Founder / Vice President Music Industry Relations, Revebnation
Lou Plaia is Founder & VP of Music Industry Relations of ReverbNation. The company specializes in Fan Relationship Management and is partnered with hundreds of thousands of musicians who use the company’s digital marketing platform to manage their artist-to-fan communications. Artists manage all of their songs, videos, photos, show schedules, blogs, twitter on a single account at ReverbNation and syndicate this content across social networks, emails, instant messages, blogs and twitter using a proprietary set of technologies.
Every interaction is measured by ReverbNation (and you get the data as well), and results in a deep understanding of fan demographics and behavior. ReverbNation provides many of traditional music marketing services including low cost digital distro, email management, street team functionality, but the company’s real value is its ability to take the aggregate influence of hundreds of thousands of artists and offer their services to brands that seek to access the very fan bases of these artists. The ReverbNation platform provides the data needed to support these brand offerings.
Since launching in October 2006, the use of the ReverbNation technology has spilled over from the indie ranks to recognized names in music such as 50 Cent, Kenny Chesney, Madonna, Pantera, Judas Priest, O.A.R., Natasha Bedingfield, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sara Bareilles, Lamb of God and Jason Mraz, to name a few. With over 345,000 independent and mainstream musicians already using the site, the company also boasts healthy growth figures of 20,000/month, 1,500,000 unique URLS with ReverbNation content and over 1,000,000 songs registered on the site. Plaia was previously VP Marketing and Artist Development, Lava / Atlantic Records. While there he oversaw all aspects of Marketing and Artist Development for Lava Records, including creation and implementation of marketing campaigns for Kid Rock, Simple Plan, Uncle Kracker, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Blue Man Group, Nonpoint, O.A.R., Unwritten Law, Skindred, Cold, Antigone Rising, and many others. Responsible for negotiating strategic corporate partnerships such as Nascar’s Chevy Rock n Roll 400, Schick Intuition Tour, Disney’s Grad Night and many others.
Plaia worked with Founder of Lava Records to launch the company. As key liaison between Lava Records and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, annual record sales increased from $1 million to $10 million in three years. This increase in record sales correlated with annual ticket sale increases from 85,000 to 1,000,000 tickets sold. Prior to Lava, Plaia was VP Marketing and Strategic Planning of Atlantic Records where he reported directly to the President on all marketing and promotion initiatives, and overseeing annual $50 million Marketing and Promotion Budgets for Atlantic Records and all its subsidiaries. While there, he also developed, executed and managed the marketing campaign of several niche artists, including George Carlin, Mike Stern and others.
