Music Inc. 2019: Bring Music Alive Through Social Video Experiences

  Music Inc. 2019, Day 2: Bring Music Alive Through Social Video Experiences , a topic that was discussed passionately by moderator Biswamitra Ray, Head Creator Partnerships, Facebook India, Nirali Kartik, Maati Baani, Vikas Boni, Head- MTV Beats, Business Planning & Content Partnerships, Youth, Music &English Entertainment , VIACOM18, Shreyas Srinivasan, CEO, Insider. In, Bindu Subramanian, Singer-Songwriter, Entrepreneur Moderator Biswamitra Ray, Head Creator Partnerships, Facebook India opened the discussion on an apt note- “more than before consumers have the opportunity to connect with the artists that they love.” That was the essence of the discussion that followed. Bindu Subramanian, Singer-Songwriter, Entrepreneur was asked – “How big a role did social played in her journey?” To which Bindu replied, “I think social media has undeniably become integral to what all of us do. When we started out the dream was to be on a big stage in front of people. Now the dream is to have a million views in as short a time as possible. It's also gone to a place from where we want a million views to a place where we want people to react to our work in a meaningful way.” On collaborations through social Nirali Kartik, Maati Baani said, "Social media was the first platform on which we could experiment with our music. We’ve used social media to find artists to collaborate with, we’ve collaborated with 200 musicians across the globe through social. It has done amazing things for folk music. What social can do is make regional content, which is not stereotypically cool, it makes this content cool. It can turn out rockstars out of folk artists.” On the business side of social media and what role it played in making his business model a success Shreyas Srinivasan, CEO, Insider.in, explained, "In a lot of ways that for us was the first step. Most of us are social babies. When we think about products and digital distribution the first thing is social. The thing to think about is the shift that happens in social media. The shift is from authenticity to inauthenticity. When something starts and it's small it's the most authentic thing you can find and then it goes to being inauthentic but you have massive distribution.” And where does the television medium fit in the scheme of things vis-à-vis social media? Ray asked  Vikas Boni, Head- MTV Beats, Business Planning & Content Partnerships, Youth, Music &EnglishEntertainment, VIACOM18, about where does he find the symbiosis happening and does it make business sense? To which Vikas replied, "VH1 and MTV are strong music brands. For u,s these channels haven't been linear broadcast channels. We’ve always tried to do something different with artists and something different with content. If you are only wearing a TV channel hat then your thinking is restricted. With Raja Kumar, we did a live event at the Facebook office. We got great numbers we were very impressed with the numbers. Similarly, we’ve partnered with other artists. And artists got a chance to talk to their fans.” Wrapping up the session Ray did a quick fire round with the panellists on what they would like to see in the future and how they see social media unlocking it? Bindu said in the future we should make the medium more collaborative, make it more local and more personalized. On a similar note, Shreyas said the key thing for the future was not about having a 10 thousand fans but a 1000 true fans. For Vikas, the future was all about interactivity, while Mitali hopes the future would find ways to promote folk music and make it cool.