How Important is Social Media to Our Music?

More and more musicians are being told that social media is the key to success in the music industry. But how much does it get in the way of creating our music?

Does it make it any more or any less valued than simply playing the tunes? Do we as grass root level musicians have to become trendsetters over night to gain any wealth of confidence in streaming numbers?

As social media barrages us with video after video, more undoing our creativity and reducing our attention span, will social media be our downfall in it all? After all, will we get through an entire song without skipping?

It seems that anything more than 30 seconds, and we will simply skip!

8 responses to “How Important is Social Media to Our Music?”

Vertical Separation

Sep 13, 2021 at 12:11 am

While I pretty firmly believe that social media is and will be the cause of the downfall of western civilization, where music is concerned, I’ve come to see it as a necessary evil.

When we wrapped recording, we were told the very same thing: social media is the way to be heard. In the spooling up our social media presence we have seen pretty good luck in gaining followers and having them listen to the new songs we have released. However, that doesn’t directly lead to people coming to a show. While I love absolutely that someone halfway around the world thinks our single is cool, I also want to see people in the club singing and dancing with us. THAT is what making and playing music should be about: connecting to people in the moment; Singing along, even if you get the words wrong; hands and lighters (not phones) in the air; not just streams and follows. It’s how all the bands before us got started, right? Playing in sweaty, smoky clubs filled with people. Community. The digital age has done great harm to the sense of community as a whole and definitely in the music community as well.

As you say, right now musicians get thirty seconds to make their point and that’s it. I am hopeful that much like the fashion styles of by gone decades come around again, so to will the enthusiasm for live music. We all need more raw, real life experiences found in the spaces on and in front of a stage, if only for the excuse to turn off the phone and for a moment be alive.

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1. manvmusic
  
  Sep 13, 2021 at 10:34 am
  
  Yeah absolutely, you’re spot on with what you say here, my friend. When I look back on past gigs and festivals through the archives of YouTube and what not, I look at the audience and there is not one single phone out. Living in the moment and living in the beauty of LIVE music. The more people connect with our music in a live setting, the better for all of us!
  
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2loud2oldmusic

Sep 13, 2021 at 10:29 am

Honestly, I don’t really care for the social media aspect. I just want their music. I don’t care if they had a cup of coffee or saw a pretty rainbow, let me know when the album is coming out and the tour and that is all I need. I miss the mystery of artists before the internet.

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1. manvmusic
  
  Sep 13, 2021 at 10:35 am
  
  Yeah, me too! Seems that everyone implores their lives on the internet now. Sometimes not knowing about an artist other than their music is a blessing. Because in a way, we learn more about someone with how they write and how they speak to their audience through their music. It’s something extra special about that!
  
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EclecticMusicLover

Sep 13, 2021 at 10:20 pm

I have conflicting feelings about social media. I became active on Twitter & Instagram to help promote my blog, and have in fact garnered more followers than I ever imagined. But all those followers have not really resulted in greater traffic to my blog overall, and I realize that most artists and bands follow me in the hopes I’ll write about them, not because they’re interested in me or my blog. On the down side, social media can eat up a lot of our time if we allow it, and I have allowed it to eat up far too much of mine! Also, trying to keep up with all the blogs I follow such as yours Alex takes up several hours of my time every single day, but I digress…

I’m not a musician, but I’ve enjoyed getting to know quite a lot of them via social media, a few of whom have become what I consider to be friends. That said, I’m fully aware that so much of the interaction on social media is very superficial at best. How much can we retain or appreciate when we’re bombarded with so much content, all vying for our attention? I feel for musicians who must spend many hours of their precious time trying to post what they need to on their social media accounts to share their music, stay relevant and connect with fans where possible. It’s an uphill battle for sure, but artists who avoid social media will lose out, unfortunately. As Vertical Separation stated, it’s a necessary evil.

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1. manvmusic
  
  Sep 14, 2021 at 4:28 pm
  
  Yeah absolutely! I think a necessary evil is the perfect explanation for what social media is. It’s a place to lose so much time all the while trying to actively toss up your future as a blogger or a musician or whatever. I certainly do think you’re right with social media. I feel that people merely use it to their own gains. Like for us as bloggers, they seemingly only follow us on the off-chance we’ll promote their music for free. I don’t think them actually enjoying our write-ups ever occur in their minds. But ah well, that’s the way of the curse I suppose!
  
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Andrew

Oct 13, 2021 at 2:42 am

Social media isn’t important to me, but it’s important to the record companies and most consumers. Given how much time is spent using those services, It’s a “free” way for anyone to advertise, put themselves out there. It’s helping the record companies find more acts, and helping the acts find record companies. Social media has practically replaced the web site as the primary advertising vehicle. Social media pages are easier to maintain (from what I hear).

My unwillingness to go to facebook and co. is likely the reason I miss out on knowing about some new releases. Oh well.

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1. manvmusic
  
  Oct 13, 2021 at 5:56 pm
  
  Yeah, Facebook is slowly becoming dissolved out as an important outlet for discovering new music – or anything new – for that matter, in my opinion. Instagram and TikTok are huge set-ups for artist management and musician creativity. It’s almost like you have to use this as the first stage to build an audience, THEN you draw in people with your music at other sites on Soundcloud, Spotify and Apple Music. It’s crazy how these systems change in terms of social media. The industry changes every day at such speeds it’s so crazy to keep up most times!
  
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