Most musicians have a hate/hate relationship with social media.
The love is gone because it feels so one-sided; musicians are putting in a lot of time and energy into something that just doesn’t seem to love them back.
When I have calls with musicians about social media, I can feel the frustration.
Our conversations often lean towards “yeah… but is this even worth it nowadays?”
Although I know the answer is almost always a clear yes, I understand why the question is coming up so often.
Something has gone wrong on social media.
For most, organic reach has decreased significantly over the last few years, and it can seem like the algorithms are straight up working against them.
It’s lead to creatives feeling as though their work is unimportant—that no one cares about authentic self-expression and real art (whatever that means).
And so these people feel they’re faced with a choice:
- Turn to cheap tactics for likes and views in the hopes the attention they get will trickle down to their genuine work. Or…
- Give up.
I don’t believe either of these options are the way to go, but I get it.
There’s no doubt that social media has become more of a game than it used to be, and that’s undesirable for a lot of musicians who just want to share their art.
But I think this problem looks a lot bigger than it actually is.
Yes, there’s a game to play—but is it really a game we don’t want to play?
Or is it just that we’re being fed rules that make us hate it?
The message is obscured.
Your environment shapes your beliefs, ideas, perceptions, interests, personality & more.
Unfortunately, the environment on social media most musicians find themselves in can be poisonous.
Musicians want to use these platforms to help their art be seen / heard in some way or another.
So, they turn to people who have figured out how to play the game (like me) to learn how to do it for themselves.
The big problem here is what you’re being taught.
A lot of the info you get is “how to increase your views / likes / whatever” and not “how to use social media in a meaningful & authentic way”.
You, the musician, are pummelled with this message that it’s all about the views and likes, and anything on authentic self-expression, enjoyment, and fulfilment rarely enters the conversation.
So, you begrudgingly try to play this shallow game, hate it, and then get understandably bitter about the state of social media.
As someone who’s part of this world, I will say it’s very difficult not to go down this views / likes path because that’s what the majority responds to.
It is also important to understand—to some extent—what drives these metrics because it can help you find ways (that you’re ok with) to support your goals.
The problem is the drastic imbalance.
The meaningful stuff gets buried under the shallow stuff, and it’s caused musicians to create a ‘bad’ social media priority ladder.
- You focus on creating content designed to get likes / views…
- …because you want to make the algorithm happy…
- …hoping that getting the algo on your side will somehow lead to real meaning & value…
- …by (fingers crossed) people discovering and appreciating your true art.
You can see what’s wrong here—you’re prioritising the stuff that looks good but doesn’t matter over the stuff that feels good and does matter.
And what’s so funny (but not haha funny) about this is that by putting the engagement above the art, you’re putting more distance between your art and an audience.
The likes and views rarely lead to what you want (meaning and value from your art).
Even if you get the numbers, they’re often meaningless because they’ve come from shallow content (and so you’ve attracted a shallow audience).
Now don’t get me wrong—playing the game to an extent to get your stuff in front of people is a good idea.
But you can play this game without compromising your authenticity and self-expression.
How? Flip the priority ladder.
- Prioritise sharing the art you want to share (this doesn’t have to just be music—art in this case is whatever helps you express yourself in the way you want).
- Use the art to deliver meaning and value. This is where I highly recommend putting in the effort to present it in a beautiful way (more on this in a moment).
- Then let the algorithm put your stuff in front of the right people…
- …and bring you likes and views from the people who truly connect with your art.
Not only is this much better for your soul, it can often help you make significantly more progress on social media. Let’s talk about that.
Using art to deliver meaning and value.
So let’s assume you’re taking this ‘art first’ approach to social media now. You’re no longer going to worry so much about pleasing the algorithm or getting likes and views.
What does ‘use the art to deliver meaning and value’ mean?
It means you present it in a way that brings people meaning and value.
And don’t worry, you don’t have to compromise on anything you don’t want to—you have full control over how much you ‘play the game’ here.
So many musicians get tripped up here. They confuse the idea of packaging their art for social media with compromising the art. Here’s exactly what I mean:
When you share your art on social media (let’s say in the form of a performance), people are much more likely to respond to videos with:
- high quality video and audio
- a nice aesthetic that helps convey a story / message they can relate to or that elicits and emotional reaction.
- some lyrics on the screen so they can easily follow along
- something creative that people aren’t totally bored of seeing
^ This is pretty much it. Seriously, assuming your music is great, you can go far on this.
Now you tell me how any of these are compromising on your art at all.
Most musicians want their art to be presented in its best light. These are not creativity stifling boundaries.
When in your life have you ever watched a video or listened to a song and said “oh, I love how low quality this is”? I’m willing to bet never because no one wants that.
This of course excludes situations such as ‘The Room’ (movie) and black metal recorded in a log cabin in the woods of Norway on a 2-track recorder.
If the above criteria aren’t acceptable or desirable to you, you don’t have to meet them, and I know it can be time consuming—but just know that most people (including you and I) want those things.
The authenticity/engagement problem.
I hear this a lot: “But when I share my authentic stuff it gets less engagement / no one’s interested.”
This can be a legitimate problem, especially if you’ve trained an audience to respond to a certain type of content.
It can feel like when you start showing your true self and sharing what you want that you don’t even have an audience.
Maybe you don’t. Maybe the people around you currently aren’t the right people to find meaning and value in your art.
Or maybe it’s in the presentation. There are countless examples of musicians doing extremely well on social media simply by sharing their music and meeting the above criteria.
Or maybe it doesn’t matter. What if the goal wasn’t to get the highest numbers as fast as possible and instead it was to share your art and have it reach the people who truly connect?
Social media can be infinitely more fulfilling for you if you take back control.
Enjoy it. Share stuff you love. Build a community you love.
Do what you want and decide how much or little you want to play the game.
You always have a choice, regardless of whether or not you feel like you do.
Again, you’re in control, and you’ve got this 🙂
Ok, let’s leave it there!
I hope this gave you something to think about, and as always if you’d like some help from me, you can check out your options here.
P.S. You might have had a specific experience with social media and sharing your stuff that I didn’t touch on in this letter. I can’t cover everything in one letter, but please know there’s almost always an answer to your problem 🙂
All the love and stay awakened,
Alex
