Social Media Surgery for Musicians
On Monday 17th September Musicleader ran a Social Media Surgery for musicians aimed at musicians working participatory settings. The session focussed on two areas: how musicians could incorporate social media and online technology into their work with participants and also how they could use social media to expand their networks and promote their work.
The session was attended by musicians who had a range of different needs. The session had five distinct sections: two one to one advice sessions where the musicians were paired up with different advisors to talk about their ideas and concerns and three presentations by social media advisors.
The first advisor was Alan Coady who is a musician, guitar teacher and blogger whose ‘Edublog’ is one of the most popular used by young people in Scotland. Alan talked about how he uses his blog to reflect on his work and share ideas for using new technology more widely. He also uploads recording done by his pupils as learning aids between sessions.
The second advisor was James Clarke, who amongst other things manages the online presence of musician, Imogen Heap and he was able to talk about how Imogen uses her online presence creatively to crowdsource musicians for her tour in each city and how she has built songs through online interaction with her fans.
The third advisor was Nick Booth who is a well respected social media guru and journalist. Nick was able to talk to the group about how to build social capital through social media by interacting positively with colleagues and potential clients well before formal business transactions take place. He talked about being ‘generous’ and supporting other people’s events and discussions online and how you will get out what you put in as with any conversation in the offline world.
Feedback from those taking part suggest that they have all gained new knowledge during the session and that the session acted as an inspiration for how they will conduct themselves online in the future. There was also an exchange of ideas and experience between the participating musicians.
Here are some videos from the day