It is now five months since Australia’s social-media ban for under-16s took effect, but conclusions on what the impact is for marketers – including the music industry, which is Music Ally’s beat – are still hard to find.
The question has been on our minds ever since we first heard about plans for the ban, because social media has become so crucial to the music business. TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms sit at the heart of most music campaigns, from major and independent artists alike.
But also because young people are so engaged with music and with those platforms. They post a lot, they comment a lot, they create a lot of content, and so many campaigns rely on them to spread the word about artists and their music – generating the momentum that’s an important signal for those platforms’ recommendation algorithms.
In a panel session about Gen Alpha at our Music Ally NEXT conference last year, kids-media consultancy Beano Brain revealed that 50% of 7-14 year-olds listen to music on a weekly basis.
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Meanwhile, a study released this month by research firm Luminate found that 31% of Gen Alpha music listeners can be described as ‘superfans’, and that they’re the most likely out of all the demographics to attend live or virtual concerts, buy merch, post on social media, and talk to family or friends about the artists they love.
If these young fans are banned from social media, the implications for the music industry are clear and the question arises: what are the teen channels or places going to be?
And of course, this is not just an Australian story. It may have been the first country to introduce such a ban, but the UK, France, Spain, Brazil, and India are among others where governments are considering similar legislation or other restrictions. Indonesia has already followed suit with a ban in March 2026.
One thing is for sure: the music business isn’t really talking about these implications much. I know, because we have tried talking to some labels about this, and nobody has much to say yet. The consensus is that it’s still very early days, so they don’t have enough data yet on the impact.
They are also waiting to see how effective the Australian ban is. The country’s eSafety Commissioner recently published a report noting that 4.7 million age-restricted accounts were removed or restricted by the affected platforms in the days after the ban took effect on 10 December.
However, its survey of parents whose children had accounts on key platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok – before the ban found seven in 10 of them saying that their kids still had those accounts now.
It may be a different story in six or 12 months' time, if pressure builds on the platforms to comply with the ban more effectively. My sense is that most music marketers are waiting until then to understand the true impact on their campaigns and artists.
At Music Ally, we have some thoughts. There may well be a drop in some key metrics for artists and campaigns: follower counts on the banned platforms, but also likes, comments and views. Campaigns that leaned in hard to young fans to generate ‘meme velocity’ will be particularly affected.
We’re not sure this is a bad thing. It may be a chance for the music industry to break out of the social-media box that much of its marketing has been stuck in: where views and virality are the only metrics that count in a campaign.
We think it may be a moment where artist teams will start to pivot back to marketing strategies from the past, finding clever ways to integrate especially their new acts into offline and physical media, whilst cleverly using those opportunities to drive these young audiences into an artists owned channels such as WhatsApp Groups.
It is certainly an opportunity to think more about the places where young people hang out that are not covered by the ban, whether online or offline.
Roblox is one famous example of a digital platform that isn’t (yet) banned for under-16s in Australia, even though it’s as much a social environment as a gaming one, with tens of millions of young people globally playing games with and chatting to their friends there. If it stays unaffected by the ban, we think this is where a lot of marketing focus will go.
Should labels and artist teams shift their budgets and effort towards these platforms though?
There are risks in that. First, there is no guarantee that these services will always be excluded from social-media bans, both in Australia and elsewhere.
Second, because building a Roblox game can be expensive, restricted to the biggest artists or those who have a big budget behind them. While there are ways to engage with Roblox that are more affordable, it’s not a simple pivot for the majority of artists’ marketing efforts.
We’ve been thinking about non-digital places where young people hang out and discover culture and community, though. Artists are already tapping into real-world interest-based activities, from running clubs to knitting groups, in their campaigns. Meanwhile, experiential marketing in youth clubs, cinemas, shopping centres and other places could see a resurgence.
The Luminate research showed that performances and fan meetups are another opportunity, perhaps, for artists and venues to provide safe spaces for under-16s to gather and enjoy music.
A recent report asked why young people are so drawn to social media in the first place – suggesting that autonomy, independence, belonging, and socialisation were four key drivers – and what other ways there are to meet those needs. Music events are one answer to that question for sure.
Another trend that Music Ally is tracking is the return of the ‘music curator’ on platforms like Substack, and even through a revived blogging scene. More things that got lost along the way as social media grew, and we are starting to see them coming back.
In 2026, there is so much music out there, including nearly 75,000 AI-generated tracks released every day. People are starting to value human curation again, so it’s possible that a shift away from social media and its all-powerful algorithms will be a positive thing for how young people discover music.
Finding creative, innovative ways for artists to reach audiences, including young people, is the task for music marketers: people who truly understand their artists and those artists’ audiences. At a time when many people are worried about AI’s impact on their jobs, this truly should be a job for humans.
It’s a really important job, too. The impact of social-media bans for young people isn’t just about the immediate reach of campaigns and content. It’s about the longer-term relationship between fans and the artists they love.
If someone becomes a fan of an artist when they’re young, they may well stay a fan all their lives. They’ll be the ones going to gigs, buying merchandise, and spreading the word.
Finding new, inventive – and importantly, responsible in terms of safety, privacy and wellbeing – ways to spark that fandom is a challenge that the industry should relish.
Marlen Hüllbrock is the Director of Marketing & Strategy at Music Ally. She will appear at the Victorian Music Development Office's (VMDO) Music Data & Insights Summit 2026 on Monday, May 18th. Full details for the event are available via the VMDO site.
