Direct Line to Artists: The Fans, The Viewers and The Followers

It goes without saying that we are living in a social-media-ruled world. With the titans being Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Social media is a way for us to connect with friends, and even meet new people. So why shouldn’t artists do the same with it? Having a fan/viewer/follower (whatever you want to call it) these days is like having their address and phone number. It’s a way they can reach people on a personal level, with the advantage that they chose to be reached by the artist. They didn’t have to fill out a form, or even send in their application. They just hit they “Like”, “Follow”, or “Subscribe” button. It’s that easy! But here comes the interesting part, because social media is so personal (for both parts) is it an advantage for an artist to have 24/7 connection with the world? Aren’t they already followed by the paparazzi enough? Well, let’s get into that.

Troy Carter, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Coalition Media Group, and manager of recording artists such as Lady Gaga, believes social media is a must for an artist these days. In some cases though, artists may not be tech savvy but he says that they should at least know how to tweet. Why tweet? It’s the easiest. Carter goes on to say that social media for an artist is just as important as touring was 20 years ago. It’s a way to build audience. The trick to having a real connection with their fans, that’s why it’s important for the artist to manage these accounts themselves.

What we’re seeing recently is that Facebook and Youtube are becoming “team managed” accounts, leaving Twitter to be managed by the artists themselves. Like I mentioned before, Twitter is easy to use and it offers the advantage of not being as personal as Facebook. In Facebook, your fans can post or tag you in countless posts and your wall content becomes those of fans. However, in Twitter your timeline is your timeline. Fans can tag you using the “@” but this doesn’t appear on your timeline unless you decide to reply to them. In any case, fans have chosen to follow the artist and they do it because they want to know more about them. Whether a fan is next door or on the other side of the world, they both are going to feel connected to the artist. That’s something that they couldn’t do before with other types of media, or anything a paparazzi can photograph or a magazine can achieve with its publishing’s. It’s the artist voice the fans want to hear.

Social media is a global platform, it can be accessed from anywhere by anyone. That’s a great platform for artists who want to build their fan base, but they must not rest on that alone. Going back to something Troy Carter said, he stated that the worst thing for an artist is to have people know their name from a massive outlet. IT gives them no ownership, it doesn’t create that special connection between art and fan. That’s why social media is a great tool for artists but they have to put in the work to go out and perform. It should be used as a means to connect with the “ARTist”, and for the artist to keep true to their fans. 


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