5 Content Metrics You Should Watch When Promoting Your Music Brand
f you’re posting on social media recreationally you probably glance at the number of likes or comments you get, but if you’re posting to promote your music brand then you have to take the metrics more seriously. Here are 5 content metrics that you should pay attention to, since they indicate just how effective your posts are.
It’s YOUR career. To succeed you need to work harder than everyone else
How bad do you want to succeed? Do you work harder than everyone in your band or on your team?
Michael Barndvold and Jay Gilbert discuss how you can’t sit back and expect others to do the work. This is YOUR career, and you have to work at this harder than anyone else if you hope to succeed.
Why Persistence Is Priceless In Music
Persistence is, without a doubt, one of the most vital character traits a musician can possess. You could even argue that there’s no hope of succeeding in music without it, whether you want to write songs for a living, perform in a touring band, or become a bonafide
popstar. But for how crucial persistence is, it’s something that can be easily forgotten about in music. We’re told we need to “hustle” to succeed in the music industry, and we quickly put ourselves to work making the best music we can and trying to get people to listen. But what’s so easy to forget to account for when we do this work are the countless no’s it takes to get to a yes, the innumerable ignored emails, the thick skin it takes to get rejected over and over again and to keep going anyway. Persistence is essential because, without it, you’ll probably get bummed out and quit long before you’re able to make anything truly great.
On Streaming Payouts: Is a User-Centric Payment System Better for Indie Musicians?
People have been debating whether streaming platforms should change their method for paying streaming royalties to artists. This is driven by the desire to see fairer streaming payouts for indie artists, and that’s great. But how would switching to a user-centric payment system (UCPS) actually make things better for indie musicians?
From the Experts: 8 Pros and Cons of Non-Fungible Tokens and How They Compare to Traditional Investments
Understanding the investment world can be difficult, especially when you consider the myriad of asset classes, fund structures and tax-advantaged vehicles available in the marketplace. Factor in previously unfathomable situations, like a global pandemic and negative interest rates, and the complexity is magnified exponentially.
It doesn’t stop there. Increasingly pervasive technologies, such as mobile payment applications, peer-to-peer lending platforms, robo-advisors and blockchain-based databases are revolutionizing the way we conduct business, manage financial transactions and invest.
YouTube makes it even easier to turn videos into Shorts
YouTube continues its all-in push for its TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts, with a new tool that makes it even easier to convert up to 60 seconds from an existing long-form YouTube video into Shorts.
Shorts created from long-form videos will now also automatically link back to the original long-form videos.
The connection between Shorts and long-form YouTube videos is part of why YouTube Shorts is now watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users monthly. By comparison, TikTok announced 1 billion monthly users last September and has been projected to pass 1,5 million monthly average users sometime this
year.
How Much Data Does Spotify Collect and Share About You? Here’s How To Find Out
Spotify collects data about your listening activity and playlist history, of course. But it also collects more personal data about yourself.
According to Spotify’s own privacy policy, some of the data it collects includes your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, gender, address, GPS location, login info, billing info, IP address, and device information. Some of the device information that Spotify collects include your operating system (iOS, Android), phone model, browser, and WiFi network-connected devices.
Spotify shares this collected data with its third-party advertising partners to create personalized ads tailored to specific audiences. It has allowed Spotify to create a vast audio empire of advertisements that can be eerily familiar. So is there any way to limit the data Spotify collects and how it shares that information? The short answer is yes, but it’s complicated and spread across the web, desktop, and mobile apps.
Facebook is changing how musicians, rightsholders (and fans) get paid
Facebook is changing how artists and music rightsholders are compensated for user-generated video content, Although details are incomplete, Meta announced Monday that it is shifting a revenue-sharing model.
Now Facebook video creators who use licensed music over 60 seconds will receive a 20% share of the related advertising revenue generated.
“A separate share” will be split between the music’s rightsholders and
Facebook. Music revenue sharing will by powered by Rights Manager, a video, audio, and image-matching tool that Meta developed to help content owners manage content at scale.
7 Ways to Prepare for a Big show
For many artists, playing an outdoor festival or other large show is a bucket list item. It often signifies that you have reached a new tier in your music career which brings on a different level of exposure and experience. But as I found out this year when my band played our first festival, the preparation involved can be different from any other previous show you’ve played.
If you’ve recently been asked to play your first festival or another big show (or it’s on your bucket list), here’s a guide on how to prepare so that you play your best show yet!
Music business advice from an entertainment lawyer
Entertainment lawyer Ben McLane sits with Bobby Borg to discuss three important topics bands need to consider in the new music age.
As an author myself, I can tell you the key is is not to read one or two books, but to dig deep and read everything out there when you’re trying to learn and understand something. Read as much as you possibly can — educate yourselves. I encourage you to read Ben McLane’s book, Music Business In Ten Easy Lessons, all the way through to get a perspective from a renown entertainment lawyer. But for today, I’m going to ask Ben to summarize three things in his book, starting with band names.
Good, common sense article here.
How to Promote Your Music Online
CREATING AND RELEASING music has never been easier, but promoting your work has never been more confusing. Should you focus on TikTok or tour? And when you don’t have many followers, is online promotion even worth your time?
To crack the code we talked to indie musicians, marketers, tastemakers, and even a professor. While there’s no guaranteed formula for success, we found a wealth of tips and tricks for all kinds of musicians. Let’s dive in.
SURVIVING THE BIZ: 21 THEMES FOR CREATIVE AND COMMERCIAL LONGEVITY IN MUSIC
The Art of Longevity is based on a premise set by Brett Andersen from Suede. An interview I read with Brett quoted him saying that all successful artists have followed a similar journey, comprising of four stages: the struggle, the stratospheric rise to the top, the crash down to the bottom and then the renaissance. In each case, what has been my guest’s individual ‘experience’ of both making a living and being a creative force in the music industry? Not only that, but in an industry notorious for mobilising around artists on the way up, but quickly dismantling the machinery and abandoning the rocket ship once the shine wears off. How do they reflect on the industry itself both now and during their time in it?
What Financial Meltdown? BMG Is Potentially Splurging Another $1 Billion on Song Acquisitions In 2022 —
And Scooping Deals Others Have Abandoned
BMG’s chief executive Hartwig Masuch recently spoke about BMG’s billion-dollar war chest, a herculean acquisition spree, and why the quaking economic picture doesn’t scare BMG.
A recent report in the Financial Times (subscription-only) looked into BMG’s impressive double-down on acquisition; it offers an insider view from BMG’s chief executive – who’s suddenly chest-thumping about all the cash his company has to scoop up lucrative songbooks that are still on the market.
The numbers show that BMG now stands among a limited number of mega-investors currently on the market for recording rights. With interest rates rapidly rising, smaller players appear to be scaling back on music IP purchases.
Major labels are pushing
Spotify, streamers to pay D.I.Y. artists LESS, says top exec
The major labels are lobbying Spotify and other streaming music platforms less, according to a top music executive. The reason is falling market share for the majors.
While working to distribute more independent record labels via their owned distributors, including Sony’s AWAL and The Orchard, UMG’s Virgin, and WMG’s ADA, the majors view D.I.Y. artists and their distributors like DistroKid, Tunecore, and CD Baby very differently.
“For the major record companies, their dominance of streaming market share isn’t just important in terms of their revenues,” continued Ladegaillerie, “Crucially, it also affects their leverage when they’re renegotiating licensing agreements with Spotify or Apple or Amazon and other music streaming platforms or owners.”
What’s A View?—on Reels,
TikTok, YouTube, and More!
What’s in a video view, and how long does it take to earn one? The answer is more complicated than you might expect.
Everywhere you look online, video content is king. Blame the influence of TikTok on culture, but each social platform is now promoting a video feature that—for the time being—offers more views and higher engagement than traditional content.
But what is a view? Unfortunately for artists and music marketers, A “view” isn’t a standardized unit of measurement. Each platform has a unique set of rules that define how views are counted, and knowing the differences can help you measure the success of your campaigns. For example, a video receiving 100 views on Youtube could hold as much—if not more—value than a video receiving thousands of views elsewhere. The opposite can also be true.
MIDiA music forecasts: the new era of growth
MIDiA has just published its latest music forecasts, available to clients in full here. Here are some of the highlights.
2021 was a huge year for the recorded music business with retail values up 23% to reach $51.9 billion (retail values include masters, publishing, and retailers / DSPs). Label trade revenue was up 20% to reach $22.9 billion. Part of the reason for the wide gap between retail and label growth was the rise of non-DSP streaming that sees a much higher share go to publishing than for DSP streaming. Non-DSP streaming was
worth $3.0 billion in 2021 across masters, publishing, and platforms. Production music (a segment missed out of
most other market estimates) was another strong performer, generating around one billion dollars.
