The Positive Side to Social Currency: Music
My last post, “Social Metrics: It Doesn’t Matter. You’re Worth It” was all about your personal accounts and how you shouldn’t care about the number of likes you receive. This post, however, may sound contradicting but it is all about the importance of social currency when it comes to your brand.
**Notice the difference between the personal and the professional.
In most professional environments, an online brand and its interactions with its community say a lot about its current success. A lot of industries are moving towards building their online community. They want to engage with their audience in a meaningful way and share content that appeals to them. Follows, likes, and comments suggest popularity.
Let’s take the music industry for an example. As an artist, professionals such as managers, music supervisors, and label-heads look at online metrics to see how well you’re doing with your audience. I’ve learned the past four years that companies these days do not want to invest in building your brand. They want your brand to be established with a strong following. They know the power of the Internet has allowed artists to grow themselves and from there, companies determine whether you’re worth working with (what a tongue-twister). In this case, your social currency does have a lot of value. You need to be able to get your music from A to B. Exhibit A:
This is called your perceived value, as your social numbers give an idea of your popularity and who your audience is. It shows your ability to reach a large audience and that is what attracts these industry professionals. Actual value, on the other hand, is your content — your music created. You would think the two come hand in hand but it takes a lot of work to build both the content and the strategy.
My producer the other day told me that if the content were good, the rest would follow. One of our most trusted friends who is such a genius businessman argued that yes, it’s about producing good music but it’s also about having a strategy behind it. Oh, how I loved seeing the tensions between art & commerce intersect.
**Shoutout to Creative Industries for allowing us to think with both those hats!
Anywho, I realized that the artist works harder than ever these days and has had to become so savvy with their online presence. On the one hand, making great music should attract people but in this day in age, you also need to stand out. You need to make your music/brand accessible, available, and eye-catching to maintain audience attention. You do need that self-promotional strategy to gain fans and retain them. The larger your following, the better the chance you have of getting your music heard, shared, and received by a larger audience.
So, yes — your social currency is an important and positive element for your brand whether you’re a company trying to sell your product or an artist trying to share your music. Know who to connect with that can help boost your social currency, what hashtags to use to attract the right eyes, and the right sites to post your material on that will drive people back to your platform.
