By: Dakota Anderson
It's no secret that social media has completely changed the inner workings of the music industry. The marketing tactics, planning, releases, and everything that gets put into a music release has changed because of our new digital world. But that's not all that got affected by social media. An artist or band's fans now have a whole place where they can connect because of the shared love of music.
Before the digital age, being a fan of an artist was pretty much a solo activity. How were you supposed to know that millions of people across the world were listening to the same songs just like you were day after day.
Don't get me wrong, artists' fandoms have always been huge, think back to the days of Michael Jackson and Prince. But it's nothing like we have today on social media. Fans are able to connect more than ever online because of their shared love of an artist. Fandoms create names that bind them together. Lady Gaga's "Little Monsters," One Direction's "Directioners," or Taylor Swift's "Swifities" are all great examples.
A great example of the way these fandoms are able to connect are through "streaming parties. The parties are basically an organization of a bunch of people (and i mean thousands) from around the world to listen to the same song on repeat on as many streaming services as they can for a certain period of time. An example of this is a recent party held by Swifties to listen to Taylor Swift's new single "Delicate".
It's pretty ingenious from a marketing standpoint isn't it? Taylor and her management team did not have to do any time of promotion to get this streaming party to take place, her fans just organized themselves to do it. That wasn't even remotely possible in the days before social media.
Social media has completely revolutionized what it means to be a fan of an artist. It's given the ability to connect with people across the world just because of a shared interest.
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