"Social Media Should Be Made As An Expression & An Extension To Your Personality,” - Armaan Malik

Social Media today has been the pathway to connect the artist community with their fans both young and old. Loudest.in spoke to key musicians and content creators on how social media helped them in their journey to stardom, key trends which they love to follow and the strategy to sustain in the fast-growing digital age! Singer-songwriter Armaan Malik who has mesmerized audiences with his melodious voice has won many awards like Filmfare, Mirchi Music Awards Awards for his most popular Bollywood songs like 'Main Rahoon Ya Na Rahoon' and 'Hero' is indeed a hero for many aspiring singers. Over the years his social media popularity has grown to leaps and bounds with twitter which has 932030 followers while Youtube has 1.38 Million subscribers which are still growing. Malik puts light on how Social Media is helping artists and creators said, “If we see a few years back, people thought that social media was not even needed, but today it’s so much important not only as part of an artist’s life but also for the growth and promotion of one’s art and music, moreover, it helps to create a fan base. I think it’s the way you use it and if you are genuine with it, then it’s amazing. I think social media should be made as an expression and an extension to your personality and that’s how I use it.” The gorgeous Singer-Songwriter Jonita Gandhi owes her popularity to social media who began her playback singing career with her debut performances in Chennai Express (2012) and Highway (2014). Gandhi shares how she made the most use of social media and says, “Well I kept my eggs in multiple baskets as I became a Youtuber first and made covers and then I started singing in Bollywood. Eventually, I started collaborating with lots of different people. So I think my roots are truly in Youtube and social media and I feel that my following from the net is my strongest following, so big love to everyone who supports me.” It's interesting to know that Gandhi had already 45 million views and 40000 subscribers on her youtube channel which is still growing to reach 462k subscribers at present. So how does social media serve as a fuel to generate revenue or business for the artist community Gandhi replied, “I think there are different ways for us to be earning, a big way for me as a singer is to do live shows, but there are brand interactions as I do a lot of small interactions myself, although I am not fully endorsing a brand right now, but I was with multiple brands earlier.” The versatile performer rapper-dancer and Youtuber Micky Singh believes that social media is the pathway to the young generation and also to the older generation of today. Singh has no one favorite social media platform, as he loves to dwell across all platforms be it Instagram, snap chat, TikTok and especially Youtube where he started putting his music initially which has risen him to where he is today as he says “Youtube has connected me to many fans all across the world and I love it for that." Singhs  Youtube Channel TreeHouse V.H.T has 508K subscribers while he also stands popular on Instagram with 325k followers. Talking about the social media trends Singh points out, “For me, Memes are definitely picking up, other than that are the TikTok dance videos because I love them being a dancer myself.” On what should be the strategy to keep sustaining in-spite of tough competition on social media Singh says, “I think consistency is the key, so just keep working on new videos because if one person likes it, 100 will like it and then 1000 people, so it will grow eventually, but keep going and posting videos every day, every week and keep the pace.”