Generation Y: How Do They Find Their Music?

While many Gen Yers may find themselves breaking it down to the beats topping the charts on MTV, underground music makes for a large segment of Generation Y followers. Fliers posted on school hallways, sent via email or posted on community sites such as MySpace bring together a culture celebrating music that isn't popular, overplayed and glamourized by the media. It is this love and support for local bands that attracts much of Generation Y to their social groups, often using music as a defining factor for being "in" or "out." As with new products, promotions and services this is a "stumbled-upon" generation, meaning they love the thrill of discovery.

Pandora.com is a website catering to "push" this discovery a little further matching a favorite artist with similar, smaller artist. Upon visiting the site it will prompt you for your favorite music artist, and then based upon their music style it will "create a station" playing artist they suggest you will like. Visitors may then send that station to a friend, create a new station or rename the station all for free. If they enjoy the suggested artists, they can simply click on their album and it will bring up a link to purchase the song from iTunes or the album from Amazon.com. They also have the ability to rate the artists and add it to their favorites page.

Liveplasma.com takes this concept even one step further, allowing visitors to type in the name of their artist or movie, and the site will soon display a map of related interests. On the site they refer to the term "discovery engine" which would directly relate to the way in which Generation Y finds their interests.

MySpace accounts for another large influencer within the "discovery" phase, with the online community site acting as a promotion for local bands. Below is an example of a screenshot of a MySpace page used for the band "Radio Minor."

You may also consider bringing large-scaled marketing efforts to a smaller scale, mocking a band flier like the one seen above for the same band, Radio Minor. Marketers should still be cautious when deciding to market on sites such as MySpace through banner ads and other advertisements. While this is a relatively new advertising medium, this is not “new” to Gen Y and your ad may not run over very well. Still consider using underground, viral marketing and grassroots efforts to truly make an impact.