Social Media Based Contests Help Artists on PR Costs

As I enter yet another competition, based on social media interaction, such as VOTES or LIKES, I am realizing how valuable these contest really are for those emerging artists who have tiny marketing budgets for their music. While time is money, I think using competitions based on social media hits are a great way to get some new fans, get some press all at the same time, increasing your user skills in social media, which seems destined to stay.

My win in the British Airways Face of Opportunity Contest with a marketing pitch for my album Night Flight to London, had many levels of competition, most being based on the number of votes I could secure. I found myself heavy on social media, like Twitter and Facebook, getting the word out. Result? I won. Got trip to London/Rome to promote my music. Met amazing people. Album on British Airways inflight audio for six months. And, most importantly, a sense of pride and accomplish and a feel of real support from the airline.

Right now, having experience the value of that contest, I have entered yet another competition. This time the prize is £10K worth or music promotion on the music website we7. I am one of 10 artists, who have been selected by Ditto Music (my digital music distributor) to get some social media promo and if I get more LIKES on the Ditto Music Facebook page than any other artist, I will win that one month promo of my music.

That’s something worth Tweeting about!

If you’d like to participate, just go to the Ditto Music Facebook page on their WALL posts. You will find my featured Artist profile about 4 posts down in the WALL feed, as of this writing. Just under the airplane image on the YouTube video, is a LIKE button. That’s the one you push!

LINK TO DITTO MUSIC FACEBOOK PAGE HERE

Easy Breazie!
Let’s win this thing!

Jennie Walker
www.jenniewalker

The HELP – Edges of History

The HELP

There is history you can’t remember…you weren’t born yet. There is history that has been glorified or glamorized ..filtered…like panning for gold where all the bad stuff has fallen away. There is history you live through. You were there, a witness to a time that in retrospect, seems otherworldly, like some Alien sighting.

What I saw of history, in The HELP, is a mixture of all of that. The HELP represents the history my mother lived. The history I was not there to witness but which I heard about. Segregation. She lived through that. The HELP represents the edges of change, which I was able to witness, but was too young to understand while it was happening. There are the classic stereotypes of the upper class: the snob, the privileged, the DAR member. And, according to my movie partner, they were 1dimentional. But, as I explained, they needed to be so the maids…The HELP could be three dimensional. The maids were more than 3 dimensional…they created something so special that only an Oscar nod could capture the true essence of what I saw on the screen.

My mother’s mother died three days after she was born. She was put into the arms of her father’s sister and later into the arms of Ida, a black nanny who would raise her and one of many black nanny’s or maids that would be in and out of her life.

My mother often spoke of the affection she had for Ida, as she never knew her own mother. Later in life, my mother, who was a singer and a songwriter, would write a musical called MLK based on her life – the story of her life, a white woman, raised by a black nanny in the time of MLK. She wrote songs to reflect all the milestones during that time, such as a song about Rosa Parks, a song about the march on DC, a love song between Coretta Scott King and MLK and then her very personal song about her love for Ida, called “Momma Don’t Leave Me Now.” About when Ida died. She did see her as her mother. This was not because her own mother was not loving…since her own mother was not alive, it was because of the closeness and the bond the two shared. A natural bond.

My mother was a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and she worked hard for me to join and follow in her footsteps., which I did. She was educated and went to an all girl’s college, to get her MRS degree before the obligatory trip to Europe with her girlfriends.. She married soon after college and became a full time wife of an Army Colonel, raising 5 kids along the way…..but not without HELP. Marion at 14, would enter my mothers life as HELP.

My mother had to straddle the two worlds and find a place for her own feelings. Throughout her life she was in awkward social situations, which I witnessed myself or heard about after the fact, where like the characters in the movie, she had to make a social choice about where she stood on subjects like The HELP.

She always managed to find a graceful way to deal with the times or the changing times that would allow her to maintain her respect and love for her nanny Ida and Marion, a woman who would be in and out of her life until she passed.

Marion was and is a member of our family. She was there in the beginning…She was there in the end. When my mother had her first stroke, Marion would care for her, in that classic tale of the parent becomes the child, but in this case it was the nanny becomes the elder care provider.

Ida and Marion – Like glorious bookmarks on my mothers life…we can barely measure it and could not write the entire story without the love of and for The Help.

Jennie Walker
www.jenniewalker.com

9/11 Giveth and Taketh Away From Me

I was living in Manhattan during 9/11. Good thing it was the one day my mother did not turn on the news down in Columbus, Georgia in the early morning, as was her routine. Instead she had been out tending to her flower garden on a beautiful September morning.

I called her in a panic that fateful day.
“Mom, I just wanted you to know I’m OK” I said in a breathless tone.
“Oh, that’s nice. Thank you daughter.” – Mom said.
I’m thinking to myself, ‘she does not get it. She does not understand. She is not making a connection.’
“Mom, haven’t you seen the news this morning?” – I said from the offices of Synergos Institute, where I was employed working on the Global Philanthropists Circle.
“Oh, no, I’ve been out in the garden. It’s always so nice to hear from you. How are you?” – She said in her sweet southern voice, oblivious to what was happening in the world.
“Well, Listen.” “There’s been some terrible attacks on New York City. Some planes went into the World Trade Center. We don’t really know what is happenning here. We can’t even find a TV that works in the office yet. I got a call from my boss, who saw the attacks from his apartment near the United Nations building. He watched the planes go into the buildings. He left me this crazy message about it on my voice mail this morning. So, I don’t know what’s really going on, but I wanted you to know I’m ok.” Turn on the news and you’ll see what’s going on. But, know I’m OK. I’ll call you back later when I know more.”
“Alright daughter. I love you.” – she said.
“I Love you too mom. I’ll call you back.” – I said and still thinking, ‘she does not get it.’

A few days after September 11th, a young firefighter from England named Andy Pike, would hop on a plane to New York City from London. He would take vacation time to get there. His friends in the New York Fire Department would find a way to get him into the site. He would use a borrowed fireman’s outfit. And, aside from his accent, he would look like he belonged there. He will have been given a special orange wrist band to be allowed onto the site of the World Trade Center, which had tight security. He would dig and help save lives and help find remains. He would be traumatize by what he experienced. He would be traumatized by what he saw. He would come back one year later to New York and we would meet at a local bar. We would date, we would become exclusive, and I would begin a relationship with this wonderful person and make plans to be together more permanently, who would eventually break total ties with me to heal himself from the aftereffects of PTS at the advice of Doctors. He would also try to save his own job while being treated for PTS that was caused by something he did on his own time. And I would find myself at the psychologists office that serves the FNDY to find out why he had cut all ties with me and NYC. I would be told they could not help me, as he was with the British Fire Brigade and I would be given a referral to an outside doctor. I would, with the help of my friends, try to come to grips with the sudden loss in my life..just as sudden as those who were lost on 9/11.

But, before Andy left my life and before PTS took its full toll on his life, I would see in him the type of person who would always put himself second. The type who would give his life for another. The Hero type in the literal and emotional sense. An emotional man but in the way someone is emotional out of stress and weakness, not the good kind. And, there is a good kind.

As a songwriter, I write when I am inspired. Something has to hit me hard, really get to me…leave its mark. Andy inspired two songs on my album. Hero in My Eyes, about his self sacrificing life as a firefighter and also the title track, Night Flight to London, which captured all the good feelings I had when I would travel from New York City to London to see him.

9/11 brought me a wonderful man. 9/11 eventually took him away from me. I am left, however, with two wonderful songs that will always be important to me and encapsulate two wonderful experiences in my life. “Night Flight to London” represents all the hope and possibilities new relationships have to offer. The promise of a better life…the feeling of excitement…of knowing you are on a journey to something you have never experienced before with someone. A journey of two, not one.

Today, on 9/11/2011 I want to dedicate my songs Hero in My Eyes and Night Flight to London to Andy Pike, a member of the British Fire Brigade. He gave gladly the days after 9/11. His actions helped identify loved ones. He was and will always be a hero in my eyes.

LINK TO SONGS STREAMING ON MUSICXRAY
HERO IN MY EYES: http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/17430
NIGHT FLIGHT TO LONDON http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/17425

Both songs and the entire album are on iTunes globally
LINK HERE

Jennie Walker
www.jenniewalker.com