Music and Social Media

Let me be the first to say that, upon its release, I thought Twitter was the dumbest idea. 

Why would you only want 140 characters to express your thoughts? 

I guess I figured it out at some point, and used my Twitter primarily to keep up with what my favorite bands were doing.

I tweeted about my radio show one day in January and Warner Bros. Records Promotion replied saying they were tuned in.

At the end of January, a coworker and I reviewed a couple albums and posted it to the KLSU website and to the KLSU social media outlets, as well as Reddit. (You can find the first one here and the second one below.)

In February, I wrote an article for one of my classes about emerging bands and how they use (or attempt to use) social media to stay connected with fans. I posted this to my Facebook, to the Manship (school) blog, and tweeted about it. It was retweeted and shared by one of the bands.

Riding this social media high, I tweeted during my radio show, telling people to tune in, and tagged some bands that I’d be spinning that night. Grizzly Bear favorited it.

Tune in until 9 PM on 91.1 @KLSURadio for The Waiting Room where I'll be playing @frank_ocean, @Grimezsz, @grizzlybear, @ToroyMoi and more!
— Sara Melancon (@saramel627) February 20, 2013

A couple days later, I interviewed a Foxygen band member for KLSU and the interview aired that night. I tweeted about how nice he was, and again, told people to tune in. Foxygen’s drummer favorited the tweet. We also started following each other on Instagram that day. 

That night at their show, I met the drummer, and continued to talk with him over Twitter and Instagram the next couple days. 

The next day, we made a video for American Royalty. After I posted the video, I tweeted about it, and the band’s Twitter liked it, retweeted it, and replied, thanking us for making the video. Then one of the band members favorited the video from his personal account.

While it may seem like I’m just talking about how semi-celebs are interacting with me on Twitter, the point I’m trying to get at is “HOLY CANNOLI, SOCIAL MEDIA IS REALLY AWESOME!” Never before has there been such an instant interaction between fans and artists. 

Aside form seeing an artist play live, and hoping they come out after the show, you probably won’t get the chance to speak to someone in the band. But with social media (this includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) you can connect on a different level and share ideas, resources, videos, entertainment, and so much more.

Some friends and I with the bass played from our favorite band, Portugal. the Man.

Social media gives artists the ability to reach out to fans, to keep them updated, and keep them interested.

It gives fans the ability to start a conversation with the artists.

And like most things in life, what you put into social media is what you get out of it.

If artists want to stay connected, they have to take the time to respond and post.

Now that social media, especially Twitter, is being pushed in universities, I'll be interested to see how interactions develop in the coming years.

What do you think of using social media to connect with artists? Have you had any interactions with people you otherwise wouldn't have talked to?