CMT Blog: Facebook

Remember when the only way to find out what a country artist was up to was on country radio? Or when the fan club packets came the old-fashioned way -- in the mail? Well, Genevieve Jewell has changed all that. Now it's all very, very viral.

Jewell's job is director of new media at Borman Entertainment, the artist management company that represents Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban and others. And she's only been there for three years, but look how far those artists have come. I mean, three years ago, did any artist have a Facebook page? Did they Twitter? Did they document almost their every move on camera to let fans in on behind-the-scenes happenings? Kind of makes you understand why Jewell was one of Billboard's Top 30 Executives Under 30 a couple years ago.

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With Taylor Swift concert tickets selling out in minutes every time they go on sale, this giveaway sounds like a no-brainer. You just become a fan of American Greetings on Facebook. (They say the contest is open to all ages, but technically, you need to be at least 13 to be on Facebook. So if you aren't, see if your parents will help you out.) Then they'll do random drawings every week for concert tickets in ten major cities plus other prizes. The contest ends on May 31. And while you are on their site, check out Swift's new e-cards that come complete with bits and pieces of her songs. I know everyone loves getting real cards in real envelopes in the real mail, but e-cards have come a long way. So for the Swift fan in your life, these are pretty perfect. And if you win the free tickets, even better.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? That's kind of how I feel about my local country radio station. I hadn't been listening to it much lately because my heart belonged to something else: my phone. I am ashamed to say I was a major multi-tasker behind the wheel. Mostly, I used that driving time to return calls. But if a text message came in, I'd reply. If an e-mail needed answering, I'd answer. I never initiated correspondence, just reacted to it. So you can see how a radio station might play second fiddle to all that productivity. But the rules changed with the new year, and now it is officially illegal to text-message, check e-mail, update a Facebook status and surf the Web while driving. The new laws also prohibit even talking on cell phones when you're in construction or school zones which are pretty much everywhere where I live.

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Ah, the good ol' Internet. It can be a blessing and a curse. Especially when you're living the life of a celebrity with every move chronicled a million times over. Remember when word got out that Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher were engaged? The story allegedly surfaced after a friend of Fisher's had something about it on his Twitter page. So anyone who was following that guy got to read, "Congratulations to Mike Fisher and Carrie Underwood! We just got the call at our family Christmas get-together." The Ottawa newspapers got a hold of that news and ran with it. Then the next day Underwood's publicist confirmed the couple's engagement.

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Who says social networking sites are totally worthless? Not John Mellencamp's 14-year-old son, Speck, that's for sure. He made a deal with his dad: If he could get a million people to join this Facebook group he created, Mellencamp would have to light up his very last cigarette. When I joined yesterday there were 7,000 people, and now there are 59,000, if that gives you any idea of the scope of this. I am ashamed to admit I kind of love what the cigarettes have done to Mellencamp's voice, whether he's singing, talking or making some political statement. But he really should quit. And if he does, I think this could start a very inspiring trend. What if Facebook could get every celebrity with an Internet-savvy do-gooder kid to quit a bad habit?

Good ol' Jimmy Wayne. He is giving us two very solid reasons to love Mondays, at least for today. One, his new album, Sara Smile, is out today. And two, he's doing a live video chat and sing (I just made that name up) at 7 p.m. CT to showcase some of the new music. You can catch it on his MySpace, Facebook and Twitter pages, or through Ustream. There will be a live feed to watch, and you can submit questions via the chat room. Or if you prefer to do things the Twitter way, you can ask questions there, too. It will last at least 90 minutes, so plan to be in front of your computer for a while. And he'll have his full band for the acoustic performance part of the show (which will happen after all the chatting). But here's what I will be paying special attention to:

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If you follow Billy Ray Cyrus on Twitter, you know he's up to something because lately he has been all about the mayo. Saying things like "In town for Hellmann's sandwich Swap n Share supporting Feeding America" and "Just got room service. Can't go wrong with chicken fingers and Hellmann's mayo!!!! Sweetnibblets ... I'm stuffin my face!!!!" His last Tweet was about facebook.com/hellmanns, and now I finally have it all figured out. Cyrus has teamed up with Facebook, Hellmann's, Feeding America and eBay. Here's how it works: go on Facebook and have them make you a virtual sandwich. (Mine was Hellmann's, avocado and corned beef on sourdough.) Then Hellmann's will donate seven lunches to Feeding America, the domestic hunger-relief charity. Even better, if you bid on the eBay auction part of this deal, you can win the chance to swap a real sandwich with the real Cyrus backstage just before his concert in Niceville, Fla.

That sounds kind of dirty, doesn't it? It's totally not. All it means is that tonight (July 21) at 7:25 p.m. ET, I will be in front of my computer watching Brad Paisley give a live performance at the White House. How cool is that?

I have been slowly but surely learning my way around the Internet. And I can handle all the basics, like downloads and uploads and even the occasional Web cam chat. But I'm kind of a live stream virgin. That has to change, though. More and more artists are doing things like this because they want to give their fans multiple ways to hear (and in this case, see) their music.

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Everybody's doing it. So even if an artist isn't all that into it, social networking sites are now a part of their marketing arsenal. Like it or not. The Tennessean reports that country artists are jumping on the virtual bandwagon left and right. With the country fan demographic -- and the artists themselves -- getting younger and more Web-addicted, Lady Antebellum's Dave Haywood makes a good point: "We like to think it increases interest in what we're doing, but it's also the way we've grown up. We're in our mid-20s, and from high school on, for us it was being on the Internet and chatting." And even though Taylor Swift, Jack Ingram, Lady Antebellum and Keith Anderson all use the Net in different ways, the important thing is that they are using it. Some aren't, though, and that's OK, too. Like Alan Jackson told the newspaper, "I share a lot in my music, and I think that's plenty."

Want that coveted T-shirt from Kenny Chesney's rescheduled show in Dallas? You know, the black one that says "There's Something Sexy About the Rain, Lightning and a Dallas, Texas Make-Up Show." Even if you weren't there, now you can pretend you were. The merchandise people at Richards & Southern have set up a Facebook page to make it even tougher to resist the country souvenirs we all love. Like Jamey Johnson, Gretchen Wilson and Sugarland T-shirts, Conway Twitty cookbooks, Julianne Hough pink sling bags and Kellie Pickler necklaces. And those are just the items on the first page. So now, in between thinking up witty status updates and untagging yourself in pictures, you can do a little virtual shopping.