Artists & Social Networking: Is It About ME or WE?
Much has been written about the need for musicians to be "authentic" when social networking. But little attention has been given to the Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr highway as a two way street. "When we lose sight of the 'we,' we lose site of the purpose we came together in the first place," writes Pam Moore in an essay on social network group dynamics. "Part of being 'we' is respecting the 'me'."
"It’s respecting we all have busy schedules. We have happy days, down days." Moore writes on SocialMediaToday. "We have days we may be tweeting or talking too much. We have days we may not be around the social circle enough."
Moore is mostly writing about teams and social media, and isn't energizing an artist's "team" exactly the hoped for result?
But as with most things, focusing on the result should not stop one from enjoying the journey. "If you worry only about the number of retweets, number of web hits, subscribers to your opt-in, then you are missing the greatest benefit." concludes Moore. "You’ll miss the most the organic and most important aspect of social media which is social relationships."
Amen to that! It’s the relationships that matter and even more exciting when you get to meet face to face!
I still think that social networking has to prove its business worth to be taken seriously. What if I don’t particularly care for “social relationships”? Their intrinsic worth comes from the people you interact with being even remotely interesting to you, which is by no means a given.
“I still think that social networking has to prove its business worth to be taken seriously.”
Don’t take it too seriously! Interactions not transactions are the rule of thumb. Social networking was never meant to be monetized. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t lead to financial opportunities via one of your online contacts.
“Their intrinsic worth comes from the people you interact with being even remotely interesting to you.”
You absolutely get it! A network of 10 people who give a damn about you beats the hell out of 1000 who don’t. And may eventually grow into that 1000 true fans, then you’re in business! 🙂
I disagree with the statement, “But little attention has been given to the Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr highway as a two way street.”
This is quite often touched upon, just largely ignored. Musicians, in general, have one focus – shoving their music down your throat any way they can. It’s only natural that their communications are “my band this, my band that, my band, blah, blah, blah…”
The material is out there, regarding 2 way conversations on social networks. Artists are just too busy driving one way to read it!
the downfall is that its just as easy to push people away as to draw them in. As an Artist you have your down times and egotistical times, so social networking is probably best accomplished by someone else or viewing yourself as a second party when posting
It’s hard to be everywhere at once on top of writing songs and/or working a day job. I always tell artists to look at their social marketing from the POV of a fan…What would you want from your favorite artist? Would you continue to follow a band that only posted their upcoming shows? Would you jump through hoops to download the latest single? The answers to those types of questions should be a good gauge of how one should be handling their efforts; social media or otherwise…
That’s excellent advice, Erik. If it’s not something a fan would be interested in, it’s usually not worth posting.
Your post reminded me of a 60 second video by CD Baby’s Derek Sivers. It’s about when to say “yes” to things. It’s a method that helps artists cut away the clutter. http://youtu.be/1ehWlVeMrqw
Thanks Wes. I’ve never seen that video before, but that’s more-or-less what I’m saying. If you say “Hell Yeah!” to your marketing efforts, more than likely your fans will too. If you don’t care, fans probably will not either.
Strangely, people can sense passion (or lack thereof) in your words & actions as an artist.
If you don’t connect with your fans nowadays, you can forget it. They are more wiser and demanding, wanting to know more about you and some of your personal life, so we as artist better get used to if we want to make it in the new Digital music Industry.
I personally have it in my weekly schedule to connect with everyone on my fanpage, through Facebook or Twitter.
Who am I? The Silver Conductor @ http://www.thesilverconductor.com Youtube, itunes, Facebook, Twitter, Hubpages.com. just to name a few, check me out 😉
Remember: “Always know who loves you”
The Silver conductor
But @Erik – do you think the musician can really become some a networker?
Of course you care about your fans, but the daily maintenance of this caring relationship is time consuming – why don’t you write your music at these times?…
I think what do happens, is that the musician does takeover a certain social channel of communication (at the most). But does he then neglect other important ones? Should tweeting be your only tool or should you have more? And which should you maintain?