Social Media & Music: Why your favorite musical artists are not signing with record labels

Major record labels in the music industry are responsible for the branding, marketing and musical strategy for many successful artist in the past and today. However, as years go by, and the music industry is continually being saturated with new, fresh talented musical artist, it seems as if there has been a decrease of artist signing to record labels. We are truly living in a "do it yourself" (DIY) time period, in which self promotion/ marketing, branding is more popular among anyone trying to profit off of themselves. Social media has been the ideal method of how these artists are branding and marketing their own music. For this project I will delve into the practice and the motive of musical artist today using social media as their platform for marketing, branding and strategical process for their musical careers. I plan on comparing the seeming pros and cons of this method, and why this method has become so much more prevalent, especially within the hip-hop genre. What exactly makes social media the strongest platform for this self branding method within music ? Are there certain platforms of social media that are better suitable for this method ? How are the different types of social media utilized to self promote these musical artists ? I also believe adding statistical evidence and real-life examples will be key to explaining this trend in the music industry. Well-noted sources will be referenced as well.