A MAP OF SOUND: HOW INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGE IN PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

(1)

A MAP OF SOUND:

HOW INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGE IN PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

by Miles C. Zornig

A Thesis

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

in Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture at

The University of Amsterdam June 2015

(2)

Thesis supervisor: Dr. J.A.A. Simons

(3)

I hereby agree that the library of the University of Amsterdam makes copies of this thesis freely available for inspection on its database.

Date_________________

(4)

ABSTRACT

This thesis seeks to analyze promotional strategies that independent musicians engage in on different social media platforms. Substantial evidence suggests that the music industry has gone through a shift in power over the last decade. While the industry used to be regulated by major record labels that executed their power over the musicians they put under contract, there is now a trend of artists distancing

themselves from the major label machinery to build their own career with the help of social media. To verify this claim, seven independent and one former independent musician and one professional social media consultant were interviewed. The interviewees all revealed that independent musicians needed to build real-life

connections with potential fans first, by playing as many live shows as possible. Then they would have to make use of as many different social media channels as possible, merge them together, which could help reach a maximum amount of people. Once an artist has reached a certain following on social media, it will be important to maintain a relationship with followers, by posting content that keeps these followers engaged. A quantitative analysis revealed that the content followers engaged with the most is visual, namely photos and videos, which suggests that visual content is the most prominent one amongst followers on social media. Also social media campaigns can lead to an increase in engagement, while content like event posts or status updates did not lead to a high amount of engagement overall. When engaging in promotional strategies on social media, an independent artist is most successful when he posts at the time where his posts get the most traction, namely between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. It is also important that the independent artist stays as authentic in their social media presence as possible, as authenticity is an important characteristic that will keep fans and followers interested in an independent artist’s career.

(5)

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. J.A.A. Simons, for guiding me through this thesis project. He has only given me valuable feedback and constructive guidance over the last few months – I am very grateful for that.

I would also like to thank Dr. Sjoukje van der Meulen for taking the time to be the second reader of my thesis and Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, who has helped me concretize my topic at the very beginning of this research and writing process.

I am also indebted to Maria Jose O. L., Karl B. and Brienne Renee P., who have all taken time to give me valuable creative input by proofreading my thesis either fully or partially.

I also have to thank Black Milk, Laura Jansen, Coby Grant, Joerg Schmidt, Lars Christian Olsen, Sascha Reske, Tom Klose, Marius Paijens and Lueda Alia for agreeing to be part of this study and giving me time in their hectic schedule to answer my questions. Thanks also to Kira C. and Marian L., who set up the interview with Lueda Alia and Laura Jansen.

Very special gratitude to my dearest and closest friend, Bart v. T., who has always helped and supported me, especially by giving me a roof over my head for the last few months.

Special thanks also to Earth, Wind & Fire, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Mura Masa, Ta-Ku, DJ Shadow, Mulatu Astatke, Pete Philly & Perquisite, Chopin and Tchaikovsky. I listened to the genius of these musicians throughout almost the entire writing process. Their music added inspiration, fun, peace and tranquility to my writing.

Most importantly, I would like to thank my parents for always giving me their full support, unconditional love and for dedicating their entire lives to the well being of their children. Without their help, I would not have accomplished what I have accomplished so far and would definitely not be the man I am today.

(6)

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1-CONTENT-TYPE AND TOTAL SUM OF ENGAGEMENT BY FOLLOWERS OF

BLACK MILK’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN AUGUST 2008 AND MAY 2015 ... 62

LAURA JANSEN’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN FEBRUARY 2009 AND MAY 2015 ... 62

NEWMEN’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2012 AND MAY 2015 ... 63

TÔG’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN APRIL 2010 AND MAY 2015 ... 63

BIRDY HUNT’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN FEBRUARY 2010 AND MAY 2015 ... 64

TOM KLOSE’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN NOVEMBER 2011 AND MAY 2015 ... 64

SASCHA RESKE’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2012 AND MAY 2015 ... 65

COBY GRANT’S FACEBOOK PAGE BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 2011 AND MAY 2015 ... 65

FIGURE 9-OVERVIEW OF TOTAL POSTS MADE ON EACH ARTIST’S FACEBOOK PAGE BY CONTENT ... 66

(9)

LIST OF IMAGES

IMAGE 1-SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY TOM KLOSE, ENGAGING IN A CALL TO ACTION ... 67

IMAGE 2-SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY BIRDY HUNT ENGAGING IN A CALL TO ACTION ... 68

IMAGE 3-SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY BIRDY HUNT ENGAGING IN AN INTEGRATION

(10)

Chapter 1 Introduction

1. Background information

In June 2010, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was interviewed by The Telegraph and expressed his frustrations with the current state of the music industry. The singer argued that the time where power players in the music business – major labels such as the EMI Group, the label Radiohead was formerly signed to – had full control over an artist were coming to an end. Yorke was quoted arguing that the death of major labels was not a ‘loss to the world’ and that he would advise up-and-coming artists to rely on themselves, rather than trying to hold on to a ‘sinking ship’ (Blake §2). The interview appeared three years after Radiohead had decided to split ways with their label EMI, under which the group had released all of their first six albums. By the time Radiohead was ready to release their seventh full-length effort, Rainbows, it came to irreconcilable differences between the band members and their label, which did not agree on the financial advance the band requested for their seventh full length effort. That same year, Radiohead made the album available as a digital download on their website – no fixed price required.

This was not the first time artists have voiced their dissatisfaction with major labels, and it sure was not the last. Just recently, on May 19th

2015, the French producer Madeon announced via Twitter that his label, Sony, the second largest major label in the world, had deleted Madeon’s entire music uploads on his SoundCloud, an audio platform that allows users to upload, share, discover and promote their own songs and those of other artists. In his tweets, Madeon added that Sony was ‘holding its artists hostage’ and that the label acted against his will. Even superstars of the R&B and Hip-Hop world, such as the singer Ryan Leslie or the rapper 50 Cent, took the independent route in recent years, as both addressed the desire to carry out their creative vision without relying on an intermediary player.

(11)

In this regard, what does it mean to be ‘independent’? This thesis will elaborate on the conceptualization of independent artistry further, but to give the reader a starting point, it should be mentioned that an independent artist can be understood as either a musician that is not under contract with a major music label, an artist that signed with an independent label, which operate completely detached from major labels, or an artist that has not signed any contract at all and manages his own career, without the guidance of any intermediate player.

2. Problem discussion and purpose of study

The Internet and the digitization of musical formats have turned the production and distribution of music upside down, due to the development of digital music formats which brought music piracy to life. Record labels had to adapt to enormous changes and suffered under the appearance of Peer-to-Peer networks such as Napster and LimeWire, which enabled users to freely spread and download music files digitally through the Internet. This cost record companies and artists millions in revenue and gave them no choice but to revise their business strategies in order to avoid further financial losses. While record labels were revising their options, the Internet slowly but surely declared a war to the middleman that was once mediating relationships between artists and fans and controlling financial outcomes. The model under which a major label functioned before the emergence of the Internet was quite straightforward: the artist would record a song, the label would promote and sell it and both parties would profit from it. As this thesis seeks to argue, this model has changed over the last years.

The Internet changed the way we consume music as well. The consumption of music went through different stages, from the revolutionizing invention of the

phonograph and vinyl, tape recorders and cassettes all the way to CD players and CD’s to MP3 players and MP3’s. These developments also impacted the relationship artists have with their outside world, a relationship that is not only increasingly being maintained through the World Wide Web, but through a culture of online platforms that were developed over the last decade: a culture of social media platforms. The Internet used to be a one-way street, where users clicked through webpages to

(12)

1.0. The technological developments the Internet underwent led to a new set of opportunities, giving users the chance to interact with the content they were

accessing: News websites suddenly had comment sections, where users could interact with each other; all of the sudden, websites were able to make recommendations to cybernauts according to their web-searches – these aspects are just a few examples of what is known today as the Web 2.0, a web-platform based on interaction and on connecting its users. The notion of interaction and connection has adopted a whole new meaning with social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – all these interactive platforms started giving users a chance to generate content and share it with the rest of the world. Understanding the potential and the advantages these tools had, musicians started creating professional profiles and pages on these platforms. Social media platforms could not only be used for private matters anymore, they also started gaining importance on a professional level, making them an important marketing tool for anybody that was striving for a successful business. But the chances that success falls from the sky are highly unlikely. An artist could be the next Thom Yorke or 50 Cent, but the odds are not just left to chance anymore. Today, artists need to take matters into their own hands in to become successful. While they do not necessarily need to send labels their demos anymore, hoping to fit into the major label’s

mainstream idealism, they will need to take certain steps in order to build a career independently and get their foot into the door of the music industry.

Some of the most important steps will be outlined throughout this thesis.

The steps do not necessarily start with the launch of social media channels, but with word-of-mouth tactics. Independent artists need to spread their art by attempting to get booked for first live shows, selling CD’s, engaging in real-life interactions with their audience, and develop their own, personal sound and musical taste. Only then will they increase their chances of getting looked up on the Internet and slowly gather a following on social media by marketing themselves on these platforms.

To increase a following on social media entails that artists keep their followers engaged and interested in their art at all times. This will make it more likely for fans to share content posted by independent artists, create word-of-mouth online and potentially attract more followers and fans that will buy their music and attend their concerts. Therefore, the content independent artists share needs to be intriguing,

(13)

catchy and keep followers interested. In today’s music industry, it is not only about the music anymore, it is also about how artists market themselves and how they present their brand to the people. And to do that, they do not need to rely on marketing strategies and marketing money from major labels anymore. If the right strategy is there, the artist will be able to financially benefit from it. It needs to be pointed out here, however, that this work will not focus on economical advantages or disadvantages of building such a career, or exploring the possibilities of generating income from music. It will rather give an insight into the possibilities independent artists have to build a career based on social media.

3. Research questions

To what extent do social media platforms redefine an artist’s power within the music industry? What are the promotion-strategies of independent musicians and how do they take advantage of this platform-culture?

4. Overview of chapters

To tackle these research questions, I will first elaborate on the changes the music industry went through. The research questions suggest that there has been a redefinition of an artist’s power in the music industry, therefore, chapter two will present an insight into the state of the music industry prior to that redefinition, in order to investigate what factors led to it, while also shedding light on the evolution of musical formats. It will then become clear that the development of digital

technologies enabled the development of digital music formats like MP3’s, which appeared around the same time social media platforms started gaining prominence among Internet users. This chapter will also present a short history of social media platform and discuss their main characteristic.

This wave of technological developments led to a whole new set of opportunities for music artists, giving them the chance to develop their own promotional strategies and engage in a ‘do-it-yourself’ career without the necessity of a real-life distributor, a label or any other form of intermediary player. Chapter three will therefore take a closer look at the advantages of social media platforms for independent musicians and discuss how the power shifted from major labels right into the hands of musicians

(14)

However, building a career as an independent musician is challenging and entails that the artist in question develops a feasible strategy. Chapter four will therefore present the most important steps musicians need to take in order to build a successful career independently. In order to define these steps, nine professionals were interviewed throughout this research. Seven of them have worked as successful independent artists for many years and have all confirmed that they can make a living off their art. In addition to these seven independent artists, the research will also present insight from a platinum-selling artist, who signed to a major label four years ago, after spending almost ten years building a career as an independent artist. The owner of a consultancy agency that is doing promotional work for independent musicians will also share her expertise and discuss the best social media strategies for up-and-coming artists. All musicians interviewed for this study are using an average of five different social media platforms on a daily basis to engage with their audience. All have stated that without social media, their career would not have been successful, some of them even arguing that without social media, they would not have a career at all. The steps that will be presented in the fourth chapter were all addressed by the interviewees and have proved to be successful in their careers. The responses from the interviewees will therefore be divided into different categories, or steps, that

independent artists should consider when launching their careers.

In addition to this qualitative analysis through the use of in-depth interviews, the research will also present a quantitative analysis, where a closer look will be taken at the different profiles of the independent musicians interviewed for this research. Taking a look at their profiles will reveal which content was shared the most by the artists and what kind of content their followers engaged with the most – engagement which, as the work will argue, is crucial to steadily build a following on social media. While chapter four will strictly present an overview of the findings made throughout both the qualitative and quantitative research, chapter five will serve as a

complimentary section to assess the strategies addressed by the interviewees. By looking into some theoretical framework developed by marketing and social media scholars, this chapter will help to assess not only the efficiency, but also the

(15)

Chapter 2 Key insights into the music industry and its social media culture

1. Revolutionizing the musical experience: From analog to digital

It is important to start with a brief overview of the development the music industry – especially music formats – have gone through over the last decades. Understanding these developments will clarify how a shift in power from major corporations to individual artists occurred.

Music emerges through creative and artistic processes, by artists who engage in the creation of sound by means of instruments and/or vocals. Technological

advances that enabled artists to capture sound, store it on devices like cassettes, CD’s and MP3’s and replay it revolutionized the production and consumption of music and enabled its distribution as a cultural good to consumers around the world. The

distribution traditionally took place through dominant, global players who had to adapt their tactics multiple times throughout the past decades, in order to keep up with different innovations that reinvented the way music is produced and consumed on a global scale. A rapid expansion within the music industry began in the 1950’s, when the phonogram and the record player became a crucial medium for the consumption of music, leading to an increase in record sales throughout industrialized countries (Sen 6). The music industry continued to experience important changes: gramophones developed to become stereo systems, which later turned into compact and portable audio devices; sound technologies became more advanced, with mono becoming hi-fidelity stereo, which in turn progressed into Dolby surround sound; music storage saw extensive advancements, going from vinyl to cassette tapes to Compact- and Mini-discs (Ibid. 4). These advancements all played an important role in the production and distribution of music around the world. Major music labels, large corporations responsible for controlling an artist’s access to the outside world, closely controlled the artists’ road to success by commoditizing and controlling their creative

(16)

content (Beer and Badura 68). This creative content was distributed as a physical good that took different forms throughout time.

In the 1970’s, major labels saw a major success in the distribution of vinyl and cassette-tapes, with worldwide sales rising from $4.75 Billion to $7 Billion between 1973 and 1978 (Sen 6). That occurred before the development of the compact disc (CD), which quickly proved to be the groundbreaking format within the industry in the 1980s (Ibid.). The sales of vinyl and cassette-tapes declined, but the CD revived the consumer’s interest and kept worldwide record sales rising from $12 Billion in 1981 to $29 Billion in 1992 (Ibid). While technologies improved and formats changed, the role of both the artist and the major record label remained relatively consistent: The artist’s role was to produce the music, the record label’s role to distribute it and the fan’s role to consume it (Graham et al. 1087). This model worked well enough to turn ‘The Big Five’, an accumulation of music labels consisting of the Warner Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, Universal/PolyGram, into transnational conglomerates controlling more than 80 percent of the world’s music market in the early throughout the 1990s (Throsby 3).

This success story was deemed to fail, when, by the end of the 90s, the world witnessed yet another phenomenon that would change the way music is consumed and distributed forever: the phenomenon of digitization. The Business Dictionary defines digitization as ‘the conversion of analog information in any form (text, photographs, voice, etc.) to digital form with suitable electronic devices […] so that the information can be processed, stored, and transmitted through digital circuits, equipment, and networks’ (Business Dictionary). The scholar Christian Kahl argues that the biggest result of digitization is the Internet, which enables the consumption of digital media forms anytime and anywhere through numerous devices (1). This digitization led to a music format that would become a gift and a curse to both record labels and artists: the MP3 file. MP3 formats were the starting point for what is known today as online music. The compression format makes it possible to shrink audio into small files without compromising their sound quality and makes files small enough to be downloaded from a server or sent via email (O’Donnell and McClung 74). It did not take more than a year after the emergence of the MP3 in 1998 for a

(17)

college dropout to figure out a way to abuse the system. In 1999, Shawn Fanning launched Napster, a file sharing service that enabled so-called ‘peers’ to connect onto Napster’s central database, in order to search it for specific musical content. This content could then be freely downloaded from other users that had the MP3 file in question on their personal computer. This unauthorized file sharing quickly became the music industry’s greatest threat, leading to a global drop in CD-sales of 25 percent between 2000-2005 (Goel 6, 8). Major labels reacted quickly when Napster reached a total number of 50 Million users worldwide, filing lawsuits for copyright violation, which led to Napster’s shutdown in 2001, but did not keep other so-called Peer-to-Peer networks from growing in popularity (Sen 14). Record labels witnessed a great struggle to cope with the sudden redefinition of a supply model that once relied on the sale of physical music records like CDs. The industry’s traditional supply chain was radically transformed: Intermediaries that were once crucial for promotional purposes with regards to an artist’s career started vanishing and the power of major labels diminished (Graham et al. 1090); the marketability of an artist usually needed to be exposed to an audience first, which could only be achieved after a company’s decision to invest a substantial amount of money into production, promotion, and distribution activities (Waldfogel 408). These processes were once costly and time-consuming. But suddenly, digital technologies combined with the power of the Internet gave artists the opportunity to make music at very low cost. This paradigm shift resulted in low-cost equipment and software, which in turn reduced recording costs for artists, while the Internet also provided them with low-cost distribution opportunities. According to Graham and Burnes, it was the overarching control of the major labels – which had full control over the supply chain of music – that once prevented artists to distribute their creative goods independently (1087). But suddenly, the music industry saw a steady increase in independent releases,

accelerated by what Graham et al. call ‘an explosion in connectivity’, caused by what is today known as social media (1090).

(18)

2. Generation social media: How the Internet birthed platforms

to connect people

a. Early beginnings: Web 1.0

When technological developments caused the appearance of file sharing platforms like Napster, music started reaching consumers at an increased speed, flooding the World Wide Web with such a force that not even the biggest cyber-dam could have stopped songs from appearing on our computers. The days where people discovered a song on the radio, through friends or by going to a record shop are now as good as counted. The musical magic, today, happens on the Internet, or, to be more precise, on social media platforms, where an increasing amount of users discover music, since music has become ‘one of the primary links on social networking sites like Facebook’ (Dewan and Ramaprasad 101; Hull et al. 41). While Facebook is just one of many social media platforms that can be found on the Internet, it has become the most profitable social media business, not only worth billions of dollars, but also connecting billions of people, making it the most successful and prominent social media platform in the world (We Are Social) – impressive, considering the humble beginnings of social media.

Boyd et al. define social media platforms as ‘web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system’ (211). While Boyd et al. address several key elements of social media platforms, the authors fail to stress another point that needs to be linked to all forms of social media: participation. Being part of a social network requires users to not only share, but also actively ‘participate in the creation and exchange of information’ with other users within such a network (Brown 9).

The first attempt to connect people via social media was made by the platform SixDegrees.com in 1997. The platform enabled people to create basic profiles online – which included personal information, such as name, age, and hobbies – and connect with friends (Boyd and Ellison 214). In the early 2000s, the network introduced direct messaging, which revolutionized the way people communicated online and

(19)

transformed the web from a medium that was once focused on the publishing of content – referred to by scholars as Web 1.0 – to a medium that became increasingly communicative (Ibid.; Manovich 319). Even though millions of people had

subscribed to SixDegress.com by the year 2000, the service closed, leaving room for new attempts of companies to start their social networks, such as Friendster, which launched just a year later and based its business on the same model as

SixDegrees.com: connect people and enable them to communicate through instant messaging. Eventually, Friendster encountered technical difficulties, and to make matters worse, planned to introduce a mandatory user fee, which led to a boycott among users, especially indie rock bands, who were encouraging other Friendster-users to switch to a different social media network. These rock bands were then rapidly dismissed from Friendster for not complying with the network’s terms of services (Boyd and Ellison 217).

By 2003, this chain of events led these bands in particular to yet another social media platform: MySpace. While MySpace still served as a social network that

invited users to communicate with each other, it was its popularity among musicians and the increasingly growing distribution of digital music that transformed the network into a platform that encourage music distribution and built artist-fan relationships. Not only had musicians the chance to publish songs on their profiles, users could also directly connect with their favorite bands. It was the beginning of a whole new set of opportunities for musicians who were now able to be in direct contact with their audience. The Internet had entered a new era.

b. From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0: New opportunities with social media

Before MySpace, users accessed content on the Internet that was produced by a small portion of professionals; now users can access content that is produced by other non-professional users (Manovich 320). The fact that users could suddenly spread and share photos, let alone music, on a digital scale, led to what Manovich referred to as an ‘explosion in user generated content’ (UGC) (Ibid. 324). According to Kaplan and Haenlein, in order for something to be considered UGC, three requirements need to be met: The content needs to be published on a website or a social media platform and

(20)

has to be accessible for a selected group of users; the content needs to be considered ‘a creative effort’ and lastly, the content needs to produced ‘outside of professional routines and practices’, or, to put it more precisely, ‘without a commercial market context in mind’ (61). While they present some key aspects of UGC, Kaplan and Haenlein’s definition of UGC is not totally accurate anymore. Today, UGC does have a commercial market purpose, especially for music artists, who use social media to have a dialogue with users and potential fans, produce content in order to share it with followers, in the hopes of eventually profiting from it (Turner and Shah 13).

This explosion in UGC led to the most important change of the Internet in 2004 (Brown 1). The fact that users could freely add their own content to the World Wide Web, content that ranged from words to sound, all the way to pictures and videos, made scholars revisit the terminology Web 1.0 who updated it to Web 2.0. Unlike Web 1.0, Web 2.0 is not simply a static Web to access information anymore, but a Web ‘in which people can interact and participate rather than just read’ (Rice Lincoln 8). Henry Jenkins pointed out that with the evolution of a Web 1.0 to a Web 2.0, the relations between producers and consumers were re-organized: Today, consumers have full control over the content that the Internet provides them with and everyone can become a producer – with 2.0, media is spreadable (Jenkins 49).

(21)

Chapter 3 Social media and new opportunities for independent musicians

1. Web 2.0: A revolutionizing era for independent musicians

Since the launch of MySpace in 2003, it was only a matter of time for other

programmers to develop more social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – all these platforms grew in popularity within a few years and by 2008, over 40% of Internet-users produced their own content – such as videos, photos, or written content in the form of blog entries – while over 50% of people started consuming this content that other users were eagerly producing (Tuten 3). Only a year later, users started spending more time on social media platforms than on their email service (Crawford 526). The diversity in social media platforms made users realize how much different potential these platforms have. Social media platforms especially had a strong impact on music artists who strived for a career based on a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. This do-it-yourself approach is a key element in what is known today as an independent musician. While the definition of ‘independent musician’ has many nuances, there are still key characteristics that define them: An independent musician is an artist that is not signed to a major label and that either fully handles his own career without any intermediate player or has signed to a label that is, itself, independent (Spellman 182; Feehan 8).

Independent musicians saw an opportunity to use social media platforms as a mediator between themselves and potential fans, making the independent promotion, marketing and distribution of music a never before seen possibility to them (Preston and Roger 16). Not only that: Also consumers had the chance to profit from social media platforms, since they were suddenly able to discover new artists, share musical suggestions with others and consume music (Dewan and Ramaprasad 101). It was the birth of a new music economy, in which social media platforms ‘have given

independent artists in particular an open platform to promote their music without the gate-kept promotional restrictions existing in primary media, TV and radio exposure’, making social media platforms a primary vehicle for music promotion for these artists

(22)

(Rutter 156). The possibilities for musicians to spread content seemed endless. They could network with fans and exchange information with them directly; blogs allowed the publishing of written entries, videos and links; microblogs such as Twitter enabled them to publish short text-based entries with a maximum length of 140 characters to be sent and accessed via computers or mobile phones; and visual social media platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo let them share visual or audio content with their audience. The artist acquired total power over the things published on his social media sites, became the gate-keeper of the blog and comment section of his networks and with that, was able to ensure that only positive messages were spread about his music (Ibid. 167). And best of all: sharing content on such platforms had the potential of being viewed by millions of people around the world and was virtually for free (Zarrella 3). The low costs of music production, reproduction and distribution has made it relatively easy for independent musicians to enter the music market today (Dolfsma § 22).

2. Major vs. Indie: Redefining an artist’s power in the music

industry

As I have discussed in the previous section, digitization introduced technical

standards for communication that enabled individuals with an access to the Internet to communicate with others at practically zero cost (Graham et al. 1090). This opened a door for artists that they had no access to before: It generated a space where musicians were able to voice themselves, release creative content, since, as Sen argues, ‘unlike other means of mass communication, speaking, singing or even playing music in virtual space is a less resource intensive venture and anyone with some computer access and rudimentary knowledge of using the Internet is able to voice themselves’ (16). This had an extremely empowering effect on music artists: While they once needed to sign to a major label that would regulate their career-decisions, leaving artists often powerless and voiceless, the musician was now able to freely produce and distribute content without the necessity of an intermediate actor (Ibid). Sen continues to argue that with the Internet and the increasing technological possibilities, music artists see a chance to maintain control over their music distribution and can simultaneously build a direct relationship with people that could potentially turn into

(23)

fans, all while bypassing the major record labels to become independent. This idea that musician are likely to bypass major record labels is also shared by other authors. In their study, Graham et al. interviewed 15 people who either had an executive level position or experience as senior managers at either one of the ‘Big Five’, the major labels that include Warner Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, Universal/PolyGram. Interestingly, one the authors’ major findings was that ‘the majority of interviewees believed that the major record companies will exhibit less governance over their supply chain, as an increasing number of artists will create and distribute music on their own’ (Graham et al. 1096). Carey Sargent added to this argument, by stating that, indeed, in a time of technological innovation where the Internet dominates, more and more artists would refuse to sign or have no interest in a major label contract, since ‘they expressed an entrepreneurial ‘do it yourself’ ethos and participated in a ‘culture of advocacy’ where self-representation and visibility were central to the significance of their crafts’ (Sargent 470).

There is indeed a major change happening in the music industry: The power is moving from major corporations into the hands of musicians that are starting to engage with technology in order to gain full control over their creative output. Studies are suggesting that social media platforms are giving artists career opportunities, personal recognition as independent musicians and the possibility of gaining financial profit from using such platforms (Ibid. 472). By using social media platforms to promote their work and directly engage with an audience, independent musicians can build a trustful relationship with their fans, gain full creative control and more

opportunities for entrepreneurship (Rice Lincoln 145; Sargent 472). Computers and the Internet gave music artists more reach and the possibility of spreading content at high speed. These technologies have not only made it possible for artists to produce, but also to distribute content independently. However, while the arguments presented by authors like Sen or Graham all give an insight into the current state of the music industry and the shift in the music value chain, which seems to have diminished the power of major record labels, they fail to explain how independent artists, who decide to take matters into their own hands, need to accurately engage with social media platforms in order to build a following, build and maintain a successful, profitable career. There are many tools have that musicians can now use to promote their art

(24)

without the help of an additional player. While we did enter an era where the Internet enables a direct artist-to-audience relationship, it remains unclear how this

relationship is established. How should an independent musician make use of the Internet and social media platforms? What are the most important tools? How can artists directly ‘connect’ with their audience? The next section will shed light on these questions.

(25)

Chapter 4 Investigating promotional strategies of independent musicians

through social media

1. Qualitative research methodology

Before engaging in a quantitative research, it was important to start with a qualitative one. The qualitative research was conducted through the use of in-depth interviews. Person-to-person interviews are guaranteed to reveal more information than other potential methods of research, such as the use of surveys for example, since both the interviewer and interviewee are freed from any possible restrictions like closed or partially answered questions. Also, the interviewer has the chance to keep asking questions throughout the interview, and therefore go in depth at certain moments of the interview, while giving the interviewees the freedom to contribute as much of their personal knowledge and thoughts as they like (Boyce and Neale 3).

Between March 9th

and May 20th

, seven independent artists, one major label artist and one social media expert were interviewed. For that purpose, a set of 10-15 general questions was prepared, which served as a red thread for all interviews (see p. 70). The discussions included several questions about the emergence and advantages of social media platforms and the artists’ engagement with those platforms to promote their brand. Most importantly, the purpose of the questions was to trigger responses that would reveal particular strategies by the interviewees on how to successfully build a following on social media and steadily develop and maintain a fan-base. The questions were all centered on the two research questions presented in the

introduction of this work. While seven interviews were conducted on Skype, two were conducted face to face. Each interview lasted for about 15-30 minutes. Being a native speaker in both French and German, one interview was conducted in French, while three were conducted in German and the remaining five in English. The

(26)

where the most important passages of each discussion were transcribed into a Word document. The German and French interviews were directly transcribed into English.

2. Quantitative research methodology

Throughout the interviews, artists pointed out that Facebook is the most effective social network and their main window to the outside world. Rightly so: All artists have collected more ‘likes’ on Facebook than followers or subscribers on any other platform they are using simultaneously. This should not be surprising, as Facebook is still dominating the social media landscape. According to the social media agency We Are Social, Facebook counted 1.3 billion active users in January 2015, making it the biggest social media platform in the world (We Are Social). The fact that Facebook is the biggest social network, and, according to all interviewees, also the most effective one, demands that a closer look needs to be taken at each artist’s Facebook page. This will also help determine how these artists engage with the network and their

followers. This research will therefore not only provide the reader with a qualitative analysis, but also present a collection of numerical data analyzed through statistics and thus engage in a quantitative analysis in the attempt to exploit certain social media trends.

In order to do so, the data collection and extraction application Netvizz was used. According to its creator Bernhard Rieder, associate professor at the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam, the application was ‘developed into a veritable data extractor that provides outputs for different sections of Facebook in standard formats’ (Rieder 348). Anybody with an active Facebook account can access Netvizz by looking it up in the search bar. With Netvizz, data can be extracted from a particular profile or page on Facebook; the steps to do so are very straightforward. First, Netvizz is accessed via Facebook’s search bar. Then, there will be the choice of five options: One can engage in an analysis of groups on Facebook, analyze pages on Facebook, create a ‘page-like network’, build an interface to Facebook’s search function or extract statistics for links shared on Facebook. Since the purpose of this study is to see how artists engage with a social media platform like Facebook and what kind of content is shared on the artist’s page, the researcher will opt for the

(27)

second option and engage in a page-analysis by clicking on ‘Page Data’. Then, there will be an option to extract data from a particular number of posts made by the artist, or to enter a timeframe from which to retrieve data. For this study, I decided to look up the date of each artist’s first Facebook post, and to retrieve the data from that date until May 15th

2015, the day on which all data was collected. Netvizz also requires a page ID for each page that is being analyzed; entering the Facebook URL of the artist’s page on ‘lookup-id.com’ retrieves this ID. After the ID was copied in the respective box, one simply clicks on ‘get posts by page only’ and Netvizz will then generate a tabular file that lists different data for each post.

3. Sample selection and synopsis of interviewees

a. Sample selection

The selected sample consists of seven independent artists, one major label artist and one social media expert. A list of about 25 artists was put together according to my musical preferences and the artists I am following on Facebook. Three of those artists, Newmen, Birdy Hunt and Coby Grant are close friends, which facilitated the set-up of an interview with these musicians. Things looked a bit different for the remaining 22 artists. Emails, Facebook messages and tweets were sent out in the hopes of getting a response, since all 22 artists are independent, regularly post content on their social media accounts and would surely have given interesting insights for this study. However, 20 artists have either declined or never answered to the request. Tom Klose and Sascha Reske, two folk musicians, replied almost instantly, agreeing to an

interview.

Because she started as an independent musician and worked her way up to become both a national and international sensation, I decided to also include Laura Jansen, a major label artist. She has never put her social media activity in the hands of a label; the major label she is signed to today has no direct control over her social media channels and what content is posted on them. Laura has taken care of her social media channels from the very beginning. Therefore, her knowledge in the field has grown to be extensive and she has gained much professional knowledge about the

(28)

music business over the years. A mutual friend was kind enough to set up a Skype interview between Jansen and myself.

My profession as a freelance journalist for VICE Magazine’s music platform Noisey is what made the interview with Tôg frontman Lars Christian Olsen possible, since I had already interviewed him for the magazine back in 2014. After sending Olsen a message, he agreed to take part in this study. Even though his band dissolved in March, he is still active as an independent solo-artist.

The interview with Black Milk happened rather spontaneously. I interviewed the musician after his show in Amsterdam on May 4th

2015. While the interview was intended for VICE Magazine, I still decided to ask him for an additional 15 minutes to tell him about my thesis and ask him a few questions, as I had been following his music for years and knew that he was an independent artist that was extremely active in the social media sphere. He agreed to answer my questions.

Lastly, a friend of mine put me in touch with a social media expert, who owns a successful consultancy group that specializes in the promotion of independent artists and also agreed to answer my questions.

What remains to be indicated, is that this study is limited to artists who already have an established career as very, or relatively successful musicians, who can make a living off their craft and who take care of all their social media channels without the interference of an intermediary party such as, for example, a record label, with the exception of Laura Jansen, Black Milk and Lars Christian Olsen, who all consciously decided not to subscribe to an extra YouTube and Vimeo channel, since their labels to uploaded their videos for them. Apart from simply uploading these videos, which the three artists then shared on their other social media channels at a later stage, there was no additional interference from their label.

(29)

b. Synopsis of interviewees i. Independent artists

Birdy Hunt: Birdy Hunt is a French Indie-Rock band from Paris. The band consists of the singer Marc, the guitarists Luc and Nicolas, the bassist Thomas, the keyboard-player Manuel and a drummer, Marius Paijens, who has been taking care of the band’s social media activity since its formation in 2007. In recent years, the band has gathered quite a national and international following, playing their own shows and at major music festivals across Europe. They released their debut album Shoplift last October through the independent record label Deaf Rock Records. The album was well received by fans and music critics across Europe.

Birdy Hunt uses Facebook (5.711 Likes), Twitter (761 Followers), Instagram (597 Followers), SoundCloud (461 Followers) and YouTube (362 subscribers) and Vimeo (1 follower) as promotional social media channels.

Newmen: Newmen is a Frankfurt-based band rock band. Their sound is a mixture of a variety of elements, ranging from Garage- and Post-Wave all the way to Indie and Lo-Fi-Pop. The band met in 2012 and instantly started recording their first songs. They released their first album Rush Hush independently in 2014. Joerg Schmidt, the band’s guitarist, has taken care of the band’s social media presence since the band’s formation.

Newmen uses Facebook (1.345 likes), Twitter (42 follower), Instagram (158 follower), SoundCloud (204 follower), YouTube (59 subscribers), Tumblr (104 subscribers) and Vimeo (8 follower) as promotional social media channels.

Tôg: Tôg was a Norwegian band formed in the city of Stavanger back in 2009. Tôg’s futuristic disco sound, inspired by the boogie- and disco-scene of the 60s, has landed the band a spot on the newcomer stage at SXSW in Austin, Texas, one of the most acclaimed music festivals. The band released their debut album Drøm in 2011 through the Norwegian independent label Brilliance Records. The band released their

sophomore album Feiring in 2014. A few months after the release, Lars left the band due to irreconcilable differences.

(30)

Tôg used Facebook (3.444 likes), Twitter (213 follower) and SoundCloud (155 follower). At the time of their signing, Tôg’s labels already had their own YouTube and Vimeo channels. For this reason, the band did not see any relevance in having additional, personalized YouTube and Vimeo accounts, since the label posted the videos on the channels, before Lars reposted the link to music videos on the band’s other social media platforms.

Tom Klose: Tom Klose is a solo-artist from Flensburg, Germany, and has been making music on a professional level since 2009. Tom’s music is a smooth blend of folk and acoustic rock. He managed to serve as a supporting act for both German and American superstars like Tim Bendzko and Ed Sheeran, exposing him to hundreds of thousands of people and potential fans. Tom released his first solo debut From Weeds

to Woods in April through his own company REDUX Music, which he launched after

being rejected by both major and independent labels.

Tom Klose uses Facebook (6.388 likes), Twitter (870 follower), Instagram (999 follower), SoundCloud (446 follower), YouTube (870 subscribers) and Vimeo (1 follower) as promotional social media channels.

Sascha Reske: Sascha Reske is an independent solo-artist from Halle, Germany. His music is a blend of genres, ranging from alternative rock to folk. His career as a musician only started in 2012, but since then, he already gathered a good following and has been on several tours across Europe. He self-released his debut album The

Season’s Loneliest Tree in 2013 via his own distribution company, Sascha Reske.

Sascha Reske uses Facebook (1.634 likes), Twitter (45 follower), Instagram (179 follower), SoundCloud (99 follower), YouTube (94 subscribers) and Vimeo (1 follower) as promotional social media channels.

Coby Grant: Coby Grant is a singer from Perth, Australia. She has been working as an independent musician for over ten years. In her music, Coby blends elements of pop, contemporary folk and electronic music. She has been touring around Australia and Europe, even played concerts in the United States, booking most of the shows herself by contacting promoters and sending them her music. She self-released her first album Coby Grant is in Full Color in 2012 and has since then released several

(31)

Coby Grant uses Facebook (4.437 likes), Twitter (760 follower), Instagram (582 follower), SoundCloud (722 follower), YouTube (1.188 subscribers) and Vimeo (1 follower).

Black Milk: Curtis Cross is known as the rapper and hip-hop producer Black Milk from Detroit. He has been active since the early 2000s. He signed to the independent label Fat Beats Records in 2006 and has since then released six albums. His extensive music-catalogue contains collaborations with some of America’s biggest rap-stars, and he has been taking his music across the world, playing shows in the United States, Europe, Australia and New-Zealand. He has been managing and coordinating several social media channels by himself for many years.

Black Milk uses Facebook (113.186 likes), Twitter (82.825 follower), Instagram (16.078 follower) and SoundCloud (36.307 follower). Similar to Lars Christian Olsen from Tôg, Black Milk does not see the necessity of having his own video channels on YouTube and Vimeo, as his label Fat Beats Records takes care of those channels. Black Milk simply reposts links to videos on his social media platforms.

ii. Major music artist

Laura Jansen: Laura Jansen is a Dutch-American platinum-selling artist from Breda, who has spent the majority of her life in Los Angeles. Laura Jansen’s sound can be best described as a mixture of pop and alternative rock elements. After being an independent artist for close to six years, she signed a contract with Universal Music in the Netherlands in 2009, before closing another major deal in the United States with Decca Records in 2011. Laura Jansen has successfully developed from an

independent artist to a musician that is now selling millions of records and is touring the world. Her expertise in the independent world is therefore extremely valuable for this study.

Laura Jansen uses Facebook (60.981 likes), Twitter (41.398 follower) and Instagram (6.903 follower). Universal Music Group takes care of music-video related content on YouTube.

(32)

iii. Social media consultant

Lueda Alia (Smoke and Mirrors Consulting, Canada): Lueda Alia played a vital role in breaking some of todays most established indie acts, including Angus & Julia or Typhoon. She founded the music blog Made of Chalk in 2013 and the blog’s original video content was featured by NBC’s Carson Daly, the AV Club, Brooklyn Vegan, and more. After getting to know some of her favorite artists over time, she realized how little professional support they were receiving from agencies they were hiring to promote their music. She then began helping out as a publicist and as a manager. Now, she owns and operates a successful artist, business, and marketing consulting agency, Smoke & Mirrors Consulting, which works with a wide variety of artists, record labels, and other companies to develop effective and sustainable

approaches to marketing.

The following section will present all the findings collected throughout the in-depth interviews with the interviewees. I will strictly deal with the insights, perceptions, recommendations the interviewees have given me, and present them under different categories. The assessment of the appropriateness of these strategies will be presented under a more theoretical light at a later stage, in chapter five.

(33)

4. Findings from interviews: How to make the most of social

media as an independent artist

a. Advantages of social media usage for independent artists

The results from the interviews all suggest that there is no doubt about the advantages social media has on the independent music scene. All respondents have named or hinted in some way at advantages of social media platforms.

The rapper-producer Black Milk is a veteran in the Detroit Hip-Hop scene and has been using digital media to his advantage ever since he started in the music business. He believes that through social media, he has the power of reaching people with his music at any time of the day:

I can make a record and put it out through social media the same day or week I made it. Music fans are always hungry for the next big song, especially today, where everything happens so fast because of all these platforms. Being independent means that I can feed my fans with music 24/7 if I want to and keep them satisfied. That’s thanks to stuff like Facebook

or Twitter.

The possibility of reaching a large amount of people and potential fans is, according to all artists interviewed for this study, the most important aspect of being an

independent artist. Tom Klose goes even as far as arguing that, today, reach has more importance than making money from music:

I need to reach as many people as possible. And today, you reach people through social media. Money is not the main concern anymore, it’s connecting with as many people around

the world as possible. It is only after reaching as many people as possible that you think about how you can profit from it financially.

Control is another point that was mentioned at several occasions throughout the interviews. All artists believe that the appearance of social media transferred the control of major labels formerly executed over an artist’s career straight into the hands of the musician himself. Lars Marius Paijens, drummer of the French rock band Birdy Hunt, believes that as well:

(34)

You can be your own boss with social media. You can decide what to post, when to post it and how to post it. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do, I have full control over my career and I’m still able to travel the world and gain new fans everyday. A lot of people with major

deals can’t do that.

With regard to control, Sascha Reske also points out that when it comes to

promotional work on social media, no artist should give away that responsibility to another party:

Promotion through social media is something only the artist should do. In the end, you are selling something you created, so you’ll be the only one that knows how you want to spread it

properly.

Joerg Schmidt from Newmen has a pretty straightforward answer when it comes to the advantages of social media for a musician:

It’s pretty simple: You need to exist digitally to exist as a musician. If people don’t know how to find you, you don’t exist for them. There’s your advantage.

Lueda Alia, head of the consultancy group Smoke and Mirrors, adds another major advantage, namely the possibility for independent musicians to share content with a large amount of people around the world within seconds, while avoiding costs:

Independent artists don’t really need to rely on middlemen with large funds anymore. All they need is to do is subscribe to a social media platform, create a page and start throwing content on there. It only takes a few clicks to distribute content; also, subscribing to a platform that

let’s you share content is usually free.

Lastly, social media can also have the effect of boosting an artists’ confidence, according to Laura Jansen:

Social media can boost your confidence too. It is a great way of checking whether or not your art resonates with people. You need to use social media to put up music and wait for people’s reactions. That’s what got me my first little show and gave me the courage to go on stage: the fact that I got a couple of hundred views on my songs and saw that people would spread it on

their account.

Independent artists are confronted with a multitude of advantages social media brings that can help them promote their brand. Interviewees did point out, however, that

(35)

b. Disadvantages of social media usage for independent artists

Social media does not only have positive attributes for independent artists. While the relatively low or non-existent costs, easy usability, access and dispersion of content are all attractive characteristics for musicians that are planning to engage in a do-it-yourself-career, social media also comes with shortcomings.

A main concern that was addressed by most interviewees was the fact that a strong social media presence of an artist does not necessarily guarantee an income. Tom Klose addresses this problem with the following statement:

When the artist uses all these platforms, he invests a lot of time and nerves into them. But he risks to not make any money off his music. Money is not the priority, but you do want to live off your music in the end. I try to make sure that the people that follow me on social media

come to my shows and buy my music. But there is no guarantee that will always happen.

This is a problem that Sascha Reske experienced firsthand. He addressed the problem of the infinite overflow of information that social media generates:

I’ve had experiences where I posted something about an upcoming show on Facebook and Twitter and afterwards people came up to me and said: “I had no idea you did a show. Didn’t

even see your post about that”. That annoyed me. There is just too much content on these platforms that people don’t pay attention anymore, they’re likely to overlook things.

Another problem that was addressed in relation to social media is the fact that many artists are after likes and followers, a wrong priority, according to Black Milk:

People, not only musicians, are all after likes and followers. This seems to be the priority today. If you’re a musician, focus on the music. Don’t think that there is a relation between

the quality of your art and the amount of likes you have. There is no relation.

While the artist Black Milk has a point here, it is still necessary that independent musicians gather a fan-base. No artist will survive in the industry without a following. Therefore, artists who want to work independently need to take preliminary steps before or while launching their social media channels.

(36)

c. Making the first step as an independent artist: Prove talent and establish a following

Building a following demands hard work and dedication and is usually not only achieved via digital means. Most interviewees stressed the importance of playing live-shows in the beginning stages of an independent artist’s career. An artist’s following will not increase by itself; it is necessary to first promote the music via other means. This is also what the singer Coby Grant argued:

I played my first show in a café in Australia, after giving the owner some of my songs. He asked me to play one night, and after that I had enough confidence to go a step further and

work on building a fan-base. I started sending emails with a link to my MySpace profile to different venues in Australia – small theaters, clubs, pubs – and got my first bookings. That’s

what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve booked about 200 shows by myself in 2011, the year I went on my first European tour. Suddenly it became this reality where I thought “I could do this without a label”. But in order to do that, you need to spend countless hours in front of a computer screen, research and contact booking agents and venues. It’s hard work, but you

don’t need any label to help you with that stuff. The artist has the power nowadays.

Lars Christian Olsen from Tôg has a similar point of view. Before focusing on the Internet, an independent artist needs to have a presence in real-life, rather than on the Internet. This will ultimately lead to people spreading the word and looking the artist up on the Internet:

You need to play many, many shows to get this word-of-mouth thing started. Don’t start thinking about Facebook and all that stuff. How are people going to find you on the Internet,

if they don’t even know the name of your band? At our first small shows, we always put a banner with the name of our band behind us. We always made sure people knew who was playing in front of them. We also played in the streets a lot. Eventually, we saw that the more

shows we’d play, the more our following would increase online and the bigger the venues would get.

Interestingly, Sascha Reske addresses a rather ‘outdated’ technique he started using when he played his first small show in front of around 30 people. By using email newsletters to this day, he still makes sure that he reaches some of his fans in a more traditional way by having them fill out a piece of paper with their contact information at his concerts. He engages in a direct, real-life contact with his fans:

(37)

I still use email newsletters, which I think are extremely efficient when it comes to reaching people. The idea came to me before my very first show in front of around 30 to 40 people. I printed a page with a table, where people could fill in their names and email addresses. Emails have a stronger impact than a quick post you make on social media platforms like

Facebook or Twitter. You’re more conscious about an email than something that quickly appears between thousands of other posts on your news feed.

In the process of taking matters into their own hands, it is crucial the independent artists-to-be patiently organize their first small shows in front of any kind of audience, at any kind of venue. This in turn demands extensive research and preparation. It is important to leave the best possible impression in front of a crowd that could potentially develop an interest in looking up artists on the Internet and purchasing their music in the future. In order to be found on the Internet, independent artists need to develop a certain strategy and take advantage of the platform culture that has impacted the Internet for over a decade now. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or SoundCloud are all social media channels that are part of this platform culture and just a few examples of the many possibilities musicians have to spread their art and make the Internet their world stage.

d. Understanding the technology: ‘Practice before you preach’

According to Black Milk and Laura Jansen, independent artists should take time to understand the technology that is available to them, before using it.

Black Milk explains how he found some inspiration on other people’s platforms when social media started to have an impact on the career of musicians, especially with MySpace:

I remember when this social media thing started with MySpace and moved to Facebook and all that. I was on that online shit everyday trying to understand it. You need to take the time and look into all your options, look at what other artists are doing and see what works and what doesn’t. You have to understand what you can do with the things the Internet offers you,

instead of just using it without a proper plan.

This is a point that Laura Jansen addressed as well:

You have to spend a lot of time on social media. Not necessarily to post things, but to understand the technology. I spent months and months analyzing all these platforms, trying to