From Artists to Influencers: How Social Media is Changing the Way We Market Music

“The fact of the matter is that music industry professionals - not limited to artists - are now required to be influencers on top of their day-to-day job.”

One area of the music industry that has seen rapid development over the past few years is marketing and promotions – specifically social media. With the rise in mainstream use of social media, record labels and independent artists have succumbed to the pressure of participating in platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. These apps are brilliant promotional tools due to their mixed-media content; artists would be wrong to deny the reach that advertising on social media can have. However, using these platforms has become an art in itself, due to the demanding and time-consuming nature of creating content, and competing to keep followers engaged. The fact of the matter is that music industry professionals - not limited to artists - are now required to be influencers on top of their day-to-day job.

A trend that demonstrates how effective social media can be as a tool for musicians is the King for a Day challenge on TikTok. Back in 2012, post-hardcore band Pierce the Veil released a song called King for a Day. The song did well for its time, gaining the group lots of fame and a loyal fanbase. But, like most music, it lost its sparkle and the cultural moment surrounding the track - and the band - fizzled out. Then, a decade after the song’s release, it blew up on TikTok as the soundtrack to popular transition video trend. The song then reached number 1 on the Billboard Hard Rock streaming charts – something that it had not seen in 10 years. King for a Day became a culturally iconic moment and, since its peak in August 2022, the band have gained 240.2k Spotify followers, according to Chartmetric. This is just one example of the impact social marketing can have. However, Pierce the Veil were a pre-established band with a strong fanbase. For new artists starting out, it is more of an uphill battle requiring changes and adaptations, from themselves and their labels.

A negative side effect of social media marketing is that users aren’t always able to distinguish the difference between content that is promoting a product on another platform – e.g., a song on Spotify – and content that is purely created for entertainment. This can result in consumers becoming ignorant to actual advertising and failing to act in acquiring the product. Consequently, labels and marketing companies invest their time and money promoting products without making anything back. A way they have adapted to avoid this problem is streamlining their content to enable lean consumption, which means customers can acquire goods with minimum time and effort. This sort of content encourages lean-through behaviours such as album, merchandise, and ticket purchases.

Additionally, we are seeing an increasing amount of interactive digital campaigns from musicians and record labels to promote new products. A prime example of someone who did this very cleverly is PinkPantheress. PinkPantheress joined TikTok in 2020, creating 30-second to 1-minute sound bites that she then developed into full songs following a positive reaction from her online audience. Without even having full songs, users were making videos with her music as backing sounds to their own content, which shot her to fame very quickly. This then turned into a physical campaign called “Who is PinkPatheress?” that continued to market her music in a more untraditional way. Today, she has multiple singles and an album released, on top of a recent tour, while her songs stay thriving on the platform. PinkPantheress’s journey highlighted the importance of trending sounds on not just TikTok but all platforms. Artists now strive to make their music go viral as sounds on social media, as it provides easy access and a fun, interactive element.

Making music so accessible to the public online has put a spotlight on certain issues within music, though, especially throughout this year. One of those big issues is copyright – an underpinning factor of the wider industry, with many rules and legislations. Recently, Warner Music sued British make up brand Iconic London for using unlicensed music in full length adverts, assuming that the songs were covered by the platforms’ own music licenses. A further example of this is when multiple labels joined forces in suing Bang, an energy drink company, for the same reasons. This has been a repeated occurrence, causing labels to tackle the issue head-on. According to Social Media Today, labels have begun hiring entire teams of researchers to “scour the online landscape for unlicensed usage of their clients’ work.” It is a hefty but effective operation, aiming to protect the rights of musicians and labels on social media.

Attention saturation is also a problem with social media. Users openly admit that they get tired of repeatedly seeing the same content from different people – almost like a digital palette fatigue. On the other hand, creators get bored of making content and coming up with new ideas. Particularly artists whose primary focus is music and not being an influencer. To avoid this happening, record labels have whole departments of people who come up with social media campaigns designed to keep creators involved with making content, ensure follower engagement, and encourage lean-through behaviours from consumers.

It has been obvious for several years that social media is taking over almost every aspect of our lives, and music certainly can’t escape that. Musicians becoming influencers and taking advantage of digital marketing is something we will only see more of in the future. For now, the industry is learning how to get a grip of this foreign social space, while adapting to exploit its benefits.