Our newest obsession here at Luminosity is Turntable.fm, a social music site that has connected the office on a whole new level. According to AdAge, the site has gained more than 400,000 users in just two months. It allows members to join a specific “room,” many of which feature different music styles, and everyone has the opportunity to create an avatar that “spins” music from the DJ booth. Listeners hanging out in the room can rate song selections along the spectrum ‘Lame’ to ‘Awesome,’ allowing for direct interaction. The Luminosity team has been using the site to bond over a shared love of music, learn about new artists, and, occasionally, tease each other over music picks (a country cover of “Oops I Did It Again”–really, was that necessary?!).
Turntable.fm is yet another example of the changing landscape of digital music. A recent Nielsen study shows the different ways consumers enjoy tunes, with music streaming sites like Turntable among the largest sources.
Undoubtedly, music streaming sites are a huge medium through which brands can gain consumers’ attention. In fact, several companies are already trying to find a way to promote their brands through Turntable, with AdAge noting that Bravo, Pepsi, and Electronic Arts all maintain rooms. Because the site and many of the corporate-owned rooms are so new, it is unclear how exactly companies will leverage this platform for promotion. As of now, there are no advertisements, but companies are able to use it as a branding resource to echo the image they want consumers to see.
Even before advertising is allowed (if ever), we think marketers can use turntable.fm as a strategy to organically connect with consumers. For example, brands could create more personal connections to pop culture by inviting celebrities to guest DJ, similar to the recent trend of inviting the gliteratti to “take over” media-owned Twitter pages. How cool would it be to listen to a playlist curated by music artists themselves? A sequence of acoustic covers chosen just for me by The Boss? I’d happily endure subliminal branding touch points for that! Turntable.fm could also prove to be an interesting research tool for record labels to concept-test new music products. The plethora of built-in metrics captured (viral/sharing stats, replays, ratings on the awesome <–> lame scale) could even assist with sales forecasting.
The possibilities are promising–have you tried Turntable.fm yet?
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