The Most Important Quality Of Twitter #Music
Tyler Hayes (@thealbumproject) is a freelance writer who blogs at Liisten.com.
The narrative around Twitter's new #music app became a little too narrow recently with talks of how the app is performing in the App Store, rather than stepping back and looking at a bigger picture. The focus of any music discovery app should be just that, how many people are discovering new music. From the biggest stars getting involved and discussing the charts to indie artists seeing more and more followers, it would appear that Twitter's blatant music push is paying off for at least some.
As good as it is to see mainstream artists like Janelle Monae get excited over reaching the number one spot on Twitter's #music chart, the bigger successes are cases where artists like Frances Cone more than double their following on Twitter, even if that means only going from 200/300 to over 700. Smaller artists have the most to gain from Twitter users going to the new discovery app verses opening Pandora which doesn't have the direct and immediate feedback that overlaying a music service on top of a social service has.
@francesconeband @twitter I love Twitter #music! I found you using it and a ton of others. Goodbye corporate radio distribution models!
— Scott Davidson (@scottpdavidson) April 18, 2013
In addition to artists paying attention to the new Twitter charts, fans are definitely excited to have a way to see growth from artists they follow.
@kirkmtc the @thenbhd number 22 on twitter music app most popular bro. twitter.com/dkayss/status/…
— Dan Kay (@dkayss) April 26, 2013
If followers have a direct and easy way to see artists moving up when a new album comes out or when their song appears in a TV show, they're more likely to feel connected and apart of the success. Everyone actively following bands — Which is 50% of all active Twitter users — wants them to succeed and for that success to produce more music they care about.
It doesn't matter that the app isn't in the top spot every week, what does and will matter long term is that followers are sharing music recommendations and that artists, big and small, are feeling that impact.
“Guess who made her way into the Twitter Top 10 Music list?.… @KatDahlia at #8 🙂 pic.twitter.com/KwJkiU62mo” (Link)
“Thank you Twitter #music for introducing me to @ajimalmusic Totally just increased my happy quotient 10 fold!” (Link)
Is anyone **really** discovering anyone new because of this app??
I don’t think that Twitter Music app is going to lead where people still prefer iTunes. New charts are also there on iTunes so why switch to Twitter one?