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Introduce yourself to the PMP Community

My name is Maurice Slade and I'm the Digital Marketing Manager here at Universal Motown. I'm from Houston Texas and I got into the game when I was 15 yrs old working with Mathew Knowles at Music World Entertainment. I then went to college and did the whole 'college intern' thing, after college I came to New York and worked for Complex Magazine within their online division before coming over to Universal Motown. I've been working in the online marketing department for about a year and half before getting promoted to my current position.

Break down your day to day duties

Come in the office and check the blogosphere to make sure we don't have any crisis on our hands in regards to our artists. I check to make sure all the blogs have the right album titles, make sure the spelling is correct and the right person was credited for their work and things of that nature. Then we'll usually have a quick meeting on what our objectives for the day are such as for example pitching music to websites such as Myspace for features and then we'll have a conference call with management and let them know what were up to and address any concerns they may have. After that I will work on specific projects on the artist's website, Facebook or Myspace pages and that's what I deal with on a daily basis but pretty much everyday is different than the last because you never know what to expect.

Are you responsible for leaking music to the different sites from your artists or is that handled by the promotional department?

That usually comes from the artist's management. Management will often leak the song instead of us because when the label leaks music it often comes off contrived, like we thought about it first in a marketing meeting. Often times the music is leaked naturally or through management. Once the song is out there then we will contact the different sites to make sure they have the music and get the ball rolling in terms of promotion.

How do you determine which sites are a priority?

We check the site's statistics through Quantcast and Alexa in terms of accurate rankings verses other sites as well as metrics such as unique visitors and page views. Outside of that we pretty much know which blog sites are official because we read them everyday and we also know which ones are wack. You have some blogs that drive a lot of traffic but don't necessarily have a lot of engagement, meaning a lot of people visit the site but they don't leave a lot of comments. Then you have some sites that don't have a lot of visitors but there is a high level of engagement and you will see visitors debating and arguing in the comment section. You have some sites that are just pure hip hop while others are more of a mix of hip hop, R&B so it's a wide variety out there for us to focus in on depending on the artist.

Is Myspace still the number one music social site in terms of marketing/promoting your artists?

It's not Myspace but they're all good for different things. Myspace is geared towards music discovery, a place where people can go and look up different songs the artist already currently has out. Twitter is geared towards a viral campaign as far as trying to spread the music or increase the notoriety of the artist. Facebook is a combination of both Myspace and Twitter but doesn't necessarily do one thing better than Myspace or Twitter. My opinion is right now Myspace is kind of stale; it doesn't have the growth potential of a Facebook or Twitter.

What about You Tube?

You Tube is very important because nowadays hearing the music is not enough and having a still picture is not enough so having those video visuals is valuable. I think You Tube is one of the more underrated vehicles and that may be due to people not having access to a video camera or the money for editing but it's a promotional vehicle that I wouldn't say is untapped but underused.

For example even though he isn't one of our artist there is an artist by the name of Pill who was on the XXL magazine freshman cover and he used You Tube to show people where he's from...you can rap about it or talk about it all day but when you shoot a video and show the behind-the-scenes footage you can see he's actually for real, he lived where he's rapping about and the viewer can make the connection.

Speaking of rap artists how much of a role did Universal play in the break out success of Drake in terms of online viral effect?

I can honestly say that was all Drake in terms of his popularity in the early stages. As far as music is concerned he's the case study of this century because for one it's never been done before with him reaching as far as he did without a record label. He had what I would call a perfect storm...he had everything going for him at the right time, there's no way you could of come up with a marketing plan that could match the results like the co-sign from Lil Wayne and other intangibles you can't factor in. Also let me add you can have the dopest marketing plan in the world but if your music isn't tight then forget it and in Drake's case his music was hot, no one could deny it and say his s**t was wack. He's the ideal example of perfecting your artistic craft first then allow for the marketing to fall in its proper place.

So now that he's established how is Universal handling his online marketing?

He's one of those artist that handles his own thing because he has his team which is how Cash Money works anyway. He has someone handling his online marketing so we don't have any control over his Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or website so what we do is come up with ideas on our own and try to help. When an artist like Drake does a video and it hits the web it's going to leak and be everywhere within a day so we don't have to contact the different sites or blogs because it's going to happen on its own. Its not much we have to do on a ground level but I'm personally proposing that we take things outside of the box with Drake because he's already hot and now is the time to come up with some creative ideas and do some things that's never been done before. I call it the "Willy Wonka Ideas"...crazy outside the box stuff which of course I can't say in the interview because it may get jacked lol.

It's about coming up with strategies that can help maintain and grow what has already been established...

In the case of Drake it's about being a little more interactive online, that's all I can give you on it. Not just putting out music out or putting the videos out but having a story behind everything.

Some suggest that the artists should use the Internet to engage more with their audience while others argue this has 'de-mystified' the artist. What's your take?

I think it's a case-by-case scenario because for example you don't want to see a Beyonce tweeting to her fans 24/7 because of her stature in the business. I don't want to see Jay-Z tweeting at all, if I was to see that then I would say something's going wrong. Kid Cudi cancelled his Twitter account about a month before his album dropped and everybody was like 'what the fuck - he needs to engage with his fans and blah blah blah' but I was thinking along the terms of him being kind of a mysterious type of artist so you may not want to know what he's doing at 2am in the morning. If you're a mysterious type of artist you can still use the Internet to your advantage like how Erykah Badu did, which actually helped grow her momentum in a positive direction.

Also it's cool to be on Twitter but don't be on Twitter, Myspace and Facebook and use them all at the same time, that's a little too much action going on. If you do have more than one account then use one where the artist is directly speaking and then use the other ones for information such as a tour schedule, album release dates etc... too much access can have a negative effect in my opinion.

Southern-based hip hop artists tend to be less interactive on the Internet than their Northern/Western counterparts. Do you think this due to a cultural difference?

Generally speaking I think artists in the South do not think about marketing as much as artist on the East Coast because the music is grungier and the approach is a little more street. I can't imagine a Trae or Z-RO tweeting all day and in fact I wouldn't want them to because it doesn't match their personas. Being interactive on Twitter can add or take away from your brand because if you tweet on a regular basis then it comes off as if you're Internet-savvy. I can't see a Rick Ross sitting in front of a computer all day tweeting but I can definitely see a Soulja Boy because that's part of his whole angle and he broke through on the Internet so it only adds on to what he's already established.

With new artists breaking via the Internet and much of the promotion/marketing efforts now involving the use of online tools do you see the online marketing dept. turning into a hybrid A&R/Promotional combination?

Yes our department is kind of a hybrid of the A&R department because were online looking at these blogs and listening to the music and what the comments are saying so we tend to identify which new artists are making noise and since I'm friend with all the A&R's here at Universal Motown if I pick up on a new artist that's dope I'll hit my man Nigel or Eddie and let them know about them.

On the promotional side I see how radio promo was back in the days when you tried to get at the guy that knew all the radio stations and DJ's that's the same way I see the blogosphere. You will have a person that knows all the dope bloggers and blog sites and will have all the contacts so I see online promotion similar to radio promotions as far as getting the word out on behalf of the artists. That person would build relationships with bloggers the same way the radio promo person would with DJ's.

When I used to work at Complex for their website I would build relationships with other online websites as far as like linking back to each other so when I started working for the label I used those relationships to help promote our artists. Just like how a lot of DJ's become record promoters for the labels is the same way bloggers will become online marketers for the labels.

Is it normal to leverage your bigger acts in exchange for helping some of your newer artists receive greater visibility on the different websites?

I don't do that, I never leverage our bigger artists for our smaller artists because then you're playing with people careers. It may sound like a good idea in the short term but you can create much larger problems down the road from what I've witnessed. What people don't understand is these bloggers are cocky because they get approached everyday with content so you trying to barter with a artist like a Drake only makes you look weak or kind of shady and I don't want to be looked at in that light. What I would do is if we have a smaller artist I would make sure they get into the show or have access to whatever they need and show them love because I know most of them anyway. I know people that do play the leverage game but I'm not one of them.

Now that you've moved from the online side of the business with Complex to the label side with Universal what's the next step for Maurice Slade?

When I was at Complex I did some consulting gigs with some of the labels and their smaller artists so in the future I want to do the same thing and open up my own online marketing firm and deal with different artists and corporate brands. It's all about stepping my entrepreneurship game up to the next level.