Publicity over Performance

A new age has emerged in the last decade that has bands and businesses alike scrapping for popularity in what some are calling “the Like Economy”.

The Like Economy is the concept of measuring and marketing a product or space through the perspective of its ability to generate positive feedback and to be shared (through various social media platforms) by the consumer.

Has this latest shift made the music industry more accessible? Or could this generated popularity be a mere fascade of support for artists and their work?

 

Publicists Capatalise During Web Evolution

 

Professional Social Promotion, Rowan Casey offers a service to increase the social awareness and publicity of any artist; a job that wouldn’t have existed 10 years ago.

“Record companies and concert promoters often look at the amount of likes and followers a band has on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to gauge how much of a following they have, and even fans will look at those numbers and be influenced as well.”

- Rowan Casey

Casey Talks about the importance of having likes on a facebook page.

He states that a band may not even show up after a search if it doesn’t “look important” in the eyes of the Facebook engine.

 

(Pictured above: Social media promoter Rowan Casey is just one publicist that has his web social services on offer, for any band willing to pay for them.)

”I can get you 250 likes on your band or company Facebook page for ten dollars, or 1,000 for thirty five, 2,000 for sixty, and perhaps up to 5,000 likes for a hundred and twenty.” – Casey.

These likes Casey refers to are from random contacts who like your page in return for likes of their own.

One can only assume that Casey has developed a significant network of “likers” who are at his disposal.

A completely bizarre sounding concept, but as he points out “having a large following on social media could [even] make the difference between being signed to a major label or not.”

Trusting Rowan Casey and his ability to gain likes on your Facebook page would be something that you would treat with caution, where there is money there is sometimes a degree of dishonesty.

 

Liking: An Old Tradition

 

“The marketing field has long been obsessed with likeability, but Facebook may be inadvertently revealing how shallow our liking goes” - Robert W. Gehl

 

 

 

(Pictured: Artwork, Allegoria della Giustizia. Indicating (in my mind) the balance between likes and ethics, destined to tip in favor of like)

 

In Robert W. Gehl’s article A History of Like which featured in The New Enquiry he discusses the origins of ‘like’ making us realise that the like economy may not be as fresh a concept as some may believe.

Liking turns out to be the most universally acceptable way of getting people to engage in the web in a positive (possible more indicative) way, and perhaps to keep it angled towards a larger audience willing to engage in a ‘like’ button.

Facebook had apparently been considering an ‘awesome’ button instead of the ‘like’ but decided that ‘like’ had more universal appeal.

“We could have been talking now about an ‘economy of awesomes’ and we would sound more like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than Valley Girls” - Gehl

He indicates that Facebook may have revealed too much of their advertising techniques and tools of emotional capitalism, “Keep liking, keep buying”.

By not having an option to ‘dislike’ Gehl believes the dislikers themselves will be ready to work hard for their outlets by simply bot being lulled into ‘slackivism’ or ‘clickivism’.

Perhaps this is the way out for musicians as well, a fight against likeability by working hard to find alternate routes which don’t require as much publicity.

(Click here to have a read of this very interesting background by Gehl on liking and the obsessions of advertising.)

 

The Like Economy

 

Anne Helmond and Caroline Gerlitz are two social media experts who explore the recent shift from the ‘hit’ and ‘link’ online economy to the now frenzied ‘like’ economy in their presentation, Social Media: Design or Decline.

Helmond and Gerlitz talk about the “like” button being the new value determination mechanism, with Facebook now having their integrated “Like” button on most websites.

“Webmasters are now able to integrate Facebook features (for instance, the “Like” button) onto their own web sites. The production, distribution and consumption of online content, thus, transform into a social activity as well as a value producing activity. The Like Economy is born.” – Caroline Gerlitz

(Helmond and Gerlitz speak of the ‘Like’ Economy and the growing ‘invisible’ fabric of the web in this presentation.)  

This article was the source of my interest in the world of ‘liking’ and what it means to us all individually not just as a musician.

What we learn from these sources is ‘like’ it or not the internet has welcomed the ‘like’ economy with open arms and we are the ones who have to master its uses and loop holes.

Our liking is shallow as Gehl suggests, advertising is taking over as Casey suggests and we are definitely in a new ‘like’ economy as Helmond and Gerlitz suggest.

Advertising is driving this ‘like’ economy and the perhaps the best (and only) thing to do is to be aware of it, and the shallowness it brings.