Why does SoundCloud matter?
An assessment of musicians’ motives to use SoundCloud from a uses and gratifications perspective
Master’s thesis
by Anna Zaikina Student ID: 10602550
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme in Communication Science
Supervisor: Paul Ketelaar
1 Abstract
SoundCloud is a leading social network with over 250 million members that is designed for streaming and sharing music. Despite its growing popularity, little information is available on users’ motives to employ SoundCloud. This study applies the uses and gratifications approach and Kietzmann’s (2011) model of social media functional building blocks to determine
SoundCloud’s members’ reasons for using the platform. Dutch musicians (N = 80) filled in an online survey in which they assessed 26 reasons for SoundCloud use. A principal component factor analysis indicated that there were four motives for using SoundCloud – identity
management, information exchange, entertainment and SoundCloud’s popularity. A within-subjects ANOVA revealed that identity management was the most important gratification of SoundCloud, followed by information exchange, entertainment and SoundCloud’s popularity. Identity management may be considered as a key gratification that distinguishes SoundCloud from other social networks as a result of SoundCloud’s built-in functionalities that include: 1) revealing identity and self-promotion via public profile; 2) instant music distribution via upload and sharing features; 3) reputation management via comments, likes, reposts, shares and follower acquisition; and 4) conversations with fans via private messaging. First, these findings are of great relevance to the uses and gratifications research that deals with social media, in particular with music-related social media, as they suggest a strong link between functions of music social networks and musicians’ need for identity management. Second, the study is relevant to advertisers who target musicians and music-oriented social media owners as both parties should consider the important role that identity management plays in music-oriented social media when planning marketing campaigns and improving user experience.
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Why does SoundCloud matter?
An assessment of musicians’ motives to use SoundCloud from a uses and gratifications perspective
SoundCloud has a high position in the global social network competition – it is a leader amongst both mainstream and music-related social networks. It is a Berlin-based free online music streaming platform that enables its users to upload, record, promote and share their originally-created sounds (Jefferson, 2014). In October 2014, SoundCloud reached 250 million active monthly users (Dillet, 2014). In comparison to mainstream social networks, the current number of active monthly users of Twitter is 284 million (Twitter, 2014). Even though the numbers may not demonstrate that SoundCloud is the leading social network site (SNS), it is undoubtedly seen as a leading one. To date, it has already outperformed such prominent social networks as Instagram and Tumblr that have 200 million and 230 million active users respectively (Statista, 2014). Besides, SoundCloud has left behind its direct competitors, the music social networks Pandora, with 76.2 million active monthly users (Cole, 2015), and Spotify, with 60 million active monthly users (Reisinger, 2015). Given the fast-growing popularity of SoundCloud it has become a means of reaching a high number of people, therefore one must understand SoundCloud’s features, as well as what people use them for and why.
Despite the evident popularity of SoundCloud, the reasons why people use it remain obscure. According to the uses and gratifications (U & G) theory, people are selective in terms of what medium they use depending on the needs it can satisfy (Katz, Blumer, & Gurevitch, 1974; Lariscy et al., 2011). By applying the U & G framework to establish
musicians’ motives to use SoundCloud, it becomes possible to understand what musicians do on SoundCloud and on music-oriented SNSs in general, rather than how it affects them. With the emergence of SNSs, the U & G approach has been frequently applied to their consumption motives, resulting in a substantial body of research focusing on user needs satisfied by social
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media in general (Whiting & Williams, 2013; Xu, Ryan, Prybutok & Wen, 2012), but also more specific SNSs such as Facebook (Quan-Haase & Young, 2010; Park, Kee & Valenzuela, 2009), Twitter (Chen, 2011; Pentina, Basmanova & Zhang, 2014 ) and YouTube (Hanson, 2008). The U & G approach renders different gratifications for SNSs than traditional media (Sundar & Limperos, 2013). However, U & G of social media in general should not be generalised to music SNSs, because some of their key features are different from non-music social media.
Only two studies to date have analysed music SNSs in terms of user motivation to use them which can be applied to SoundCloud to a small extent due to differences in functionalities. A study by Krause et al. (2014) dealt with Facebook music listening applications and revealed that communication, entertainment and habitual diversion were their main U & G. However, music apps on SNSs are only comparable to SoundCloud to a small degree as they mainly allow for music playback rather than its creation and sharing. Moreover, research by Karnik et al. (2013) dug into Facebook music video sharing groups which are used for content contribution, discovery, social interaction and entertainment, but fail to fulfil the musician self-presentation potential that exists on SoundCloud to a great extent. Therefore, it becomes clear that unlike music listening apps and sharing groups, SoundCloud facilitates two-way content consumption in which users can both contribute their own music and consume the music of others.
One U & G study (van Koolwijk, 2014) focused specifically on SoundCloud and revealed a number of important findings, although the study design has made it difficult to generalise them to other music SNSs with similar features as SoundCloud. According to this study, musicians use SoundCloud to collect and share information, promote music, as well as shape their identity and reputation. Whereas information exchange has been previously established as one of the U & G of music social networks (Krause et al., 2014; Karnik et al.
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2013), self-promotion, identity formation and reputation management are unique to
SoundCloud (van Koolwijk, 2014). However, the qualitative nature of this research paper and a small sample of participants used for the study made it problematic to generalise van
Koolwijk’s (2014) resultsand draw reliable conclusions. None of the previous findings provide solid scientific basis for U & G generalisation to music SNSs with similar functions as SoundCloud – music SNSs that would have music sharing by musicians themselves at their core, therefore further investigation is required.
Unlike these SNSs, SoundCloud’s predominant feature is for musicians to be able to upload and share their music, therefore the gratifications of it may vary from music listening apps and music sharing groups based on the differences in functionality. In line with
Kietzmann et al. (2011) who developed a model in which different functions of different types of SNSs lead to different motives for its use, one may presume that the specific nature of SoundCloud as a music sharing platform satisfies a unique set of U & G. By applying this model to SoundCloud and breaking it down into a combination of technical features, a link can be drawn between SoundCloud’s functions and U & G. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, this research considers its main goal to fill the scientific research gap in applying the U & G approach and the functional model of Kietzmann et al. (2011) to SoundCloud in order to identify musicians’ motives for using this music SNS based on its unprecedented functionality.
From a practical point of view, SoundCloud has recently become of greater value and potential in the eyes of marketers who aim to target musicians, as well as SoundCloud owners as it has added advertising to its business model as an extra source of revenue (Rayman, 2014). However, in order for featured advertisements to generate larger profit for SoundCloud owners and for marketers to reach their target audiences via the platform, they must understand its users – their motives, interests and needs. Therefore, this paper aims to
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provide an in-depth perspective for SoundCloud developers and advertisers which will help to build more tailored and efficient marketing strategies on SoundCloud, as well as improve user experience by understanding how musicians perceive and use SoundCloud.
Theoretical Framework
Uses and Gratifications Perspective
One of the theoretical perspectives that can assist in identifying people’s motives to use SoundCloud is the U & G framework. According to the U & G framework, audiences are active rather than passive, and therefore they are self-conscious of their motives to choose a medium type (Katz, Blumer, & Gurevitch, 1974). Moreover, the U & G theory suggests that people actively select certain media platform among competitors that fulfils their needs and leads to ultimate gratifications (Lariscy et al., 2011). On one hand, the U & G framework can be applied to social media activity in general, while it can also be narrowed down to
differences between U & G of specific SNS types. For instance, Whiting and Williams (2013) have taken the U & G approach to assess the motives people have to engage in social media activity in general and have found that social media is used for social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information sharing, surveillance and knowledge about others, which tell us very little about the U & G of SoundCloud as they cannot be easily generalised to music SNSs.
Only two studies to date (Krause et al, 2014; Karnik et al., 2013) have explored the U & G of music SNSs, although the implications are hardly applicable to SoundCloud. A study by Krause et al. (2014) has analysed music listening applications on Facebook that resemble SoundCloud in a sense that users select this particular medium within a broader social networking context to explore and listen to music. By applying the U & G theory to the
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Facebook music apps, the authors have found that people utilise them in order to
communicate with others, entertain themselves by taking pleasure out of listening to and exploring music, artists and genres, and, finally, to pass time. These findings indicate a strong overlap between the U & G of social media in general and its specific music streaming feature. On one hand, Facebook music apps share a number of common functions with SoundCloud such as music streaming and exploration. On the other hand, SoundCloud significantly differs from musiclistening apps as it facilitates music contribution by its users. Furthermore, Karnik et al. (2013) have applied the U & G framework to Facebook
communities that have been created for their members to share music videos. The study results confirmed those of Krause et al. (2014) suggesting that these groups are indeed used for social interaction, entertainment and discovery, although with a profound difference that when it comes to music video sharing groups, their members also tend to contribute content to them and see it as one of the main motives to join. Similarly to the music video sharing
communities, music contribution by its users is indeed one of the main features of
SoundCloud. However, SoundCloud does not simply support music contribution, it facilitates contribution of originally created tracks by artists themselves. The functionality of
SoundCloud efficiently supports two-way consumption during which its members are able to both contribute and consume content by creating and listening to music shared by others. Therefore, there is a need to analyse SoundCloud as a stand-alone music platform
phenomenon amongst its ‘prosumers’ who both produce music and consume what the medium has to offer (Ritzer, Dean & Jurgenson, 2012). Artists are the ones who take full advantage of its features, which makes them the key to understanding how the platform is used and why.
A study by van Koolwijk (2014) consisted of five qualitative interviews with artists who are present on SoundCloud to establish the gratifications obtained from the platform,
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although the research design has made this particular U & G application to SoundCloud musicians in general rather problematic. Interestingly, the analysis of the interviews has revealed that musicians predominantly use SoundCloud to collect feedback on own tracks that others have shared, form their musical identity, manage their reputation and promote
themselves. These findings shed light on how musicians consume SoundCloud and what they gain by doing so. The main insight of this research implies that artists use the unique qualities of the platform in order to reach out to as many people as possible with their content, gather information shared by others, by means of which they can advertise themselves as brands, shape their identity and perform reputation management. However, one of the key limitations of the study is the small sample (N = 5) and unquantifiable results, therefore the current research helps to quantify and test these findings. Due to the absence of the U & G theory application to SoundCloud or an equivalent music SNS in quantitative research, further investigation of SoundCloud’s functionalities and U & G is required.
Honeycomb Model Perspective
SoundCloud clearly has distinct functions that make it stand out amongst some of the music-related and other SNSs. Therefore, there is a need to understand what musicians can do on SoundCloud, based on which we can understand what they do and why they do it. In order to explain the U & G of SoundCloud, we first analyse its functions. Kietzmann et al. (2011) have proposed the honeycomb model to assess each social media platform in terms of its functionality. The idea behind the theory is that every SNS consists of a variety of functional building blocks, depending on certain technological features carried by it. Unlike the U & G approach that tells us how people utilise a medium and what needs it fulfils, the honeycomb model looks at what the medium as a combination of functions has to offer in the first place. A SNS can perform different functions for its users which can be divided into seven blocks - presence, identity, sharing, relationships, conversations, reputation and groups. Whereas
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sharing information, maintaining relationships, communicating and creating or joining groups on social media are familiar features, presence, identity and reputation need elaborating on. Presence is the ability to see a member’s current availability to engage in an activity on the platform at a given moment. The identity function relies on the user’s ability to create a profile and present themselves in a certain light with a certain amount of detail, whereas reputation is based on the opportunity to build and manage impressions of your identity on the site.
Bearing in mind that different SNSs have different functionalities, the authors have theorised about a number of SNSs of different nature – Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Foursquare, and have highlighted some profound differences in terms of how prevailing each functionality block is depending on the platform type. For instance, Facebook’s primary functionality is to facilitate relationships maintenance, whereas Foursquare is mainly designed for generating user presence updates. If we were to compare Foursquare and SoundCloud, presence would not be seen as SoundCloud’s key function as members cannot see if others are available online. In contrast, SoundCloud would somewhat resemble YouTube that is primarily designed for information (video) exchange, or LinkedIn that is ideal for managing your profile. It is clear that SoundCloud has functional blocks that are similar to other SNSs, although these may not be as prominent on SoundCloud as they are on other platforms. In order to understand how SoundCloud technological characteristics are different from other SNSs, we have applied Kietzmann’s (2011) model to SoundCloud.
Identity is by far the most important building block of SoundCloud because musicians are able to reveal themselves to a great extent by providing their real name, the country they are from, links to other SNSs there are present on, including personal pages (e.g. Facebook). The identity block is of enormous importance to SoundCloud as musicians reveal who they are in real life to other members. Sharing music is another key functional block of
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SoundCloud as its main purpose is for musicians to be able to upload and share tracks in a simple way. Furthermore, reputation is very important on SoundCloud as user or content social standing amongst other members is publicly available. The features that make it possible include liking, reposting, sharing or embedding of tracks on another online platform (e.g. Facebook), adding them to one’s playlist or commenting upon them. One of
SoundCloud’s unique features is that it enables members to comment on a track as a whole or a certain part of it, letting musicians receive more detailed user feedback on their creations. Also, musicians can assess others’ and own success by monitoring publicly visible features such as the number of followers, as well as internal statistics of paid subscription packages that include number of listens per track. A combination of liking, sharing, commenting and following by others allows artists to receive in-depth insights of their own and other
musicians’ performance which is part of the reputation functional block. SoundCloud also allows for networking with other members via the instant messaging feature which can serve both as a conversation function and the relationship maintenance function. Group creation and joining are other functions of SoundCloud that can be important for grouping musicians or tracks by country of origin, genre or other principles. To conclude, we have proposed a honeycomb model of SoundCloud functionalities (Figure 1) in which identity, sharing and reputation are its primary functions, whereas conversations, relationships and groups may be of secondary importance. SoundCloud’s functionality model is unique, although what U & G SoundCloud fulfills as a music SNS with identity, sharing, reputation functionalities at its core remains unclear.
RQ1: What are musicians’ uses and gratifications to use SoundCloud?
Figure 1
10 Method
In order to establish the motivations of musicians to use SoundCloud, this study used quantitative research in the form of an online survey as an effective way of analysing a large number of variables. Besides, a survey ensures high reliability of findings as participants face the exact same questions. The data collected by the means of this survey was analysed using SPSS software.
Participants
People who were included in the sample were musicians with a SoundCloud account between 16 and 59 years old who have uploaded music produced by them. The number of uploaded tracks was indicated on the musicians’ profile so those with more than one track were included in the sample. Only Dutch musicians were included in the sample to ensure that the population was homogenous in terms of nationality, therefore differences in SoundCloud use were not attributed to differences in the country of origin. In order to get to know
Identity Presence Relationships Conversations Sharing Groups Reputation
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motivations of a wide variety of musicians, independent of other characteristics such as music genre, and to maximize the number of respondents, we decided not to limit the selection criteria other than to musicians who are normally based in the Netherlands.
Participants were contacted with an online survey, using a combination of snowball and convenience sampling. In order to approach a large number of Dutch musicians, this was done via a SoundCloud group that was created in order for Dutch music to be uploaded there and had 759 members at the time of the survey distribution. That community was created in order to gather original music that was produced in the Netherlands in one online space. In order to ensure that this approach to data gathering was feasible, a pilot outreach was
conducted via sending an individual private message to 42 members of the SoundCloud group in question. The message asking artists to collaborate consisted of a brief research
introduction and a request to participate in the upcoming survey. The outreach resulted in 13 total responses to the message, 11 of which were confirmations of intention to participate in the study. Therefore, it was assumed that on average 26.2% of artists contacted would take part. As a result of this data collection method, 269 invitations were sent out to SoundCloud members who qualified for the study. The actual response rate was 29.7% resulting in 80 fully completed surveys.
The participant outreach was conducted via SoundCloud and Facebook. First, a link to the survey was syndicatedvia individual private messages on SoundCloud sent to all members of the group who qualified for the study. Second, as SoundCloud has a limited number of 10 messages that can be sent out in 24 hours, Facebook was used in order to approach more SoundCloud users in one day. Third, Facebook outreach was accomplished by following a link to the artist’s Facebook page provided on their SoundCloud profile, where applicable, and sending a private message to him/her.Facebook was also utilised in order to approach and forward the survey link to Dutch musicians on Facebook who were existing
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friends of the author of this study. Lastly, as part of the snowball sampling, everyone who had been approached via both SoundCloud and Facebook was encouraged to forward the link to the survey to artists they may know who produce music in the Netherlands.
An iPod shuffle was used as an incentive for musicians to participate in the survey, with everyone being given a choice to opt out from the prize draw.
Measures
Sample validation. The sample validation procedure consisted of three questions that checked that the participants met the sample requirements. Namely, these were Do you have a SoundCloud account?, Have you ever uploaded your own tracks (e.g. songs, mixes etc.) to SoundCloud?, and Do you currently reside in the Netherlands?. If the question to at least one of these questions was negative, then the participant were automatically taken to the final section of the survey and thanked for their participation.
Uses and Gratifications scale. Participants were first asked What are your reasons for using SoundCloud?, followed by a list of 26 statements (Table 1), Cronbach’s α = .87. The scale derived from a study by Krause et al. (2014) that specifically dealt with U & G of music SNSs and van Koolwijk’s (2014) study that established musicians’ motives to use
SoundCloud. The Krause et al. (2014) original 29-item scale measured people’s motives to use Facebook music listening apps. In line with the honeycomb model by Kietzmann et al. (2011), different SNSs have different features which effects gratifications they can meet, therefore some features of a Facebook music app may not be part of the SoundCloud functionality. As a result feature comparison, six items (e.g. To tell others what to do) that related to Facebook features and were not applicable to SoundCloud were removed from the scale. Two items, To shape my identity as a musician and To manage my social standing as musicians amongst others, were added in line with van Koolwijk’s (2014) qualitative study in
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which identity formation and impression management were found to be major motives to use SoundCloud. Moreover, these two items covered identity and reputation which were
identified as primary SoundCloud functionalities, in line with the honeycomb model
(Kietzmann et al., 2011) application to SoundCloud. Similarly, the application of this model revealed that conversations facilitated by the private messaging feature were another
prominent functionality of SoundCloud. This feature allows musicians to maintain existing connections and create new ones by getting in touch with its members directly. In order to find out if SoundCloud members use SoundCloud private instant messaging for connecting with other artists or fans (e.g. via sending a private message to another musician or a fan on SoundCloud), two additional items were invented, To connect with other musicians and To connect with fans. All items were measured on a five-point Likert scale, where 1= Strongly disagree and 5= Strongly agree.
Table 1
A list of all items included in the Uses and Gratifications scale of the current study Item
To share my music with others To express myself freely To get feedback on my music To discover new music/artists
To communicate with people who are familiar to me (e.g. friends, colleagues) To connect with other musicians
To connect with fans
Because it’s an easy way to stay in touch with people Because it’s easy to use
Because it’s enjoyable Because I just like to use it Because it provides a distraction To relax
Because it’s entertaining
Because it’s fun to try out new things like this Because I’m bored
Because I have nothing better to do Because everyone else is doing it Because it’s a popular thing to do Because it’s a habit
14 To meet people with same interests as me To promote the musician/band I work for To promote my own music
To promote the music/musicians I like To shape my identity as a musician
To manage my social standing as musicians amongst others
SoundCloud profile characteristics. Six questions were designed to obtain insights into the musicians’ profile characteristics on SoundCloud. The questions included the number of followers, number of people followed, number of tracks uploaded, type of subscription and the number of SoundCloud groups created or joined. In order for participants to answer these questions, they were reminded to log into their SoundCloud account unless they had done so already, as they had already been asked to do so in the introduction section of the survey. They were advised to click on the icon with their name on it in the top right-hand corner of the SoundCloud website and select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu to obtain the right information such as the number of followers, number of tracks and so on. An image was provided below the instruction message with an arrow pointing at the button they needed to click in order to access the right data.
Daily social media usage frequency. In order to understand whether the subjects were heavy or light social media and SoundCloud users, the participants were asked two questions about their social media use patterns. The questions were derived from the Daily Media Usage Hours scale by Rosen et al. (2013) that originally consisted of 11 items which covered online and offline media types, including going online, using a computer for other than being online, e-mailing, instant messaging/chatting, phone calling, social networking, texting, video gaming, listening to music, watching television and reading books or
magazines for pleasure. There were eight response options, ranging from Not at all to More than 8 hours. In order to make the existing 11-item scale relevant to the current study, it was reduced to a two-item scale with one item on social networking and one item on using SoundCloud. This way the scale measured the social media and SoundCloud usage patterns
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instead of all media types included in the original scale. According to Rosen et al. (2013), the social media and SoundCloud use variable were recorded into hours, where Not at all = 0, 1 – 31min = .25, 31 min to 1 h = .75, 1 – 2h = 1.5, 3h = 3, 4–5h = 4.5, 6–8h = 7 and More than 8 h = 9.
Demographics. The demographics measurement consisted of three questions and aimed to acquire the age, gender and occupation of the participants in order to have a clear understanding of the sample characteristics, as well as to control for these variables during the statistical analysis conduction. In order to establish what age group was the most prominent across the sample, the scale level age variable was recoded into a new variable Age Groups, where 1 = Under 18, 2 = 19-24, 3 = 25-34, 4 = 35-44 and 5 = 45+. Besides, the section aimed to establish if the participants were full-time musicians or produced music in their free time outside their main jobs. As the occupation question required an open-ended answer, each value was recoded into a new nominal level variable, where 0 = Part-time Musician and 1 = Full-time Musician.
Procedure
In the period between 4th December 2014 and 4th January 2015, participants filled in the survey. The online questionnaire consisted of seven blocks that included an introduction, sample requirements validation, a U & G scale, SoundCloud profile characteristics, daily social media usage frequency and demographics, followed by a final comments section.
In order to explain the purpose of the survey and brief participants on its completion procedure, the introduction part provided a short description of the research study, the survey instruction and its main goal, as well as a note asking participants to log into their
SoundCloud account prior to starting the survey so they were able to provide their full SoundCloud profile characteristics later on. In order to ensure that participants voluntarily
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agreed to participate in the study, the introduction part also included a statement requesting participants’ consent to proceed with the survey. In order to ensure that all participants met the sample requirements, they were then taken through a validation procedure. On failure to meet one of the three sample conditions, participants were thanked for their participants which marked the end of the survey for them. If all the criteria had been successfully met, the participants were first routed to the U & G scale, as this was it was the most important part of the survey. In order to assess subjects’ social media use patterns they were asked how much time they spend on SoundCloud and social media. In order to acquire information on the type of SoundCloud members we were dealing with, the following section obtained the
membership characteristics (e.g. type of subscription plan, number of followers etc.). In order to answer this set of questions respondents were first instructed to refer to their profile on the SoundCloud website as they were unlikely to retrieve this data from memory only. The next section was aimed at acquiring participants’ demographic data to get a better understanding of the sample. The survey ended by thanking participants for taking part as well as asking for an email address in case they wanted to find out about the results or participate in the Apple iPod Shuffle prize draw, with the opt out possibility for both.
Results
A total of 106 people took the survey, 26 of which did not complete it. The number of responses included in the final analysis was 80. The response rate 29.7% was higher than the one originally suggested by the initial outreach to artists (26.2%). However, the higher number of respondents could also be due to the snowball sampling as artists were encouraged to pass on the survey link to other artists they knew. The anticipated response rate was based on the outreach conducted by us, whereas there might have been other artists approached by artists who had forwarded the message on to them. Despite the higher response rate, the total
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number of respondents was lower than anticipated as two thirds (N = 490) of the SoundCloud group members ended up not meeting at least one of the three sample criteria.
The final sample consisted of 96.3% males and 3.7% females with the average age of participants being 32 years old (M = 32.09, SD = 10.44). The most represented age group was between 25 and 34 years old (N = 32) which accounted for 42.5% of the sample, while
underage respondents were the least represented age group (N = 5) with a 6.3% part of respondents. 71.3% of all respondents worked as a musician in a part-time capacity in
addition to their full-time jobs, whereas 28.7% were full-time artists. On average, respondents use social media for 1.5 hours a day (M = 1.49, SD = 1.48), whereas the daily SoundCloud usage was just over half an hour (M = .55, SD = .59). As reported by respondents, the average number of tracks uploaded to SoundCloud was 24 (M = 24.81, SD = 32.113), whereas the average number of followers was 834 (M = 833.98, SD = 1667.29). Lastly, nearly one half (46.3%) of the respondents had a free SoundCloud account, 35% had a Pro account, with the smallest share (18.7%) of the Pro Unlimited plan subscribers. More detailed sample
characteristics are outlined in Table 2. Table 2
Descriptive statistics for demographic and social media/ SoundCloud characteristics of the sample (N = 80) Variable N % M SD Gender Male 77 96.3 Female 3 3.8 Age 32.09 10.44 Under 18 5 6.3 19-24 15 18.8 25-34 34 42.5 35-44 15 18.8 45+ 11 13.8 Occupation Part-time Musicians 57 71.3
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Full-time Musicians 23 28.7
Social media use 1.49 1.48
Not at all 2 2.5 1-31 min 14 17.5 31 min – 1 h 25 31.3 1 – 2 h 22 27.5 3 h 13 16.3 4 – 5 h 2 2.5 6 – 8 h 1 1.3 More than 8h 1 1.3 SoundCloud use .55 .59 Not at all 5 6.3 1-31 min 49 61.3 31 min – 1 h 14 17.5 1 – 2 h 10 12.5 3 h 2 2.5 4 – 5 h 0 0 Number of tracks 24.81 32.11 Number of followers 833.98 1,667.29 Subscription plan Free 37 46.3 Pro 28 35.0 Pro Unlimited 15 18.7
In order to answer RQ1 (What are musicians’ uses and gratifications to use SoundCloud?), all items in the U & G scale were first subjected to an exploratory factor analysis to search for any latent factors (components) that lie within all musicians’ motives to use SoundCloud. According to a study by Lonsdale and North (2011) that determined
people’s motives to listen to music, a within-subjects ANOVA was carried out in order to elaborate on RQ1 by establishing which factors are most important to musicians. The study was a pioneer in applying this statistical analysis to U & G studies as it extended the U & G research beyond factorial analysis, which would identify factors, to defining which if the identified factors were most influential.
A principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on the 26 items of the U & G scale. It was assumed that these components were independent or unrelated, therefore
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conducted in order to obtain eigenvalues for each component in the data. As a result, six components showed eigenvalues over Kaiser’s criterion of 1. However, only four components were analysed further as there was a clear point of inflexion after the fourth component. The four items explained a total of 55.5% of the variance. Factor loadings greater than .40 are shown in Table 3. The items with high loadings on the first component implied that this factor had to do with using SoundCloud for entertainment purposes as the items that loaded the highest on that component related to joy, fun and likability of the platform. The second component implied using SoundCloud for musical identity management purposes. The items that loaded the highest on that componenthad to do with promoting one’s music, connecting with fans, as well as shaping identity and reputation. The third component related to
information gathering and sharing as the items that loaded high on the component included receiving feedback on one’s music, sharing music with people with the same interests. The fourth factor was about SoundCloud popularity as it was related to the popularity of SoundCloud that led musicians to use it.
Four sets of items for the entertainment, identity management, information gathering/sharing and SoundCloud popularity factors were subjected to a reliability test. The reliability test revealed that all four scales were reliable, Cronbach’s α >.70, therefore they were computed into new variables entitled Entertainment, Identity management, Information gathering/sharing and SoundCloud popularity, and were measured on a five-point Likert scale, where 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strongly agree.
Table 3
Exploratory factor analysis with orthogonal (varimax) rotation and scale reliability test results for the U & G items (N = 80)
Rotated Factor Loadings
Item 1 2 3 4
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Because it’s entertaining .80
Because it’s enjoyable .79
To relax .76
Because it’s fun to try out new things like this .76
Because it provides a distraction .74
Because it’s easy to use .65
To express myself freely .48
To connect with other musicians .44*
To promote my own music
.82
To connect with fans .81
To manage my social standing as a musician amongst others
.58
To shape my identity as a musician .57
To promote the musician/band I work for .56*
To get feedback on my music
.76
To discover new music/artists .59
To communicate with people who are familiar to me (e.g. friends, colleagues)
.58*
To promote the music/musicians I like .57
To meet people with the same interests as me .45
To share my music with others .45
Because everyone else is doing it
.87
Because it’s a popular thing to do .83
Because it’s a habit .63*
Eigenvalue 6.88 3.48 2.47 1.59
% of variance 26.46 13.38 9.50 6.13
Cronbach’s α** .90 .76 .72 .82
Note. *Cronbach’s α was higher if this item was deleted. **Shows improved coefficients post item deletion.
In order to establish the level of importance of each factor for musicians, a within-subjects (repeated measures) ANOVA was used and tested whether mean values for each factor differed significantly. A within-subjects ANOVA was run on Entertainment, Identity management, Information gathering/sharing and SoundCloud popularity, which was found to be significant (F(1,79) = 3565.21, p < .001). Bonferroni pairwise comparisons were
conducted in order to find out where these significant differences occurred. The test
demonstrated that identity management was more important than information exchange (3.95 ± .66 vs 3.75 ± .66, p = .025), entertainment (3.95 ± .66 vs 3.36 ± .80, p < .001) and
SoundCloud’s popularity (3.95 ± .66 vs 1.84 ± .90, p < .001). Besides, the test revealed that information exchange was more important than entertainment (3.75 ± .66 vs 3.36 ± .80, p <
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.001) and SoundCloud’ popularity (3.36 ± .80 vs 1.84 ± .90, p < .001). Identity management turned out to be the most prominent motive for musicians to use SoundCloud, whereas SoundCloud’s popularity was least prominent one.
Discussion
The main goal of this study was to establish artists’ motives to use SoundCloud – a popular music streaming platform. Musicians use SoundCloud for identity management, information exchange, entertainment and SoundCloud’s popularity, with identity management being the most prominent motive of SoundCloud use.
Managing own identity as a musician was identified is a key motive that
distinguishes SoundCloud from other SNSs. The musical identity management factor is a combination of motives that include self-promotion, fan engagement, as well as reputation and profile management. This is in line with the findings of van Koolwijk (2014) that suggest that musicians primarily use SoundCloud in order to promote their music, but also manage their musical identity and reputation. Not only does this research help to identify what SoundCloud is used for, but it also sheds light on what features of this platform facilitates its uses. By applying the honeycomb model of social media functional building blocks by Kietzmann et al. (2011) to SoundCloud we have identified its primary functionalities that facilitate identity management such as revealing identity and self-promotion via public profile, instant music distribution via upload and sharing features, reputation management via comments, likes, reposts, shares and follower acquisition, and conversations with fans via private messaging. In combination, the U & G theory (Katz, Blumer, & Gurevitch, 1974, Lariscy et al., 2011) and the honeycomb model application to SoundCloud have put a starting point to understanding the link between SoundCloud’s functionalities and gratifications. More importantly, this study suggests that this particular set of functionalities facilitates identity
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management which plays a key role in musicians’ choice and use of a SNS. Using a music SNS primarily for managing one’s profile is what musicians needs from a platform in order to achieve theirgoals and a music SNS’s functionality should facilitate that in order to succeed. The main scientific implication of this research is that it fills in a gap in U & G research suggesting a strong link between functions of a music social network and musicians’ need for identity management.
Information exchange and entertainment have also been identified by musicians as prominent gratifications of SoundCloud. Namely, the information exchange factor includes such motives as feedback gathering, discovering new music and artists, promoting the music of others, meeting people with the same interest and sharing own music with others.
Moreover, artists have referred to entertainment as one of their motives to use SoundCloud as it is a likeable, entertaining, enjoyable, fun and easy experience. These two motives draw a parallel between SoundCloud and other music and non-music SNSs. Social interaction, discovery and entertainment have been highlighted as key gratifications in previous empirical studies that applied the U & G theory to social media in general (Whiting & Williams, 2013) and other music SNSs such as Facebook music listening apps (Krause et al., 2014) and music video sharing groups (Karnik et al, 2013). Moreover, collecting music feedback generated by other SoundCloud members as well as sharing music were also identified as part of the SoundCloud usage process in van Koolwijk’s (2014) study which helps to support his results in quantitative research. Not only does SoundCloud resemble music SNSs in terms of their U & G, but some of SoundCloud’s most important success factors such as information sharing and entertainment are also similar to those of social media in general. In other words, SoundCloud is a social network after all, which means that its U & G in the form of entertainment and information sharing and gathering are in line with the U & G of social media sites in general (Whiting & Williams, 2013). The SoundCloud’s functionality
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breakdown (Kietzmann et al., 2011) has highlighted sharing, conversations and relationships as SoundCloud’s secondary functionalities which hare still extremely prominent. Therefore, the fact that information exchange is an important motive for musicians to use it as a result of SoundCloud’s key function as a network of people who are there to interact. One the other hand, entertainment as one of the key gratifications of SoundCloud can be interpreted as a result of SoundCloud delivering an easy and enjoyable user experience which makes people like it and return to it.
Another prominent factor of SoundCloud use by musicians is its popularity. This factor is especially important as it relates to SoundCloud’s fast-growing success as more and more people, now around 250,000 million people have signed up to it. The study supports the trend of SoundCloud becoming one of the most influential networks as the more musicians join SoundCloud, the more others may feel the external influence to become a member, too. This factor is of great importance to further SoundCloud development as it is evident that a musician must create an account on SoundCloud as part of others’ expectation of their online presence.
Limitations and Future Research
It is important to suggest a number of limitations that this study has. One of the main limitations has to do with the inability to assess how representative the sample is. This is due to the difficulty of finding out how many musicians there are in the Netherlands in total, as well as what their demographic characteristics are. Since the demographic breakdown in the sample is somewhat uneven (e.g. 3 females as opposed to 77 males), it becomes complicated to assess whether these proportions are similar to those of the population in question. When deciding on the sample criteria and sampling method, it would be recommended to acquire an idea of the population beforehand. SoundCloud group members ended up not meeting at least
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one of the three sample criteria. Moreover, the sampling method in the form of approaching musicians from a particular SoundCloud group has made it problematic to obtain a larger sample for the study as a significant number of musicians from this SoundCloud group ended up not meeting one of the sample requirements. Therefore, the data collection method could be improved by either a better fit between the sample criteria and method, or else by
expanding the sample by removing one of the criteria. Besides, selection bias was another limitation of this sampling method due to manual choice and approaching of musicians for the study. This sampling method could have affected reliability of the study results, therefore future research should consider randomising the sample selection. Conceptually, the next step in the U & G of music SNS could be establishing whether identity management gratification is related to users identifying themselves more with musicians on SoundCloud or fan
communities on SoundCloud and how U & G vary depending on which group they identify with the most.
Practical Implications
The findings from our study have implications for the marketing industry. Due to the recent introduction of SoundCloud featured advertising, there became a need for marketers to understand what SoundCloud members mainly use it for. From a practical point of view, this study helps marketers to plan campaigns targeting musicians more efficiently and
SoundCloud developers – to improve user experience and attract more musicians. In order to achieve these goals, both parties should consider the important role that identity management plays in music-oriented social media.Knowing that the musicians’ uses of SoundCloud are strongly focused on their music and identity management means that companies can promote tools and products that would encourage and help musicians to establish themselves as artists which could include producer and recording services, live music venue advertisements and so on. However, this study has made it clear that SoundCloud’s uses are not limited to
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professional need satisfaction. The fact that artists widely use SoundCloud for entertainment opens up a new dimension of marketing opportunities as more companies who deal with product categories outside music can enter the platform and discover just the right audience for themselves.
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