A MAP OF SOUND:
HOW INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGE IN
PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
by
Miles C. Zornig
A Thesis
submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
in Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture
at
The University of Amsterdam
June 2015
©2015
Miles C. Zornig
All Rights Reserved
Thesis supervisor: Dr. J.A.A. Simons
Second Reader: Dr. Sjoukje van der Meulen
I hereby agree that the library of the University of Amsterdam makes copies of this
thesis freely available for inspection on its database.
Date_________________
Signature_____________
ABSTRACT
This thesis seeks to analyze promotional strategies that independent musicians engage
in on different social media platforms. Substantial evidence suggests that the music
industry has gone through a shift in power over the last decade. While the industry
used to be regulated by major record labels that executed their power over the
musicians they put under contract, there is now a trend of artists distancing
themselves from the major label machinery to build their own career with the help of
social media. To verify this claim, seven independent and one former independent
musician and one professional social media consultant were interviewed. The
interviewees all revealed that independent musicians needed to build real-life
connections with potential fans first, by playing as many live shows as possible. Then
they would have to make use of as many different social media channels as possible,
merge them together, which could help reach a maximum amount of people. Once an
artist has reached a certain following on social media, it will be important to maintain
a relationship with followers, by posting content that keeps these followers engaged.
A quantitative analysis revealed that the content followers engaged with the most is
visual, namely photos and videos, which suggests that visual content is the most
prominent one amongst followers on social media. Also social media campaigns can
lead to an increase in engagement, while content like event posts or status updates did
not lead to a high amount of engagement overall. When engaging in promotional
strategies on social media, an independent artist is most successful when he posts at
the time where his posts get the most traction, namely between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
It is also important that the independent artist stays as authentic in their social media
presence as possible, as authenticity is an important characteristic that will keep fans
and followers interested in an independent artist’s career.
i AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. J.A.A. Simons, for
guiding me through this thesis project. He has only given me valuable feedback and
constructive guidance over the last few months – I am very grateful for that.
I would also like to thank Dr. Sjoukje van der Meulen for taking the time to be
the second reader of my thesis and Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, who has helped me concretize
my topic at the very beginning of this research and writing process.
I am also indebted to Maria Jose O. L., Karl B. and Brienne Renee P., who
have all taken time to give me valuable creative input by proofreading my thesis
either fully or partially.
I also have to thank Black Milk, Laura Jansen, Coby Grant, Joerg Schmidt,
Lars Christian Olsen, Sascha Reske, Tom Klose, Marius Paijens and Lueda Alia for
agreeing to be part of this study and giving me time in their hectic schedule to answer
my questions. Thanks also to Kira C. and Marian L., who set up the interview with
Lueda Alia and Laura Jansen.
Very special gratitude to my dearest and closest friend, Bart v. T., who has
always helped and supported me, especially by giving me a roof over my head for the
last few months.
Special thanks also to Earth, Wind & Fire, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Mura
Masa, Ta-Ku, DJ Shadow, Mulatu Astatke, Pete Philly & Perquisite, Chopin and
Tchaikovsky. I listened to the genius of these musicians throughout almost the entire
writing process. Their music added inspiration, fun, peace and tranquility to my
writing.
Most importantly, I would like to thank my parents for always giving me their
full support, unconditional love and for dedicating their entire lives to the well being
of their children. Without their help, I would not have accomplished what I have
accomplished so far and would definitely not be the man I am today.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... I
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................... II
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... III
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... V
LIST OF IMAGES ............................................................................................................ VI
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ..................................................................................... 1
2. PROBLEM DISCUSSION AND PURPOSE OF STUDY ......................................................... 2
3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................................... 4
4. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS ........................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2: KEY INSIGHTS INTO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND ITS SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE ....................................................................................................................... 6
1. REVOLUTIONIZING THE MUSICAL EXPERIENCE: FROM ANALOG TO DIGITAL .............. 6
2. GENERATION SOCIAL MEDIA: HOW THE INTERNET BIRTHED PLATFORMS TO
CONNECT PEOPLE ........................................................................................................... 9
A. EARLY BEGINNINGS: WEB 1.0 ............................................................................ 9
B. FROM WEB 1.0 TO WEB 2.0: NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA ............ 10
CHAPTER 3: SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDEPENDENT
MUSICIANS
.................................................................................................................... 12
1. WEB 2.0: A REVOLUTIONZING ERA FOR INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS ............................ 12
2. MAJOR VS. INDIE: REDEFINING AN ARTIST’S POWER IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY .......... 13
CHAPTER 4: INVESTIGATING PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES OF INDEPENDENT
MUSICIANS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA .......................................................................... 16
1. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 16
2. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................... 17
3. SAMPLE SELECTION AND SYNOPSIS OF INTERVIEWEES ............................................... 18
A. SAMPLE SELECTION ............................................................................................ 18
B. SYNOPSIS OF INTERVIEWEES ............................................................................... 20
I. INDEPENDENT ARTISTS ................................................................................. 20
II. MAJOR MUSIC ARTIST
................................................................................. 22
III. SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT ...................................................................... 23
4. FINDINGS FROM INTERVIEWS: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN
INDEPENDENT ARTIST ..................................................................................................... 24
A. ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS ................. 24
B. DISADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS
........... 26
C. MAKING THE FIRST STEP AS AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST: PROVE TALENT AND
ESTABLISH A FOLLOWING ........................................................................................ 27
D.
UNDERSTANDING THE TECHNOLOGY: ‘PRACTICE BEFORE YOU PREACH’ .......... 28
iii E. LAUNCHING SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS: DIVERSITY IS KEY
................................ 29
5. FINDINGS FROM CONTENT ANALYSES OF ARTIST’S SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES .................. 30
A.
MERGING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ................................................................ 30
B. TAKING A LOOK AT FACEBOOK, AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST’S MOST PROMINENT
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM: GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ........................................ 31
C. THE IMPORTANCE OF SHARING VISUAL CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA .................. 33
D. SHARING INFORMATION THROUGH LINKS, STATUS UPDATES AND EVENT POSTS
36
E. FREQUENCY AND TIMING OF POSTS ..................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS ........................................................................ 39
1. FIND A NICHE AND EXPOSE YOURSELF TO A REAL-LIFE AUDIENCE ............................. 39
2. REGULARLY USE DIFFERENT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS AND MERGE THEM ............... 40
3. THINK BEFORE POSTING AND DEVELOP TECHNIQUES TO GRAB THE ATTENTION
OF FOLLOWERS .............................................................................................................. 41
4. ENGAGE DIRECTLY WITH FOLLOWERS........................................................................ 43
5. SHARE VISUAL CONTENT, BUT KEEP IN MIND THE IMPORTANCE OF TEXT ................... 44
6. MAKE EVENT-POSTS ATTENTION-WORTHY ................................................................ 46
7. SHARE LINKS, DON’T BE OVERLY PROMOTIONAL AND LAUNCH SOCIAL MEDIA
CAMPAIGNS .................................................................................................................... 47
8. NEVER POST TOO MUCH CONTENT .............................................................................. 48
9. POST AT THE RIGHT TIME OF THE DAY ........................................................................ 49
10. ALWAYS REMAIN AUTHENTIC .................................................................................. 49
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 51
1. GENERAL REMARKS ................................................................................................... 51
2. FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 55
CITED WORKS ............................................................................................................... 57
APPENDIX .................................................................................................................. 62
iv LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
BLACK MILK’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN AUGUST 2008 AND MAY 2015 .................. 62
FIGURE 2- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
LAURA JANSEN’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN FEBRUARY 2009 AND MAY 2015 ........... 62
FIGURE 3- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
NEWMEN’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2012 AND MAY 2015.......................... 63
FIGURE 4- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
TÔG’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN APRIL 2010 AND MAY 2015 ..................................... 63
FIGURE 5- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
BIRDY HUNT’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN FEBRUARY 2010 AND MAY 2015 ............... 64
FIGURE 6- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
TOM KLOSE’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN NOVEMBER 2011 AND MAY 2015 ............... 64
FIGURE 7- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
SASCHA RESKE’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2012 AND MAY 2015 ................ 65
FIGURE 8- CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF
COBY GRANT’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 2011 AND MAY 2015 ............. 65
FIGURE 9- OVERVIEW OF TOTAL POSTS MADE ON EACH ARTIST’S FACEBOOK PAGE BY
CONTENT ........................................................................................................................ 66
v LIST OF IMAGES
IMAGE 1- SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY TOM KLOSE, ENGAGING IN A CALL TO ACTION ...... 67
IMAGE 2- SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY BIRDY HUNT ENGAGING IN A CALL TO ACTION ...... 68
IMAGE 3- SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY BIRDY HUNT ENGAGING IN AN INTEGRATION
STRATEGY BY USING HUMOR ....................................................................................... 69
vi Chapter 1
Introduction
1. Background information
In June 2010, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was interviewed by The Telegraph
and expressed his frustrations with the current state of the music industry. The singer
argued that the time where power players in the music business – major labels such as
the EMI Group, the label Radiohead was formerly signed to – had full control over an
artist were coming to an end. Yorke was quoted arguing that the death of major labels
was not a ‘loss to the world’ and that he would advise up-and-coming artists to rely
on themselves, rather than trying to hold on to a ‘sinking ship’ (Blake §2). The
interview appeared three years after Radiohead had decided to split ways with their
label EMI, under which the group had released all of their first six albums. By the
time Radiohead was ready to release their seventh full-length effort, Rainbows, it
came to irreconcilable differences between the band members and their label, which
did not agree on the financial advance the band requested for their seventh full length
effort. That same year, Radiohead made the album available as a digital download on
their website – no fixed price required.
This was not the first time artists have voiced their dissatisfaction with major labels,
and it sure was not the last. Just recently, on May 19th 2015, the French producer
Madeon announced via Twitter that his label, Sony, the second largest major label in
the world, had deleted Madeon’s entire music uploads on his SoundCloud, an audio
platform that allows users to upload, share, discover and promote their own songs and
those of other artists. In his tweets, Madeon added that Sony was ‘holding its artists
hostage’ and that the label acted against his will. Even superstars of the R&B and
Hip-Hop world, such as the singer Ryan Leslie or the rapper 50 Cent, took the
independent route in recent years, as both addressed the desire to carry out their
creative vision without relying on an intermediary player.
1
In this regard, what does it mean to be ‘independent’? This thesis will elaborate on the
conceptualization of independent artistry further, but to give the reader a starting
point, it should be mentioned that an independent artist can be understood as either a
musician that is not under contract with a major music label, an artist that signed with
an independent label, which operate completely detached from major labels, or an
artist that has not signed any contract at all and manages his own career, without the
guidance of any intermediate player.
2. Problem discussion and purpose of study
The Internet and the digitization of musical formats have turned the production and
distribution of music upside down, due to the development of digital music formats
which brought music piracy to life. Record labels had to adapt to enormous changes
and suffered under the appearance of Peer-to-Peer networks such as Napster and
LimeWire, which enabled users to freely spread and download music files digitally
through the Internet. This cost record companies and artists millions in revenue and
gave them no choice but to revise their business strategies in order to avoid further
financial losses. While record labels were revising their options, the Internet slowly
but surely declared a war to the middleman that was once mediating relationships
between artists and fans and controlling financial outcomes. The model under which a
major label functioned before the emergence of the Internet was quite straightforward:
the artist would record a song, the label would promote and sell it and both parties
would profit from it. As this thesis seeks to argue, this model has changed over the
last years.
The Internet changed the way we consume music as well. The consumption of
music went through different stages, from the revolutionizing invention of the
phonograph and vinyl, tape recorders and cassettes all the way to CD players and
CD’s to MP3 players and MP3’s. These developments also impacted the relationship
artists have with their outside world, a relationship that is not only increasingly being
maintained through the World Wide Web, but through a culture of online platforms
that were developed over the last decade: a culture of social media platforms.
The Internet used to be a one-way street, where users clicked through webpages to
find information or forms of entertainment – a one-way street once referred to as Web
2
1.0. The technological developments the Internet underwent led to a new set of
opportunities, giving users the chance to interact with the content they were
accessing: News websites suddenly had comment sections, where users could interact
with each other; all of the sudden, websites were able to make recommendations to
cybernauts according to their web-searches – these aspects are just a few examples of
what is known today as the Web 2.0, a web-platform based on interaction and on
connecting its users. The notion of interaction and connection has adopted a whole
new meaning with social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – all these interactive
platforms started giving users a chance to generate content and share it with the rest of
the world. Understanding the potential and the advantages these tools had, musicians
started creating professional profiles and pages on these platforms. Social media
platforms could not only be used for private matters anymore, they also started
gaining importance on a professional level, making them an important marketing tool
for anybody that was striving for a successful business. But the chances that success
falls from the sky are highly unlikely. An artist could be the next Thom Yorke or 50
Cent, but the odds are not just left to chance anymore. Today, artists need to take
matters into their own hands in to become successful. While they do not necessarily
need to send labels their demos anymore, hoping to fit into the major label’s
mainstream idealism, they will need to take certain steps in order to build a career
independently and get their foot into the door of the music industry.
Some of the most important steps will be outlined throughout this thesis.
The steps do not necessarily start with the launch of social media channels, but with
word-of-mouth tactics. Independent artists need to spread their art by attempting to
get booked for first live shows, selling CD’s, engaging in real-life interactions with
their audience, and develop their own, personal sound and musical taste. Only then
will they increase their chances of getting looked up on the Internet and slowly gather
a following on social media by marketing themselves on these platforms.
To increase a following on social media entails that artists keep their followers
engaged and interested in their art at all times. This will make it more likely for fans
to share content posted by independent artists, create word-of-mouth online and
potentially attract more followers and fans that will buy their music and attend their
concerts. Therefore, the content independent artists share needs to be intriguing,
3
catchy and keep followers interested. In today’s music industry, it is not only about
the music anymore, it is also about how artists market themselves and how they
present their brand to the people. And to do that, they do not need to rely on
marketing strategies and marketing money from major labels anymore. If the right
strategy is there, the artist will be able to financially benefit from it. It needs to be
pointed out here, however, that this work will not focus on economical advantages or
disadvantages of building such a career, or exploring the possibilities of generating
income from music. It will rather give an insight into the possibilities independent
artists have to build a career based on social media.
3. Research questions
To what extent do social media platforms redefine an artist’s power within the music
industry? What are the promotion-strategies of independent musicians and how do
they take advantage of this platform-culture?
4. Overview of chapters
To tackle these research questions, I will first elaborate on the changes the music
industry went through. The research questions suggest that there has been a
redefinition of an artist’s power in the music industry, therefore, chapter two will
present an insight into the state of the music industry prior to that redefinition, in
order to investigate what factors led to it, while also shedding light on the evolution of
musical formats. It will then become clear that the development of digital
technologies enabled the development of digital music formats like MP3’s, which
appeared around the same time social media platforms started gaining prominence
among Internet users. This chapter will also present a short history of social media
platform and discuss their main characteristic.
This wave of technological developments led to a whole new set of opportunities for
music artists, giving them the chance to develop their own promotional strategies and
engage in a ‘do-it-yourself’ career without the necessity of a real-life distributor, a
label or any other form of intermediary player. Chapter three will therefore take a
closer look at the advantages of social media platforms for independent musicians and
discuss how the power shifted from major labels right into the hands of musicians
who now have all the tools to build a career by themselves.
4
However, building a career as an independent musician is challenging and entails that
the artist in question develops a feasible strategy. Chapter four will therefore present
the most important steps musicians need to take in order to build a successful career
independently. In order to define these steps, nine professionals were interviewed
throughout this research. Seven of them have worked as successful independent artists
for many years and have all confirmed that they can make a living off their art.
In addition to these seven independent artists, the research will also present insight
from a platinum-selling artist, who signed to a major label four years ago, after
spending almost ten years building a career as an independent artist. The owner of a
consultancy agency that is doing promotional work for independent musicians will
also share her expertise and discuss the best social media strategies for up-andcoming artists. All musicians interviewed for this study are using an average of five
different social media platforms on a daily basis to engage with their audience. All
have stated that without social media, their career would not have been successful,
some of them even arguing that without social media, they would not have a career at
all. The steps that will be presented in the fourth chapter were all addressed by the
interviewees and have proved to be successful in their careers. The responses from the
interviewees will therefore be divided into different categories, or steps, that
independent artists should consider when launching their careers.
In addition to this qualitative analysis through the use of in-depth interviews, the
research will also present a quantitative analysis, where a closer look will be taken at
the different profiles of the independent musicians interviewed for this research.
Taking a look at their profiles will reveal which content was shared the most by the
artists and what kind of content their followers engaged with the most – engagement
which, as the work will argue, is crucial to steadily build a following on social media.
While chapter four will strictly present an overview of the findings made throughout
both the qualitative and quantitative research, chapter five will serve as a
complimentary section to assess the strategies addressed by the interviewees. By
looking into some theoretical framework developed by marketing and social media
scholars, this chapter will help to assess not only the efficiency, but also the
appropriateness of the social media strategies employed by all interviewees.
5
Chapter 2
Key insights into the music industry and its social media culture
1. Revolutionizing the musical experience: From analog to digital
It is important to start with a brief overview of the development the music industry –
especially music formats – have gone through over the last decades. Understanding
these developments will clarify how a shift in power from major corporations to
individual artists occurred.
Music emerges through creative and artistic processes, by artists who engage
in the creation of sound by means of instruments and/or vocals. Technological
advances that enabled artists to capture sound, store it on devices like cassettes, CD’s
and MP3’s and replay it revolutionized the production and consumption of music and
enabled its distribution as a cultural good to consumers around the world. The
distribution traditionally took place through dominant, global players who had to
adapt their tactics multiple times throughout the past decades, in order to keep up with
different innovations that reinvented the way music is produced and consumed on a
global scale. A rapid expansion within the music industry began in the 1950’s, when
the phonogram and the record player became a crucial medium for the consumption
of music, leading to an increase in record sales throughout industrialized countries
(Sen 6). The music industry continued to experience important changes: gramophones
developed to become stereo systems, which later turned into compact and portable
audio devices; sound technologies became more advanced, with mono becoming hifidelity stereo, which in turn progressed into Dolby surround sound; music storage
saw extensive advancements, going from vinyl to cassette tapes to Compact- and
Mini-discs (Ibid. 4). These advancements all played an important role in the
production and distribution of music around the world. Major music labels, large
corporations responsible for controlling an artist’s access to the outside world, closely
controlled the artists’ road to success by commoditizing and controlling their creative
6
content (Beer and Badura 68). This creative content was distributed as a physical
good that took different forms throughout time.
In the 1970’s, major labels saw a major success in the distribution of vinyl and
cassette-tapes, with worldwide sales rising from $4.75 Billion to $7 Billion between
1973 and 1978 (Sen 6). That occurred before the development of the compact disc
(CD), which quickly proved to be the groundbreaking format within the industry in
the 1980s (Ibid.). The sales of vinyl and cassette-tapes declined, but the CD revived
the consumer’s interest and kept worldwide record sales rising from $12 Billion in
1981 to $29 Billion in 1992 (Ibid). While technologies improved and formats
changed, the role of both the artist and the major record label remained relatively
consistent: The artist’s role was to produce the music, the record label’s role to
distribute it and the fan’s role to consume it (Graham et al. 1087). This model worked
well enough to turn ‘The Big Five’, an accumulation of music labels consisting of the
Warner Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, Universal/PolyGram,
into transnational conglomerates controlling more than 80 percent of the world’s
music market in the early throughout the 1990s (Throsby 3).
This success story was deemed to fail, when, by the end of the 90s, the world
witnessed yet another phenomenon that would change the way music is consumed
and distributed forever: the phenomenon of digitization. The Business Dictionary
defines digitization as ‘the conversion of analog information in any form (text,
photographs, voice, etc.) to digital form with suitable electronic devices […] so that
the information can be processed, stored, and transmitted through digital circuits,
equipment, and networks’ (Business Dictionary). The scholar Christian Kahl argues
that the biggest result of digitization is the Internet, which enables the consumption of
digital media forms anytime and anywhere through numerous devices (1). This
digitization led to a music format that would become a gift and a curse to both record
labels and artists: the MP3 file. MP3 formats were the starting point for what is
known today as online music. The compression format makes it possible to shrink
audio into small files without compromising their sound quality and makes files small
enough to be downloaded from a server or sent via email (O’Donnell and McClung
74). It did not take more than a year after the emergence of the MP3 in 1998 for a
7
college dropout to figure out a way to abuse the system. In 1999, Shawn Fanning
launched Napster, a file sharing service that enabled so-called ‘peers’ to connect onto
Napster’s central database, in order to search it for specific musical content. This
content could then be freely downloaded from other users that had the MP3 file in
question on their personal computer. This unauthorized file sharing quickly became
the music industry’s greatest threat, leading to a global drop in CD-sales of 25 percent
between 2000-2005 (Goel 6, 8). Major labels reacted quickly when Napster reached a
total number of 50 Million users worldwide, filing lawsuits for copyright violation,
which led to Napster’s shutdown in 2001, but did not keep other so-called Peer-toPeer networks from growing in popularity (Sen 14). Record labels witnessed a great
struggle to cope with the sudden redefinition of a supply model that once relied on the
sale of physical music records like CDs. The industry’s traditional supply chain was
radically transformed: Intermediaries that were once crucial for promotional purposes
with regards to an artist’s career started vanishing and the power of major labels
diminished (Graham et al. 1090); the marketability of an artist usually needed to be
exposed to an audience first, which could only be achieved after a company’s
decision to invest a substantial amount of money into production, promotion, and
distribution activities (Waldfogel 408). These processes were once costly and timeconsuming. But suddenly, digital technologies combined with the power of the
Internet gave artists the opportunity to make music at very low cost. This paradigm
shift resulted in low-cost equipment and software, which in turn reduced recording
costs for artists, while the Internet also provided them with low-cost distribution
opportunities. According to Graham and Burnes, it was the overarching control of the
major labels – which had full control over the supply chain of music – that once
prevented artists to distribute their creative goods independently (1087). But
suddenly, the music industry saw a steady increase in independent releases,
accelerated by what Graham et al. call ‘an explosion in connectivity’, caused by what
is today known as social media (1090).
8
2. Generation social media: How the Internet birthed platforms
to connect people
a. Early beginnings: Web 1.0
When technological developments caused the appearance of file sharing platforms
like Napster, music started reaching consumers at an increased speed, flooding the
World Wide Web with such a force that not even the biggest cyber-dam could have
stopped songs from appearing on our computers. The days where people discovered a
song on the radio, through friends or by going to a record shop are now as good as
counted. The musical magic, today, happens on the Internet, or, to be more precise, on
social media platforms, where an increasing amount of users discover music, since
music has become ‘one of the primary links on social networking sites like Facebook’
(Dewan and Ramaprasad 101; Hull et al. 41). While Facebook is just one of many
social media platforms that can be found on the Internet, it has become the most
profitable social media business, not only worth billions of dollars, but also
connecting billions of people, making it the most successful and prominent social
media platform in the world (We Are Social) – impressive, considering the humble
beginnings of social media.
Boyd et al. define social media platforms as ‘web-based services that allow
individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,
(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view
and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system’
(211). While Boyd et al. address several key elements of social media platforms, the
authors fail to stress another point that needs to be linked to all forms of social media:
participation. Being part of a social network requires users to not only share, but also
actively ‘participate in the creation and exchange of information’ with other users
within such a network (Brown 9).
The first attempt to connect people via social media was made by the platform
SixDegrees.com in 1997. The platform enabled people to create basic profiles online
– which included personal information, such as name, age, and hobbies – and connect
with friends (Boyd and Ellison 214). In the early 2000s, the network introduced direct
messaging, which revolutionized the way people communicated online and
9
transformed the web from a medium that was once focused on the publishing of
content – referred to by scholars as Web 1.0 – to a medium that became increasingly
communicative (Ibid.; Manovich 319). Even though millions of people had
subscribed to SixDegress.com by the year 2000, the service closed, leaving room for
new attempts of companies to start their social networks, such as Friendster, which
launched just a year later and based its business on the same model as
SixDegrees.com: connect people and enable them to communicate through instant
messaging. Eventually, Friendster encountered technical difficulties, and to make
matters worse, planned to introduce a mandatory user fee, which led to a boycott
among users, especially indie rock bands, who were encouraging other Friendsterusers to switch to a different social media network. These rock bands were then
rapidly dismissed from Friendster for not complying with the network’s terms of
services (Boyd and Ellison 217).
By 2003, this chain of events led these bands in particular to yet another social
media platform: MySpace. While MySpace still served as a social network that
invited users to communicate with each other, it was its popularity among musicians
and the increasingly growing distribution of digital music that transformed the
network into a platform that encourage music distribution and built artist-fan
relationships. Not only had musicians the chance to publish songs on their profiles,
users could also directly connect with their favorite bands. It was the beginning of a
whole new set of opportunities for musicians who were now able to be in direct
contact with their audience. The Internet had entered a new era.
b. From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0: New opportunities with social
media
Before MySpace, users accessed content on the Internet that was produced by a small
portion of professionals; now users can access content that is produced by other nonprofessional users (Manovich 320). The fact that users could suddenly spread and
share photos, let alone music, on a digital scale, led to what Manovich referred to as
an ‘explosion in user generated content’ (UGC) (Ibid. 324). According to Kaplan and
Haenlein, in order for something to be considered UGC, three requirements need to be
met: The content needs to be published on a website or a social media platform and
10
has to be accessible for a selected group of users; the content needs to be considered
‘a creative effort’ and lastly, the content needs to produced ‘outside of professional
routines and practices’, or, to put it more precisely, ‘without a commercial market
context in mind’ (61). While they present some key aspects of UGC, Kaplan and
Haenlein’s definition of UGC is not totally accurate anymore. Today, UGC does have
a commercial market purpose, especially for music artists, who use social media to
have a dialogue with users and potential fans, produce content in order to share it with
followers, in the hopes of eventually profiting from it (Turner and Shah 13).
This explosion in UGC led to the most important change of the Internet in
2004 (Brown 1). The fact that users could freely add their own content to the World
Wide Web, content that ranged from words to sound, all the way to pictures and
videos, made scholars revisit the terminology Web 1.0 who updated it to Web 2.0.
Unlike Web 1.0, Web 2.0 is not simply a static Web to access information anymore,
but a Web ‘in which people can interact and participate rather than just read’ (Rice
Lincoln 8). Henry Jenkins pointed out that with the evolution of a Web 1.0 to a Web
2.0, the relations between producers and consumers were re-organized: Today,
consumers have full control over the content that the Internet provides them with and
everyone can become a producer – with 2.0, media is spreadable (Jenkins 49).
11
Chapter 3
Social media and new opportunities for independent musicians
1. Web 2.0: A revolutionizing era for independent musicians
Since the launch of MySpace in 2003, it was only a matter of time for other
programmers to develop more social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube –
all these platforms grew in popularity within a few years and by 2008, over 40% of
Internet-users produced their own content – such as videos, photos, or written content
in the form of blog entries – while over 50% of people started consuming this content
that other users were eagerly producing (Tuten 3). Only a year later, users started
spending more time on social media platforms than on their email service (Crawford
526). The diversity in social media platforms made users realize how much different
potential these platforms have. Social media platforms especially had a strong impact
on music artists who strived for a career based on a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. This
do-it-yourself approach is a key element in what is known today as an independent
musician. While the definition of ‘independent musician’ has many nuances, there are
still key characteristics that define them: An independent musician is an artist that is
not signed to a major label and that either fully handles his own career without any
intermediate player or has signed to a label that is, itself, independent (Spellman 182;
Feehan 8).
Independent musicians saw an opportunity to use social media platforms as a
mediator between themselves and potential fans, making the independent promotion,
marketing and distribution of music a never before seen possibility to them (Preston
and Roger 16). Not only that: Also consumers had the chance to profit from social
media platforms, since they were suddenly able to discover new artists, share musical
suggestions with others and consume music (Dewan and Ramaprasad 101). It was the
birth of a new music economy, in which social media platforms ‘have given
independent artists in particular an open platform to promote their music without the
gate-kept promotional restrictions existing in primary media, TV and radio exposure’,
making social media platforms a primary vehicle for music promotion for these artists
12
(Rutter 156). The possibilities for musicians to spread content seemed endless. They
could network with fans and exchange information with them directly; blogs allowed
the publishing of written entries, videos and links; microblogs such as Twitter enabled
them to publish short text-based entries with a maximum length of 140 characters to
be sent and accessed via computers or mobile phones; and visual social media
platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo let them share visual or audio content with
their audience. The artist acquired total power over the things published on his social
media sites, became the gate-keeper of the blog and comment section of his networks
and with that, was able to ensure that only positive messages were spread about his
music (Ibid. 167). And best of all: sharing content on such platforms had the potential
of being viewed by millions of people around the world and was virtually for free
(Zarrella 3). The low costs of music production, reproduction and distribution has
made it relatively easy for independent musicians to enter the music market today
(Dolfsma § 22).
2. Major vs. Indie: Redefining an artist’s power in the music
industry
As I have discussed in the previous section, digitization introduced technical
standards for communication that enabled individuals with an access to the Internet to
communicate with others at practically zero cost (Graham et al. 1090). This opened a
door for artists that they had no access to before: It generated a space where musicians
were able to voice themselves, release creative content, since, as Sen argues, ‘unlike
other means of mass communication, speaking, singing or even playing music in
virtual space is a less resource intensive venture and anyone with some computer
access and rudimentary knowledge of using the Internet is able to voice themselves’
(16). This had an extremely empowering effect on music artists: While they once
needed to sign to a major label that would regulate their career-decisions, leaving
artists often powerless and voiceless, the musician was now able to freely produce
and distribute content without the necessity of an intermediate actor (Ibid). Sen
continues to argue that with the Internet and the increasing technological possibilities,
music artists see a chance to maintain control over their music distribution and can
simultaneously build a direct relationship with people that could potentially turn into
13
fans, all while bypassing the major record labels to become independent. This idea
that musician are likely to bypass major record labels is also shared by other authors.
In their study, Graham et al. interviewed 15 people who either had an executive level
position or experience as senior managers at either one of the ‘Big Five’, the major
labels that include Warner Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI,
Universal/PolyGram. Interestingly, one the authors’ major findings was that ‘the
majority of interviewees believed that the major record companies will exhibit less
governance over their supply chain, as an increasing number of artists will create and
distribute music on their own’ (Graham et al. 1096). Carey Sargent added to this
argument, by stating that, indeed, in a time of technological innovation where the
Internet dominates, more and more artists would refuse to sign or have no interest in a
major label contract, since ‘they expressed an entrepreneurial ‘do it yourself’ ethos
and participated in a ‘culture of advocacy’ where self-representation and visibility
were central to the significance of their crafts’ (Sargent 470).
There is indeed a major change happening in the music industry: The power is
moving from major corporations into the hands of musicians that are starting to
engage with technology in order to gain full control over their creative output. Studies
are suggesting that social media platforms are giving artists career opportunities,
personal recognition as independent musicians and the possibility of gaining financial
profit from using such platforms (Ibid. 472). By using social media platforms to
promote their work and directly engage with an audience, independent musicians can
build a trustful relationship with their fans, gain full creative control and more
opportunities for entrepreneurship (Rice Lincoln 145; Sargent 472). Computers and
the Internet gave music artists more reach and the possibility of spreading content at
high speed. These technologies have not only made it possible for artists to produce,
but also to distribute content independently. However, while the arguments presented
by authors like Sen or Graham all give an insight into the current state of the music
industry and the shift in the music value chain, which seems to have diminished the
power of major record labels, they fail to explain how independent artists, who decide
to take matters into their own hands, need to accurately engage with social media
platforms in order to build a following, build and maintain a successful, profitable
career. There are many tools have that musicians can now use to promote their art
14
without the help of an additional player. While we did enter an era where the Internet
enables a direct artist-to-audience relationship, it remains unclear how this
relationship is established. How should an independent musician make use of the
Internet and social media platforms? What are the most important tools? How can
artists directly ‘connect’ with their audience? The next section will shed light on these
questions.
15
Chapter 4
Investigating promotional strategies of independent musicians
through social media
1. Qualitative research methodology
Before engaging in a quantitative research, it was important to start with a qualitative
one. The qualitative research was conducted through the use of in-depth interviews.
Person-to-person interviews are guaranteed to reveal more information than other
potential methods of research, such as the use of surveys for example, since both the
interviewer and interviewee are freed from any possible restrictions like closed or
partially answered questions. Also, the interviewer has the chance to keep asking
questions throughout the interview, and therefore go in depth at certain moments of
the interview, while giving the interviewees the freedom to contribute as much of
their personal knowledge and thoughts as they like (Boyce and Neale 3).
Between March 9th and May 20th, seven independent artists, one major label
artist and one social media expert were interviewed. For that purpose, a set of 10-15
general questions was prepared, which served as a red thread for all interviews (see p.
70). The discussions included several questions about the emergence and advantages
of social media platforms and the artists’ engagement with those platforms to promote
their brand. Most importantly, the purpose of the questions was to trigger responses
that would reveal particular strategies by the interviewees on how to successfully
build a following on social media and steadily develop and maintain a fan-base. The
questions were all centered on the two research questions presented in the
introduction of this work. While seven interviews were conducted on Skype, two
were conducted face to face. Each interview lasted for about 15-30 minutes. Being a
native speaker in both French and German, one interview was conducted in French,
while three were conducted in German and the remaining five in English. The
interviews were all recorded, in order to listen to each interview again at a later stage,
16
where the most important passages of each discussion were transcribed into a Word
document. The German and French interviews were directly transcribed into English.
2. Quantitative research methodology
Throughout the interviews, artists pointed out that Facebook is the most effective
social network and their main window to the outside world. Rightly so: All artists
have collected more ‘likes’ on Facebook than followers or subscribers on any other
platform they are using simultaneously. This should not be surprising, as Facebook is
still dominating the social media landscape. According to the social media agency We
Are Social, Facebook counted 1.3 billion active users in January 2015, making it the
biggest social media platform in the world (We Are Social). The fact that Facebook is
the biggest social network, and, according to all interviewees, also the most effective
one, demands that a closer look needs to be taken at each artist’s Facebook page. This
will also help determine how these artists engage with the network and their
followers. This research will therefore not only provide the reader with a qualitative
analysis, but also present a collection of numerical data analyzed through statistics
and thus engage in a quantitative analysis in the attempt to exploit certain social
media trends.
In order to do so, the data collection and extraction application Netvizz was used.
According to its creator Bernhard Rieder, associate professor at the Media Studies
Department at the University of Amsterdam, the application was ‘developed into a
veritable data extractor that provides outputs for different sections of Facebook in
standard formats’ (Rieder 348). Anybody with an active Facebook account can access
Netvizz by looking it up in the search bar. With Netvizz, data can be extracted from a
particular profile or page on Facebook; the steps to do so are very straightforward.
First, Netvizz is accessed via Facebook’s search bar. Then, there will be the choice of
five options: One can engage in an analysis of groups on Facebook, analyze pages on
Facebook, create a ‘page-like network’, build an interface to Facebook’s search
function or extract statistics for links shared on Facebook. Since the purpose of this
study is to see how artists engage with a social media platform like Facebook and
what kind of content is shared on the artist’s page, the researcher will opt for the
17
second option and engage in a page-analysis by clicking on ‘Page Data’. Then, there
will be an option to extract data from a particular number of posts made by the artist,
or to enter a timeframe from which to retrieve data. For this study, I decided to look
up the date of each artist’s first Facebook post, and to retrieve the data from that date
until May 15th 2015, the day on which all data was collected. Netvizz also requires a
page ID for each page that is being analyzed; entering the Facebook URL of the
artist’s page on ‘lookup-id.com’ retrieves this ID. After the ID was copied in the
respective box, one simply clicks on ‘get posts by page only’ and Netvizz will then
generate a tabular file that lists different data for each post.
3. Sample selection and synopsis of interviewees
a.
Sample selection
The selected sample consists of seven independent artists, one major label artist and
one social media expert. A list of about 25 artists was put together according to my
musical preferences and the artists I am following on Facebook. Three of those artists,
Newmen, Birdy Hunt and Coby Grant are close friends, which facilitated the set-up of
an interview with these musicians. Things looked a bit different for the remaining 22
artists. Emails, Facebook messages and tweets were sent out in the hopes of getting a
response, since all 22 artists are independent, regularly post content on their social
media accounts and would surely have given interesting insights for this study.
However, 20 artists have either declined or never answered to the request. Tom Klose
and Sascha Reske, two folk musicians, replied almost instantly, agreeing to an
interview.
Because she started as an independent musician and worked her way up to
become both a national and international sensation, I decided to also include Laura
Jansen, a major label artist. She has never put her social media activity in the hands of
a label; the major label she is signed to today has no direct control over her social
media channels and what content is posted on them. Laura has taken care of her social
media channels from the very beginning. Therefore, her knowledge in the field has
grown to be extensive and she has gained much professional knowledge about the
18
music business over the years. A mutual friend was kind enough to set up a Skype
interview between Jansen and myself.
My profession as a freelance journalist for VICE Magazine’s music platform
Noisey is what made the interview with Tôg frontman Lars Christian Olsen possible,
since I had already interviewed him for the magazine back in 2014. After sending
Olsen a message, he agreed to take part in this study. Even though his band dissolved
in March, he is still active as an independent solo-artist.
The interview with Black Milk happened rather spontaneously. I interviewed
the musician after his show in Amsterdam on May 4th 2015. While the interview was
intended for VICE Magazine, I still decided to ask him for an additional 15 minutes to
tell him about my thesis and ask him a few questions, as I had been following his
music for years and knew that he was an independent artist that was extremely active
in the social media sphere. He agreed to answer my questions.
Lastly, a friend of mine put me in touch with a social media expert, who owns a
successful consultancy group that specializes in the promotion of independent artists
and also agreed to answer my questions.
What remains to be indicated, is that this study is limited to artists who already have
an established career as very, or relatively successful musicians, who can make a
living off their craft and who take care of all their social media channels without the
interference of an intermediary party such as, for example, a record label, with the
exception of Laura Jansen, Black Milk and Lars Christian Olsen, who all consciously
decided not to subscribe to an extra YouTube and Vimeo channel, since their labels to
uploaded their videos for them. Apart from simply uploading these videos, which the
three artists then shared on their other social media channels at a later stage, there was
no additional interference from their label.
19
b. Synopsis of interviewees
i. Independent artists
Birdy Hunt: Birdy Hunt is a French Indie-Rock band from Paris. The band consists
of the singer Marc, the guitarists Luc and Nicolas, the bassist Thomas, the keyboardplayer Manuel and a drummer, Marius Paijens, who has been taking care of the
band’s social media activity since its formation in 2007. In recent years, the band has
gathered quite a national and international following, playing their own shows and at
major music festivals across Europe. They released their debut album Shoplift last
October through the independent record label Deaf Rock Records. The album was
well received by fans and music critics across Europe.
Birdy Hunt uses Facebook (5.711 Likes), Twitter (761 Followers), Instagram (597
Followers), SoundCloud (461 Followers) and YouTube (362 subscribers) and Vimeo
(1 follower) as promotional social media channels.
Newmen: Newmen is a Frankfurt-based band rock band. Their sound is a mixture of
a variety of elements, ranging from Garage- and Post-Wave all the way to Indie and
Lo-Fi-Pop. The band met in 2012 and instantly started recording their first songs.
They released their first album Rush Hush independently in 2014. Joerg Schmidt, the
band’s guitarist, has taken care of the band’s social media presence since the band’s
formation.
Newmen uses Facebook (1.345 likes), Twitter (42 follower), Instagram (158
follower), SoundCloud (204 follower), YouTube (59 subscribers), Tumblr (104
subscribers) and Vimeo (8 follower) as promotional social media channels.
Tôg: Tôg was a Norwegian band formed in the city of Stavanger back in 2009. Tôg’s
futuristic disco sound, inspired by the boogie- and disco-scene of the 60s, has landed
the band a spot on the newcomer stage at SXSW in Austin, Texas, one of the most
acclaimed music festivals. The band released their debut album Drøm in 2011 through
the Norwegian independent label Brilliance Records. The band released their
sophomore album Feiring in 2014. A few months after the release, Lars left the band
due to irreconcilable differences.
20
Tôg used Facebook (3.444 likes), Twitter (213 follower) and SoundCloud (155
follower). At the time of their signing, Tôg’s labels already had their own YouTube
and Vimeo channels. For this reason, the band did not see any relevance in having
additional, personalized YouTube and Vimeo accounts, since the label posted the
videos on the channels, before Lars reposted the link to music videos on the band’s
other social media platforms.
Tom Klose: Tom Klose is a solo-artist from Flensburg, Germany, and has been
making music on a professional level since 2009. Tom’s music is a smooth blend of
folk and acoustic rock. He managed to serve as a supporting act for both German and
American superstars like Tim Bendzko and Ed Sheeran, exposing him to hundreds of
thousands of people and potential fans. Tom released his first solo debut From Weeds
to Woods in April through his own company REDUX Music, which he launched after
being rejected by both major and independent labels.
Tom Klose uses Facebook (6.388 likes), Twitter (870 follower), Instagram (999
follower), SoundCloud (446 follower), YouTube (870 subscribers) and Vimeo (1
follower) as promotional social media channels.
Sascha Reske: Sascha Reske is an independent solo-artist from Halle, Germany. His
music is a blend of genres, ranging from alternative rock to folk. His career as a
musician only started in 2012, but since then, he already gathered a good following
and has been on several tours across Europe. He self-released his debut album The
Season’s Loneliest Tree in 2013 via his own distribution company, Sascha Reske.
Sascha Reske uses Facebook (1.634 likes), Twitter (45 follower), Instagram (179
follower), SoundCloud (99 follower), YouTube (94 subscribers) and Vimeo (1
follower) as promotional social media channels.
Coby Grant: Coby Grant is a singer from Perth, Australia. She has been working as
an independent musician for over ten years. In her music, Coby blends elements of
pop, contemporary folk and electronic music. She has been touring around Australia
and Europe, even played concerts in the United States, booking most of the shows
herself by contacting promoters and sending them her music. She self-released her
first album Coby Grant is in Full Color in 2012 and has since then released several
EP’s before putting out her sophomore album I Was Young last year.
21
Coby Grant uses Facebook (4.437 likes), Twitter (760 follower), Instagram (582
follower), SoundCloud (722 follower), YouTube (1.188 subscribers) and Vimeo (1
follower).
Black Milk: Curtis Cross is known as the rapper and hip-hop producer Black Milk
from Detroit. He has been active since the early 2000s. He signed to the independent
label Fat Beats Records in 2006 and has since then released six albums. His extensive
music-catalogue contains collaborations with some of America’s biggest rap-stars,
and he has been taking his music across the world, playing shows in the United States,
Europe, Australia and New-Zealand. He has been managing and coordinating several
social media channels by himself for many years.
Black Milk uses Facebook (113.186 likes), Twitter (82.825 follower), Instagram
(16.078 follower) and SoundCloud (36.307 follower). Similar to Lars Christian Olsen
from Tôg, Black Milk does not see the necessity of having his own video channels on
YouTube and Vimeo, as his label Fat Beats Records takes care of those channels.
Black Milk simply reposts links to videos on his social media platforms.
ii. Major music artist
Laura Jansen: Laura Jansen is a Dutch-American platinum-selling artist from Breda,
who has spent the majority of her life in Los Angeles. Laura Jansen’s sound can be
best described as a mixture of pop and alternative rock elements. After being an
independent artist for close to six years, she signed a contract with Universal Music in
the Netherlands in 2009, before closing another major deal in the United States with
Decca Records in 2011. Laura Jansen has successfully developed from an
independent artist to a musician that is now selling millions of records and is touring
the world. Her expertise in the independent world is therefore extremely valuable for
this study.
Laura Jansen uses Facebook (60.981 likes), Twitter (41.398 follower) and Instagram
(6.903 follower). Universal Music Group takes care of music-video related content on
YouTube.
22
iii. Social media consultant
Lueda Alia (Smoke and Mirrors Consulting, Canada): Lueda Alia played a vital
role in breaking some of todays most established indie acts, including Angus & Julia
or Typhoon. She founded the music blog Made of Chalk in 2013 and the blog’s
original video content was featured by NBC’s Carson Daly, the AV Club, Brooklyn
Vegan, and more. After getting to know some of her favorite artists over time, she
realized how little professional support they were receiving from agencies they were
hiring to promote their music. She then began helping out as a publicist and as a
manager. Now, she owns and operates a successful artist, business, and marketing
consulting agency, Smoke & Mirrors Consulting, which works with a wide variety of
artists, record labels, and other companies to develop effective and sustainable
approaches to marketing.
The following section will present all the findings collected throughout the in-depth
interviews with the interviewees. I will strictly deal with the insights, perceptions,
recommendations the interviewees have given me, and present them under different
categories. The assessment of the appropriateness of these strategies will be presented
under a more theoretical light at a later stage, in chapter five.
23
4. Findings from interviews: How to make the most of social
media as an independent artist
a. Advantages of social media usage for independent artists
The results from the interviews all suggest that there is no doubt about the advantages
social media has on the independent music scene. All respondents have named or
hinted in some way at advantages of social media platforms.
The rapper-producer Black Milk is a veteran in the Detroit Hip-Hop scene and
has been using digital media to his advantage ever since he started in the music
business. He believes that through social media, he has the power of reaching people
with his music at any time of the day:
I can make a record and put it out through social media the same day or week I made it.
Music fans are always hungry for the next big song, especially today, where everything
happens so fast because of all these platforms. Being independent means that I can feed my
fans with music 24/7 if I want to and keep them satisfied. That’s thanks to stuff like Facebook
or Twitter.
The possibility of reaching a large amount of people and potential fans is, according
to all artists interviewed for this study, the most important aspect of being an
independent artist. Tom Klose goes even as far as arguing that, today, reach has more
importance than making money from music:
I need to reach as many people as possible. And today, you reach people through social
media. Money is not the main concern anymore, it’s connecting with as many people around
the world as possible. It is only after reaching as many people as possible that you think
about how you can profit from it financially.
Control is another point that was mentioned at several occasions throughout
the interviews. All artists believe that the appearance of social media transferred the
control of major labels formerly executed over an artist’s career straight into the
hands of the musician himself. Lars Marius Paijens, drummer of the French rock band
Birdy Hunt, believes that as well:
24
You can be your own boss with social media. You can decide what to post, when to post it and
how to post it. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do, I have full control over my career
and I’m still able to travel the world and gain new fans everyday. A lot of people with major
deals can’t do that.
With regard to control, Sascha Reske also points out that when it comes to
promotional work on social media, no artist should give away that responsibility to
another party:
Promotion through social media is something only the artist should do. In the end, you are
selling something you created, so you’ll be the only one that knows how you want to spread it
properly.
Joerg Schmidt from Newmen has a pretty straightforward answer when it
comes to the advantages of social media for a musician:
It’s pretty simple: You need to exist digitally to exist as a musician. If people don’t
know how to find you, you don’t exist for them. There’s your advantage.
Lueda Alia, head of the consultancy group Smoke and Mirrors, adds another
major advantage, namely the possibility for independent musicians to share content
with a large amount of people around the world within seconds, while avoiding costs:
Independent artists don’t really need to rely on middlemen with large funds anymore. All they
need is to do is subscribe to a social media platform, create a page and start throwing content
on there. It only takes a few clicks to distribute content; also, subscribing to a platform that
let’s you share content is usually free.
Lastly, social media can also have the effect of boosting an artists’ confidence,
according to Laura Jansen:
Social media can boost your confidence too. It is a great way of checking whether or not your
art resonates with people. You need to use social media to put up music and wait for people’s
reactions. That’s what got me my first little show and gave me the courage to go on stage: the
fact that I got a couple of hundred views on my songs and saw that people would spread it on
their account.
Independent artists are confronted with a multitude of advantages social media brings
that can help them promote their brand. Interviewees did point out, however, that
using social media also has certain disadvantages.
25
b. Disadvantages of social media usage for independent artists
Social media does not only have positive attributes for independent artists. While the
relatively low or non-existent costs, easy usability, access and dispersion of content
are all attractive characteristics for musicians that are planning to engage in a do-ityourself-career, social media also comes with shortcomings.
A main concern that was addressed by most interviewees was the fact that a
strong social media presence of an artist does not necessarily guarantee an income.
Tom Klose addresses this problem with the following statement:
When the artist uses all these platforms, he invests a lot of time and nerves into them. But he
risks to not make any money off his music. Money is not the priority, but you do want to live
off your music in the end. I try to make sure that the people that follow me on social media
come to my shows and buy my music. But there is no guarantee that will always happen.
This is a problem that Sascha Reske experienced firsthand. He addressed the problem
of the infinite overflow of information that social media generates:
I’ve had experiences where I posted something about an upcoming show on Facebook and
Twitter and afterwards people came up to me and said: “I had no idea you did a show. Didn’t
even see your post about that”. That annoyed me. There is just too much content on these
platforms that people don’t pay attention anymore, they’re likely to overlook things.
Another problem that was addressed in relation to social media is the fact that
many artists are after likes and followers, a wrong priority, according to Black Milk:
People, not only musicians, are all after likes and followers. This seems to be the priority
today. If you’re a musician, focus on the music. Don’t think that there is a relation between
the quality of your art and the amount of likes you have. There is no relation.
While the artist Black Milk has a point here, it is still necessary that independent
musicians gather a fan-base. No artist will survive in the industry without a following.
Therefore, artists who want to work independently need to take preliminary steps
before or while launching their social media channels.
26
c. Making the first step as an independent artist: Prove talent and
establish a following
Building a following demands hard work and dedication and is usually not only
achieved via digital means. Most interviewees stressed the importance of playing liveshows in the beginning stages of an independent artist’s career. An artist’s following
will not increase by itself; it is necessary to first promote the music via other means.
This is also what the singer Coby Grant argued:
I played my first show in a café in Australia, after giving the owner some of my songs. He
asked me to play one night, and after that I had enough confidence to go a step further and
work on building a fan-base. I started sending emails with a link to my MySpace profile to
different venues in Australia – small theaters, clubs, pubs – and got my first bookings. That’s
what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve booked about 200 shows by myself in 2011, the year I
went on my first European tour. Suddenly it became this reality where I thought “I could do
this without a label”. But in order to do that, you need to spend countless hours in front of a
computer screen, research and contact booking agents and venues. It’s hard work, but you
don’t need any label to help you with that stuff. The artist has the power nowadays.
Lars Christian Olsen from Tôg has a similar point of view. Before focusing on the
Internet, an independent artist needs to have a presence in real-life, rather than on the
Internet. This will ultimately lead to people spreading the word and looking the artist
up on the Internet:
You need to play many, many shows to get this word-of-mouth thing started. Don’t start
thinking about Facebook and all that stuff. How are people going to find you on the Internet,
if they don’t even know the name of your band? At our first small shows, we always put a
banner with the name of our band behind us. We always made sure people knew who was
playing in front of them. We also played in the streets a lot. Eventually, we saw that the more
shows we’d play, the more our following would increase online and the bigger the venues
would get.
Interestingly, Sascha Reske addresses a rather ‘outdated’ technique he started
using when he played his first small show in front of around 30 people. By using
email newsletters to this day, he still makes sure that he reaches some of his fans in a
more traditional way by having them fill out a piece of paper with their contact
information at his concerts. He engages in a direct, real-life contact with his fans:
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I still use email newsletters, which I think are extremely efficient when it comes to reaching
people. The idea came to me before my very first show in front of around 30 to 40 people. I
printed a page with a table, where people could fill in their names and email addresses.
Emails have a stronger impact than a quick post you make on social media platforms like
Facebook or Twitter. You’re more conscious about an email than something that quickly
appears between thousands of other posts on your news feed.
In the process of taking matters into their own hands, it is crucial the independent
artists-to-be patiently organize their first small shows in front of any kind of audience,
at any kind of venue. This in turn demands extensive research and preparation. It is
important to leave the best possible impression in front of a crowd that could
potentially develop an interest in looking up artists on the Internet and purchasing
their music in the future. In order to be found on the Internet, independent artists need
to develop a certain strategy and take advantage of the platform culture that has
impacted the Internet for over a decade now. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or
SoundCloud are all social media channels that are part of this platform culture and
just a few examples of the many possibilities musicians have to spread their art and
make the Internet their world stage.
d. Understanding the technology: ‘Practice before you preach’
According to Black Milk and Laura Jansen, independent artists should take time to
understand the technology that is available to them, before using it.
Black Milk explains how he found some inspiration on other people’s
platforms when social media started to have an impact on the career of musicians,
especially with MySpace:
I remember when this social media thing started with MySpace and moved to Facebook and
all that. I was on that online shit everyday trying to understand it. You need to take the time
and look into all your options, look at what other artists are doing and see what works and
what doesn’t. You have to understand what you can do with the things the Internet offers you,
instead of just using it without a proper plan.
This is a point that Laura Jansen addressed as well:
You have to spend a lot of time on social media. Not necessarily to post things, but to
understand the technology. I spent months and months analyzing all these platforms, trying to
understand what people respond to, get a feeling of what they would like to see on their feed,
what content works best. Before preaching on social media, artists need to practice.
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As soon as the independent artist has some knowledge about the world of social
media and the functions of platforms, the next step will entail to decide which
platforms to use.
e. Launching social media channels: Diversity is key
There was a general consensus among interviewees that independent artists should
take advantage of the diversity in social media platforms. Only using one or two
platforms simultaneously decreases the chance of achieving full reach.
Lueda Alia explains that as an independent artist, it is important to be present
on as many platforms as possible:
You need to make sure that you’re using as many different platforms at the same time as
possible. Someone might use Twitter, but not Facebook; and someone might use SoundCloud,
but not YouTube. You need to make sure you reach people through every possible platform. A
diversity of social media channels is one of the many keys to a successful career as an
independent artist.
Newmen’s guitarist and social media-appointee Joerg Schmidt makes sure that the
band is represented on all possible channels. Out of all the interviewees considered in
this study, Newmen is the band with the most social media platforms in use, seven to
be exact. Apart from the most prominent ones, such as Facebook, Twitter or
YouTube, Joerg Schmidt is also actively maintaining a Tumblr-blog, stressing the
importance of using many different social media platforms:
[Diversity] is important, because you can satisfy the need of more and a greater variety of
people. We love to use Tumblr as an extra to represent the band and its interests, but we also
know that without a Facebook page, we wouldn’t reach anybody. And in the end, it’s all
about reach. And the nice thing is that there is a great diversity of social media platforms,
which are all differently built-up. You can satisfy more people that might have different tastes.
Everybody can find his or her preferred platform to follow what we do. It’s important that
nobody feels left out.
Once independent artists have subscribed to different social media channels, they will
need to engage with their audience. Not only will they have the chance to share
content of different nature, they will also be able to interact directly with their
followers. However, their engagement with both the social media channels and their
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audience needs to be strategic. Some of those strategies will be presented in the
following section.
5. Findings from content analyses of artists’ social media pages
a. Merging social media platforms
Facebook acts as a mediator for other platforms the artists use to promote their work.
Users are able to merge their Instagram and Twitter accounts directly with Facebook,
making it less-time consuming to share content on each platform individually. Once
the profiles are merged, every post made on Twitter or on Instagram appears
automatically on the Facebook page and vice-versa. All artists have addressed this
practicality, mentioning that it was saving them a lot of time and effort to send each
post via different platforms individually, like Joerg Schmidt from Newmen:
Most of the things we post on Facebook are automatically posted on Twitter anyway, so no
need to take care of our Twitter page that much.
or Marius Paijens from Birdy Hunt:
Facebook is an amazingly integrative and interactive platform. Artists should take advantage
of that. Our page is connected to Twitter and Instagram, so we don’t have to post everything
three times. That just costs too much time.
Laura Jansen, however, does not think that an independent artist should merge
accounts. She has always used her social media channels individually, as she believes
that merging them might compromise each platform’s inherent functions:
I don’t merge platforms. It’s kind of lazy and when you do that you don’t use the platform to
its optimum advantage. If you use the platforms within their own culture, you get more out of
it. As an artist, especially in the beginning stages of your career, you need to get a profound
understanding of what each platform can do for you, and not what the sum of all can do.
What can be observed when looking at their pages, is that Black Milk, Birdy Hunt and
Coby Grant merged Facebook and Instagram to automatically post every picture
uploaded on Instagram on their Facebook page. Tom Klose, Newmen, Tôg and Coby
Grant merged Facebook and Twitter to have all Facebook posts appear on their
Twitter pages. For these artists, Facebook seems to be major promotional mediator, as
they share content from Instagram on Facebook and use their Twitter to refer to their
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Facebook page. Throughout the interviews, all artists have also pointed out that
Facebook serves as a main point of reference for them and their followers. Thus, the
next section will go into depth of the artists’ posting habits on Facebook.
b. Taking a look at Facebook, an independent artist’s most
prominent social media platform: General observations
According to the extracted data, Black Milk and Laura Jansen have been using a
Facebook page the longest, since August 2008 and February 2009 respectively. It is
important to keep in mind that all artists have merged certain channels with their
Facebook page, meaning that the content that will be presented below will include
posts that were made on other channels that are automatically posted on the artist’s
Facebook page.
Black Milk’s account has been active for the longest and the artist’s number of
posts amounts to a total of 1.529 over a seven-year period (until May 15th 2015, the
day the quantitative analysis was conducted and finalized). The content Black Milk
has posted the most are status updates (633), then photos (388), then videos (289),
then links (219) and lastly events (30) (see fig. 9). In the tabular file, Netvizz also
provides an overview of what is called ‘engagement’. The engagement is the
accumulated amount of likes, shares and/or comments that followers have left on an
artist’s post. The content that Black Milk’s followers have engaged with the most
since the launch of his page are photos (115.897 [total amount of likes, comments
and/or shares]), then videos (77.197), then links (35.396) and lastly events (954) (see
fig. 1). At first sight, Black Milk puts a lot of emphasis on keeping his social media
activity strictly music related, by posting elements that document his life in the studio,
share new songs or update his followers on where his next concerts will be.
Laura Jansen’s total posts amount to 2.060 over a six-year period. The content
she posted the most were status updates (998), then photos (491), then links (314),
then videos (156) and events (101) (see fig. 9). Her followers engaged most with
photos (117.034), then status updates (57.715), then videos (16.314), then links
(14.747) and lastly events (295) (see fig. 2). Laura Jansen posts a substantial amount
of private, content, such as pictures of her shoes or status updates on political issues
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she is interested in for example, but still keeps her fans updated on music-related
issues.
Next is Newmen, with a total of 211 posts made between March 2012 and
May 2015. Overall, it is the band with the least amount of posts in this sample. The
groups posted mostly photos (78), then links (55), then videos (30), events (28) and
status updates (20) (see fig. 9). Their followers engaged mostly with photos (1.588),
then links (988), then videos (867), then events (207) and lastly status updates (197)
(see fig. 3). Newmen keep their posts strictly music related.
The band Tôg has used a Facebook page between April 2010 and March 2015
and posted 363 times, before the band eventually split up. Tôg mostly shared links
(154), then photos (90), then status updates (66), then events (33) and lastly videos
(20) (see fig. 9). Their followers engaged most with photos (2.209), then links
(1.593), then status updates (866), then videos (297) and lastly events (198) (see fig.
4). Before their breakup, Tôg posted mostly music related content, with only a few
private posts on some occasions.
Birdy Hunt posted 1.196 elements since the creation of their Facebook page
in 2010. Most of the band’s posts were photos (574), then links (242), then status
updates (148) and events (60) (see fig. 9). Their followers engaged most with photos
(31.555), then videos (5.762), then links (3.323) and lastly events (392) (see fig. 5).
Birdy Hunt share a considerable amount of music-related posts, such as updates on
concerts, new songs or pictures from their tour, but mix in private content, such as a
picture of the band at the swimming pool for example, to keep fans engaged.
Tom Klose, who launched his page in November 2011, has since then shared
956 items on his page. He mostly shared links (308), then videos (256), then photos
(236), then events (126) and lastly status updates (30) (see fig. 9). His followers
engaged most with videos (6.284), then photos (6.172), then links (4.875), then event
(1.110) and lastly status updates (429) (see fig. 6). Tom Klose keeps his page strictly
music related.
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Sascha Reske made 503 posts since he created his artist page on Facebook in
February 2012. The content he shared the most was photo (298), then video (101),
then links (43), then status updates (33) and lastly event (28) (see fig. 9). His
followers engaged most with photos (3.638), then videos (843), then links (234), then
status updates (128) and lastly events (125) (see fig. 7). Just like Tom Klose and
Newmen, Sascha Reske is keen on keeping his page strictly music related.
Since the launch of Coby Grant’s Facebook page in September 2011, the
singer has posted 994 times. She mostly posted photos (454), then status updates
(284), then videos (116), then links (99) and events (41) (see fig. 9). Her followers
engaged most with photos (34.478), then status updates (10.944), then videos (4.924),
then (2.334) and lastly events (366) (see fig. 8). Coby Grant puts a lot of emphasis on
private posts, since, as she revealed in her interview, she believes it creates a stronger
connection between fan and artist.
c. The importance of sharing visual content on social media
The previous section gave a quick overview of each artist’s posting habits and an
indication of what followers have engaged with the most – engagement is
representational for what followers found most appealing to like, share and/or
comment on. The data of each Facebook page – which also contains posts directly
linked to the artists’ Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and SoundCloud channels, since all
artists except Laura Jansen have merged them – revealed that for seven of the eight
artists, photos are what followers have engaged with the most. Only in Tom Klose’s
case one can see that fans engaged the most with videos, while photos were in second
position in terms of engagement on his Facebook page. Also, for half of the sample
considered in this study, video-content was among the top two content that followers
engaged with the most; this suggests that their followers have a clear preference in
seeing visual content on each artist’s page.
This is also what interviewees pointed out. They feel that visual material such as
pictures and videos gets the most traction. Lueda Alia, head of Smoke and Mirrors
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consultancy, explains why it is important for independent artists to share visual
content such as pictures on their social media channels:
Essentially, as an artist, you do three things in one when you post a picture on social media:
You posted a picture that might appeal to people and make them like your page, you managed
to construct a connection with people by showing that there is more than just the artist and
the music that comes out of the speakers, something more intimate. And this voyeurism is
important, because people love to peek behind the scenes nowadays.
Netvizz provided this research with enough evidence to back Alia’s claim. Also the
independent artists have mentioned the importance of sharing visual content with their
fans, like Newmen guitarist and social media appointee Joerg Schmidt:
For each post we try to have some form of visual – a picture or a video. And a small caption –
that’s always the most effective thing to post. You have to be short and concise. And since the
content of Facebook pages is accessible even to people that have not ‘liked’ us, visuals can
maybe attract them and make them like our page. Who knows?
Joerg Schmidt does not only see a chance in satisfying followers he already has, but
he believes the visual content on an artist’s page can even intrigue potential followers
who see the picture being shared by a mutual Facebook friend or who look up the
artist to find more information about the band. Tom Klose believes more in the power
of videos:
Visuals are very important, as in videos, short clips of me working in the studio, short clips of
an acoustic session. I like to post them with a caption in capital letters as well. Writing in
capital letters is important in general, because people will be able to filter out the most
important information of your post.
Looking at Tom Klose’s statistics, one can see that videos have resulted in the highest
engagement. Over a four-year period, his videos have received a total amount of
6.284 likes, shares and/or comments by his followers combined. When one looks at
Tom Klose’s Netvizz data, the videos on his Facebook page were either uploaded
directly from his computer or mobile device, or appeared as shared YouTube-links.
YouTube is by far the most prominent channel that enables musicians to upload any
kind of video related content on their account. This content can later be shared
through a link that artist’s can post on their Facebook page. According to the Netvizz
data, all artists regularly post links to either their own YouTube or Vimeo videos, or
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to songs of other musicians the artists want to share with their followers. Joerg
Schmidt argues that Vimeo is the preferable video platform for Newmen, due to its
nicer design, the cleaner look of the videos and the fact that there is no advertisement
on Vimeo. However, the platform does not seem to reach many people in terms of
followers. Most independent artists interviewed do not have more than one follower
on Vimeo. According to all interviewees, YouTube counts as the most effective
channel, not only to distribute videos of other artist’s, but also share videos of the
artists themselves. Sascha Reske argues that it is crucial to take advantage of
YouTube as a platform to upload and share music videos. However, he also points out
that these videos need to be produced first:
When you begin your career as an indie, you have to produce music and make videos for your
songs. It doesn’t matter if it’s a low production, just get a camera and some friends and shoot
something you think is cool and represents your song well. People need to see that you made
an effort creating visuals for your music. Then put the video on YouTube and share the video
through as many social media channels as possible.
Not only is the engagement on social media at its highest when content such as photos
and videos is posted by artists, platforms like YouTube enable musicians to give their
songs a visual treatment and share it with their audience. During the discussion on
visual content on the artist’s Facebook pages, all artists have also pointed out that
engagement should not be left to the fans alone. Artists that have a following are
strongly advised to also engage with their fans in a more direct way than just by
posting content. Laura Jansen believes that the moment there is a separation between
artist and fan, and no personal interaction, an artist’s career can be in jeopardy, while
Tom Klose points out that personal interaction with fans is crucial, since artists have a
responsibility to talk directly to their fans who sustain an artist’s career by buying
their music and going to their shows.
A last question that remains in terms of visual content is where the line should be
drawn between private and professional visual content posted on social media. In our
sample, the opinions on whether or not an artist should remain professional and post
visual content related to his music varies immensely, not only in terms of artists’
opinions, but also in terms of the content these artists post on their page. Artists like
Coby Grant and Laura Jansen argue, for example, that private posts are more
35
interesting for people and lead to more engagement. On the one hand, Coby Grant,
argues that private posts make the fan feel closer to the artist and give the music that
the artist produces more meaning, because fans get an intimate insight on an artist’s
social media page that ‘makes them feel like they know the artist’ on a personal level.
Sascha Reske, on the other hand, advises up-and-coming independent musicians to
keep it professional, by only posting music-related content. Marius Paijens from Bird
Hunt argues that it is up to the artist to decide whether or not content related to private
or professional events. As a band, Birdy Hunt manages to have a great balance of fun
private, but also music related visuals, as Marius Paijens argues that it represents the
band and the brand they are trying to sell. An artist should therefore try to figure out
what kind of image he would like to portray to the outside and adjust his posts
accordingly.
d. Sharing information through links, status updates and event
posts
As a social media platform, Facebook enables independent artists to share content
from other platforms as well, as was pointed out earlier. While Twitter or Instagram
profiles can be merged with an artist’s Facebook account, YouTube and Vimeo
videos need to be shared via links. All artists interviewed share a considerable amount
of links on their Facebook page. These links do not only include links to their or other
artist’s YouTube and Vimeo pages, but also to their SoundCloud pages.
While it is incredibly easy to upload and share songs with an audience through
SoundCloud, the platform is used very irregularly. The artists did not share many
SoundCloud links on their Facebook pages and have also not uploaded much content
on their SoundCloud itself. Overall, the artists have only uploaded between five and
22 songs on the channel. While Black Milk is the artist with the most followers on
SoundCloud, he argues that it is just only a nice additional tool to share songs with
people on SoundCloud and to then share them on his Facebook page. Sascha Reske
and Tom Klose share that opinion, also pointing towards SoundCloud’s easy
usability.
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Overall, Tom Klose pointed out that his followers would usually not click on links,
and that it was very difficult to come up with a way to have them engage with links
posted on his social media pages. However, Netvizz showed that him and Laura
Jansen shared the highest amount of links on their page, 308 and 314 respectively,
and that Tom Klose generated the most engagement by posting links out of all the
artists in the considered sample, which refutes his initial assumption that his followers
do not click on links he posts. Tom Klose’s links were mostly directing fans to new
songs he produced, new videos on his YouTube channel, news articles and his
website, which suggest, considering the amount of engagement, that it he successfully
managed to guide his followers towards merchandise and his art.
Netvizz revealed two other interesting points. Three artists – Laura Jansen,
Black Milk and Coby Grant – mostly posted status updates since the launch of their
page. Just like a tweet on Twitter, status updates on Facebook are a means to share
written content with followers. Even though prominent amongst Jansen, Black Milk
and Grant, status updates still did not reach the highest ratio in terms of engagement.
There is, for all artists, still a higher engagement for visual content.
Posts regarding events received a similar lack of both posting-rate and engagement.
Facebook allows users to create a separate event page that can then be shared with an
audience. According to Netvizz, all artists have made use of that function at some
point in time, but it still remains the content that was shared the least by all artists,
except Tom Klose, for whom events were in second-last position.
e. Frequency and timing of posts
The final points that were discussed throughout the interviews were the importance of
frequency and time in relation to social media posts. It is crucial for independent
artists who are attempting to successfully launch their career with the help of social
media to have a regular presence on their channels. Lueda Alia has pointed out that
importance, arguing that the bare minimum to post something on social medium is
one post a week, stating that the people in the day and age of the Internet forget about
artists very quickly. She argues that it is important to have a constant presence, by
also thinking about smart ways to engage with fans, such as promising them a new
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song if a particular post reaches a certain amount of likes, or send the first follower to
comment on a post free tickets to the artist’s next concert. Joerg Schmidt says that
there is no need to post something if the artist has nothing relevant to communicate:
If you don’t have anything to say, don’t just force something on them. That also helps to make
sure that people are maybe a bit more attentive when they see something that is actually very
important from the artist.
This point has also been addressed by other artists, who have expressed that an overproduction of posts on social media can lead to people ‘getting annoyed’ or ‘bored’,
which could hurt the artist’s image.
Posting any kind of content on social media also requires that the artists
strategically think about what time of the day their post are noticed the most by their
followers. Artists like Coby Grant and Joerg Schmidt said that a good time would be
to post in the evening, as people get home from work and are likely to check their
social media accounts then. Additionally, Joerg Schmidt pointed out that even if
something needs to be posted throughout the day, but that, for example, the weather
was good, he would wait until nighttime, because people were likely to spend time
outside, instead of on social media, making it likely for their followers to not see the
band’s post. Marius Paijens, on his side, believes that the time of the posts are not
very relevant. According to the musician, artists should post something when they
feel the need to post.
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Chapter 5
Discussion of findings
It is time to reflect upon the things the artists mentioned throughout the interviews.
While the previous section presented a clear portrayal of the social media strategies
that independent artists use to engage with their fans and promote their work, it is
difficult to evaluate whether or not these strategies are truly appropriate and efficient.
However, the results gathered from my interviews go hand-in-hand with some
theoretical frameworks that different social media analysts and marketing experts
have developed over the last years. I would like to present some of these frameworks
here, in order to assess the effectiveness of the strategies mentioned by the
interviewees and present benchmarks that could possibly justify and add to some of
the strategic choices made by independent artists for their social media promotion.
1. Find a niche and expose yourself to a real-life audience
Although this thesis deals with some fundamental steps independent artists need to
take when they engage with social media platforms, some artists interviewed
throughout this work still felt the need to stress certain things artists need to think of
before launching their social media channels. Since followers and subscribers on
social media do not simply appear out of nowhere, several artists pointed out the
importance of playing live shows, get their name out in the world through more
traditional, non-technological ways.
Peter Spellman, Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music
in Boston, spent a significant amount of time analyzing the impact of the Internet on
the music world. With over thirty years of experience in the field, Spellman has
managed to become a respected expert in business- and marketing-related consultancy
for independent artists. Just like the artists interviewed for this study, Spellman
addresses the importance for independent musicians to get their feet wet by contacting
as many bookers and venues as possible to land first gigs, before actively posting on
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social media. However, a more crucial step to take before that, according to Spellman,
is to think about the niche the artist wants to be in. The niche has to reflect several
things: it needs to represent the main interests of an artist, but also his or her
personality, values and skills (Spellman 32). In order to find this niche, independent
artists should think about what their biggest strength is musically, what potential fans
would like about them the most and what areas these artists have the most expertise in
(Ibid.).
It is only after thinking about a potential niche that independent artists should
engage in what Spellman calls ‘direct marketing’: spend an extensive amount of time
researching potential venues for first shows, have personal communication with
bookers, make flyers, send out emails and posts on social media, play music in front
of crowds, interact with the audience and sell merchandise (Ibid. 122,123); this was
also addressed by Coby Grant, who booked an entire tour by herself, before putting
substantial work into her social media presence. Potential fans will not be able to look
artists up on the Internet if they do not know their names, a point that the interviewee
Joerg Schmidt made when he talked about the advantages of social media for
independent musicians; it is therefore crucial to have a strong, real life presence at
first shows, something the band Tôg, for example, accentuated by using banners with
the bands name on them, a small detail also Spellman sees a crucial when an artists
plays shows (154).
2. Regularly use different social media channels and merge them
While several interviewees have mentioned the importance of understanding the
platforms at hand before using them extensively, my theoretical research did not
reveal any indications of social media theorists that encouraged businesses or
musicians in particular to take the time to properly understand the technology.
Theoretical evidence did however reveal other important aspects to consider here.
Should independent artists slowly but surely start to gather fans and an online
following, it is essential to engage with social media platforms immediately and
regularly (Rice Lincoln 188). The moment independent musicians decide to build a
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career and eventually profit from the music they become a business, they invest
money in the production of musical goods, entertain people at live shows and hope to
increasingly gain costumers to make a living off their art. In The Social Media
Marketing Book, award-winning social media scientist Dan Zarrella deals with social
media strategies that businesses in general need to adhere to, in order to become
successful and profitable. Even though he does not mention any kind of business
activity in particular, some of the key factors he presents can and need to also be
taken into consideration when one discusses promotional social media strategies of
independent music artists.
All independent artists interviewed throughout this study use more than just one
social media platform to interact with their audience, even though, as was established
previously, Facebook is the core platform for all of them. This is because Facebook
can easily be merged with other social media platforms. Zarrella calls this
‘integration’ of social media platforms and discusses how crucial it is for a business to
have not only one, but many social media platforms to engage with an audience (199).
Even though Laura Jansen pointed out that she likes to use her social media channels
separately, Zarrella argues that the Web 2.0 enables different applications to work
well together and that one should merge social media platforms to create awareness
more rapidly on multiple platforms simultaneously (Ibid.). A Twitter audience should
be aware that artists are also on Facebook for instance, which in turn can cause
Twitter followers to also follow artists on Facebook and vice versa, thus increasing
their social media following overall (Ibid.).
3. Think before posting and develop techniques to grab the
attention of followers
Independent artists need to stay relevant and interesting to their audience, especially
on the Internet and on social media, where information flows are increasingly gaining
in speed and density to the point that some information will not reach the entire
audience that is targeted.
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This is one of the disadvantages Sascha Reske mentioned in the interview,
when he told me a story about followers that did not see a post about one of his
concerts. For that reason he sees the overflow of information as a problem. This
problem is, however, an inherent characteristic that comes with social media
platforms, as Kate Crawford argues. She calls this issue of overlooking posts ‘tuning
out’. The scholar argues that social media users are often likely to scan very quickly
through posts generated by other users, without properly focusing on the content
(Crawford 528). To ensure that followers do not tune out and miss important
information the independent artist is trying to share with them, it is, first and
foremost, important to sit down and think about what to post. Interviewees like Joerg
Schmidt and Tom Klose have argued that artists should not just post something when
they do not have anything to share. According to Tom Klose, artists need to sit down
and consciously think about the message they want to share on their social media
channels before doing so. This point was also brought up by Susan Rice Lincoln, who
presents important promotional strategies to use on social media in her book
Mastering Web 2.0: Transform Your Business Using Key Website and Social Media
Tools. She argues that artists and businesses overall should never communicate just
for the sake of communicating, but that successful communication with potential
customers and fans requires discipline, forethought, and simply more than just ‘a little
pencil-biting’ (Rice Lincoln 19).
The content independent artists share needs to be catchy, appealing and engage
followers. But before they can be appealing, they need to be visible enough to ensure
that followers are conscious of the post, or, as Crawford would put it, ensure that
followers ‘tune in’ (Crawford 528). Taking a look at the Netvizz data reveals that all
interviewed musicians, at some point or another, make use of capital letters to
emphasize the most important parts of their post and get their followers attention for
very important announcements. All independent artists in this sample also regularly
use hashtags. By putting the symbol # in front of a word or set of words, the post will
be categorized with all other posts that share the same hashtag. Hashtags are an
additional way to make posts more visible and accessible, and helps spread content
further, a tool that theorists advise independent musicians to use when they post
something on their channels (Spellman 127). Not only Tom Klose sees an importance
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in making essential social media posts visible by using, for instance, capital letters or
hashtags, as he expressed throughout the interview; also Rice Lincoln points out that
reading is done very differently online and that people on social media usually
quickly scan information that appears on their screen (51). To ensure that important
information is not overseen by fans and followers on social media, independent
musicians need to follow simple tasks to make sure their messages are visible: keep
paragraphs and headlines short and concise, keep the language clear and
uncomplicated and highlight text by writing in capital letters and using hashtags (Rice
Lincoln 52).
4. Engage directly with followers
It is extremely important for independent musicians to engage with their fans and
build a solid relationship with them. A strong community of artists and music fans –
which will eventually help artists successfully promote their music – can only be built
if artists and fans are actively involved with each other (Lee 718,719). By engaging in
social media promotion with an audience, the ultimate goal of independent artists is to
share and eventually sell goods and services to their costumers. They become
marketers that must ‘focus on both capturing and continuing attention via
engagement’ (Hanna et al. 267). Traditional marketing through newspapers, television
and news websites has always been about transmitting a message; marketing through
social media is about transmitting a message and building a direct relationship with
potential customers and receiving feedback from them (Constantinidis et al. 13).
All independent artists interviewed for this study have stressed the importance of
engaging directly with their fans, which can also be seen when one takes a look at
their social media pages: All artists have at some point liked, or answered to fans’
comments on Facebook and Instagram and retweeted or answered some of their
followers’ tweets. Constantinidis et al. argue that a sustained, two way conversation
on multiple social media channels is crucial so both parties ‘feel as though they’ve
contributed and they’ve been heard’ and that achieving this results in a successful
social media campaign (15). Dan Zarrella shares this opinion, and states that
individuals or companies trying to market something on social media need to respond
43
to as many messages from followers as possible, in order to appear approachable and
openly interested in conversation (41).
5. Share visual content, but keep in mind the importance of text
In order to build a conversation with a fan and potential costumer, social media
activities that independent artists engage in do not only need to be clearly visible, they
also need to be appealing and engage followers.
Interestingly enough, the Netvizz data retrieved from each artist’s Facebook
page – which also contains posts directly linked to the artists’ Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube and SoundCloud channels, since all artists except Laura Jansen have
merged them – revealed that, for seven of the eight artists I interviewed, photos are
what followers have engaged with (liked, commented on and/or shared) the most.
Only Tom Klose’s fans engaged the most with videos, while photos were in second
position in terms of engagement. This can be attributed to the fact that Facebook’s
photo-sharing feature is more popular than all other photo-sharing platform on the
Web combined (Zarrella 63). It can also be assumed that Facebook’s acquisition of
the platform Instagram in 2012, and the possibility to merge the two platforms, made
the sharing of photos and videos on Facebook spike even more.
For half of the sample considered in this study, video-content was among the
top two content that followers engaged with the most. There has been a sheer
explosion in video-content on the Internet, an explosion that was already predicted a
few years back, when the media and marketing consultant Jack Myers announced
during a conference that between 2010 and 2020, 40 percent of all video consumption
would take place outside of the television set (Rice Lincoln 168). This phenomenon
was accelerated with the rapidly increasing popularity of the video platform
YouTube. Anyone with an access to the Internet can upload videos on this platform
and later share these videos on different social media channels, with the potential
chance of generating millions of views around the world (Ibid. 174). Scholars have
advised individuals using social media for business and career purposes to go beyond
written content by also including photos or videos to inform and entertain their
44
followers (Ibid. 60). Some theorists even argued that watching a music video by an
artist for instance, is more emotionally and socially engaging for followers, and
creates stronger memories due to the videos inherent characteristic to touch several
human senses at the same time, something that a simple written post does not do
(Weber 194; Rice Lincoln 168).
All independent artists of the sample regularly post visual content on their
pages and have addressed the importance of doing so. While some musicians like
Coby Grant and Laura Jansen often post photos and videos that are non-music related
– private pictures that depict the artists on holidays for instance – other artists like
Joerg Schmidt from Newmen or Sascha Reske stressed the importance of keeping
business and private things separated and that the focus should always be on the
music. Looking at their profiles, one can see how much importance Schmidt and
Reske put on presenting behind the scenes footage, pictures of them in the studio or
short video clips of songs they are working on. Spellman has emphasized the
importance of sharing such visual content, since it would ‘give fans a real time feel of
artist’s day to day activities’, while giving artists a chance to ‘share the less visible
aspects of their career’, something that is important if artists and fans want to
maintain a positive and long-lasting relationship on social media (140).
However, musicians like Coby Grant do not think that music and behind the scenes
content is enough. She argued that fans would sometimes approach her at live
concerts and tell her that they felt like they have know her personally for a very long
time. Grant believes that this close connection between artist and fan is important and
can only be achieved by posting visual content that lets fans get a peek into the artist’s
private life. As Spellman put it, fans on social media are ‘fervently curious and want
to feel like they have a personal connection with the artist’ (Ibid.). It should therefore
be assumed that independent artists need to make sure to find a good balance between
private and professional posts to keep their followers engaged and interested.
Not only that: Various theorists have also addressed the importance of keeping a
balance between visual and written content and that, in the midst of this increasing
importance of visual content on the Internet, no one should forget about the power of
text. Text remains at the core of the World Wide Web, is an integral part of any web
45
page and is still preferred by many Internet users, since with written word can
transmit information in a clearer, more intact manner, which people can seek at their
own pace (Rice Lincoln 175,176; Sun et al. 1106). Textual content on social media
can be shared via status updates on Facebook or tweets on Twitter for instance, which
enable users to write a short message and share it with their followers. However, even
though two artists in the considered sample – Laura Jansen and Black Milk– have
shared textual content in the form of status updates on Facebook the most since they
launched their page, it still did not reach the highest ratio in terms of engagement.
There is, for all artists, still a higher engagement for visual content.
6. Make event-posts attention-worthy
All independent artists I interviewed have shared Facebook events. Facebook events
serve as a reminder for followers that artists have a show coming up. By sharing the
event on their page, they hope to reach as many people as possible who will be
reminded of the concert and show up.
For six out of the eight musicians, ‘events’ was the content that followers
engaged with the least. Also, event posts were the kind of content that was shared the
least by five of the eight artists I have interviewed. This suggests two things: The
majority of artists in the sample do not see posts about upcoming events as a priority
or concerts are not a priority for followers. While it is possible for fans not to be
interested in concerts, it is still very unlikely. Real fans want to see their favorite artist
perform, and should be just as excited to see a post about an upcoming show as they
are about a photo. This is, at least, my assumption. So what could cause this lack of
engagement with event posts? By taking a closer look at the Netvizz data of each
artist, one is able to read what kind of message each artist wrote for each post that was
made. This message can be found in the ‘post_message’ column. For the majority of
artists, the message that was shared with the event post was an automatic one
generated by Facebook, namely “Laura Jansen created an event” or “Black Milk
created an event”. Also Newmen, Sascha Reske and Coby Grant often created events
without any additional content in the post. Black Milk would sometimes create an
event and simply add one word, for example “Toronto!” to let his audience know that
46
the event he created will take place in Toronto. When they would add a few words to
there event posts, Sascha Reske and Coby Grant would inform their followers that
“Tonight I will play at […]” or “Spontaneous show this Saturday at […]”,
information that is shared rather at short notice. Tom Klose and Birdy Hunt are the
only artists that regularly posted events and additionally added a message with the
most important details: what, when and where, so followers would not have to click
on the event to access it, but received the most important information with the event
post.
Cvent Inc., the world’s largest online event management company, specializes in
organizational steps to be taken when organizing an event, selecting the right venues
and doing work on social media to promote these events (Cvent Inc.). In their
guidebook “Event Marketing 2.0”, the company stresses the importance of making an
event-post on social media attention-worthy, and state that simply putting up an event,
as many artists in the sample have done, will not do the job of grabbing the attention
of followers: The event-content posted needs to be interesting and contain valuable
information for it to grab the attention of followers (Cvent Inc. 8). The company also
points out that it is important to invite followers to share the event post with other
friends and family to generate more reach and to remind followers of the event by
posting it more than once (Ibid. 26). While some of the artists I interviewed did
indeed try to grab their followers’ attention when they posted an event, none of them
invited people to share the event or sent out reminders. This could be a possible
explanation for the lack of engagement followers had with event related content
posted by the artists.
7. Share links, don’t be overly promotional and launch social
media campaigns
Netvizz also revealed that artists have shared different kind of links on their social
media pages at several occasions. Links is the third most posted content by Tom
Klose, Laura Jansen and Birdy Hunt for instance. Netvizz revealed that these links
mostly included interviews, links to the artist’s SoundCloud page to share a new song,
or links to websites where fans could purchase tickets for upcoming shows. These
47
links are crucial for independent artists to post, since ‘every link and every click is a
connection, and with every connection, a network is born or grows stronger’
(Spellman 98). But as Lueda Alia argued throughout my interview with her, it is
essential for independent artist to not make their social media channels overly
promotional. Too many promotional items can waste people’s time and a lack of
diversity in content posted by independent artists might lead to followers losing
interest in what the artist has to share (Ibid. 103).
A good way to circumvent this problem is to start social media campaigns that
‘potentially result in large and temporary spikes in traffic’ (Zarrella 197). Such a
campaign can also be referred to as a call to action (CTA) (Ibid. 201). CTA’s can be
executed in different ways: Tom Klose for instance used a CTA when he tried to
engage his followers in the planning of his tour. By posting a status update on
Facebook, which simultaneously appeared on his Instagram and Twitter account, he
tried to find out which venues he should look up in different cities for his upcoming
tour (see image 1). Birdy Hunt also make use of CTA’s, by encouraging their
followers to comment or like certain posts to eventually win free tickets to a show
(see image 2). Artists can benefit from engaging their audience these types of action,
while increasing the chances that followers stay interested in the musicians, help
promote what they do and ‘gently move them through the sales cycle’ (Ibid. 202; Rice
Lincoln 61).
8. Never post too much content
There is always a chance followers lose interest in the social media activities executed
by independent artists, especially when they post too much content. Studies conducted
on social media usage have suggested that less is always more, meaning that too many
posts are not only overbearing to followers, but also counterproductive to the person
that is sending them out (Doyle and Briggeman 2). Therefore, not only the
independent artists interviewed for this research, but also scholars of the University of
Longwood pointed out that engaging in social media promotion should not result in
more than two posts a day (University of Longwood 1).
48
9. Post at the right time of the day
The best timing for social media posts was also discussed throughout the interviews.
There is an overall consensus about the right time to post. Artists like Joerg Schmidt,
Coby Grant and Tom Klose said that the best time to post is in the evening, when
people are on their way home from work, for instance. The digital media website
Mashable invested some time into the research of social media postings and analyzed
at what times posts on social media were most efficient and received most
engagement from users. According to the article’s author, the best times to post on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr would be between 1 and 4 p.m. Eastern
Time (ET). Independent artists operating within Europe should therefore post between
6 and 9 p.m. Central European Time (CET), which is exactly what most interviewees
suggested (Murphy Kelly §3, §5).
10. Always remain authentic
Regardless of the kind or the frequency of content, and the time at which it is being
posted, it is important that independent musicians are authentic. Laura Jansen,
amongst other interviewees, stressed the importance of authenticity for any musician.
While the type of content shared by independent musicians surely plays an important
role, it needs to reflect the artist’s art and character traits. Throughout my interview
with her, Laura Jansen pointed out that her posts on social media get more reach the
more authentic they are. Authenticity is a difficult attribute to measure, however,
scholars have also pointed towards the importance of authenticity in social media
usage.
Rice Lincoln argues that the more people engage in social media activities, the
more the need for authenticity grows, and that followers will not pardon eventual
falseness or manipulation by artists (Rice Lincoln 36). To achieve authenticity, it is,
first and foremost, important to have a personal, unique voice that stands out and
makes followers feel like they have known the artist for a long time (Ibid. 53). Some
scholars have argued that authenticity and a unique voice can be achieved by
engaging in a so-called ‘ingratiation strategy’. To engage in such a strategy means
49
that independent artists need to post elements on social media that show modesty,
familiarity and humor can ‘win the affection and approval of others’ (Lee 721). A
good example of that strategy is a photo posted by Birdy Hunt. The band uses a lot of
humor in their posts. One photo shows each band member either fully or partially
naked with the hashtags “#journéedelafemme” and “#tousàpoil”, which can be
translated into “#internationalwomensday” and “#getnakedeverybody” (see image 3).
This picture was not only in third position in terms of highest amount of likes (289
people liked the picture), it was also the picture that got the highest engagement on
the band’s Facebook page overall, indicating that humor is a factor independent artists
should make use of, if it matches their persona and fits in with the kind of art they are
producing. Achieving authenticity and uniqueness on social media will give followers
a reason to engage with independent artists online and help prevent followers from
feeling bored – ‘the one sin for which there is no forgiveness online’ (Hanna 272).
50
Chapter 6
Conclusion
1. General remarks
This thesis looked into the promotional strategies that independent musicians should engage in on different social media platforms to build and maintain both a career and a successful relationship with potential fans and costumers. The aim of the first research question posed in the introduction of this work tried to identify to what extent social media platforms redefine an artist’s
power within the music industry. To answer this question, I decided to first give a
brief overview of the music industry and the evolution of different musical formats.
Giving such an overview was necessary, since the evolution of traditional musical
formats like the vinyl or the CD led to the revolutionizing emergence of MP3 files,
which in turn shook up the entire music industry. With the emergence of MP3, the
traditional music supply chain was completely redefined, and major labels lost control
over the distribution of music around the world. Songs were available for free on the
Internet and both the music industry and artists suffered from great financial losses,
caused by what was known as music piracy – the act downloading copyrighted
material without paying for it. I went on to argue that, while the music industry
suffered financial losses with the emergence of Peer-to-Peer networks that enabled
illegal file sharing, the Internet grew from being a static platform formerly known as
Web 1.0, to becoming an interactive environment where people were increasingly
able to produce and share content – a Web 2.0. This Web 2.0 led to a shift in power,
where major labels increasingly lost control over promotion and distribution of songs.
This became particularly apparent with the emergence of social media platforms,
which enabled users to create personal profiles and share content with other users. For
the first time, the development of social media platforms like MySpace gave
musicians a power they never had before. They could freely produce songs, share
them with an audience and build a direct artist-to-fan relationship. Intermediary
players that used to regulate an artist’s career were not a necessity anymore.
51
Musicians could now freely subscribe to a multitude of social media channels and
promote their art by directly sharing it with an audience. This, however, demands a
proper strategy, which leads me to the second research question presented in my
introduction.
The second research question led to both my qualitative and quantitative
analysis. The answer to that question seeks to present the reader with the different
promotional strategies independent musicians use on social media platforms on the
one hand, and elaborate on the way these musicians take advantage of these platforms
on the other. For this, I conducted nine in-depth interviews: seven with independent
musicians who are all making a living with their music, one major music artist who
worked as an independent musician for many years, before deciding to join a major
label, and one professional social media consultant. The qualitative research revealed
several key points: All artists have for instance argued that social media is of great
benefit for their career; some even argued that without social media, they would have
no career at all. The interviews revealed that social media has several advantages for
independent musicians. Among these advantages is control, since independent artists
that use social media have full control over what content of theirs is published and
shared. The possibility to reach people around the world at practically zero-cost at any
given time of the day was also mentioned as an advantage.
Some interviewees also pointed out that it was crucial to exist online to have a
chance to be discovered by potential fans. To have the chance to be discovered, the
independent artists needs to engage in direct, real life relationships with an audience.
This can be achieved by attempting to get booked for as many live-shows as possible
in order to be exposed to an audience that can eventually look the artist up online at a
later stage. Interviewees also said that while playing shows, it is also important for
independent musicians to start spending time on social media channels to understand
the technology and become a master of it, possibly by observing how other artists use
these platforms to determine potential tricks to engage followers, while building and
maintaining a relationship with them. Should the independent artist start to slowly
gather a following, it will be time to make use of social media extensively. Except for
Tôg, that used three different platforms, all other artists interviewed throughout this
52
research make use of at least five different social media platforms. The interviewees
addressed the fact that using multiple channels increased an artist’s reach. In order to
save time, most artists pointed out that they integrated some platforms into others, to
avoid posting the same content multiple times in a row on different channels. The
only artist that refrains from merging social media platforms is Laura Jansen, who
says that merging platforms results in not using each platform to its optimal
advantage. However, scholars have addressed the importance of integrating some
channels with others, also mentioning as a reason the chance of reaching a larger
audience.
Interviewees also discussed the importance of thinking about what to post
before posting it, instead of just posting any kind of random content. Posting on social
media takes effort and needs to be thought-through. In this day and age, users on
social media quickly scan through content. Therefore, independent musicians should
share content that is not only interesting, but also visible. Visibility can be achieved
via different means, such as through the use of capital letters in postings or hashtags,
something that was recommended by both the interviewees and several social media
scholars. It is also very important that the communication on social media goes two
ways: artist to audience and audience to artist. There needs to be a steady relationship
between artist and fan, which an independent artist can achieve by directly engaging
with a fan, by responding to or like a fan’s comment on Facebook or retweet a fan’s
tweet for example.
While these points were all retrieved through my qualitative research, the
quantitative research revealed interesting data as well. By using the extraction tool
Netvizz, I was able to analyze certain trends on Facebook. The reason why the main
focus was turned towards Facebook was because interviewees have labeled Facebook
as their main window to the outside world. Facebook is, as was established earlier, the
biggest, most prominent social media platform. Artists merged their various channels
in such a way that their main social media traffic took place on Facebook. The only
exception is, again, Laura Jansen, who, even though she did not merge her platforms,
still pointed out that Facebook was her go-to platform where most of the
communication with her fans takes place. The merging of various social media
53
platforms makes Facebook an interesting environment to analyze, since seven of the
nine musicians that were interviewed post content from all their other channels on
their Facebook page. Netvizz revealed that all artists share five types of content on
Facebook: Photos, videos, links, status updates and events. Creating a statistical
representation of the amount of engagement each content received by the followers of
each artist’s page revealed what content was most prominent amongst followers.
Visual content, either photos or videos, received the most engagement overall.
This suggests that independent musicians should always use visual posts to engage
with their fans, since followers on social media are keen on getting a direct glimpse
into the life of their favorite artists, which is also what several scholars have argued.
However, it was also pointed out that the right balance between private and
professional posts has to be found by independent artists that want to successfully
engage with their audience on social media. Only giving an audience an insight into
an artist’s personal life will not suffice, but only making music related posts would
not be enough either. Theorists have also pointed out that textual posts such as a
status update or simple tweet remain crucial to use, because it is, for some users, still
the preferred content. Two artists have even mostly posted textual content on their
social media pages, however, the content still did not receive the highest amount of
engagement from followers, who still engaged with visual content the most.
While all artists posted events on their page, it remained the content that
followers engaged with the least. A possible explanation for that could be the fact that
the majority of the sample did not make these posts attention-worthy enough. Social
media experts suggested that if events were not accurately described and catchy
enough, followers would not engage with them. This has been the case for the
majority of artists interviewed throughout this research.
Links were also among the content shared by the musicians on social media.
These links included links to their other social media platforms, like YouTube and
SoundCloud, but also links to websites where fans could purchase tickets to their next
concerts, amongst others. While some artists had links as the third most posted
content on their page, it still did not reach the highest engagement by users, unlike
54
visual content. However, theoretical evidence suggested that links are important to
increase connectivity between artist and fan, but that an independent artist should
never be too promotional on his or her social media page. Being overly promotional,
as the interviews revealed, could lead to a loss in followers who might become bored
of the content an independent artist posts. A good way to ensure that followers stay
engaged is, as this work has established, to make use of social media campaigns.
Posting too much content can also lead to a loss of followers, it was therefore
established that independent musicians should never post more than twice a day and
respect certain hours during which posts reach the most people, namely between 6
p.m. and 9 p.m., should the artist be located within Europe.
The last point that was established was the importance for independent artists to
always be as authentic as possible on social media. Independent artists need to figure
out a way to find a personal, unique voice. This voice needs to also be closely related
to the kind of music they make in order for the artist to present his followers with an
authentic image of him- or herself.
2. Further research
The sample that was analyzed throughout this work was not large enough to
completely assess the validity of the findings. Therefore, this research needs to be
considered a preliminary research for a larger study that would involve a greater
diversity and a larger amount of artists.
A look should also be taken into the world of major labels, since it is to be assumed
that in the midst of these radical changes, these major labels must have adapted their
techniques to ensure that – should they have an interest in an independent musician –
the majority independent musicians will be willing to sign with them. It would be
interesting to investigate if the social media techniques used by majors are similar to
the ones used by independent artists.
A slightly different, yet interesting study could involve a look into the economical
advantages and disadvantages for independent musicians. While financial factors
were hinted at throughout this work, it remains unclear how exactly a musicians who
55
manage their own career generate revenue that enables them to live off their art. Such
a study would also include a look into the distribution tactics these musicians employ,
since the distribution and sale of an album requires them to found their own company
or sign to an independent label that can take care of these aspects for them.
56
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Appendix
Black Milk 140000 120000 100000 80000 Engagement 60000 40000 20000 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 1: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Black Milk’s
Facebook page between August 2008 and May 2015
Laura Jansen 140000 120000 100000 80000 Engagement 60000 40000 20000 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 2: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Laura Jansen’s
Facebook page between February 2009 and May 2015
62
Newmen 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 Engagement 800 600 400 200 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 3: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Newmen’s
Facebook page between March 2012 and May 2015
Tög 2500 2000 1500 Engagement 1000 500 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 4: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Tôg’s
Facebook page between April 2010 and March 2015
63
Birdy Hunt 35000 30000 25000 20000 Engagement 15000 10000 5000 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 5: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Birdy Hunt’s
Facebook page between February 2010 and May 2015
Tom Klose 7000 6000 5000 4000 Engagement 3000 2000 1000 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 6: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Tom
Klose’s Facebook page between November 2011 and May 2015
64
Sascha Reske 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 Engagement 1500 1000 500 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 7: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Sascha
Reske’s Facebook page between February 2012 and May 2015
Coby Grant 40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 Engagement 15000 10000 5000 0 Event Link Photo Status Video Figure 8: Content-type and total sum of engagement by followers of Coby
Grant’s Facebook page between September 2011 and May 2015
65
1200 1000 800 Videos Photos 600 Status Links 400 Events 200 0 Laura Jansen Black Newmen Milk Tôg Birdy Hunt Tom Klose Sascha Reske Coby Grant Figure 9: Overview of total posts made on each artist’s Facebook page by content
66
Image 1: Social media post by Tom Klose engaging in a call to action
67
Image 2: Social media post by Birdy Hunt engaging in a call to action
(Translation of post: “Belgian friends, […] You can win 2 guest list spots! To win
you simply need to comment on this post and we will draw the winner!”)
68
Image 3: Social media post by Birdy Hunt engaging in an ingratiation strategy by
using humor
(Translation: “Ladies and gentlemen, have a good day
#internationalwomensday
#everybodygetnaked )
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Interview questionnaire
1. Is there a right or wrong when it comes to the promotional strategies of an
independent artist?
2. Could you tell me which social media platforms you use in your order of
preference?
3. How would you describe your posting habits on social media?
4. Do you ever think it could get too much and people might get annoyed and
unfollow you?
5. Why is it important to make use of different platforms as an independent
musician?
6. What advantages do you see in social media?
7. What disadvantages do you see in social media?
8. How important is it to use different social media platforms simultaneously?
9. How do you make sure not to bore your followers?
10. What positive effects did social media have on your career?
11. Is it important to post things of your private life? Or should the focus be on the
music?
12. Is the direct relationship between artist and fan important?
13. How important is it to reach people with social media?
14. What is the best time for an artist to post content on social media?
15. Where should the line be drawn between professional and private posts?
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Interview Protocol 1
Birdy Hunt
•
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo is my order of
preference and the platforms I use for the band. Facebook first because it’s the
biggest one I guess, you can reach many people with it, because everybody is
on Facebook nowadays.
•
It really depends on the medium. Facebook is an amazingly integrative and
interactive platform. Artists should take advantage of that. Our page is
connected to Twitter and Instagram, so we don’t have to post everything three
times. That just costs too much time. Not sure if I really have a habit; if there’s
something I need or want to post, I’ll do it. If I don’t, I don’t.
•
Any cool content, we share. Announcements concerning our shows, pictures,
new videos, things like that. We’re known to be crazy motherfuckers, so we
try to keep it fun at all times. We try to post a lot of pictures to give people an
insight into our life as a band. We really have no rule there.
•
I’m not sure what posts work best, but I think everybody is really into visual
stuff. When Facebook started, it was all about status updates. Same thing with
Twitter – you just spend your time sharing sentences with people. Now you
share videos or pictures and have the choice of adding words to it.
•
I don’t really think it matters when you post. Everybody has a smartphone
nowadays, and everybody looks at his or her social media channels all day
long anyway. Just post when you feel like post something.
•
Hashtags are cool. You can make up your own funny hashtags and leave your
trace within this social media world. It’s definitely something worth using.
•
I mean, it’s a possibility that people unfollow you if you post too many things
they’re not interested in, but then why like a page in the first place? Why
follow us on Twitter or Instagram if you don’t want to see what we have to
share? That wouldn’t make sense. I do think that you need to think well about
what you post. It needs to represent the brand you’re trying to sell. There
needs to be a certain logic in the content you post that is associable with the
artist.
•
It’s important to use different platforms. I have friends that hate Twitter and
are not on Twitter. Imagine we would only use Twitter, then they would have
no chance to follow what we do. Or imagine there’s someone who hates
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and is only interested in the music. Then you
need to have a SoundCloud or YouTube channel. If you want to make it in the
independent business, you need to please every potential fan.
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•
You can be your own boss with social media. You can decide what to post,
when to post it and how to post it. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do, I
have full control over my career and I’m still able to travel the world and gain
new fans everyday. A lot of people with major deals can’t do that.
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Interview protocol 2
Black Milk
•
Facebook to me is the biggest out of all of them. That’s where most of my
interaction happens, that’s where I reach most of my fans and where I can post
most stuff from my other channels, like stuff I post on Instagram, SoundCloud
or YouTube. Instagram and Twitter are pretty big to me, YouTube is cool so
people can see my videos and SoundCloud is a nice little addition if I quickly
want to upload a new project
•
Social media is a gift and a curse. I can make a record and put it out through
social media the same day or week I made it. Music fans are always hungry
for the next big song, especially today, where everything happens so fast
because of all these platforms. Being independent means that I can feed my
fans with music 24/7 if I want to and keep them satisfied. That’s thanks to
stuff like Facebook or Twitter. Why would I let executives hold onto my
music for months when I want people out there to hear it?
•
The curse is that as an independent artist, you need to put all that work in
yourself. Nobody will help you. You need to invest a fucking massive amount
of time in developing a right strategy that represents you and the brand you’re
trying to sell. And especially at the beginning stages, when you feel like your
plans are not going anywhere, things can get frustrating very quickly. I
remember when this social media thing started with MySpace and moved to
Facebook and all of that. I was on that online shit everyday trying to
understand it. You need to take the time and look into all your options, look at
what other artists are doing and see what works and what doesn’t. You have to
understand what you can do with social media, instead of just using it without
a proper plan. This might sound very cliché-like, but if you want to become
successful, you can do it, if you stay persistent. I started in a basement and had
nothing. Now I’m touring the world and selling a good amount of records.
•
No matter what artists say, every artist wants to be heard by as many people as
possible. So reach is obviously very important.
•
I know I could make something that would appeal more to the masses and get
radio play, without compromising what people know me for already. I let the
music guide me though I’ve had majors offer me plenty of situations, but it
never made sense for me to sign. If that moment comes where I feel like doing
it, then it comes, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. That’s not my priority right now. You
need to be happy as a person, not only as an artist.
•
People, not only musicians, are all after likes and followers. This seems to be
the priority today. If you’re a musician, focus on the music. Don’t think that
there is a relation between the quality of your art and the amount of likes you
73
have. There is no relation. Of course artists are scared that there following will
not increase, but this takes patience, even if you are worried that the whole
promotional thing you do on social media will not advance you financially.
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Interview protocol 3
Coby Grant
•
People come to my shows and they tell me that they feel like they’ve known
me forever. That’s mostly because of private things I post on my Facebook
page. People love the private side of an artist. I can see that in the way people
respond to what I post. Often I get more likes for a picture of my nephew than
on a picture of me at show.
•
I am selling Coby Grant. I’m selling the person that I am. You have to
recognize what your brand is and provide content associated with who you
are. People like to be a part of something. I want my fans to feel close to me.
•
I think private posts are more interesting for people. When they feel like they
know you, the music means more to them. Supporting you means more to
them.
•
People want to know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what’s coming
up, what’s new in your life. I’m not sure why it is like that.
•
I use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram mainly. Everything happens through
Facebook. I connected them all together. If I wasn’t a musician I wouldn’t use
any of them.
•
I want to use different platforms just because you’re more accessible to a
variety of people.
•
I try to post a couple of times a day. It’s hard to think of things to write. So I
just put anything up there. Building an IKEA shelf, buying my first bike in
Amsterdam. I try to put something personal, private, and then something
music-related, a song, or a video of me recording something.
•
It’s weird what gets the most response. People like pictures more when my
face is in them for some reason.
•
It is very important to keep giving content. I should definitely do more videos,
put out more stuff, but it takes time and you need to manage your time very
well as an artist. Doing an hour a day on social media is definitely worthwhile.
•
A good time to post is when people are on their way home from work, evening
time is the best, people are scrolling through their pages at that time.
•
I played my first show in a café in Australia, after giving the owner some of
my songs. He asked me to play one night, and after that I had enough
confidence to go a step further and work on building a fan-base. I started
sending emails with a link to my MySpace profile to different venues in
75
Australia – small theaters, clubs, pubs – and got my first bookings. That’s
what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve booked about 200 shows by myself in
2011, the year I went on my first European tour. Suddenly it became this
reality where I thought „I could do this without a label“. But in order to do
that, you need to spend countless hours in front of a computer screen, research
and contact booking agents and venues. It’s hard work, but you don’t need any
label to help you with that stuff. The artist has the power nowadays.
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Interview protocol 4
Lueda Alia
•
I guide around 20 independent artists in terms of social media promotion. I’ve
been a part of the music industry business for 10 years now. I try to do my
best to push an indie’s career to the fullest. I understand the digital space,
because I grew up on it.
•
There is no right way to promote yourself, there are lots of ways. It depends
on the preferences of an artist, on what kind of content he wants to share with
the world, what he things is most effective. People love visuals. Visuals give
people an insight into their favorite artist’s life. It’s a sneak peak into what
they’re up to and that’s very important, especially for younger people. It
makes fans relate their lives to the lives of their favorite artist.
•
The fact that independent artists don’t really need to rely on middlemen with
large funds anymore is a big advantage. All they need is to do is subscribe to a
social media platform, create a page and start throwing content on there. It
only takes a few clicks to spread content then and to subscribe to a platform
that let’s you share content is usually free. Of course, you need to make sure
you have a following to share your content with first.
•
You need to make sure that you’re using as many different platforms at the
same time as possible. Someone might use Twitter, but not Facebook; and
someone might use SoundCloud, but not YouTube. You need to make sure
you reach people through every possible platform. Diversity in social media
channels is one of the many keys to a successful career as an independent
artist.
•
They shouldn’t use it as a platform to broadcast their message only. They
should broadcast their message, but also connect with their fans. Recently, I
told one of my clients, a singer from Toronto, to go on Facebook and post a
playlist of his favorite songs of 2015. You need to engage your followers in
discussions, make sure they feel like they have to react to what you post. It
shows that the artist cares about his or her fans, because he values the opinion
of the people. When George W. Bush became President, I remember seeing
people on TV getting interviewed on the street who explained why they voted
for him. Many people, surprisingly, said that he was “the kind of person they
thought they could be friends with, have a beer with him”, that’s why many
supported him. I look at music the same way: you could make great music,
people might love your music, but your just one more artist on people’s list. If
you manage to build a personal connection, you become more than just an
artist they love, you become someone they feel they are friends with, which is
way more powerful than anything else and will boost a fan’s support for an
artist.
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•
Essentially, as an artist, you do three things in one when you post a picture on
social media: You posted a picture that might appeal to people and make them
like your page, you managed to construct a connection with people by
showing that there is more than just the artist and the music that comes out of
the speakers, something more intimate, and this voyeurism is important,
because people love to peek into behind the scenes nowadays.
•
The bare minimum is once a week. You need a presence, people in the day
and age of the Internet forget quickly. You don’t always have stuff to promote,
so you need to fill the time when you are maybe not recording an album, or
you’re not on tour. So what do you do? You need to come up with smart ways
to engage your fans. Promise your followers to release a new song if a picture
of yours reached a certain amount of ‘likes’, or promise the first follower to
comment on something to send him free tickets to your next concert. If you
don’t do things like that your social media platform dies.
•
As long as you’re not being overly promotional, people will always be
receptive.
•
There should always be direct connections between fan and artist. Why
wouldn’t an artist talk to their fans? These are the people sustaining you
career; they’re making your money. I’d suggest not putting too much personal
stuff on their pages.
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Interview protocol 5
Newmen
•
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Vimeo would be my order
of preference
•
Since we use our Facebook page as an official means of communication to the
outside, we have a rule that 80% of the things we post on there need to be
informative, they need to look clean and sharp and clear.
•
Tumblr is another platform we use. That one is more our blog to show people
stuff that we like as a band: concerts, videos of other artists, a lot of random
things. It’s important to have an extra channel, where fans can discover things
that the band likes. And Facebook is to reach more people. Also, we don’t
want to trash people by constantly posting things on Facebook. We try to
leave them room to breathe. That’s important.
•
We don’t use Twitter too much. We sometimes use it because it’s there. Most
of the things we post on Facebook are automatically posted on Twitter
anyway, so no need to take care of our Twitter page that much. But we’re not
big tweeters. I just don’t think than an art form like music can or should be
presented in 140 characters. That’s just not possible.
•
For each post we try to have some form of visual – a picture or a video. That
just attracts people’s attention quickly And since the content of Facebook
pages is accessible even to people that have not ‘liked’ us, visuals can maybe
attract them and make them like our page. Who knows? Our posts are usually
very serious; we don’t post memes, or funny things that are circulating around
the net. But that depends on what kind of artist you are, you should try to see
for yourself how ‘fun’ you want your profile to be. Jokes don’t work well for
us, we take art seriously, but fun stuff might work well for other artists.
•
You have to show your fans that there are human beings behind the social
media page that also do other things than making music – normal things that
your fans can relate to. We are not just artists we are humans. You need to
learn how to perpetrate a feeling of life with pictures. But don’t get me wrong:
don’t post too much unrelated stuff and don’t use too many different
platforms.
•
You will easily overwhelm, bore or even trash you followers with stuff they
don’t want to see all day. We don’t want to overwhelm our followers. If you
don’t have anything to say, don’t just force something on them. That also
helps to make sure that people are maybe a bit more attentive when they see
something that is actually very important from the artist. Anything else
wouldn’t be good for business.
79
•
I hope that people who see these pictures get an idea of where we see
ourselves as artists. For example, I would hope that certain pictures show that
we’re not a metal band. It’s nice to give them a quick idea of what the band
represents and how the band might sound. Maybe then they will be intrigued
to listen to our music, because our pictures communicate a certain way of life
they can identify with and that the music goes well with it as a soundtrack.
•
Pictures also reach the most people. That’s why we try to be as visual as
possible. One picture and a small caption is always the most effective thing to
post. That is something that artists need to take advantage of. We try to do that
too. Be short and concise.
•
It’s important to use different channels, because you can satisfy the need of
more and a greater variety of people. We love to use Tumblr as an extra to
represent the band and its interests, but we also know that without a Facebook
page, we wouldn’t reach anybody. And in the end, it’s all about reach. And the
nice thing is that there is a great diversity of social media platforms, which are
all differently built-up. You can satisfy more people that might have different
tastes. Everybody can find his or her preferred platform to follow what we do.
It’s important that nobody feels left out.
•
We use YouTube a lot, but we would actually really prefer to use Vimeo as a
main channel for our music videos. There is no advertisement on Vimeo, the
design is a lot better, cleaner and the videos just look a lot nicer overall. But in
the end we will mostly put in on YouTube, because it just reaches more
people. That’s a known fact. You can see suggestions for other videos, which
means more clicks for the artist.
•
We try to post at night, around 6. If we post during the day, we have to be
strategic about it too: if it’s sunny and warm outside, you should not sit down
with your laptop and post something, because the chances that people are
enjoying the weather instead of sitting behind a screen are pretty high.
•
Also, when you post something, it’s good to do it almost instantly on your
other channels. There needs to be a certain logic and flow on all your
channels. Don’t post a new song on Facebook and forget to post it on Tumblr
too. You need to cover all of your grounds.
•
You need to exist digitally to exist as a musician. If people don’t know how to
find you, you don’t exist for them.
80
Interview protocol 6
Laura Jansen
•
I was an independent for 10 years and wouldn’t have had a career without
social media. I would even say that I got my deal because of social media.
•
I spend 6 hours a day online to work on my social media presence
•
In 2003 I moved to Nashville and started to put music out online. MySpace
was big then. I put up 2 songs on myspace in 2005. First strangers and
reactions. My songs started spreading on other people’s profiles
•
Social media can boost your confidence too. It is a great way of checking
whether or not your art resonates with people. You need to use social media to
put up music and wait for people’s reactions. That’s what got me my first little
show and gave me the courage to go on stage: the fact that I got a couple of
hundred views on my songs and saw how people would spread it on their
account.
•
You have to spend a lot of time on social media. Not necessarily to post
things, but to understand the technology. I spent months and months analyzing
all these platforms, trying to understand what people respond to, get a feeling
of what they would like to see on their feed, what content works best. Before
preaching on social media, artists need to preach.
•
As soon as new platforms entered the entire, I was the first one to sign up tot
hem. That was all I had. I didn’t have an album at the time , I didn’t have
tours, I had potential fans in this weird, invisible world called social media.
•
Of course you need do some serious work away from the computer too. I was
asked to be a pianist for other people’s bands, started going on my first tours
with them, and then I realized that I would meet fans in different cities and
that they could connect with me on social media, since my name was being
advertised with headlining bands.
•
I don’t want anybody else doing my social media. I want to have a direct
relationship with the people consuming my music. I know the names and the
faces of most of them. It would be really weird for me to have someone else
express my words for me.
•
It’s ridiculous to me how the picture of my shoes gets more likes than the
release date of my new album.
•
When Facebook started to have real Fan-pages that people could ‘like’,
instead of only giving people the chance to have a profile where people had to
add you, I wanted to put all my focus into that.
81
•
I don’t merge platforms. It’s kind of lazy and when you do that you don’t use
the platform to its optimum advantage. If you use the platforms within their
own culture, you get more out of it. As an artist, especially in the beginning
stages of your career, you need to get a profound understanding of what each
platform can do for you, and not what the sum of all can do.
•
I use Facebook and Twitter very differently. I put out more random, weird
thoughts on Twitter just for fun. Facebook is for conversation and more in
depth.
•
Twitter is really boring when you just post things about when your album is
coming out, where your next show is going to be. These posts will not get any
re-tweets. I use Twitter to showcase weird thoughts and strange observation.
Funny things.
•
The more authentic I am the more success me post seem to be. Just be
yourself.
•
Facebook post for me seem to be longer version of tweets. I find that Twitter
is kind of dying. I get a great response when I post something on Facebook.
•
I can geo-target my posts, so only post something for the fans in Mexico for
example. If you can do it, do it! Personalized, more intimate relations with
your fans are extremely important.
•
You have to be interesting. A good song will always find its way to the
surface, but this can take a really fucking long time.
•
Interaction with fans is very important. You’re not ging to be successful with a
one-way communication.
•
I love it when artists put videos or picture of them at home or their home
studio writing or making music. That always has a powerful effect on your
followers. Pictures of an incredible tour or photos of my travelling work really
well.
•
As a musician, know that a good song has a very short shelve life. You need to
want a career, not a hit. And it seems to be the only constant I have in my
career is when I engage directly with my fans, and there’s nothing in between
but the computer. The minute you would allow for that separation to happen
and become an artist waiting for the radio to play your song on the radio or
your video on TV, your career will end.
•
I can ask people to buy my record directly in China if I wanted, I don’t need a
record label to do that. My success comes from the fans, and they find me
online and not in any other ways.
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Interview protocol 7
Sascha Reske
•
I use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube Twitter, SoundCloud, and Vimeo. That’s
also the order in which I would rank them in my opinion.
•
I don’t think that only using the social media platforms that are famous today
necessarily creates reach. I still use email newsletters, which I think are
extremely efficient when it comes to reaching people. The idea came to me
before my very first show in front of around 30 to 40 people. I printed a page
with a table where people could fill in their names and email addresses.
Emails have a stronger impact than a quick post you make on social media
platforms like Facebook or Twitter. You’re more conscious about an email
than something that quickly appears between thousands of other posts on your
news feed. I get mails from my favorite artists when they go on tour for
example. You just subscribe to the newsletter once and you can be sure not to
miss important information. With other forms of social media, either you’re
lucky to just have a relevant info pop up on your screen, or you need to
browse through the artist’s page to find out about a release or a tour.
•
Yeah, I have 800 people on my mailing list, which is pretty good considering
that I have around 1.600 likes on Facebook. I sold more CD’S than I have
friends on Facebook too, so social media is not the only thing that helps me
make a career as an independent musician.
•
I love to write blogs on my homepage, and I always share these entries on my
social media channels.
•
I post a lot of show-related stuff. Of course there are phases where I post
more, and phases where I post less, but I try to post a variety of things. I just
think that it is not very efficient.
•
I have SoundCloud, but it’s a very passive medium. I only have five tracks on
there. But apart from that it’s just to have people randomly stumble upon it. I
like SoundCloud and I included a link on my website. It’s cool so people can
see it quickly access a little taste of my music. SoundCloud is more for
electronic music, it’s not really made for artists like me. It’s still a nice little,
simple streaming option for fans. It’s clean and easy. But it doesn’t really
work as a major medium to get your music out there. You need to send people
onto your SoundCloud from another medium your using.
•
I have videos on YouTube, but SoundCloud is easier to listen to music. Of
course some artists put songs on their YouTube without having shot a real
video for it. In that case a user would see a static image while the song is
playing, but that’s pointless. If you use YouTube, you need to make sure
people see you made an actual effort to put visuals with your music. You have
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to do videos. Videos generate the most reach, but it’s not for me. I’m more
about personal interaction. I still sell my CD’s after my concerts.
•
When you begin your career as an indie, you have to produce music and make
videos for your songs. It doesn’t matter if it’s a low production, just get a
camera and some friends and shoot something you think is cool and represent
your song well. People need to see that you put made an effort creating visuals
for your music. Then put the video on YouTube and share the video through
as many social media channels as possible.
•
I like seeing behind the scenes stuff, pictures or videos out of the studio, but it
needs to be relevant. You can’t just post anything. This will bore you
followers to death.
•
I’ve had experiences where I posted something about an upcoming show on
Facebook and Twitter and afterwards people came up to me and said “I had no
idea you did a show. Didn’t even see your post about that”. That annoyed me.
There is just some much content on these platforms that people don’t pay
attention anymore, they’re likely to overlook things. This can’t happen if you
receive a newsletter, I can guarantee that.
•
I like to use filters. If I do post pictures, I want them to look perfect. Instagram
partially does that for you.
•
Private things have nothing to do with my music, so I don’t really like posting
private stuff.
•
I would never let somebody else do my social media activity, even if, one day,
I’ll get extremely famous all over the world and it might become a bit too
much to take care of millions of followers. Promotion through social media is
something only the artist should do, in the end, you are selling something you
created, so you’ll be the only one that knows how you want to spread it
properly.
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Interview protocol 8
Tôg
•
I think I used to use Facebook the most, then definitely Twitter and sometimes
SoundCloud. That’s it. The label we were signed to took care of our YouTube
channel
•
You can reach people all day long, from wherever you want, how often you
want. You can share anything with them.
•
You need to play many, many shows to get this word-of-mouth thing started.
Don’t start thinking about Facebook and all that stuff. How are people going
to find you on the Internet, if they don’t even know the name of your band? At
our first small shows, we always put a banner with the name of our band
behind us. We always made sure people knew who was playing in front of
them. And eventually, we saw that the more shows we’d play, the more our
following would increase online.
•
I was just very lazy, you know? I didn’t want to invest time to do it, I wanted
to focus on my music, but at the same time I would not let anybody else take
care of my band’s social media channels. I wonder if that’s why people really
stopped paying attention to what we were doing as a band. Maybe I should’ve
posted more. I don’t know.
•
The world is yours with social media, theoretically. I could post something in
Norway and within 10 seconds someone might see it in China. That’s great.
But it’s important to not hang on that. You need to move on and be persistent,
not stay focused on small, short successes. And obviously, to have somebody
read what you post in China, requires you to build a strong fan-base.
•
I never knew what to post. I personally hated doing social media, even if I
admit that it is still a great tool. There was a time I was really motivated, I
posted something every day to build a following. But then I just stopped.
•
A friend of mine told me you should just do one post a day, because people
would get tired of you.
•
Personal stuff would get most attention I feel, but I never knew what to post. I
just posted a lot of links to articles about the band or upcoming shows. But
people never really reacted to it the way we wanted to.
•
Pictures are something they can relate to. They like that.
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Interview protocol 9
Tom Klose
•
I use Facebook the most, then YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Twitter and
Vimeo.
•
Of course it’s positive! We, as independent artists, have now full control over
our works and creative output, which is thanks to things like social media.
•
To me, the most important aspect is reach. I need to reach as many people as
possible. And today, you reach people through social media. Money is not the
main concern anymore, it’s connecting with as many people around the world
as possible. It is only after reaching as many people as possible that you think
about how you can profit from it financially.
•
The advantage is not financial. It’s reach. My career wouldn’t have been the
same without platforms like Facebook. It’s my window to the outside, an
important promotional tool.
•
It’s still very important that the music is great, because people wouldn’t
support you otherwise, obviously. The people should buy the music because
they appreciate you as an artist and think it’s good, not because a major label
decides to put a song on the radio and play it all day until people get sick of it.
•
When the artist uses all these platforms, he invests a lot of time and nerves
into them. But he risks to not make any money off his music. Money is not the
priority, but you do want to live off your music in the end. I try to make sure
that the people that follow me on social media come to my shows and buy my
music. But there is no guarantee that will always happen.
•
I try to post one thing a day – never two. You cannot give your followers too
much content a day, because I feel like they might lose interest very quickly if
they see too much content coming from you.
•
SoundCloud is useful for the internal communication between me and people I
work with – press, they get a private, secret link to listen to new music.
•
Twitter to me is really unimportant, but maybe I’m just underestimating
Twitter’s power.
•
People pay for my shows, they pay for my music, the least I can do is give
them the opportunity to communicate with me directly, and not through some
intermediate. When a fan sends me a message, I always respond.
•
Facebook is doing my Twitter work. There is an option where every post you
make on Facebook is being tweeted on your Twitter page. I would really
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recommend that option to any independent artist, because you don’t have to
take care of an extra page.
•
I try not to post private elements, or funny things. I make sure that I stay short
and concise with my post, so that people don’t have to read too much.
•
I can’t just post something on Facebook spontaneously. I think artists need to
properly sit down and think about what they’re going to post, eventually read
the post a couple of time before putting it out there.
•
Visuals are very important, as in videos, short clips of me working in the
studio, short clips of an acoustic session. I like to post them with a caption in
capital letters as well. Writing in capital letters is important in general,
because people will be able to filter out the most important information of
your post.
•
I just started using hashtags. I’m not a big hashtag guy, I think they are funny,
and when I use them, I don’t really use them seriously. Hashtags are very
useful when you want to emphasize something. People will recognize a
hashtag directly, due to its blue color. I feel like it makes fans pay more
attention to what I’m posting.
•
I try to post a lot of visual things, like short clips. What’s interesting is that
Facebook statistics revealed to me that videos reach the most people. When I
post a video now with my 6.388 likes, it will reach 2.500-3.000 people.
Especially the short videos reach a lot of people, because the videos play
automatically on your news feed on Facebook. This doesn’t happen with
YouTube videos, because you have to click on the link manually.
•
Pictures are very important too. People just like visual things. When I post
links to a separate webpage, people usually don’t click on them. It’s very
difficult to get people to click on links. I feel like everything needs to be there
for them on the spot so they don’t have to make an extra effort to access your
content.
•
An artist needs to post as many visuals as possible. This is what gets to people
I feel. People need to see you in action, they want that, they want to be close
to you.
•
You should not post if you have nothing to post. I do not want to bother my
fans, so I don’t it more than once a day. There are specific hours: for me,
around 8 pm is the best time to post, according to my statistics, because most
people are online then.
•
You have to keep everything very personal. Everything I post is music related.
I would not post selfies of myself.
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