Given To Rock - How everything started and how it is now in the new digital world

I started the adventure with Given To Rock back in 2012. My personal life and life, in general, were way different back there. 

I start this piece with my life first: I was working for a big company and, I don't want to brag, but I am a fast worker. I mean, I always do my tasks quickly, so for half a day, I was basically without many things left to do. "Ok, Giovanni, maybe it's time to open a blog to be busy for the full day at the office, and what's best for you than talking about your biggest passion?" We are talking about Rock music, of course.

From that moment on, I put all my passion into the growth of Given to rock, writing articles, reviews and top 10 almost every day, always looking for new ideas and new content to write, trying to engage with my readers and establishing a relationship with them, always replying to their comments and make them know that Given To Rock was a community, more than a simple website where you read what you need to read and then go somewhere else.

I have to say, proudly, that with my strength only I managed to have a stable audience and around 18.000 followers on social media and improve and grow my YouTube channel as well, which is always connected to the blog.

What's different now? For me there is one big difference: I left that big company I joined 10 years ago to try to give a go to my company: Given To Rock. The world in the meantime has changed too (who says pandemic?) and everything is always more and more connected around social media. Instagram and TikTok weren't there at that time. The result of that is: new and different job opportunities and even new working figures. Yes, I am talking about Influencers. 

It is undeniable that lots of individuals and companies started profiting a lot from this "new digital world". If you still don't know much or you want to know more about the influencer world you can click on this link. To understand how big are influencers now, try to look at famous musicians or footballers, you may know already they are probably earning a big share of their total income being on Instagram.

In order to know more about why Influencer Marketing Works and How to Use It, click on the link. Among many things, the article explains as well the different categories of influencers: Nano-influencers, Micro-influencers, Mid-tier influencers, Mega-influencers to Celebrities, that I mentioned before, where you need to have over a million followers.

The evolution of Given To Rock is related to that. Well, I'm a sort of an influencer now but in a different way. What I do is receive requests from bands. After examining the material (we are talking about music here, of course), I can decide to give feedback to the band (if there is something to improve) or, if I like what I hear, I decide to share their products on my channels. That could be a Reel on Instagram, something on TikTok, a Tweet, a share on Facebook, a place in one of my playlists or interviewing or reviewing the band.

Yes, I am a kind of (Micro) Influencer now and I am looking forward to seeing where this leads.

Thank you so much for following Given to rock throughout the years. I appreciate that.