My husband and I recently attended a TOOL concert, and I found it pretty funny that the ushers were actively monitoring the use of cell phone cameras and cell phone videos. Remember the attempted cell phone bans from sports stadiums a few years ago? Fortunately, the band and the venue aren’t trying to keep people from bringing them in at all, but it’s pretty useless and futile to try to ban media use once inside. In fact, I think the videos and pictures actually help the brand!

Hyping up the experience. When cell phone videos and pictures are uploaded to social media sites, it just makes the people at home wish they were at the concert. A grainy, shaky, incompletely cell phone video does not do the experience justice, so would-be ticket buyers are not going to abandon a purchase of “the real thing” after seeing a YouTube video. In fact, since they know the video doesn’t come close to the live experience, viewing the video only increases their desire to actually be at the concert. When other fans post up footage, it serves to create even more buzz for the brand. If you can see just a little bit of the awesome lights and sounds at the concert, you’re much more likely to want to purchase tickets in the future.

Engaging the fans. “Engage” is the number one goal of social media, and “conversations” are evidence of achieving that goal. What better way to engage fans than to have them sharing all aspects of your content? It’s an easy segue to say, “You think the lasers look cool on the video, you should see them in real life!” Fans can talk about the best seating, the acoustics, the playlist, and the graphics, and it’s much more than just talk when you’re able to share the experience via social media.

Top-of-mind and building loyalty. Souvenirs remind people of a wonderful experience, and showing those souvenirs makes other people wish they’d been there to have the experience. The more souvenirs a person has to evoke a good memory, the more loyal they become to the provider of the good memory. If someone is logging on to Facebook and seeing tons of pictures and videos of the TOOL concert that they attended, that experience stays at the forefront of their mind, and they want to have that experience again. It’s proven that people want their choices to be supported by their peers, so sharing, discussing, and viewing this content with your peers makes you feel like you made a good choice to attend the concert. This positive re-enforcement entrenches your loyalty to the band, and your likelihood to repeat the choice.

The laws haven’t kept up with technology, but I think marketers are beginning to realize the benefits of sharing the content instead of keeping it in the live venue. I’m hoping the bans will be lifted soon, since they only hurt the brands they’re meant to protect.