main reason being that the administrators haven’t bogged things down with an excessively, flashy design. Stillepost is, basic in its appearance and handling which is probably what has kept it around for so long and watched its user base continue to grow and such a rapid rate. Have a look at my video description for an idea of the basic pros and cons. .
Looking at Stillepost from a public relations standpoint, the board has the potential to provide major for artists and indie record labels who need to develop their personal brand through exposure, but don't have the large budgets for marketing. Anyone working in PR at the level of independant music artists would be wise to consider adding this tool to their arsenal. Erica, my counterpart, has been a long time user of this social media application and approaches her review from the eyes of a music lover/fan giving a great indication of what Stillepost has to offer the audience, click here for a look at her post