Why the Internet Matters in Today’s Music Industry
In this day in age the internet is a more and more relevant part of keeping the music industry alive. With less and less people hanging out in music shops, standing around at listening stations, or for that matter, even buying physical CDs anymore artists need to rely on the web for day to day promotions. When it comes to music, (or anything for that matter) the mindset of most fans now are “why, when I can just get it on the internet?” this stopping the everyday sales of physical CDs, magazines and newspapers.
While some may look at this as a sad fact, it’s the truth and artists embrace the era of social media marketing as without it their careers can simply crumble. With the takeover of social media in the past 5-6 years, marketing teams have changed their ways from taking out newspaper and flyer ads to campaigns on Facebook and Twitter. While this is important in promoting a band or artist, the artist themselves need to get involved as these social media sites play a big hand in keeping their fans interested as well.
So why is the internet so important? Well especially for international artists, the internet is the instant global outreach at the hands of an artist. Where American media is at all fingertips and on television globally, the same does not occur for Canadian, English or Australian artists for that matter. While a marketing team may seem crucial an artist can be their marketing team all on their own. What some artists may not realize is that keeping even semi up to date with their fans online, it makes a huge impact. When an artist keeps and updates a Twitter account, it makes fans feel in the loop, but when that artist starts replying to their fans, even at just 140 characters at a time, it then changes that fans mind from feeling in the loop, to feeling important. When an artist takes time out of their day to fan through hate messages on Tumblr and reblog one positive fan, it doesn’t only make that one fan important, but all fans. It makes other fans see this and feel as if though this artist cares, cares enough to take the time to find the people who go out of their way for them and talk about them online.
So what does this do for the artist? Well, coming from the fan side of things, it causes a chain reaction, a ripple in the water so you may. This is where the free marketing comes into play. When one fan gets that good response, when they feel special, they are the ones that are going to go to their friends that day and tell them “hey you need to check out this artist” and even if their friends have heard this before once that fan says “no they are cool, they talked to me on twitter” that’s where people’s minds gain more interest. Not only now does this artist have good music that we can relate too, but now they are actually talking to us and relating to us on a day to day basis.
When an artist takes the time to come online and do a live stream from the studio or their apartment to simply answer questions and plays a couple of songs on their guitar or keyboard, it’s all about fan involvement. It’s about taking requests and answering questions the fans want to ask and know the answers too. This is what keeps fans coming back. The ability to see the more human side of an artist, and artist they already feel close to due to the lyrics in their song, but now they see real side of this artist, the person who created the music.
(Source: justminutesonstage)
