When Riley Green first started pursuing a music career, social media wasn’t something he thought much about or invested much time into building. But then a buddy of his had a chance for Riley to open a show for Travis Tritt, and Riley says, “He was gonna throw my name out to ‘em (and asked) what did my social media numbers look like? I was like, ‘What does that matter?.’ You know he’s like, ‘Well that’s what they look at now.’”
Unfortunately, at the time, Riley’s social media numbers weren’t that impressive, so he didn’t get the gig, but it made him realize how important they were. He initially started building his following out of necessity, but Riley soon learned how valuable having direct contact with so many of his fans could be. He says, “It wasn’t really a tool to start with, it was just something I had to have. And then it got to be where I could post a video of a song I just wrote and see what the people that were following me around to these shows thought about it. So it is for as a tool is probably more useful than a guitar to me now and it’s crazy that it’s gotten to be like that but it really has.”
Riley’s fans have given him tons of positive feedback on his debut single, “There Was This Girl,” which on the verge of becoming his first top ten single.
Riley Green – thoughts on social media
“I wanna say that I don’t enjoy social media, but when I’m in a tree stand or something that seems to be what I’m doing when I don’t see any deer or something walkin’ around, so obviously I spent some time on it. But it’s definitely a tool. And I mean, I can remember my buddy John Worthington, is Sam Hunt’s road manager now, was a good buddy of mine in college and he called me one night and said that he had an opportunity to open for Travis Tritt in Georgia. Sam couldn’t do it and he was gonna throw my name out to ‘em. What did my social media numbers look like? I was like, ‘What does that matter?.’ You know he’s like, ‘Well that’s what they look at now.’ And of course I had a few hundred on Facebook or whatever so, didn’t get the gig but that got me mindful of that does have something to do with it. So it wasn’t really a tool to start with, it was just something I had to have. And then it got to be where I could post a video of a song I just wrote and see what the people that were following me around to these shows thought about it. So it is for as a tool is probably more useful than a guitar to me now and it’s crazy that it’s gotten to be like that but it really has.”