Qello Launches Blog With Ben Tong Forres, An Example Of Smart Music Tech Marketing

Early this month Qello, a streaming library of HD music concerts and documentary films, launched Inside the Q, a music blog designed to feature Qello content. Last last week they officially announced that music journalist Ben Fong-Torres would run the show. It's a smart way to forefront content and market the service that a wide range of music tech companies should consider emulating even if they're not content companies per se.

Though Inside the Q is certainly not the first example of a blog designed to feature content from a web service, it's a reminder that blogging is an excellent marketing tool for music-related companies.

Inside the Q actually launched with a post from Ben Fong-Torres, who built his rep at Rolling Stone back in the days before this whole web thing took over. He's the Senior Editor and there's a group of four other contributors from Qello listed in the sidebar.

In last week's official announcement, Fong-Torres stated:

“Qello…is your portal to a wide, wide world of full-length concerts, music documentaries, and specials, like behind-the-scenes looks at how some classic albums came to be. It’s such a vast library that it’s good to have some guidance. That’s where I’m lucky enough to come in, with opinions and memories. I look forward to seeing you often Inside the Q."

The blog itself is described as:

"The place to find out about new releases – look out for New Music Tuesdays. And Team Q bloggers will introduce the Center Stage and Breakout artists being featured on the application worldwide. Beyond the music, Inside the Q will delve into new partnerships, new products, and the technology that streams top quality content to all multi-media devices worldwide, including mobile phones, tablets, Smart TVs, gaming consoles, and the web."

Having such a blog is important because, though Qello does have accessible pages for content, they don't allow for browsing without creating an account. That's something they should change but, whatever they do, there will still be a need to highlight special content for marketing purposes.

In particular, by featuring interesting content in blog posts, other bloggers and websites may find something to which they wish to link and casual web surfers may find something worth checking out.

Having blog posts about particular concerts and documentaries also helps with web searches.

For example, I was surprised to find the post "Marvin Gaye: Live in Amsterdam" already in the top 10 on Google for that phrase.

Assuming they're not employing any shady search practices, that's a good sign that they'll be able to add to their audience via search engines.

All Music Tech Companies Should Have Such Blogs

Music tech startups and established companies that feature content will definitely benefit from having accessible blogs using one's primary domain. It's an easy fit and allows for highlights of special additions to the collection or of older material when a band is in the news.

But blogs can also be used to feature musicians using a site or service or to share tips for users. Excellent examples are the Bandzoogle Blog and CD Baby's The DIY Musician.

By providing content of interest to both current and future customers, such blogs can also feature news about the company to keep people updated. By contrast, when a company blog only features company news, the main people reading are industry writers and most of the content goes unnoticed.

Quick Tips for Inside the Q

If you're going to call it "Inside the Q" that should be in the page title rather than Qello – It will help build the blog's own identity without undermining Qello's brand.

Post more often – I assume that's happening soon given that Inside the Q has five contributors but they're off to a bit of a slow start.

Include the title of the blog post or of the featured content in the page title – SEO, baby, SEO!

Add related films and documentaries a viewer might find of interest at the end of each post.

Best of luck to Ben Fong-Torres in your new role as Inside the Q blog editor!

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) is relaunching Flux Research and maintaining Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.