Finding Your Voice: Navigating Social Media, Creative Choices, and Using AI to Create Music

Tracy and Katrina reflect on the podcast launch and explore the rapidly evolving social media landscape for scientists and researchers, plus share insights from experimenting with AI-generated music.

Chapters:

• Podcast Launch Reflections
• Social Media Evolution Post-Twitter
• Platform Selection Strategy
• Music Selection with AI Tools
• Human Creativity vs AI Generation
• Closing Thoughts and Encouragement

Resource from this podcast: Prompts and Keywords for AI Music Generation

Article referenced: "Scientists no longer find Twitter professionally useful, and have switched to Bluesky" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40637733

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This podcast is a project of the Center for Injury Research Translation and Communication (CIRTC). Connect with CIRTC: www.cirtc.org

Find CIRTC on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and YouTube.

Note: all thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are personal and not representative of any organization.

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Launch Reflections
• 4:39 Social Media Evolution Post-Twitter
• 9:53 Platform Selection Strategy
• 14:53 Music Selection with AI Tools
• 22:47 Human Creativity vs AI Generation
• 25:36 Closing Thoughts and Encouragement

Transcript

Tracy: 0:11

Welcome to Communications Breakdown, where we break down what works and doesn't in health and science communication. I'm Tracy Mehan

Tracy: 0:22

On this episode we're going to listen in on another conversation that Katrina and I just had. We talked about the podcast launch and some other things that have come across our desk recently, including the ever-changing social media landscape and what we learned when we tried to use AI to create our theme music.

Katrina: 0:38

All right, let's jump in. So, Tracy, we are recording this just two days after the launch of this podcast. How are you feeling?

Tracy: 0:51

I am blown away by the support and I'm super excited. We already have over 100 downloads and it just feels really good. I've been getting feedback from people in all different places in my life. People are excited about it. I've heard response after response: "This is so needed. I'm so glad that you guys are doing this. I'm going to share it with all kinds of different people and it's just been really uplifting to me to hear the support and to be validated in the fact that there is such a need for this.

Katrina: 1:32

Yeah. So I think I had said at the beginning of all of this that I was going to be happy if we got, you know, 100 downloads or 100 listens, and I will be perfectly honest: so I still am having some lingering, I think, imposter syndrome, you might say. It's probably not exactly that, and so it is exactly what I need to hear from people out in the field. You know it is a little scary to hit publish on something that other people really aren't talking about and other people aren't doing necessarily in your field.

Katrina: 2:12

And you know I personally am not somebody who's been kind of out in the front a lot. My career has tended to be much more background know I don't put my name on just about anything know I'm doing a lot of the writing and creating, but it's for programs or for other people, and so for me it's super challenging to put myself forward and step out of a comfort zone. And so you know I just had a moment of solidarity:. tell Tell all the researchers and scientists out there that you know I feel you and when you get that feeling of discomfort, being asked to do something you're not trained for and is way out of your comfort zone and something that your colleagues are going to look at, and so I understand how uncomfortable it can be to do .,

Katrina: 3:06

So so it's been really cool. I'm excited to talk about some other things, though, because we do have so much to say. So I just, you know, I guess, was there anything else from the launch lunch that you felt would be, you know, is kind of interesting or noteworthy or anything else?

Tracy: 3:31

You know, I've just been really blown away by not only the support, but by people taking the effort to reach out and let us know, whether it's, you know, a personal email or sharing the post on LinkedIn or anything like that. It does really help, so thank you for doing that. All of that engagement matters to us personally, so thank you for that.

Katrina: 3:50

Well, going back to the launch, you posted on LinkedIn, right, and so you had said, going back and listening to these episodes, that, listening to our opinions from when we recorded those, there are some things that maybe you've changed your mind on now, and so there is new research out about where scientists and researchers are, and it sounds like you're maybe changing your mind on LinkedIn as well, and so I guess, like, has the launch affected that opinion? I guess, like, what has affected your opinion here that might change it from what you said in that previous episode.

Tracy: 4:39

Honestly, it was timing. Full disclosure, we recorded some of those episodes a little bit ago and the social media environment has really been changing since Twitter turned to X. Twitter used to be a place where a lot of researchers and scientists were, in part because there were other researchers and scientists on there, but also because there are manufacturers and journalists and legislators were all on that space. When that space changed and people started leaving it, there was this real struggle for people to try and figure out where do we go and there were all of these places that you know. First it was one place and then it was another place, and then it was another place and nobody was really landing anywhere, and I think that was partly why, you know, when I said people aren't on LinkedIn, that was true. Some of the younger generation was there, but the more senior and some of the organizations were not.

Tracy: 5:50

Since then, people have started to see the value and are going on LinkedIn in different ways or not just seeing it as a place you go when you need a job anymore, right.

Tracy: 6:01

Now, it's actually a place where people are posting their personal things and sharing research and when they have new projects and all of these kinds of things. So it actually has pretty significantly shifted how people are interacting with it, and I am seeing people in organizations starting to join LinkedIn in ways that they haven't before. I do still think a lot of people are leaving X, although there is still some value there, depending on what you're trying to do on it. Like it or not, the journalists are still there and the legislators are still there, so it has a role.

Tracy: 6:44

But the research that you shared, which we will put a link to in the show notes, looks at scientists and how they're leaving Twitter or X professionally and moving to which think there is some truth to that, although I will say I personally am on and I just haven't seen it take off the way that maybe LinkedIn has, but that doesn't mean it won't.

Katrina: 7:17

Well that's a size— Linkedin is just so much bigger. They've been around so much longer and there was a massive diffusion. I think there was what Mastodon, I think that was one. When it shifted from Twitter to X, there wasn't a clear successor. You know they tried Threads; there were a bunch of options. Linkedin is still, as far as I know, fairly— I don't think there's a copy; I don't think there's a... Again, if LinkedIn went down, I don't think there's a natural successor there either. And so, if I recall correctly, there was this scramble to be that successor and be the place, and Bluesky, I don't think, was one of the original successors, and so, because I think there was no clear option, people didn't know where to go.

Katrina: 8:17

As you've just said, a lot of, some of them might have ended up on LinkedIn, but it's not exactly the same as Twitter. It's a different kind of interaction. It's more, more Facebooky in a way, and so I just think it's interesting that again, having— you know, we're on Bluesky as CIRTC, in part, you know, because some of the things that they say in this, this article. Now, if our audience is over in that other space, maybe we'll move there, but I just, you know, we also have a limited bandwidth and there's only so much we can do. And so, yeah, as we kind of figure out where our audience really is, you know, we'll continue, I think, to talk about where our social media efforts will shift and where we're going to be putting our investment. And so I just again thought it was really interesting that at least one study has come out suggesting that Blue sky might be the place where academics and scientists have recongregated.

Katrina: 9:22

This is one study; I think it's an N of 813. And again, we'll put this in the show notes. So, limited data, but anecdotally, I would agree with you. I'm seeing much more activity on LinkedIn, sharing research results, sharing other opportunities, but my personal, I guess, social media channel of choice right now is Blues ky. So I'm there.

Tracy: 9:51

Yeah, I think what happened with Blues ky it wasn't one of the first to the market, and when it first opened you had to have an invite to be able to get on it, so it was a little bit slower,

Katrina: 10:05

Right yeah

Tracy: 10:06

Yeah. So you had a, it had a little bit of a slower uptake, and I also think it is dependent on your area of research. I think you know certain fields have flocked there right away and others are a little slower, but that doesn't mean they're not there and not coming. So I do see Blue sky building.

Tracy: 10:30

My personal approach to any new social media platform is I, as an early adopter and somebody who is in the social media space, usually get on it personally pretty quickly so I can monitor and see what's happening. But before I commit any of our programs are recommended to other people, I wait it out just a little bit, usually because I want to make sure that it is actually going to be worth the time investment because we do have limited time resources.

Katrina: 11:03

Right. Yeah.

Tracy: 11:04

Blues ky, for all the reasons you mentioned, it is kind of a good alternative for that short text-based post in ways that some of the other platforms aren't, which is why we have chosen to be there. I think it has great potential. We'll see how it goes, but I also think there are other platforms that we're exploring because that's where some people are, right. So it's just going to be a thing. We talked a little bit on one of our previous episodes about Instagram: big platform, lots of people using it, comes with lots more challenges because you have to be so visual, right? So, yeah, lots of different options. You have to really think about what your skills are, what your needs are, where your audience is, all of the things.

Katrina: 11:52

Well, and we've talked about ROI. You know return on investment. So I just looked it up and it says— now, this is just a quick search, but it looks like Blues ky still only only has about 38 million registered users versus it looks like one site says 1.15 billion monthly active users worldwide on LinkedIn. So that is a scale difference you just simply cannot ignore, and I'm sure the numbers are the same for other... You know, as you said, Instagram, you know the reach of places like that are huge. YouTube is actually, I think, the biggest one, so don't ever sleep on YouTube. Its reach is just crazy and we don't know where it's going to be successful. And so I love places like Blues ky because it lets us experiment a little. As you said, we can kind of lurk there, but then you can't sleep on 1.15 billion monthly active users worldwide on LinkedIn.

Tracy: 13:14

Yeah, I think, before we move on from this conversation, I do think it's really important to think about what that means, though, and where your audience is. There are cases where I would say, no, it's better for you to go to Bluesky with a smaller audience because that's where your people are. I'd rather have, you know, 500 diehard listeners interact with my information on one platform than you know a thousand people who only listen to 30 seconds and turn it off. It depends on what your goals are, right? So just because that has 1.15 or whatever it is billion doesn't mean necessarily that that's the place you should be, because it can be harder to be seen and really engaged with on those platforms too, s o.

Katrina: 13:49

That's a good point. Yeah, nope, that's a good point. Especially, I have noticed on Blues ky, or this was true, I think, even on X and you know all those other channels, a very small number of content creators are responsible for the vast majority of the content available. I want to say on Twitter back in the day, it was something like 10% of the creators were responsible for 90% of the content, or some crazy number like that. And so you're right, you can make a bigger splash on those smaller platforms and, as you said, if your audience is there, then great, you're going to spend less time trying to find them too.

Tracy: 14:26

Yeah, just important note when you're thinking about where you want to be. All of them have different things they're good at and will help you reach different goals.

Katrina: 14:35

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Katrina: 14:37

Well, I also wanted to talk a little bit about something that we have both run into recently, and that is how we go about matching music to content. And this is something that, I will be honest, I never really had thought about before it was presented to me as a need. So the way it came about in my work was we made a reel or a video, a vertical video on golf cart safety, and it was kind of animated in style and was presenting, you know, safety tips for people who use golf carts for transportation, you know, kind of like around the neighborhood and stuff. And so I had to find stock music in Canva to match the video and the substance, the mood, you know everything of this golf cart safety video. And so, Tracy, you know you and I have both had the experience recently of how do you go about matching or finding music that it's another way that kind of backs up your message.

Tracy: 15:50

Yeah, for me it was when we were trying to figure out what music we were going to play during the intro and outro of this podcast, and it is something that we talked a lot, a lot, a lot about. And I will say we did want to try and use music from an artist, and we still hope to do that. What we learned is we don't know a lot about music and how it works and how to talk to people about what we're looking for, so that process was taking a little bit longer. We're still exploring it and hope to do that eventually, but we didn't want that to hold up the launch of the podcast because we were ready. And so we decided to try and use one of the AI music generators because we didn't want to use stock music that somebody else was going to be able to find on Canva or another platform like that. We want it to be something original, right, and I know that these AI music generators there are some questions about it. We, you know, fully acknowledge that, you know, there are some concerns that people have in terms of: is it stealing other people's work, what does this look like? And I want to acknowledge all of that. But I also wanted to try it, because what we also know in public health is you don't always have the budget to go get an artist to record music for you, and sometimes you can use stock music, but sometimes you need original music. So what does that look like? Right?

Tracy: 17:30

So I signed up for one of the platforms. Actually, I signed up for two of the . platforms One of them, I had read, was better for creating music like podcasts and things like . that Signed up for it, went in and what I realized is I really don't know that much about music, and so for that one, you had to know exactly what you were looking for and you had to know what kinds of words to use to pull things in. That one did not have a text to music generator. That one you had to know, you know, do you want a drum beat, do you want this, do you want that? you You had to pick those things and I didn't know no where to yeah, so I really quickly stopped using that one because it was so overwhelming, because I just couldn't do it. I needed a real musician to help me with that. So then I switched over to another platform.

Katrina: 18:31

Well, actually, let me just say something super quick. So I actually agree with you about trying to find the words. That's where I also really struggled when I had to do the golf cart safety video. Is that, what are the words in Canva? Canva has a ton of stock music and so I'm okay if other people use the same music for something I used in a golf cart safety video, and so the ones that I was trying were fun, quirky, neighborhood, and then I think the one that that actually landed me on what I wanted was happy instrumental. But it took a lot of just sitting there and pressing play on all of the little samples and thinking, can I imagine that If I'm, if I'm watching this on Instagram, for instance, and I see this, does this put me in the right, does this match the mood? You know? Can I imagine this? Or would the music be something to be like whoa, this is weird music for this?

Tracy: 19:33

Yep, when I switched over to the new platform that I was trying— so Suno was the one that I moved to— it does have a text-to-music box that you can fill in so you can tell it this is what I'm trying to produce for and these are the types of words. So I did start with the words that were recommended to us and it still wasn't getting it, and so I had to start playing around with some of the songs that I could find on there, and it was doing things like: playful; light; carefree vibe. You know all of that. I can get those words, but here's what got me: the ones we really ended on, I needed to use words like acoustic instrumentation, playful piano melodies, light percussion. You know different things like that, and those are not words that I know, or I don't know the difference between some of the things. I never would have come up with "Bouncy rhythm on my own, right? Those are not words I know.

Katrina: 20:43

No, I agree.

Tracy: 20:44

I mean, obviously I know what those are, but that's not a thing— this isn't my area of expertise. So for me it was a fantastic kind of learning experience to know, yeah, these AI programs are out there, but to really be successful with them you do kind of have to know music. You have to know the words to use or you're going to be stumbling around. We did it. We got something. I can proudly say that I was able to string together a set of words that found us what we ended up using.

Tracy: 21:19

But even in Suno I struggled and I was not knowing what to say, like what are some other words I can try. So I actually ended up going to ChatGPT

Katrina: 21:30

Interesting

Tracy: 21:31

and say, "I'm trying to use Suno AI, which is a song generation program, to come up with songs for our podcast. I said, "t uses text to song generation, which means you have to create a description for what type of song you would like. Can you help me come up with a good list of words to use to create a song that would match our vibe and personality?

Tracy: 21:50

Now I've been training my ChatGPT on some of the things about our podcast, so it knows us already and it came up with a bunch of different words and words that I never would have thought of on my own. So I actually used words from ChatG PT then to go back into Suno, and between those two things I was able to come up with a song that we felt like worked.

Katrina: 22:16

Interesting. I didn't know that you, you had, that was your process. So I mean and that makes total sense. I would be interested— I'm not going to go do this because I don't think it's a good use of AI— to go ask it what it would do for the golf cart safety video, because, again, it's already done and that wasn't something that we felt needed or desired even, you know, that's something that we wanted was original sound. It was okay to use the stock music there. But I would just, you know, I am always curious about what a different process would be to get to the same result, because, again, I had to sit there and press play on a lot of things. Now that I know that these are some words, though, that I can use if I have to do this in the future, the kind of stuff that we make tends to be of the same mood and substance. It's unlikely that we're going to do something that's not kind of more upbeat, just by nature of what we do, but it is so helpful to have language.

Tracy: 23:17

Yeah, there was one more thing that I wanted to say about that too. I am in the AI space a lot. I talk to a lot of people about AI. If you know me at all, you know I'm an early adopter and I want to learn about all the things.

Tracy: 23:30

I have been hearing a lot about AI replacing people, and this, to me, was a really eye-opening experience for: I don't think it can. We got a song and it works, but I will tell you, it was a process and if you have people that don't know music, that are trying to do this, you're not going to be able to get the music like you would get from a real artist able to get the music like you would get from a real artist. So, after this experience, I will always choose music from a person who is an artist over an AI generated, whenever I can.

Katrina: 24:09

Yeah

Tracy: 24:10

We cannot always do that. That is not a privilege that everyone has, but I, through this experience, have really really realized you're always going to get better music when you get it from an artist. You're going to get better art when you get it from an artist.

Katrina: 24:27

Yeah

Tracy: 24:28

The soul that comes through the knowledge of the craft is just something that we're not seeing or not able to get on AI. It has its use, but it isn't going to replace people. It just can't.

Katrina: 24:42

No, I totally agree and, as a writer, I feel the same way about writing. You know, in AI, we can all spot an AI-generated post from a mile away now, and it's just never going to replace, as you said, that creativity and the soul and the new thinking. These are predictive models, so they're inherently built on something that's already been done. Now maybe they're going to put together those pieces in a different way and maybe that's where a lot of creativity definitely comes. But I agree with you, I'm okay with what we ended with, you know. Obviously we used it, but I'm looking forward to, you know, continuing to figure out, you know, how we can make that work.

Tracy: 25:25

Okay, we're going to stop there. K atrina, a ny final thoughts as we wrap up this episode?

Katrina: 25:37

Yeah. So as I listened to this episode, a couple of things stood out to me, and the first one is that, for those of us who care about research you know, about public health, about really any type of health and science, staying behind the scenes isn't really an option anymore. No matter your age or education or your experience level, I think it's always going to be a vulnerable moment to try something new and put yourself out there, but you know, there's a reason we're doing this. There's a goal here, and that is better living for everyone, and our communities need those of us working on that goal to get out of our comfort zones more often, and so if there's a new project you've been thinking about or, you know, maybe it's a skill you've admired in someone else, my advice to you is, you know, let's go. It's time to learn, or to try a different approach, or, you know, in our case, hit publish, and you might just be pleasantly surprised by the response when you do.

Katrina: 26:35

And then the other thing that I noticed is that we have once again returned to the theme of growth and building new skills, and what it looks like for us when we're asked to do something that we haven't been trained to do.

Katrina: 26:49

And you know, as we said, sometimes it's fine to use that stock music or music that's been generated, but even being able to find that music or create it without knowing the language that you need has really been a challenge, and AI has been able to help a little bit. But you know, I think it's interesting that you and I agree that after this experience, we both can see that there is something lost when you're trying to generate music with artificial intelligence, and I think it really does come down to that word artificial. I think we can both agree that you know, great music and great art of all types really does come from a place of authenticity, and so, as creatives ourselves, it was just really fascinating to go through that process and recognize that, you know, first of all, we are not equipped right now to know how to use a lot of these services, and also that nothing can really replace real human artists.

Tracy: 27:57

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I've been having a lot of fun learning through this process, experimenting and seeing what AI can and can't do for us. We've been using it, but we've seen some limitations. I've also really been enjoying hearing from others about how much this podcast is resonating with them and how they're enjoying learning from us and also watching us grow.

Tracy: 28:21

Okay, if you want to hear more conversations like this one, make sure you hit that subscribe button, like and share this episode with others and follow us at CIRTC on LinkedIn, Bluesky and YouTube.

Katrina: 28:35

Well, that's it for this episode. Thank you again for joining us today, and we will see you next time.