Silos aren’t just for corn, they are also for information…to the detriment of everyone, especially when it comes to music promotion and news…and politics.

In case you haven’t noticed, most of the promotion you get these days from musicians, clubs and event promoters is…non-existent—except on their own social media channel. In the “olden” days (like before COVID), bands and clubs were much more aware of the need to do a wider promotional push. But COVID sort of ended that.

OffBeat Magazine has provided free “music listings” for almost 40 years: FREE, but clubs and promoters have to send them in. Alternatively, OffBeat’s listings system also allows you to upload your own information and it will be displayed in our calendar of events automatically—you can even promote shows within the calendar itself (no phone calls or emails needed). You can also promote shows via our website, Weekly Beat newsletter or our social media platforms.

Let me tell you why that’s a good idea.

Since I’ve been involved in music media for the better part of my life, I’ve noticed all the changes in the way information has been disseminated over the years. Obviously social media has taken over as the way to get the word out about who’s performing. IMO, there’s a growing problem with that.

Each musician, each club, each event that only uses its own social media, has set up its own social media silo of information that limits exposure to a much wider audience of potential music consumers. If you’re not following a particular band or club on social media, then you might miss out on knowing about some great new music…maybe some that’s fantastic but you’ll never know about because you only get your performance “news” through one or two sources.

I’ve heard a lot of venues complain about how bad business is. There seem to be fewer and fewer people going out to listen to live music, if they live in NOLA. Of course, one of the reasons for this is that there’s also been a big demographic change in audiences. Older audiences tend to go out more than younger ones. Why? It used to be the other way around.

Most venues and musicians today use their own social media channels to reach their audiences. Why? Because, while it works to a certain extent, there are still a lot of potential audience members who may not be on that particular social media platform. I fail to understand why folks don’t advantage of other communication channels to get the word out.

Staying in your silo of info doesn’t grow your audience. You are preaching to the choir.

It’s actually interesting to know that even while social media has ostensibly made communication so much easier, in reality its created silos of information where people don’t communicate with each other at all. So ironically, social media has decreased free communication amongst all of us.

This mentality also applies to sharing information so that all of us—especially in local music—can know about what’s going on in the community. New Orleans is a place where there are organizations (non-profit as well as for-profit) who will not share information that could be beneficial to everyone. For example, when the New Orleans Music Census was being designed, there were several partners who committed to use their contacts as a way to get the word out to encourage as much participation as possible (OffBeat being one of them). One partner dropped out relatively late in the game because they refused to share info about the census  with their contacts. Who lost out? We all did.

It’s not a good situation for us to be in. Looking beyond music and publicity, it’s also pretty clear that these silos have built almost impenetrable walls around sectors of the population’s mentality, creating a severe dearth of opinions, promotional information, common interests, and most obviously, political discourse.

I say “stop the silos” nonsense and open up communications and information to as many people as you can. Social media has its limitations, too—and it’s to their benefit to keep you in their silo. That doesn’t help you.