Twitter Faces the Music

2 MIN READ

Social Media Strategy just received another shock to the system: the launch of Twitter #Music. Essentially, Twitter #Music is a music app that leverages social media to help folks discover new songs, new albums, new artists. Sounds familiar? Right. Twitter #Music is delicately treading on Spotify’s toes. But there’s a major difference. Spotify limits the user to following friends and seeing what music they are listening to, end of story. All you learn is that a friend has listened to a cut from Phoenix’s new album. It doesn’t tell you whether they liked it or not. The Twitter #Music app, by contrast, is composed of emerging music that the majority people in the Twitterverse are already busy tweeting about, eliminating less popular music–– say, Ukrainian Folk Ballads. In short, the app filters out the uncool music. (Not that there is anything inherently wrong with Ukrainian Folk Ballads). A major downside to this democratization of music, is that the social media-active teenyboppers ultimately prevail. If you are into the indie music scene, your artists are much less likely to show up. The app also allows users to listen to entire cuts if they possess Rdio or Spotify accounts and the usual 1:30-second excerpts of iTunes tracks.

So does Twitter entering the music territory of Pandora and Spotify make sense? When you consider that some of the best-followed Twitter accounts are musical artists, this new social media strategy is a no-brainer. Time will tell if Twitter #Music is a development that will substantially reshape social media strategy, but, for the time being, it creates another welcome avenue for music discovery. So rock on.

We are a Dallas Advertising Agency specializing in Social Media Strategy.

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