P Diddy spoke with Mashable about his perspective on artists need to develop and control their personal brands on and offline – inc social media.

“Before, it was just at live shows, now you have to be able to do a great live show, you have to be able to do a great online interview, you need to have a great Facebook page, you have to have a great television performance,” he said.

Which is exactly what blur Designs is developing with a number of artists and musicians through its unique ‘Human Brands’ programme.

Another sentence, however, proves that Diddy is onto something that the record industry as a whole still largely ignores: “You have to understand how to be able to brand yourself,” he said. As a musician, today you can do more for your image and your fans through simple, freely available tools such as Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, than an army of spin doctors hired by record companies. Learning to leverage these tools, as proven by musicians such as Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Amanda Palmers and others, will be a crucial part of every musician’s career, while record companies, in their current form, might become more or less irrelevant.”