Once upon a time there were artists and bands who record a song and made a lot of effort to publish songs and get attention for it. The artists, bands and record label would make money through the sales of the CD’s. Nowadays everything is different, it is not that hard anymore to sell your song and get noticed by the mass. Social Media is the keyword for this huge change in the music industry. What are the advantages sand disadvantages of Social Media for the music Industry.
First of all Social Media has a wider range for the artists and bands than they had before. A new song or any updates can be seen by thousands and sometimes millions of people around the whole world. This means more publicity for the artists and bands. Artists can also answer to more messages of their fans, which is easier and quicker through social media. Thereby you could get more feedback and opinions of a lot of people for your new tracks or any new suggestions for a new track.
With the introduction of social media there were also the introductions of other website which used metrics to measure the influence of fans on artists and bands. With certain apps you could even measure how and where people blogged about you or your track. Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram became more popular to artists to share their thoughts and new updates. Through metric Apps you could measure for example in which region people retweeted your tweet the most.
Another advantage was given to new artists. Instead of going to record labels or trying to get a contract, you could just record a song by yourself and upload it to the web. If the song is good, it will be shared and liked through Youtube and Facebook, which gives you more publicity than than back in the days.
Besides the advantages the improvements in the music industry had also disadvantages. People could share a lot more illegal digital downloads through social media platforms, which is disadvantageous compared to legal downloads for example through iTunes. Besides the illegal downloads, there was also the end of the old school music televisions such as MTV. The online media and sharing through social media platform took over the music television.
Looking at the reality we can find a living example of a star made by Youtube. Justin Bieber is the kid who used Youtube to eventually turn in to a worldwide star. Personally I don’t think he is a star, but a disappointment tot the music industry, but opinions can differ at this point. But what does the new era of music teach us. More and more it is not only about the song of the artist but about the artist himself. Back in the days the song needed to be the best to get a chance at the record label. Nowadays people are happy with a regular good song if it is produced by a great artists, so there is a shift going on from the songs to the artists himself. This is a big disadvantage for the music industry, where the focus need to be on the music itself instead of the artist.
One af the last improvements is the streaming of music through platforms as Soundcloud and Mixcloud. Most of the times original tracks are modified and mixed in mixtapes. The designed music tracks brings new experience to the listener. Looking at the latest improvement in the music industry, what do you think the future will look like? Will the music industry become less popular and how do you think the artists can battle the fight against the illegal downloads.
For those who would love to see the video which demolished the music industry:
(Alan, T., 2014, How social media and the internet have changed the music industry, http://www.business2community.com/entertainment/social-media-internet-changed-music-industry-01070744, November 19th of 2014)
(Huynh, T., Jeffrey, M., Mead, G., Syed, J., How social media helps the music industry, http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/socialnets/posters/GregoryMead.pdf)
(Franklin, K., 2013, Social media is revolutionising the music industry, https://www.brandwatch.com/2013/08/social-media-the-music-industry/, April 29th of 2013)
