Monitoring Wilco

Wilco has been my favorite band for the last 4 years or so. While I have seen them in concert plenty of times and even been to one of their after show parties, where I got a chance to converse with most of their members, I have come to the realization that - when it comes to Social Media - Wilco is very much on top of things. Since the only blog that I constantly follow is Wilco's lead singer's 14 year old son, Spencer Tweedy's blog, I decided that it would be interesting to find out whether or not this blog plays a big role in Wilco's use of Social Media and whether or not there are other blogs, tweets, etc. that carry more importance than Spencer's blog does. After all, his opinion is likely to be somewhat biased as he looks up to his dad. More "random" people's opinions may be more resourceful for someone who also looks for criticism. But let's just see what is out there about Wilco, what the general public thinks, what fans think and what "haters" think.

The tools and social media that I have used and researched with are: Twazzup, Google Blog Search, Twitter, Facebook, Icerocket, Social Mention and Technorati.

It seems as though on Twitter, there are much more Wilco fans than "haters". This makes sense because many Twitter users post tweets about the song or the album that they are currently listening to. In order for any Twitter user to post something negative about Wilco, they would have to be very committed to not liking the band.

For someone who does not know Wilco, these tweets are helpful in order to get to know the band. One sees which songs are particularly popular and through the Youtube-Twitter button, a follower can also easily see which Wilco videos are being favored on Youtube. One the the most popular videos on Twitter, it was featured in Twazzup's video rubric, was a cartoon video to a Wilco song, made by a fan. The video is also one of my favorite videos, and it shows real fan commitment.

Comments on the video include:

Overall, Twazzup came up with relatively simple, nice posts about Wilco. A good start for someone who does not know the band, but nothing more but a short fun time for someone who knows the band well and who wants to learn new things about them as well as see some criticism (although the Youtube pages that Twazzup refers to do offer some sort of brief critical comments). In order to find more controversial posts, I used Google Blog Search.

This time, I came across much more broad statements about Wilco, most of which were either neutral or positive. Due to the fact that Wilco is in the music industry, more music blogs than anything else appeared. Most of them were reviews and interviews and unbiased, as music reviewing websites should be. The many interviews give Wilco a chance to reach out to many people; to all those reading music blogs or blog searching Wilco. What I also found interesting was the fact that many blogs that Google Blog Search displayed, were discussing rumors about whether or not Wilco are going to start their own music label. I hadn't heard these rumors before and they seemed to be a very controversial topic in the Wilco world.

So are Wilco really going to start their own label? Many blogs suggest so, but others display various interviews with the band that suggest that a decision has yet to be made. If something as big as an own record label did happen for Wilco, however, chances are that even the least caring Wilco fans would tweet about it. Therefore, it is fairly obvious that blogs definitely dig much deeper and that the smallest rumors can become controversially discussed topics here. It is good that there are so many music reviews, interviews and discussions on Wilco, because it shows that Wilco is a bad that is actively cared about, amongst those who know their music. Fairly little negative responses to Wilco, especially from music experts, suggest that the members of Wilco know their music well and good responses are the best publicity that the band could ask for. That is, a band like Wilco, who targets independent music audiences over mainstream radio audiences.

Google Blog Search also made me realize that there are plenty of blogs that focus, not on Wilco only, but on the same type of music. Hence, Wilco is very much featured in a lot of these Indie Music blogs. One example is Muzzle of Bees, a blog named after a Wilco song.

After Twazzup and Google Blog Search, I typed Google into Icerocket's Search Engine. The results that I got were similar to the ones that I got when I "manually" looked for Tweets on Twazzup and for blogs on Google Blog Search. However, Icerocket did show me one thing that I hadn't seen before: The first blog that came up after searching Wilco, was a blog purely based on songs of the day. The author of the blog would embed videos of these songs and add lyrics. Coincidentally, a song by Wilco was in her last post. Yet again good publicity for Wilco, as this blog is the first thing that pops up and as it is very hard to miss.

After using many other tools let similar posts, especially tweets, about Wilco appear, I came to the realization that it is very difficult to find criticizing posts about a band just by typing in their name (unless it is a band like Nickelback). Therefore I decided that, in order to find out the bad things that people say about Wilco, I would have to search for bad statements about the band. However, even after trying various versions of "Wilco bad" or "Wilco sucks", I had a very difficult time finding demeaning statements about the band. After typing in "Jeff Tweedy" (Wilco's lead singer) and "Jay Bennett" (a former member of Wilco that decided to sue Jeff Tweedy a while ago), I finally found a very criticizing blog post about Wilco. Even though my favorite band was insulted, I got really excited that with a little bit of trying I could even find Wilco "haters" through social media monitoring. The blog that reviews live acts around the London area says things such as:

"Jeff Tweedy is not a well-loved character in our household. In fact, it’s fair to say that Astral loathes him. I don’t warm to him – and there’s more of his band Wilco‘s output that I dislike rather than like – but my feelings are less hostile than hers."

"What impressed me about them is also what makes me not love them – they are tight, eminently versatile, impeccably rehearsed and extremely self-assured on stage. And that goes against my ingrained English Midlands psyche – anything this confident and slick is not quite on the level."

and

"I hope you’ve made it through this long waffle, as it paints the background for what I think and feel about Jeff Tweedy. He’s clearly one of the most talented writers, performers and arrangers of modern ‘rock’, but there’s always a barrier between me and my really liking him."

So there are unlikable things about Wilco and/or Jeff Tweedy. There are also people out there who find these unlikable things important enough to base their opinion of Wilco on them. However, it seems as though there are only very few of them and as if the positive feedback that Wilco receives from the Groundswell, outdoes all the little negative things that also may be said. For someone who has only heard of the band and is debating whether or not they should purchase their songs, the positive feedback about Wilco that is all over the internet can surely lead to a purchase. And Wilco themselves can see how fans react to various new ideas that they come up with, what type of songs succeed as well as what brings them into the news. I am not saying that Wilco opening their own record label is a rumor started by Wilco in order to get attention, but Wilco will definitely realize that rumors like this help their publicity.

Another very interesting tool that I used was Social Mention. It provided me with charts that told me exactly how "Wilco" is being used in Social Media. And the results were similar to what I expected: Many positive ones, a few negative ones - but most of them being neutral (due to music reviews as mentioned above).

Social Mention also displayed the top keywords associated with the term Wilco...

... As well as a chart about its' strength, passion, sentiment and reach:

All these numbers could be higher. The sentiment ratio of 4:1 means that for about every four good responses to Wilco, there will be one bad one (as we can also see in the sentiment chart above). This ratio seems normal for a band, as I tried out with other music acts and sentiment ratios were all fairly similar (although Lady Gaga's was 2:1... I guess controversial main stream acts are a whole different dimension). 19% of the people that write about Wilco are likely to keep doing that, those people are probably music reviewing people as well as fans. Wilco's strength and reach should be higher, but will sure to be continuing to grow, as the band is only becoming better known now.

Finally, I looked at Wilco's usage of Facebook.

Wilco utilize their Facebook page efficiently. It is up to date and all Wilco events that are taking place in the future are listed and one can RSVP as well as see the guest list. Any news are constantly being posted on the wall. 249,889 Facebook users "like" Wilco. Every wall post by Wilco has a throughout positive response:

Overall, Wilco should have no problems with what is being said about them. Music reviews, personal blog posts, tweets, Youtube comments as well as Facebook comments are all mostly neutral or positive. The bad ones are so very outnumbered by the good ones that bad publicity through Social Media should not be a problem for Wilco. Wilco themselves use various Social Media tools (Facebook, Twitter and RSS) to spread the word about various events and news about them, while fans do not hesitate to show the world how much they love Wilco and no one seems to backfire negative comments on Wilco's social media use. What I found interesting was that Spencer Tweedy's blog did not appear in any of my searches, even though it frequently mentions Wilco, maybe because Wilco is by no means the main focus of his blog. Nevertheless, it is a recommendable read for anyone who is interested in the life of an abnormally intelligent son of a rock musician.