IASPM ANZ: The #RockStar in Social Media

I am at the conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Hobart, Tasmania. I just saw a fantastic paper by Penny Spirou on the functions of social media for rock stars. Penny spent a lot of time talking about NikkiSixx and his use of facebook and twitter. Penny identified the three central functions of social media for rock stars as being; 1. Autobiography 2. Intimacy and 3. Self branding and promotion. It was a very interesting paper and these three qualities are easily identifiable in the posts made by the artists that I myself follow. Most of the artists I follow (being more of the political musician type) also post a lot about causes they are interested in. Perhaps for those artists there is a fourth function of social activism.