Raise your hand if you remember high school. Keep your hand raised if you remember how easily rumors started. Gossip spreads faster than a wildfire, and we in Texas know a thing or two about wildfires! He said, she said, they said, we said… who can keep up with it all? High school gossip is not unlike Hollywood gossip.

Today we’re going to talk about the music industry and how SnapStream is applicable in managing these “gossip wildfires” that are very difficult to control. As someone who has worked in the industry before, I can tell you from a firsthand experience how useful this kind of technology can be.

Oftentimes we’ll hear about Lady Gaga’s latest fashion statement before we've heard about a local news story. It’s how our society works. Us “common folk” love to talk about our famous friends-from-afar. We know more about Beyoncé than we do our city councilmen! So naturally, when something big happens in their lives, we all get to Facebooking, Tweeting and (for all you people stuck in the mid-2000’s) MySpacing, what we just heard on TV regarding these events.

Now here’s something to think about: What if you were Beyoncé’s public relations manager? What if it was your job to make sure everything said on TV about your client was accurate? Not to mention, you want to promote as much positive coverage as possible. Imagine how overwhelming that would be. How can one person manage to catch everything MTV, VH1, BET, CMT, NBC, CBS, ABC, and other stations broadcast? Ah, I’m so glad you asked that question. SnapStream is the answer!

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They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, which I can agree with to some extent. But at the same time, there are some things you’d rather not have spread around about your client. I think the more accurate distinction would be: Publicity vs. Better Publicity. For example, if your client is Lady Gaga, you’d want to encourage ample press coverage of her meeting with President Obama about equality and human rights. She’s fighting for an amazing cause and this would strengthen her public image. However, if you were Britney Spears’s PR manager, you’d most likely want to keep the number of stories about her impromptu marriages, shaved head, failed drug tests, etc. (the “dark Britney years”) to a minimum.

With SnapStream, you can set up multiple channels to record 24/7 so you don’t miss a minute of air time on any channel you’d want to monitor. Then, using our powerful search technology that scans closed-caption data, you can simply type in the name of your artist and instantly see a list of any relevant mentions from literally thousands of hours of TV. Just like that! Plus, you’ll see a small excerpt of the text transcript, so you can browse through the gist of each TV show.

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Think of how much time that would save you and how much more efficiently you could monitor news coverage! You can even set up e-mail alerts to notify you every time your mentions occur—weekly, daily, hourly, or near real time. So next time you're out lunching with your client in Beverly Hills, away from the TV, you can relax knowing that SnapStream is on damage patrol. It will tell you immediately when the first spark of gossip ignites.

There you have it, an “Inside Look” from the “Inside Sales” guy here at SnapStream. Thanks for reading my blog, and feel free to ask me any more questions you may have at sales@snapstream.com. I will now send you off with this last piece of advice: As Smokey the Bear once said, “Only you can prevent forest fires, yet only SnapStream can prevent gossip fires.” Or... something like that.