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3/3/2015 Social Media is Revolutionising the Music Industry - Brandwatch

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Posted by Kate Franklin

@dharma_bum81

Kate Franklin is our Enterprise Sales Executive and is interested in how social media has transformed therelationship between brands, businesses and consumers.

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The recent criticism by Thom Yorke of online steaming service Spotify is the latest indicator of an industry

in flux.

Once upon a time the music industry had a relatively uncomplicated business model – band or artist

records song, record label sells song, artist and record label make money.

Now, in an era of fragmented platforms, file sharing, and non-traditional routes to market, the music

industry faces various challenges.

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Social Media is Revolutionising the

Music Industry

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Social media presents an interesting opportunity. As music fans, most of us turn to Twitter or Facebook tokeep updated about our favourite bands, whilst new tracks or videos will 99% of the time get their launchon social channels.

Furthermore, social media is where music audiences naturally congregate, forming their own communitiesand sharing their experiences of bands and artists.

But how can labels keep track of this ever-increasing volume of online conversation?

A social media monitoring platform like Brandwatch has multiple use cases for the music industry. Thesheer volume of conversation, coupled with the agnostic nature of social media results in a vast body ofopinion that can be mined for insight into trends, tastes and purchasing behaviour.

The most obvious application of a social media monitoring tool is to measure the buzz around a specificrelease.

Despite dwindling budgets in the industry overall, big bucks are still spent on the marketing of bigreleases.

Measuring online conversation not only provides insight into the popularity of an artist, usingmeasurements such as uplift in buzz, but sentiment breakdown and the level of audience engagementalso assists labels to understand the impact of marketing efforts – has the launch resonated with the rightpeople on the right channels what can they learn for future releases?

But what good is a band without its fans?

Although Plan B and Beyonce seem somewhat confused by the notion, any long-term fan to artistrelationship depends on reciprocity – they give us great tunes, we buy their songs and go to their gigs.



Identifying and engaging with fans is a crucial step in solidifying a band’s relationship with its audience.

Before the advent of social media music fans would congregate offline, whether it be at conventions orthrough the back-pages of the music press.

Now, communities form in disparate places and on a broader range of interests, whilst bloggers arearguably more influential than journalists from more established titles.

Using social media monitoring to identify these authors and to engage with them, whether with pre-release material or to launch a mini-campaign, will give a label tangible routes to market amongst trueadvocates.

Let’s apply this to a real-life example. Drenge are currently the darlings of the music press. The BrothersLoveless (yes, real surname) are a two-piece blues-rock band from Derbyshire and had the (mis)fortuneof being quoted in MP Tom Watson’s resignation letter.

Despite this unwelcome endorsement their debut album was released this week largely to positivereviews which is evidenced in the significant amount of positive sentiment:



An increase in buzz surrounded the albums’ release on Monday and was maintained during the week inanticipation of their appearance at the Bank Holiday Reading & Leeds Festival.

Aside from Tom Watson, Drenge have garnered support from a range of influential voices. By orderingthe below table by the number of Followers, we can see that high profile news site and blogs arecommenting on the band, as well as individual DJs and bloggers.

From a PR perspective these authors are worth their weight in gold, exposing the band to an incrediblylarge and varied audience.

The music business has always had to react to change – new formats, new technology and new businessmodels mean an industry in a constant state of transformation.

The internet and, more specifically, social media, has been incredibly disruptive to the music businessand so labels and artists have had to adapt.

This is most evident in how labels and artists attract new audiences and for that we’ve seen anexponential rise in brand sponsorship. Brands such as Coca-Cola, O2 and Everything Everywhere, spentapproximately £100million in 2012 on festival, artist and online endorsements.

For artists, this means they can leverage a big brand’s marketing budget and get exposure to newaudiences. And in an attempt to align their brand with a young and increasingly solvent audience, it givesa brand a chance to appear ‘cool.’

A social media monitoring tool will enable both the brand and the label to hone in on conversations thatspecifically relate to the artists’ sponsorship.

By using advanced Boolean operators, brands will be able to measure the impact of their sponsorship and howthey are perceived in relation to music. Similarly, labels looking to attract sponsorship can use evidence of anuplift in a brand’s share of voice, positive sentiment or new advocates to seek out other brand endorsements.

Yet, as with any industry the music business is all about the bottom line. Promotions, brand endorsementsand blogger outreach all have to deliver sales.

In our 2013 Twitter Landscape Report, we found music to be the platform’s third most popular



conversation topic.

The tendency of fans to express intent to listen to, download or purchase a track is strong and providesinsight into buying patterns.

As online streaming and download sites replace CD sales, analysing online consumer behaviour isincreasingly important for labels as a way to identify how successful a band really is.

Tags: consumer behaviour, consumers, drenge, glastonbury, industry, intent to buy, intent to purchase,music, sector analysis, social media, social media monitoring, spotify

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• Reply •

David Sharpe • a year ago

Thanks for this great post Kate. It seems the most useable monitoring tools that feature

technologies like advanced Boolean searching and quality semantic analysis attract a

prohibitive cost for musicians who are not backed by a label and are looking to self-

publish. What quality tools and strategies, that display accurate search queries, are

available for these artists?

dsharpe.me

1△ ▽

• Reply •

Kate Franklin • a year ago

Hi David,

Thanks for your post and glad you found the article interesting. You're right that some

tools are too expensive for non label-affiliated artists and the in-depth analysis and

reporting may be more than they need. The good news is there is a selection of free

and/or more cost effective platforms that cater for these sorts of users. Whilst they don't

offer the full suite of analytics found in enterprise-level platforms, the fact that smaller

artists would probably command less data than their major label counterparts means the

lower level tools would probably suffice. Have a look at our guide here

http://www.brandwatch.com/2013....

Thanks,

Kate

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