We’re still in the early days (and years) of digital distribution of music and already three concepts and/or ideas have bubbled to the surface from the social behaviorists, culture pundits and futurists that impact the music industry and offer insight on how the marketing of music may evolve in the years, or rather (since the digital realm seems to speed up our world) days to come.

If you’re a fan of books or articles by Malcolm Gladwell (“Blink,” “The Tipping Point,” “Outliers”) you may already be familiar with these concepts.

The first comes from Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and its the “Long Tail” concept. Presented in 2004, Anderson describes the “niche strategy” of large businesses like Amazon or Netflix that sell small quantities of a large number of products. These niches allow marketers to de-emphasize the blockbusters to focus on meeting the needs of segmented audiences and still generate enough volume in the aggregate to be successful. So what if your ranking on Amazon is number 214,000? At least you’re ranked and selling even if it’s to a small audience.

However, just a couple years later, this idea may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Recent statistics show that increasing the offerings doesn’t translate into sales or usage. The offerings must have some built-in traction to remain viable, to continue to grow the long tail, so to speak. There is no tail for something no one cares about; i.e. if it doesn’t generate sales or awareness itself, simply offering it will not create the demand.

A good example is digital stores like iTunes or Amazon or Napster. Adding more obscure content doesn’t translate into usage unless the content had some traction of it’s own to make it viable.

Another new concept, which I’ve written about previously and has been discussed on blogs for a little over a year, is the “middle classing of the music industry.”

With fewer artists generating mega-platinum sales and even fewer selling out arenas, but more heritage acts and smaller independent artists achieving respectable sales and an ability to fill small or mid-sized rooms, it is still very possible to be successful in the music industry but at a lower standard of living – a middle class lifestyle.

So don’t give up. You may not get rich, but you can do something you love as long as you’re willing to work a lot and be happy with an annual salary of 50 grand or so.

This also means more work for the artist because assistants and middlemen must be eliminated from the revenue process so the artist retains the majority of earnings. So, a 60-hour work week would not be out of the question when you factor in managing social networking sites, recording and releasing music, planning and executing small tours, coordinating merchandise sales, publicity and more. All while trying to walk the delicate tightrope of capturing attention without creating over-exposure, a sure way to appear as a flavor-of-the-month artist in today’s information heavy world.

Fall Out Boy seems over exposed, but not Conor Oberst. A one-hit wonder vs. a career artist.

The latest concept comes from marketing guru Seth Godin and it is the idea of “Tribes.” Godin has explained that “smart innovators find or assemble a movement of similarly minded individuals and get the tribe excited by a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter).”

But, it’s important to remember the tribe is built around the idea of permission. You can’t force anyone to become a member of your tribe; they must opt in. The tribe doesn’t have to be led by the artist, either. It can be a fan or member of the artist’s team, or even a committee. From here the rest of the tribe assists the artist in bringing more to the tribe. They recommend the artist to friends, share the artist’s music and others join because they respect the recommendations of friends. It is a movement away from central control. The label and traditional marketing people cannot create the tribe environment, yet. Or as Godin points out, “Once you remove radio, record stores and duplication from the equation, it’s not clear to me what 80 percent of the people in the music industry actually do to add value.”

The “Long Tail” concept is already being questioned and examined by businesses who have structured their business plans around the idea while the middle classing of music is happening before our eyes. It is the “Tribes” concept that will captivate marketers the most over the next couple years.