The Growing Influence of Content Creation on Film and Music in a Trend-Driven Era

Content Creation as a Growing Lustre  Imagine it’s 2003 , and the world hasn’t been hit by the social media shockwave yet.  You’re a fresh-f...

Content Creation as a Growing Lustre 

Imagine it’s 2003, and the world hasn’t been hit by the social media shockwave yet. 

You’re a fresh-faced artist with a heart full of lyrics and a CD nobody asked for. You’ve poured your soul, your blood, and your tears into your sound, but unless you’ve got a cousin working at a radio station or a label manager’s phone number scrawled on a napkin, good luck. 

Best-case scenario? You manage to secure a 15-second radio ad sandwiched between car insurance jingles and weather updates, one that probably no one’s even paying attention to. 

Movie promotions aren’t much better. Posters plastered on bus stops, trailers squeezed between ads at the cinema, maybe an awkward TV appearance at 9:45 a.m. on a Tuesday. 

Imagine such a world as an indie filmmaker or musician? Tough, right? 

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Flash-forward. It’s 2025, and Alex Warren’s latest hit, Ordinary, has racked up close to a billion streams in several weeks after its release. Yeah. You read that right. Billion. With a big, bold B. 

The song went global after Alex Warren performed the song on Season 8 of the ‘Love Is Blind’ show. 

But here’s the kicker. The song didn’t just survive on a one-time show performance; it gained massive traction following a viral social media trend. In several TikTok videos, people used the song to share vulnerable personal stories like breakups, mental health, etc., and the song took a huge leap. 

Why? Promotions and Contents.

The song became a massive hit on TikTok, topping the Billboard 100 chart, amassing large streaming numbers and with the official video raking up views. The success of the song wasn’t totally reliant on its soul-stirring lyrics, enchanting guitar sounds, or Alex’s deep-thrilling vocals. Instead, the attention towards the song was amassed using promotions and video content as a push. 

With this, the song wasn’t just heard; it was experienced. In recent times, this isn’t a rare phenomenon. This is the blueprint. 

A Blueprint? 

In today’s creative landscape, content creation isn’t an afterthought; it’s the main event. A blueprint. A necessity that drives through the Gen-Z revolutionised culture and the popular, variant, but unique perception of art and creativity, especially where the attention is needed. Promotion has evolved from a press release into a party, from a strategy into a culture, and from being merely talent-driven or creative-driven into being trends-driven. 

In today’s promotion style, it’s usually the snippet of a chorus that’s already soundtracking people’s lives before the full song even drops, especially if you’re not a full-blown artiste in the league of Taylor Swift or Drake—who are even still susceptible to the style of promotion.

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Moreso, this strategic project promotion has crawled its way into the filmmaking scene. 

Gone are the days when a movie’s success is hinged on a single trailer drop and a few billboard placements. These days, films don’t wait for premiere night to make their debut. They creep into your feed weeks before the title hits theatres. Cast interviews become confessionals. Behind-the-scenes clips spark fan theories. Even the bloopers get their own spotlight.

A significant example of how social-media-focused film project promotion has gained traction is evident from Funke Akindele’s recent projects like Everybody Loves Jenifa, Ayetoro, and The Tribe of Judah. For each project, in the weeks prior to the official release, several social-media-style videos are released, using several dance trends, voice-overs, songs, etc.

Thus, film and music promotion has become a strategic art that thrives on the high level of resonance with relatable experiences, acts and ideas, hence developing into becoming an incessantly shared language between artist and audience. 

And we’re just getting started. 

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The algorithm gods (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) have completely flipped the traditional script where talent and creativity are all that’s needed to become noticed, recognised and appreciated. Suddenly, artists aren’t people you’ve heard about; they are people you watched live, duetted with, followed on IG, and argued about in the comments. 

Now, creators tell micro-stories across Reels, Shorts, and behind-the-scenes vlogs. We’re not being told what’s coming; we’re being invited into the process. Content creation is no longer auxiliary but central to film and music promotion today. 

Content Creation Creates An Echo In The Film and Music Scenery 

Promotion has evolved from loud announcements to intimate storytelling. Nowadays, creators have turned content into countdowns by letting their audience fall in love with fragments of a song before the full story is told. They’re not just promoting their songs or movies; they are also creating an attention wave that builds up through shared experiences and connections. It’s a kind of whisper, not just hype. 

A song or movie promotion today is less about pushing products and more about building a moment. A shared emotional pulse that beats through screens, across countries, inside bedrooms, on buses, and in breakups. 

Why It Works: The Emotional, Visual & Social Power of Content 

The power of content creation is not merely in virality. A reel can be viral for a week and then fade into the void. What makes content creation so vital for film and music promotion is a lot deeper than algorithm numbers. It’s about resonance. Message. Community. Presence. 

Playing With Emotions:

People follow who they feel. The best content doesn’t shout. It confesses. A rare moment of vulnerability from a creator can make all the difference. Letting your audience have a peek at you, behind the scenes, breeds emotions. Emotions breed investments. And an invested audience is definitely going to turn into a loyal fandom! 

Visual Power: Scroll-Stopping Storytelling 

In a world where attention span is decreasing at such an alarming rate, content that has scroll-stopping visuals has a huge advantage. A perfectly cut teaser. A grainy BTS clip that feels like a secret. A stylised TikTok edit that makes you rewatch it five times. Awesome visual content grabs you by the eyeballs and refuses to let go. 

What Does The Future Look Like? 

While there may be divergent arguments about the negative effects of the content creation style of promotion on the creative landscape, such as the focus shifting to numbers instead of the works themselves, it doesn’t evade the apparent reality that times have changed, and talent alone isn’t the only ritual that’s required to break into the global stage. It’s myopic to think such. 

For creatives, visibility now depends on strategy, consistency, and audience engagement, not just raw talent. Creative works need narratives that resonate, packaging that captures attention, and promotion that travels beyond borders. In this new era, creativity doesn’t just live in the art; it thrives in how the art is shared and resonantly perceived or received.