2-Stroke: Talking the new age of publicity with Chris Hnat of 2:30 Publicity

by Nick Hardy on Jan 25^th, 2012

For this installment of Music Business 2-Stroke, I had the pleasure of briefly interviewing Chis Hnat of 2:30 Publicity. Chris is a 5-year veteran of the industry and his current roster consists of Volcom Entertainment, Infinity Cat Recordings, Dirtnap Records, PDX PopNow and many more.

With publicity being such a non-tangible return for a lot of artists, it can be hard to justify the investment in an ever-changing music landscape. Everyone is trying to figure out how to adapt to these new industry trends. Every day there are 100 new tools to help artists advance their career, it’s easy to get lost.

Hopefully, Chris’ insight into the indie music publicity industry will help you mold your plans for your next tour, album release, local show or festival.

2-Stroke: As a publicist, what changes have you seen over the past 5 years in your field of work?  What’s been the constant?

Chris: Well, the most obvious change is that print media is in decline.  A lot of glossy mags and print zines have stopped printing over the last 5-10 years, and the ones who are still around have smaller and smaller page counts.  When I first started working as a publicist, a lot of bands and labels kinda wrote off online press as a nice addition to a print campaign.  I think the online aspect of publicity definitely drives things more-so these days.

I started working in the music industry soon after the boom of illegal downloading, so for me the constant has always been having to stay aware of digital trends.

2-Stroke: As the business side of the industry has shifted to direct-to-fan marketing, has this shift changed the role of a publicist (i.e the way people choose to consume information and how you try and display it)?

Chris: I don’t feel like there has been that much of a change due to social networking in publicity.  Sure – publicists, bands, and labels have to use Facebook and Twitter to help spread the word about bands getting media attention.  I think that’s about it though, at least for a publicist.  Labels and bands definitely have to use the direct-to-fan marketing a lot more than a publicist.  

I think everyone has different ways that they find out about things like music, movies, books and restaurants.  The direct-to-fan marketing is just one aspect of that.  I think a lot of music fans still have people whose taste in music they trust, and they find out about artists that way.  Sometimes it’s a record label that consistently puts out good records.  Sometimes its a certain blog or website that has turned you on to some good tunes.  Sometimes it’s your buddy telling you about a band or posting a YouTube vid on their Facebook page.  Not to mention, there are tons of people who got into a new band because they caught them opening for their favorite band.  I guess its up to the label or artist to combine all those aspects in a way that brings them fans.      

2-Stroke: Print publications seem to be turning more towards social media to display their content.  What are your thoughts on Spin’s decision to feature most of their reviews on Twitter, which limits a review to 140-character max?  Does this de-legitimize a publicist role or a CD review for that matter?

Chris: I personally think Spin’s Twitter reviews are a great idea.  I’m all for trying to use new technology to make people aware of rad new bands!  I mean, you obviously can’t get too in depth with only 140 characters and that’s definitely a drawback, but hopefully people will dig a little deeper and find out more about bands that they hear good things about via Twitter.

I don’t think social media delegitimizes a publicist roll.  I think there will always be a need for publicity and marketing in music.  Things will definitely change due to digital trends, but someone will always have to be there to strategize how to roll out content and help writers get interested in a band.

2stroke: Are there any new/upcoming internet tools you have been using that help deliver or display the content you are pushing to press outlets in unique, eye-catching ways?

I can’t really think of anything.  A lot of the bells and whistles distract from the more important things like the pitch and all the information on the artists.  We use html email marketing for blasts and press releases, so things look nice and it’s easy to click around to find what you need.  Soundcloud has definitely been something useful to come up over the last couple years.  I think the new internet tools affect the marketing side of things more than the publicity side of things though.

That said, I think the iPad has the ability to really change things in the publishing industry – much like the iPod changed a lot of things in the music industry.  Hopefully publishing people can learn from the mistakes that the music industry has made.  A music publicist’s job kinda lands where the two industries merge, so it will be interesting to see how the iPad changes things.  I don’t think I’ll be directly affected, but I could see it making it more important for me to have extra content to offer people so the features are more interactive.