Hello, everyone. Happy Record Store Day! Our team spent the morning rubbing shoulders with audiophiles at a handful of stores across the country and likely spent far more money than intended, but we had a blast in the process. If you have yet to go out, MOVE. What are you waiting for? This is like Christmas for the music industry, only you have to spend money in order to enjoy it and there are rarely family get togethers.
We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the last month we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. Today we are continuing that effort with a response to a question posed by one reader in regards to whether or not social media numbers mean anything. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
The age of social media has forever changed the way we communicate with one another. We still call and text, but we also have the ability to be connected 24/7 to the people, groups, personalities, sites, and brands we love. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, as people love catching up with friends and companies love the free access to consumers. Blogs love it too, perhaps even more than regular businesses, because it essentially offers the opportunity for nonstop free advertising as long as they have a steady stream of timely content to share.
…And therein lies one reason many believe music blogging has started to go downhill in recent years.
The problem with the level of connectivity allowed by social media and how it applies to blogs is that too many people have become focused on generating clicks and short term popularity instead of developing content that is actually worth the time and attention needed to read it. Everyone is so obsessed with being the first to print a certain story that everyone rushes to post the same thing at the same time and the net becomes cluttered with dull, lifeless writing that serves more as promotional fodder than actual music journalism. If you want to be a promotional machine for labels and bands, that is perfectly fine, but you need to understand there is a world of difference between shoveling content out for quick clicks and writing something that is worth reading, let alone being shared.
Before the age of social media anyone hoping to make a name for themselves with a music blog would have to do something that is no longer required thanks to social media: Give people a reason to stop by each and every day. Some would accomplish this through forums of course, but everyone had to work hard at crafting content that people would actually want to click in order to begin developing an audience. They had to try and start conversations where there otherwise were none, and then hope that others who enjoyed those conversations told someone they knew about the site that hosted said conversation. Even if they did, the person who learned about that ‘cool’ thing someone else saw on a particular site then had to take it upon themselves to visit that site at a later point in time.
It’s important to keep in mind that there were no ‘Likes’ or ‘+1’ before the boom of social media. Sharing online meant emails, and more often than not originated with real life conversations that later continued through email. How many stories have you read in the last week on music blogs that you discussed with another person in the same room? Videos or images do not count unless they were created by the site hosting the content. Otherwise you’re commenting on material released by musicians found on a particular blog, which that site had no part in bringing to life.
I recently heard another critic comment that with everyone online posting the same story essentially the same way within moments of it breaking, the biggest choice consumers have in entertainment news is the voice that delivers the information. Do you have a voice? Anyone can post content from next big act, but simply having a site with a bunch of media on it does not make you a music blogger. A promoter, maybe, but definitely not a writer.
In order for your site to grow and for you to develop as a writer you need to first focus on the quality of the content you are producing before you begin to fret over the quantity. Copy/pasting press releases and doing everything in your power to feature the top videos of the day as soon as they are released will go a long way towards building a social media following, but that type of engagement with consumers is entirely surface level. You are only getting the attention of readers because you are fast, and being the fastest is never a guarantee in writing. There is always another lightning-fast blogger with a tumblr ready to post and re-post the next breaking tidbit. The best thing you can do is find a way to present the latest and greatest content in a way that is both unique and engaging. You do not have to write a dozen stories a day and you certainly do not have to love everything you cover, but you do have to have a voice that is your own. Forge a connection with readers that makes them curious of content you post regardless of their familiarity with the artists or group behind the media you are covering. Those are the consumers that will ultimately help you thrive.
