Bands Get Lucky – 75% of Active Music Buyers have Social Media Pages

Earlier this week, Ars Technica featured a brief summary of a recent study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life project.  While you can read both of these summaries by clicking the links, this study demonstrates an important point for musicians and bands using social media networks for promotion; You are hitting the target!

During my days in the radio and music business, I had heard repeatedly that the music you listen to between the ages of 15-24 will be the music you listen to for the rest of your life.  If you are in your thirties or forties or older now, and you look at your music collection, do you find that to be true?  Odds are that you are not buying as much or listening to as much NEW music as what you did during those years.  I think 80% of us would admit that the music we enjoyed during high school, college and our early adult years is likely to be the music we will take to the grave with us.  When they put my stinky body in the ground, I want two songs played, one by The National that just came out in 2008 and one by Bob Seger that came out  when I was 15.

This dual study, surveying nearly 5,000 people,  shows that 75% of people between the ages of 18-24 and 57% of people between the ages of 25-34 have social network profiles (MySpace, Facebook and Twitter being at the top of the list). The take home here, for all you musicians, is that is THE core music loving/listening/buying audience. MySpace is popular with music lovers and the youngsters because those two “demographics” are usually one in the same.

In a prior music news post this week I mentioned how Facebook’s traffic trend is significantly better than MySpace’s.  But the other reality is that MySpace still has more users and those users are, on average younger than the current Facebook crowd.  Again, the suggestion is not that you should pick just one, but that you should be aware of the trends and get your music to where the music loving/buying/touring fans actually are.  Establishing important connections to people in this age group today will mean many years of support as you both age together.  Need proof?  Go see the Stones or Bruce Springsteen live.  This study is very positive news for those of you already making the connections on all the social networks.

-pjc

Your comments below are HIGHLY appreciated, but please be sure to include a URL to your website or social network page.  Any Comments submitted without a connection to a legitimate website or page will not be approved.  And spammers and sploggers can suck my cancerous nut – wherever in hell that might be.