Can we agree that the hashtag situation for music makers is a mess on Mastodon and beyond? What if we could agree on a set of hashtags that we would promote and use consistently, so that music lovers and other music makers could watch the right hashtags and discover music, artists, news fitting their interests?
For example:
New music
I’m launching this music today
Buy my music
Early access codes
Discounts
I’m enjoying this new music
I purchased this new music
Even better if we can plug the style and the language of the music.
Campaigns (i.e. Fair Trade Music Fridays)
I’m going to participate in this campaign as a music maker
I’m going to buy music during this campaign
Gigs
(announcing concerts, ticket discounts…)
fediverse live music streaming: FediWave
Collaboration
I’m looking for … to collaborate on a new song.
I’m working on a new song and I’m looking for feedback
In Bandwagon, I’m still wanting to make suggestions for the various kinds of tags people use. If we can come up with any sort of conventions, I’ll happily prompt people to use them when they publish music.
Ok, so thinking about a toot on social media when announcing a new song/album. Which tag categories could it cover?
Required tags
Meaning, is there a good reason not to use these?
[artist] - Yes, a tag for you. They are free and they can connect all the toots about you, posted by yourselves, fans, media…
#mymusic - identifies the music created by the poster.
#newmusic - identifies new releases.
[language] - the language used in the lyrics - or specify whether it’s instrumental.
[basic genre] - it would be useful to agree on a basic list, or probably there is already one used by the music industry?
Optional tags
Meaning, only to be considered if you have something special to offer.
[optional subgenre(s)] - sure, go wild and identify your niche if you want to.
[optional location] - A town, city, region or country that the music or the artists connects with.
[optional basic license] - if it’s an open license i.e. CreativeCommons, and it’s probably better to agree on a short generic list rather than getting into too specific tags nobody watches.
[optional type] (is there a better name for this? Whether it is one short track, one long-format track, an album, a mix, a compilation…
[optional format] - if it’s not digital e.g. vinyl, tape, CD…
[optional platform] - if you want to promote the platform-community where you publish your music e.g. Mirlo, Bandwagon, Faircamp, Funkwhale…
But it strikes me… maybe we should look at it the other way around. What sort of hashtags are music-lovers following? Some Fedi polls might be helpful here.
Here are some music related ones I’m following:
#Bandcamp
#beYourOwnPlatform
#bonkwave
#electronicMusic
#experimentalPop (no one uses this, even me!)
#faircamp
#fediMusic
#fediPlay
#fediwave
#flute
#glitch (mostly used for visual glitch I think)
#industrial
#industrialMusic
#jellyfin
#linuxAudio
#Mixxx
#music
#musicDiscovery
#musodon
#noiseMusic
#pipewire
#PeerTube
#rnb
#soundtrack
#synthwave
#vj
@Mel Any survey to identify widely used hashtags in the Fediverse is useful, and if more people want to share here hashtags they are watching, it will be very helpful.
Said that, we might be talking about the same from two different ends. I have organized your list following the structure proposed above and I got this:
The hypothesis I’m proposing is that music maker’s works will be easier to discover if we use hashtag types more consistently, as we will help more people to find us.
These “other” options are very interesting because… aren’t they basically the same? And there is probably more. Does this overlapping diversity help music makers and music fans to find each other? Would it be useful for TSMN to propose specific tags? Genuine questions.
For instance, when someone posts #MyMusic on the Fediverse, that makes it tick several boxes above. And when someone wants to promote someone else’s music published in the Fediverse, #FediMusic would cover it.
Language might not be that relevant for all the music created with English lyrics, but the moment we leave that big global soup, it starts becoming more important. As a Spanish and Catalan native speaker, I definitely put more attention to music created in these languages and posted on fair and social platforms, and my motivation / predisposition to know more about their artists and follow them / crowdfund their projects is also higher when I like their music.
The problem is… do we have good tags to find this music? One option would be to use the native name of the language, but I’m not sure who follows those tags – I don’t even do it for tiny Catalan language. It would be different if there would be (and maybe there are?) tags for #MúsicaEnEspañol, #MúsicaEnCatalà, and so on.
I’m curious about what music makers producing music in not-English think about this.
Or maybe something even more precise, to avoid being mixed with the commercial music in these languages? #FediMúsicaEnEspañol, #FediMúsicaEnCatalà, etc?
“Fediverse” might not be an accurate concept to capture social, fair, autonomous production and distribution, but “social music” might be something very different, and in the end these tags are to be used mostly in the Fediverse social networks…
I miss some feedback that helps me get a sense about how to proceed, but I’ll proceed anyway because I can’t think of a lower hanging fruit than hashtags to improve music & musicians discoverability.
I’ll update the top post with my draft suggestion above, with the intention to move it to Knowledge base. There is one point I keep thinking about and I really welcome your feedback:
At least on Mastodon, you can watch one tag but not the intersection of two tags. While I can tag a post with #FediMusic #Pop and this will describe my new song very well, people can only watch each tag separately, and they will get plenty of not-pop FediMusic and not-FediMusic pop. Would it be a good idea to suggest the construction of precise tags like #FediMusicPop or just leave the “problem” as is?
this reminds me that both mastodon.art and merveilles.town have each their own pool/rules of tags to use.i think it’s a matter of creating this taxonomy and regularly remind people to use them
I have organized your list following the structure proposed above and I got this: