Marley and She

Creating a brand new business can be tough, especially when breaking new ground into an old-school industry.

Meridith Valiando, cofounder and CEO of DigiTour Media, built something fresh in DigiTour. The cross-country tour promotes social media-made music stars, such as current headliners Our 2nd Life. Their YouTube channel has 1.3 million subscribers and more than 129 million views.

But, bringing digital stars to the stage didn’t happen overnight.

Valiando began her career in the music industry at just 15 years old, gaining hands-on experience at Columbia Records and a music publishing company that owned the catalogs of legends like Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead. She moved to Los Angeles to manage an emerging artist just as the entertainment industry entered the growing pains of the digital-era growing pains and discovered that a record label’s standard combo of promotion and financing was not cutting it anymore.

“All of the right ingredients ten years prior would have made him a superstar, but it just wasn’t translating,” Valiando says.

Her artist needed a tour and a social media presence, she realized, and then the big light bulb went off: there was a network of social media influencers that could power a tour of their own.

She used her traditional industry connections with promoters and agents to launch DigiTour, the first ever YouTube music tour, in 2011.

“I believed in it from the beginning,” she tells PINK. “It was an uphill battle because a lot of people thought it was a novelty that was going to go away.”

Upon tapping into the potential of festivals, DigiTour experienced 500 percent growth, opening up the market and capitalizing on the power of the 13 to 17 year old demographic. DigiFest NYC has even been dubbed “Coachella for teens.”

How can this inspire women today looking to make it in an industry far removed from that of just a generation ago?

“It’s about adjusting,” insists Valiando. “It’s a new world order and there are more opportunities than ever.”

How has the shift to digital opened doors in your industry? Tell us!

BONUS PINK Link: Are you living a life of wellbeing, wonder and wisdom? A glimpse into Arianna Huffington’s new book, Thrive.

By Angelica Sereda

“Done is better than perfect.” Sheryl Sandberg

Photo credit: Shutterstock/Jose Reyes