Are you an early adopter? Whenever a new music app or service is launched some musicians rush in and most hold back. In week or so from now, you’ll be hearing about how early adopters are using new music marketing strategies to promote their music on Twitter’s newest service: Twitter #Music.
Twitter just announced it’s foray into the music world on their blog:
“Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.”
Read more about how the Twitter #Music service works here
Whether or not you decide to beat the crowds and start hacking Twitter’s newest music app, it’s important to understand the biggest advantage to musicians that this app represents.
Twitter #Music is about making music tracks go viral
Usually, when we say “viral” we’re talking about a video, or a cartoon, or a photograph. Music tracks just don’t go viral in the same way that videos and images do.
Part of this is because music streaming is spread out across various formats and highly regulated services like iTunes, Amazon, and Pandora. The tangled web of music licensing has simply made it very difficult to share music online easily. There are no share buttons in iTunes (iTunes failed miserably when it tried the ‘walled garden’ approach with the late and not-so-great Ping). Similarly, you can’t share tracks on Pandora and other similar services.
Companies like Soundcloud and Spotify have striven to make music more social, but the trouble is: We all use different music services to listen to music.
It seems Twitter is aiming to change that. At launch Twitter #Music allows users to share and listen to tracks using iTunes, Spotify or Rdio, presumably with more to come. It also creates a new way determine the popularity (or viral nature) of tracks that are being listened to on Twitter.
Granted there are still barriers. iTunes is limited to short clips, so you must have an Rdio or Spotify account to hear the whole track. But as Twitter ads more ways to listen, it will become more democratic. And, best of all, artists will get paid their royalties (however large or small).
One of the biggest advantages that Twitter has for music sharing is that, unlike Facebook, Twitter is not a walled garden. Twitter is the most ‘social’ social network–because everything is public and therefore it’s one of the best networks to support viral behavior.
With Twitter #Music , not only can you see what your friends are listening to, but you can see and listen to what your favorite artists are listening to (Does this spell celebrity endorsements? “If only Bono would listen to my song on Twitter music. I’d be famous!”).
This gives musicians the opportunity to be evangelists for each other and for fans to dive deeper into the music that influences their favorite artists.
Do you think Twitter #Music represents a change in how music is listend to and shared to online? Do you think Twitter #Music will finally allow music tracks to go viral? Are you going to be an early adopter and start marketing your music on Twitter #Music this very second? Or are you going to sit back and see how it all pans out? Let us know in the comments below.
If you’re ready to take the plunge here’s the Twitter #Music download link through iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter-music/id625541612?ls=1&mt=8
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