The case for a passive discovery mechanism for friends’ playlists on Spotify.
This article started with a tweet on a Saturday evening. Simply put: I wish I had a better interface to discover playlists that are popular among my friends.
Spotify should make a tool that: – every day surfaces ~5 playlists – made by friends, or regularly listened to – with some taste similarity
Mark Newman rightfully pointed out that Spotify doesn’t show much interest in surfacing user-created playlists. As a matter of fact, they have even been deemphasising them over the years. Instead they opt for sending people to their own playlists. And their priority makes sense. They have to compete with giants like Apple, Google, Amazon: companies that have money to waste, while Spotify has money to raise.
Streaming is going mainstream
I’m sure to most of us it feels like it’s mainstream already. Hear me out.
Spotify, and other streaming services, are now focusing on consumers beyond the early adopter. These are people that are happy listening to the hits from the radio. These are people that like predictable music experiences. And they’re the bulk of the market.
In order to successfully compete for them, streaming services have to deliver very consistent streaming experiences to these people. This comes in the form of speed, functionality, but also content and programming.
User-created playlists fall outside of Spotify‘s editorial guidelines and metrics that they set for their editors, so it makes it unpredictable. Then again, features like Discover Weekly carry some inherent unpredictability with them: it’s what makes them fun and addictive.
The metrics that a feature like this probably needs to deliver on would look like:
Amount of time spent listening to music on Spotify in a specified timeframe (the feature should not lead to less playback);
Some kind of retention metric (should lead to a more engaging product, with less people stopping to use it).
Spotify’s friend activity & navigation
I like seeing what my friends are listening to in the right hand bar. Occasionally, but hardly ever, I click on something someone is listening to, and musically stalk my friend.
The reason why I hardly ever tune into my friends that way, and why I think it’s probably not an often-used feature, is because you tend to see it when you’re already listening to something. It’s not really positioned inside the product as a starting point; it’s more of a distraction.
Starting points, in Spotify, are either search or are presented in the left-hand menu. They are your playlists, or the other navigation points, such as podcasts, browse, and Daily Mix.
The prominent placing of Your Daily Mix stands out to me. I find the feature a bit dull and repetitive, but perhaps that’s because I’m on the end of the user spectrum that explores more than returns to the same music. The point is: Spotify gives prominence to an algorithm that generates 5 daily playlists for users. It’s somewhat unpredictable, compared to what they feature in Browse, but it tries to get people into a daily habit, and its prominent placing suggests that this may be working.
What should also be noted is that none of these navigation items include anything social, despite the entire right-hand bar being dedicated to it.
Browse is boring
I’m always disappointed when I open the Browse tab. I never really see anything surprising and I keep seeing the same things over and over, despite not engaging with them.
There are so many super interesting playlists on search, particularly those by third parties, and I need a way to surface them without finding out on curators’ websites, social media, by using search, or by visiting artist profiles.
Your Daily Friend Mix
So, back to my original tweet, and the requirements for getting a social feature to work well:
Should lead to people regularly coming back;
Should lead to increased playback (or at least no decrease).
What are the constraints?
Not enough friends to meaningfully populate an area;
Friends don’t listen to playlists;
Friends only listen to the same playlists as you;
Friends’ tastes are too dissimilar.
The first issue here is already tackled by the way Spotify handles Discover Weekly and its Daily Mixes: if they don’t have enough data on you, they won’t present these features to you. So in short: if there’s not enough useful data to present meaningful results to you, the feature should not be shown.
However for many users there would be meaningful data, so how to make sure that the suggested content is also meaningful?
The UX of recommendations is a big topic, but in simple terms, there should be thresholds and ceilings on similarity:
Recommended content should not have a similarity higher than 90% to user’s collection;
Recommended content should not have a similarity lower than 10% to user’s collection & listening history.
The recommended content can be playlists made by friends, or ones that friends regularly listen to and / or are subscribed to. The percentages are made-up, and there are a lot more things you could factor in, but this way you make sure that:
Content in the section is interesting, because you’ll discover something new;
And it’s not too random or too far from your taste, so you’ll always find something you’d want to listen to while opening the section.
If that’s taken care of, then people will keep coming back. Why?
Because it’s super fun to discover how your taste overlaps with friends, or to discover new music with friends. I also think such a feature would work better for Spotify‘s demographic than the more active one-on-one music sharing type of functionality (that Spotify removed recently).
Spotify needs a passive way to connect with music through friends
The messaging functionality that Spotify removed showed low engagement. That’s because music one-on-one recommendations are demanding on both sides. Instead, what has shown to work best on big streaming platforms, are lean back experiences. Discover Weekly is an example of that: it’s focused on the result, rather than the action. The action for discovery is exploration: with Discover Weekly, it’s Spotify‘s albums that do most of the exploring for the user.
That’s what the social side of the service needs. The Friend Activity feed is boring. It hardly ever shows something I’d like to listen to, but I do know my friends listen to music I’d be interested in…
What I need is a section that I can go to when I’m looking for something new to listen to, and then shows friends as social proof for that content. It allows me to connect to friends in new ways. Perhaps even strike up a conversation with them on Facebook Messenger.
A reflection on key trends in music, tech, and user interfaces.
Soundcloud is saved, for now. On top of whatever strategic decisions they make to be able to attract follow-up investments, they face the difficult task of preserving their user community’s trust and winning back part of the trust they already lost. Tumultuous times are ahead, which will be frustrating, but also very exciting as it creates opportunity for new innovation and startups to claim their piece of the pie.
Underserved early adopter: the Myspace moment
Back in April I wrote about the fact that music is about to experience another Myspace moment. What I mean by that is that when Myspace hit decline, as it lost its community’s trust, new platforms got a chance as early adopters bailed and moved on. Musicians started building up audiences on Facebook and Twitter, and sharing their music on Soundcloud.
Now we see another Myspace moment: Spotify is focusing on mass audiences, and the prime early adopter platform has a distressed community due to the continuous struggles that Soundcloud has faced over the last years.
This creates opportunities for concepts such as:
Connecting groups of music listeners based on music taste or curiosity:
Soundcloud‘s struggling with this due to its failure to keep its search & tagging feature useful as the amount of content grew over the years, and they killed their groups feature;
Promo services for people who need an easy way to share music to journalists, labels, etc.
You could come up with a lot more ideas and find startups striving to make a meaningful impact there.
A third device in our midst: the Voice User Interface (VUI)
I’ve recently been playing around with an Amazon Alexa I ordered. At first I was skeptical and thought it would always feel awkward, but you get used to it fast and the convenience of a voice-controlled device in the living room (and other rooms) is bigger than I expected. I thought all those times you have to grab your mobile phone, or look something up on the computer, were minor and infrequent inconveniences. Now, the VUI has embedded itself into my life and all kinds of small habits, patterns and every day rituals.
VUIs are going to be the third device: first came PCs (plus laptops), then came smartphones (plus tablets), and now we’re going to get a third addition through voice-controlled devices like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple‘s Siri-based devices, devices in the car, etc. Perhaps this is why Tesla is in talks to do a music streaming service: music is the way into these spaces.
So what happens to the way we browse and explore music when we take the visual user interface away? What place does the smartphone get? What place does the laptop get? And what behaviour extends to our smart speakers?
What happens in AI is very important for VUI apps, but also for chatbots.
Conversational interfaces: the rise of messaging apps
Messaging has frequently been called the next major platform. It enables chatbots, which are apps that live on conversational platforms (this is a trend that’s also strengthened by VUIs). Some of the biggest social platforms to rise up over the last decade were primarily messaging apps, such as  Snapchat, Whatsapp, Telegram, and Kik.
The next step of the social web is messaging, but smarter than the AIM, ICQ, and chatroom phase of social. Facebook is positioning Messenger in such a way that it can live as a platform on its own.
I urge people to try out Instagram Stories and figure out what it takes to make good content for it. Short-form video content is so important in an age of short attention spans. Some of the hottest platforms to emerge among teens in the last years have been Snapchat and Musically, both limiting the time-length of videos being shared on the platforms. It’s fun, fast, and requires low commitment: making users share and explore more content.
I firmly believe this is going to change the way we write songs and structure them. We’ve already seen how the streaming playlist economy made tracks shorter, with people moving the vocals to the start of the track in order to make skips less likely. In the next years, the video story format is going to strongly impact music.
Instagram is another platform that may fare very well from the decline of user trust in Soundcloud‘s community.
I’ll be discussing more of these trends in my newsletter, which goes out every week on Monday. Sign up to stay in the loop.
The emphasis of playlist strategy is usually placed on how artists can get their music on popular curated playlists. Let’s discuss the long-term value of artists stepping into the curator role themselves.
In the context of this article, when referring to playlist strategy, I mean playlists that you create.
For most of the readers of this article, the two most important places for developing a cohesive playlist strategy are YouTube and Spotify (and maybe Soundcloud). They’re the places with the highest amount of traffic and search queries.
Objectives
You’re going to be using your playlists to achieve 3 things:
To get discovered by (potential) new fans;
To establish a habit for fans that keeps them connected to you;
To create regular engaging content for your socials to help you stay top of mind for fans.
Discovery. Habit. Top of mind.
Building your playlists
Let’s address objective 1 first: getting your music discovered. This is the main concern for most artists. Before anything, your music has to be good. If people are not sharing your music, it’s probably not that great. This needs to be your #1 concern and priority. If people are not sharing your music, go work on your sound instead of marketing something that people don’t care about.
Keep reading if you’re actually at a level where your music gets traffic through friend recommendations.
You’re ready to get your music discovered.
Variety
Take a couple of your best tracks. For each of these tracks, create a playlist. Add tracks from similar artists, artists that inspire you, anything that is somehow logically related to your music.
Understand that a lot of users will start playing your playlist and then switch to background listening. The logical relation has to be there, even when people are focusing on a different tab in their browser, or have moved on to another activity away from the computer.
For the music you select, the most important criterium is that it has to be music that people actually search for.
People will type search queries, and you need to create the best chance that they will land on your playlist. Think carefully the first few times you make these playlists. Over time, you’ll find the best way to do it and the amount of effort required will decrease.
Do not place your track at the top. People need somewhat familiar content to get into a playlist. Place it somewhere in the middle.
Remember the listener’s perspective: this is not about your music — this is about their experience. If you provide them with a good experience, they’ll listen to your music. If you don’t, they won’t. Simple.
Consistency & regularity
You’re going to pick a day of the week and every week you’re going to update your playlist on that day. If your playlists delight your listeners, they’ll check back every week on that day (that’s why Spotify’s Discover Weekly feature is so important to them).
This means you let people create a habit around your playlists. And while all other content of the playlists might change every week, you’ll have at least one of your tracks in there. So, the habit implies that returning listeners will listen to you every week.
It’s an elegant way to make sure fans don’t miss out on new music through their cluttered Facebook and Twitter feeds and inboxes.
Bi-weekly is also ok. Monthly is a maybe. Anything irregular is a big no. Either you execute this strategy, or you don’t. This particular strategy only works when applied consistently and with fixed regularity.
YouTube vs Spotify
YouTube and Spotify require their own approaches. They’re very different services, that drive very different types of music listening behaviours, bookmarking, etc.
For YouTube, I’d focus on making an ever-growing set of playlists from your main channel where you also post your music videos. It might net you subscribers, too.
This means every YouTube playlist becomes a finished product. Keep them short: roughly 10 tracks. Every week, you’ll create a new playlist with new content, and one of your tracks in there. Share it on your socials: some nice new content for fans.
For Spotify, you’re going to do something different. They’ve actually demoted user-generated playlists in search results, so it’s a bit harder to get found now. So, instead, you’re going to turn it into a tool to connect with your fans and familiarize them with your music taste.
Your Spotify playlists should be longer. 30 tracks or more. Think of them more as radio stations that are refreshed every week. Your followers check in, tune into the new content and also reconnect to your music (like the Diplo & Friends playlist).
User stories
I want to explain a concept from product management called ‘user stories’ — they’re used to describe certain things people expect from or want to be able to do with a product or service. They’re a useful way to not lose sight of what’s important to the people you’re making something for. What’s important to you, is not always what’s important to your target audience.
For your fans
Let’s think from the perspective of fans. And let’s define fan as someone who has shared your music with someone else. Facebook likes don’t count. We’re talking about the people who care enough about your music to share it with others.Â
Let’s think of some of the reasons why they might be interested in your playlist:
“I want to learn more about the music that inspires this artist.”
“I’ve already heard everything by this artist, but I want more!”Â
“I wonder what other music this DJ / producer plays besides his own tracks.”
As people get more familiar with your playlists, they may start to develop some more specific expectations, such as “I want to know about the freshest new releases this artist curates” or “I just need some great party music” and they associate your playlists with that.
Focus on the bullet pointed user stories first. You need to get people in, and then get them to form a habit. There are a lot of people creating good playlists for more specific purposes, but the advantage of the bullet pointed items is that they’re all focused on you — and nobody does you like you.
For people who don’t know you
This gets more tricky, because there are so many reasons why someone might land on your playlist. Think about what kind of music you’re curating. What are people trying to achieve when they’re searching for that type of music? A lot of them are going to land on your playlist by looking for an artist other than you, Four Tet for example.
“I want to listen to Four Tet.”
Yup – some people will just click the first playlist they see if it includes Four Tet and they spot the cover art.
“I want to listen to music like Four Tet.”
“I just want to put on some chill out music and not think about it.”
“I want to listen to a playlist that includes music like Four Tet.”
“I’m curious about discovering more music like Four Tet.”
Although similar, these are different motivations that correspond with different behaviour types. It also means people will judge the quality of your playlist differently (quality is defined as to whether it scratches the person’s itch).
Long term effects
If you do well, your music might actually become associated with the other acts you include in your playlists. This means algorithms will add it to the ‘play next’ queue on YouTube, to ‘similar artists’ on Spotify, or even have you appear in the Discover Weekly of people who listen to a lot of music like that.
Your playlist may become a brand on its own: something artists try to get their music featured in. This means you’re able to shine a light on great artists you feel are not getting enough recognition. Then there will be the people who follow you on playlists, but not on other socials. These may be actual fans (people who share your music) or just people who are into the music you curate.
Playlists are a social medium in their own right. Treat them like that.
Laziness is good. It teaches us to get results with the least effort possible. If you avoid procrastinative behaviour, laziness can even be a great recipe for success, because youâll be a master at shortcuts and finding the most effective ways to get things done.
I, like everyone, can be pretty lazy at times and it can take a lot of motivation to muster up the motivation for some activities. Over the years, Iâve learned that the strongest motivators for me are either:
Instant gratification, eg. the dopamine triggers created by most time wasting activities and procrastination;
Having a purpose beyond what Iâm doing.
This year I set up the MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE newsletter as a way to âforceâ myself to write something every week. Prior to that, I had âcreatedâ (written) articles mostly sporadically, but now I had a weekly deadline. And I had a vision: I knew that MxTxF was something I wanted to grow, to build, and hold to a high standard. All creation happened within that context.
Creation for the sake of creation is great.
But if youâre striving to achieve something, then the path of random creations is one where youâll depend on luck and pure chance.
So whether you make music, work at a label, or arenât doing anything creative – ask yourself: what could I be building?
Start from doing what youâre already doing.
Why are you doing it?
What are you learning from it?
Does it all fit together?
Does your work add up?
If the answer to the last question is no, thatâs fine. If you make coffee for customers every day, then every day will look more or less the same, and every morning you hit the reset button and do it again. Same day, repeating, with the same results. Whether you fail or succeed in that case depends on consistent performance and random external factors.
The lazy personâs nightmare.
If that sounds like you, think about what you could do that adds up. Then wrap it in purpose.
Back to the coffee example. Letâs say your wrapping in purpose is that you want to become the best coffee place in your town. Now you have a context to fill. Youâll need to talk to your boss and make a plan, you need to figure out what makes a place great, talk to your customers, etc. All of this you can do while doing what youâre already doing.
The lazy personâs dream.
Now letâs look at music.
Stop expecting to get a lucky break. The word luck implies unlikeliness and when you work hard and never get lucky, it can become intensely demotivating.
Create to build.
Youâre building a following.
Youâre building a fanbase.
Youâre building your artist brand.
Every time you release music, itâs a step in building those things.
In that context, you can evaluate your steps.
For instance, 2 times this year, the open rate of my newsletters dropped below 30%. Terrible, because I strive to keep it between 40-50% (higher would be nice, too). In the context of building something, a low open rate is terrible: if you canât win peopleâs attention consistently, then youâll lose it eventually.
So I looked at what I did.
In one case, it was just the subject line that was a bit too pushy and may have caused people to auto-ignore the email, thinking itâs yet another spammy newsletter.
The other case was more difficult, but my hypothesis was that the edition the week before was a bit weaker than usual, so people didnât open it the week after. I didnât have a good way to know this for sure, but it gave me a new way to think about what Iâm building.
What that means is that by placing my creations in the context of something Iâm building, it forced me to zoom out and think more carefully about the greater picture.
You may assume people are not watching your new video, because you posted it on your Facebook at the wrong time of the day, but maybe itâs because your last video sucked. If youâre just pushing out creations without thinking about the greater context youâre building, youâll miss that information.
The value in creating consistently and feeding it into something you can grow is so much greater than the sum of parts. So donât just create; build.
Best of all, itâs a great way to justify laziness. Just donât procrastinate.
Finding your way to success can be confusing as an artist. Hereâs what you should be focusing on.
At the Play & Produce conference in Ghent, Belgium, I joined a panel about digital revenue streams with Jef Martens (Basto / LazyJay), and Sebastien Lintz who does digital for Hardwell, artist management at Sorted, and is label manager at Revealed Recordings.
We discussed a lot of topics, some of which are covered in this article, but a lot of questions were left unanswered when we ran out of time.
So, for all those musicians that want to turn their craft into their livelihood, I wanted to create a basic resource to be able to refer to. This article goes over:
Making good music.
Getting your music in front of the right audiences.
Networking (!).
Retaining your fans & building community.
Monetization.
Youâll learn some new tricks to get better at what youâre doing, but more importantly: the below teaches you to develop your own strategy. Dive in!
Step zero: make really good music.
Before anything else, you need to make great music. This is part skill, part taste, and part understanding of trends. The best music is timeless, but before it becomes timeless, great music has to be timely.
As your skills develop, so will your ability to develop a consistent sound thatâs unique to you. This is important, because itâs unlikely youâll ever be âthe bestââââsimple mathematics. However, if you make a sound that stands out, you donât need to be the best, you just have to make something remarkable.
Seems like an obvious step, but it often needs repeating. If youâre feeling lost or overwhelmed, know that the most important thing to work on is to develop your music and your skills. Everything develops from there.
Step one: getting your music heard.
Make a lot of music and release a lot of music. Make sure itâs easy to find, to stumble upon, to access, and to share.
There are a variety of tools that help you distribute your music to a lot of different places, like Labelgrid, or distributors like CD Baby and TuneCore. They help you to be everywhere your (future) fans might be.
In order to be discovered, make sure to put time into the artwork and accompanying description for your music. The description provides keywords for people to find your music, so donât hold back on mentioning the names of bands that influence you, genres, etc.
Make it easy to share your music. Great music is inherently viral. Since YouTube is the most universal music player, you must have your music on there. Make sure the title has all the relevant information plus an indication about the type of music, to guarantee more clicks when people share it.
Regarding the artwork, you should understand that we live in the age of feeds. Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram encourage us to scroll endlessly, because it means weâll spend more time on their platforms.
If your sound is good, people will share it (hence step zero).
From there, you need to find your audience.
(pro tip: get your music everywhere, but figure out what channels work best for you and double down on them. Doing a little bit of everything is a good way to not get traction anywhere. Make sure you actually enjoy using the channels you focus on, because if itâs not fun for you, youâre going to get exhausted and inconsistent eventually.)
Step one point five: finding your audience.
If you understand your musicâs audience and where they hang out, or who else they listen to, you can start doing specific things to get your music into their ears, such as:
Remix other artists in your genre. Donât ask for permission, but communicate to them once your remix is done. After all: their repost helps you reach their audience and chances are theyâll have a bigger audience than you. Play nice. And donât put your remix on Spotify or other monetized places without permission. Itâs less about the legal issues, and more that itâs just bad for human relations.
Connect with communities in your genre. On Reddit you can find loads of communities where producers are helping others to learn to master their art. You can also connect to communities around certain genres or prominent labels inside a genre. If Redditâs not your thing, you can find groups like these on Facebook too.
Pitch your tracks to channels your audience follows. These may be blogs, YouTube channels, or internet radio stations. You can be more creative also: if thereâs a popular video game streamer on Twitch that listens to a lot of music like yours, you could reach out to them, offer to make a personal theme song for them in exchange for a certain amount of airtime on their stream. Be creative.
The value of being (one of) the first. On our panel, Sebastien Lintz pointed out that being one of the first people on a platform can have big advantages. So keep your eye on new apps that pop up, get on there, try them out, see what happens. This is how you secure a first-mover advantage for a specific segment. Not convinced? Just look at what Vine and Musical.ly have enabled.
Step two: develop strong relations with people.
Success in music is usually a combination of music skills and people skills. When you see an overnight success, what you donât see is the many years of preparation involved in that.
An artist may be young, but the team around them will know exactly who to talk to, who to ask for favours, the right people to work with, etc.
So, donât be shy. Make sure youâre frequently in the same room as people who can help you. If you have a chance to pitch your music and get feedback, then go do it, even if you think youâre not ready. The feedback youâll get will be valuable, but itâs also a good chance to get into the mind of label A&Rs, learn how they think, and youâll know who they are if you run into them again.
These things happen in live settings, but sometimes people like Sebastien call for artists to submit music & have it publicly reviewed.
Speak to the DJs, promoters, organisers, etc. at local shows.
Go to conferences and set aside your shyness. Go chat with people, find out what theyâre doing, and if thereâs a panelist you find interesting, grab them for a chat. Theyâre there to speak to people and theyâre interested in meeting you.
Basically: talk to people, and if itâs uncomfortable, then take a friend with you whoâs good with that. The music business is a network business, so understand that youâre building relations that will last your entire career. Start early.
Step three: retaining your fans.
With the previous steps, you should have a way to get your music heard by people. Attention is fickleâââso the big question here is not how to get people to listen to your music, but how do you get people to listen to your music again? And again, and again, and again.
You need to feed them to places where you can reach them again. Itâs incredibly valuable, so if youâre annoyed with vloggers telling people to subscribe in every video: place yourself in their shoes. And do that!
Find the best ways to reach people. Facebook posts, once you scale your fanbase, may only have a 5% reach. Tweets are similar. Itâs one of the reasons why I started a newsletter to talk about the future of music. For the last year, the open rate has been close to 50%. The typical artist newsletter has a 20â25% open rate.
Ads & remarketing. Sometimes itâs worth it to pay for ads. For instance, if you create a unified link for your release with a tool like Linkfire, you can integrate Google Analytics & AdSense. This way, youâll get some data about the people that checked out your release and youâll be able to target them on sites they visit, or when they Google something⌠Got a show in a town with a lot of fans? Set an ad that reveals your show the next time they Google for something fun to do on the weekend.
The basic jest of social profiles is this: be consistent, stay relevant, and frequent. Donât abuse peopleâs permission to appear in their feeds or inbox, because theyâll unsubscribe or learn to ignore you. Good luck winning their attention back then.
Step three point five: building your fan community.
I love using the example of the fanbase as a house party. In my many years of awkward beers with strangers, Iâve learned there are roughly two types of house parties:
The type where you get let in, stand around a room with strangers, where nobodyâs really entertained and just waiting for the host to come chat with them, and thinking of an excuse to bail ASAP. đŠ
The type where the host lets you in, immediately introduces you to people you should talk to, suggesting topics you can discuss, and then at some point in the night you realize you havenât even seen the host in an hour, because youâve been having such a good time with their friends. đĽ
Building a community is a great way to get your fans to keep their attention on you, even after you leave the room. Not only that, but you now have the power to get back into the room, shut everyone up, and ask people to amplify what you have to say:
âHaving a great time? Letâs get some more people in here! Text your friends. BYOB.â
Facebook Groups are an excellent way to do this. It also lets you mix fans that youâve known for a long time (eg. friends), with first generation fans, and later fans.
Help keep the community active. Get people to talk about music, art, whatever you find interesting and is somehow a relevant connector. The music shared in the group doesnât have to be just your music.
Step four: âshut up and take my moneyâ
Having a connected fanbase allows you to intimately understand who the people that listen to your music are, what they care about, how their minds work, what they find cool, etc.
This allows you to better package the experiences you provide to them.
In music, the money is in the package. Whether itâs the live show, the download, merch or something else.. This means you can make the music you believe in, while also developing ways to make money off of it.
I usually hold up Yellow Claw as an example of a group that understands their fans really well and have developed multiple business models based on that understanding.
Basically, what it comes down to is this:
Great music shouldnât have to be charity, so donât put yourself in the position of having to beg fans to âplease buy my album.â
Instead, think the other way around: what can I make for my fans that will make them thank me for giving them the opportunity to spend money on me?
No need to employ dark voodoo techniques. đš Itâs just a matter of getting into the right frame of mind. Letâs call it the Kickstarter State of Mind.
Successful Kickstarters are a combination of:
A great product or idea (a metaphor for your music).
A charismatic call to action (a metaphor for your artist persona and brand).
Exciting rewards for contributing money.
Go spend some time on Kickstarter and see how price tiers work. Usually they cater to different types of audiences, or fans with differing levels of commitment. But they all have this in common:
People are super excited to be able to spend their money. Not for youâââthatâs just a nice bonus. But for themselves.
Recap
Step zero: make really great music. Keep working on your skills. This is by far the most important part. Itâs the fuel for everything else. If nothing seems to be working, it may just be because your music is not good enough, or simply doesnât stand out. Sorry.
Step one: getting your music heard. Get your music everywhere, take into account what your music looks like when people share, and double down on the channels that work best for you.
Step one point five: finding your audience. Use other peopleâs audience (OPA) by remixing, pitching curators, connecting to communities, and securing a first-mover advantage.
Step two: developing strong industry relations. Make no mistake: the music business is a business of human connections. Start early. Be nice & professional.
Step three: retaining your fans. Keep your fansâ attention by connecting them to your socials and finding other clever ways to reach them again.
Step three point five: building your fan community. Fans help keep each othersâ attention on you and can help amplify your message. Be the host of the most fun house party theyâve ever attended.
Step four: âshut up and take my moneyâ. Besides conventional revenue streams, you should be creating things that are so exciting for fans that theyâll thank you for the opportunity to spend their money.
Is it that simple?
Well, yes.
The hard part is that you need to put in a lot of hours. You have to be smart and relentless. Practice grit. You have to persevere, but also know when to cut your losses.
As long as youâre flying solo, take a look at job descriptions at labels or management agencies to understand how to strategically release music and build towards milestones.
Once youâre ready to build your team:
Work with people that inspire you. Donât work with assholes.
And for fuckâs sake, keep your focus on your music.
Your music always comes first.
What some perceive as ephemeral contentâs greatest weakness is actually its most powerful quality. In an online landscape where attention is most scarce, ephemerality is key. đ
The popularity of ephemeral content has to do with a number of factors. One teen writes:
No social pressure, because the main metric is view count.
Ephemerality means you donât need to overthink what you post.
You actually know whoâs watchingâââif people have seen your post, their usernames are revealed.
The world these people have grown up in is different from that of older generations. Eighties babies used to think online was a bit more of a playground. I cringe looking back (and deleting) some of the photos and status updates I posted on Facebook back in 2007â2009. This generation is aware that information lives forever and their strategies for dealing with that include deleting their digital histories frequently.
So for many labels, artists, and managers the question is:
How do I develop a strategy around ephemeral content?
Your strategy will have to acknowledge a few core concepts:
Attention, not money, is the scarcest good on the internet. And everyoneâs competing for it.
The online landscape is now a filtered landscape, with algorithms weighing content and deciding whether to show it to your audience, or not.
In this reality, your most important question is: how do I win my fansâ attention again and again and again?
For that purpose, ephemerality is f*#ing amazing. If you content is only visible for a day at a timeâââyour fans will have to make you part of their daily routine. Now your have your fansâ attention: every single day.
Habit is the key to winning peopleâs attention over and over. Thereâs a reason why I send out my music tech newsletter at exactly the same time every week. Some of my subscribers actually go get a cup of coffee and hit refresh on their inbox around the time my newsletterâs supposed to come in. Not only does that lead to good engagement and nice metrics, but it also gives a great connection between you and your followersâââitâs a special feeling.
Once understood, ephemerality can be engineered. If Snapchat is not your thing, or if teens are not your main demographic, there are other ways to become part of peopleâs habit through ephemerality. The expiring nature of Spotifyâs Discover Weekly and Release Radar is the reason why those features have been so successful and have deeply influenced the productâs direction.
A great example of a music company that has been engineering ephemerality for years, is the Main Course record label. They offer all of their releases for free on Soundcloud in the first week. Many labels do the opposite and try to drive sales first, but Main Courseâs strategy makes sure fans check their page once a week. Imagine doing this on a page you actually owned, instead of on a social profile. You can establish a habit and then when fans come and check, you can nudge their attention to important things like gigs or crowdfunding campaigns.
What some perceive as ephemeral contentâs greatest weakness, is actually its most powerful quality. Use its expiring nature to build habit, keep your fansâ attention on you, and lead them to where you need them.
Many thanks to my co-panelists Luke Hood (UKF / AEI), Amy Jayne (Hospital Records), Siofra McComb (The Other Hand), Shane Mansfield (Ticketscript), David Ireland (Magnetic Magazine), and Lucy Blair for putting it all together. Youâve inspired me to put these thoughts down.
If youâd like me to work with you on building habit loopsâââdrop me an email: bas@musicxtechxfuture.com.
