A Social Virus

Son Tyler's band, Arden Park Roots has had an unpaid manager, Josh Dickel, for around four years.  That is how it goes in this business...bands struggle for bookings and once in a while an avid, tenacious fan pops up and asks to take point.  Josh is that way.  He is perhaps the band's greatest fan, maybe only next to a certain really senior groupie.  

Josh is also tenacious. He has booked the gang all over the United States and now actually manages several bands the same way.....for free, for zip, for nada.  

A few months ago he started posting inspirational notes like the one you see here. He would get a couple hundred likes and figured it was working well.  I, in my infinite wisdom, was thinking he was driving away just as many fans as he was bringing in. I mean, if you are following a band for their music and they drop one of these things on you every few days it can be downright annoying right?  Well, maybe not.

Consider the sociology and social media implications of a post Josh put up just ten days ago. Over 4 million people reached...over 32 thousand shares and it has caused over 1,000 fans to sign up for more stuff. The first few days it was hitting almost a million reaches a day and it has finally leveled off. 

Arden Park Roots fires a introspective note and strikes a chord.

Here is what I am thinking on the sociology angle: the widespread reaction to the message to free yourself from wifi for a while (This is my interpretation but it can't be far off right Vern?). These folks are mostly in their 30's and they seem to be concerned about that right?! I, for one am damn glad they are recognizing it.

As far as social media goes there are a ton of considerations. First, the "viral" thing; it's crazy isn't it?!  This is hundreds of thousands of times more reaction than any of Josh's posts have ever got. All those shares too...people have to be impressed to share something and every time it happens all their friends see the post too right? As for the 1,000+ "likes", the band has been stuck at around 25,000 for well over a year and all of a sudden this jump. It all says something about persistence and, of course luck...the Lady's got to visit you once in a while if you keep rolling the dice right?  Yes Vern, it's the old marketing law of large numbers that goes something like this; make a thousand calls, if one says "Yes"... bingo!

Well done Josh.  Well done.

PS - Took another  look in mid March and this is how it stacks up:
Almost 5 million reached, 12 thousands likes and over 37 thousand shares.  Pretty cool.