Social Media and Change in Music Consumption Habit
Anumita Sengupta, Ph.D. Scholar, Instrumental Music Department, Rabindra Bharati University
The internet continues to revolutionize just about everything we do—including within the music industry.
Social media platforms are the new way for artists to develop and connect with their fanbases. Over the years, we have seen artists utilize platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok Youtube, and Facebook to generate movement in their careers. Social media continues to give musicians the opportunities they previously could only have through record companies.
The Industry Has Changed
Musicians need to understand that the music industry has changed.
In the past, musicians would need to do things like record demos and distribute them to fans. They needed to bargain for the time in the studio. If there were live shows at local venues—acts would need to find any opportunity to play.
All of these efforts were in the hopes that enough fans or an A&R representative from a label would help them get more involved in the industry. The rise of the internet and social media platforms has revolutionized how bands establish themselves.
Many of the same tactics like playing live, recording and distributing music, and seeking label attention remain the same; however, we’ve found that social media evens the playing field and empowers artists.[1]
Using Social Media
The various social media platforms give artists the ability to reach a wider audience than ever before. Since so many people use these platforms, bands, solo artists, and musicians can reach these potential fans if they use social media to their advantage.
There are many ways these platforms play a critical role in the industry.
Create Content
Content remains king, even in 2021.
Artists can create and then distribute content across Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, or Youtube to attract new viewers and listeners. Musicians can create content from music videos, lyric videos, pictures, or skits to demonstrate their genre and personality.
Creating content and distributing it is one of the most significant ways that social media remains a crucial place to be in the music industry. Not only does this content lead to more interest, but it is also the foundation of finding and keeping long-term fans.
It’s important to understand that each platform demands different kinds of content. For example, viewers tend to enjoy longer videos on Youtube and Facebook, but they enjoy shorter videos on Instagram and Tiktok. It depends on the platform, and it also depends on the market. Part of using social media understands what kind of content viewers gravitate to on each platform.
Build an Audience
Building a community of committed listeners and fans is one of the most important parts of establishing a musical act. The audience indicates a consistent demand for new albums, live shows, merchandise, and marketability for a musical act.
Social media allows artists to find their audience among each platform’s user base. An audience comes from listeners and viewers who the musician attracts through their content.
Audiences on each social media platform are forms of communities. Facebook followers, Instagram followers, and Youtube subscribers are examples of an artist’s dedicated communities. This attention from loyal fans gives artists a community that will sustain them and allows them to create music for the long term.
An artist doesn’t need billions of followers to have a sustainable career. They just need to find dedicated fans who love their music. These fans will buy merchandise, enjoy new music, and follow the musician throughout their career.
Connect With Fans
Social media connects fans to artists. Fans can comment, like, and share content and may even have the opportunity to speak with their favorite artists through social media platforms.
As one of the most powerful assets of using social media, artists can develop a stronger relationship with their fanbases. Platforms give artists an outlet to express their thoughts and feelings or post everyday events. These are pieces of content fans love to see. They can get a more personal look into their favorite artists’ lives and identify with them more personally.
Fans are more likely to be active members of an artist’s community when they feel the artist is serving them with content and access. Musicians can share their appreciation and dedication to fans to keep them coming back to their thriving communities.
Final Thoughts
While the world of social media might seem like a daunting area—artists should see it as an opportunity that empowers them. These platforms are avenues that lead directly to new fans who would love to hear new music from new artists. When utilized correctly, social media empowers artists to do what they could not do before the internet.
Music consumption habits have changed
How we consume music has completely shifted. Where once (in the early noughties) there was peer-to-peer sharing of music files from sites like LimeWire and high demand for MP3 players, we now have paid subscriptions to online streaming platforms on our mobile devices giving us millions of songs at our fingertips. Physical media sales have decreased rapidly – there were 132 million CDs sold in the UK in 2008, and by 2018 this figure had fallen to 32 million.[2]
This paradigm shift hasn’t happened overnight but has certainly accelerated in the last few years. Take Spotify for example, in 2016 its number of paid subscribers globally was 30 million but by 2019 it had more than tripled that figure to 100 million. Apple Music has a similar story, launching in 2015 and now boasting 60 million paid users globally
Spotify, Apple Music, and their rapid growth indicate a shift in consumer expectation for music whenever and wherever.
Platforms like YouTube Music, Soundcloud, Pandora, and Tidal are also heavily used and you could argue that streaming platforms have become so ubiquitous they can now be
broken down by use-case – e.g. extensive catalogue, independent artist discovery, passive listening, or better audio quality.
One thing these platforms all have in common is their algorithmic foundations, using machine learning to work out the music preferences and listening habits of their users. This, combined with the platforms’ optimizing and prioritizing UX, we’ve entered the new world of music discovery.
The major streaming platforms have done a great job of giving their users the music they want in the form of personalized, curated, and branded playlists.
A study by LOOP in the US found that playlists account for 31% of listening time across all demographics, compared to albums which account for 22%. Interestingly, The Guardian not only reported on the shift in consumer listening habits but also commented on how the streaming platforms can propel lesser-known songs or artists to mass consciousness through their personalized and branded playlists.
Weekly playlists like Rap Caviar on Spotify now have over 11.7 million followers and over 340k followers on Instagram – so popular that Apple launched its playlist (Rap Life) in 2019 to compete with its rival and meet fan demand for prepopulated curated playlists.[3]
Albums and singles have changed significantly…especially for independent artists
Independent artists are now putting their fate in their own hands, by bypassing labels, uploading their projects to online streaming platforms, and speaking to their fans directly through their social media. A report by Wintel showed streaming revenues from the indie sector alone saw an uplift of over 46% and increased its overall music market share to 39.9% in 2017.[4]
A study conducted by Music Watch shows that 90% of social media users take part in some form of music- or artist-related activity on social platforms.
Two-thirds of social media users agree that they discover new artists on social media, and nearly 60%are visit online streaming services/platforms to listen to music after they see an update, tweet, or post.
Interestingly, people are using different social platforms for different music-related activities and content.
For instance, over half of those surveyed use Twitter to follow or get updates from music artists and bands, and 63%of Snapchat users are either sending or looking at photos and videos from live music events.
These stats help show the growing trend of sharing music-related content on social media both from artists and fans alike.
[1] https://www.urdesignmag.com/technology/2022/05/11/how-the-music-industry-has-changed-over-the-last-decade/#:~:text=The%20music%20industry%20has%20changed%20dramatically%20over%20the%20last%20decade,success%20in%20this%20new%20landscape.
[2] https://arpitsrivastava.com/music-consumption-habit-in-india/
[3] Apple Music takes on Spotify’s influential RapCaviar brand with Rap Life playlist and weekly show – Music Business Worldwide