Internet has become indispensable for singers when it comes to promoting their products, whether this involves uploading their videos onto YouTube or MySpace, writing a couple of lines on Twitter, connecting with their fans on Facebook, keeping up with their contact network on LinkedIn, writing blogs or getting their music sold on iTunes.
Yet, at the same time, this is having a negative effect on the artist’s creativity and connection with their own inner world.
The music world has changed so much these days that singers often find themselves in charge of a range of tasks that have very little to do with their art and are more about creating Fan or Follower platforms that will lead them to a Record Label, or get people to buy their songs or go to their concerts.
In the middle of this vortex of new marketing trends, artists must continue to do what they know best, developing their skills and artistry, creating and performing, which is becoming very difficult.
I have noticed a new state of being: the Internet Anxiety Syndrome: this is about worrying how many people are following you, contacting or answering you, buying your music or clicking on “like” every day. Which is bad for your beauty sleep, as singers spend far too many hours glued to the computer screen at night, or waiting for their mobile phone to buzz and tell them if a new follower has joined their network.
There seems to be a disproportionate need verging on the obsessive, to be in permanent contact with as many people as possible, whether this be about gaining approval for the product or to feel a little less “alone” on this chosen path.
Logically, this level of anxiety diminishes the artist’s desire and energy to produce art and to sing and translates into undue focus on the need to publicize their product.
Any extreme is damaging; thus, a careful balance of one’s space and time should lead to equilibrium, to a way of achieving a degree of compatibility between the tools that the world of technology offers us today, and with being an artist.
The idea should always be to expand and grow with our music, with our songs, and that Internet should provide us with the support needed to achieve this objective. Otherwise, Internet will end up destroying artistic creativity and dreams of excellence.
The answers to these questions should provide food for thought:
- How many hours do you dedicate to your music every day?
- How many hours do you spend networking every day?
Remember that you are first and foremost an artist, and only then an Entrepreneur!