The New Royalty of Music Discovery Can Grow Your Streams but Not Your Fans

As social media influencers continue to win more and more of the "war on attention" how do the songs they introduce to the world resonate with fans beyond a listen?

Happy Monday! Thanks for opening the thirteenth edition of the Stan newsletter. A newsletter exploring fans and their bidirectional relationships with the artists that they love. As always suggestions and feedback are always appreciated. You can shoot me an email at dkuhlor@gmail.com.

The War for Attention Just Got More Intense

Back in 2017, Netflix CEO, Reed Hasting was ahead of his time when he declared that Netflix's biggest competitor was not HBO or Disney but in fact, sleep. In an ever competitive consumer landscape the "war for attention" has become a widely discussed topic but most conversations are devoid of evaluating music as both a standalone entity and a complementary one. While music's complementary nature initially appears to be an even larger consumer consumption opportunity; the evolution of consumer media products presents a strong case against championing this narrative. COVID-19 has forced the majority of people to stay in their homes, which is why many were surprised to learn that music streaming has declined. According to Alpha Data, during the week of March 13th to March 19th streams in the United States dropped 7.6%. A constant question emerging from artists both established and new is whether this is a good time to release music and if the current dynamic will make it easier to build and engage an audience? With people being limited to a smaller subset of activities one could easily conclude that this new found downtime would lend itself to increased discovery and consumption of new music. When I think deeper about the decline in music listening during this time, the statistic is not surprising because while social distancing illustrates an opportune time for people to experience more solitude than ever, human desire for interaction and connectivity appears to be at its strongest. As a result, It is easy to infer that consumer apps like Netflix, Tik-Tok, Twitter, and Instagram have seen an uptick in daily active users and amount of time spent using the app. The underlying trend that fuels the growth and engagement of all these apps? Community.

Netflix Wins Community by Controlling the Conversation

A mere scroll on Tik-Tok, Twitter, and Instagram quickly reveal how these platforms facilitate community, however this attribution becomes a lot more difficult when attempting to add Netflix to that cohort. Netflix wins in community because by creating content that keeps people highly engaged they control the broader conversations that spark on community-centric media platforms. Netflix constantly ranks in the top spot when assessing the dominant players that win the attention mindshare of consumers. As a result the platform has developed a unique ability to facilitate community through their content. The power of Netflix shows to unite people around a single topic (even if only to debate the topic - looking at you Tiger King) is a strong tool for preventing churn. When it comes to music discovery I think Netflix hurts more than it helps primarily because watching video content is an active activity which minimizes the finite time someone can spend listening or discovering new music.

How Netflix Hurts Music

Netflix's biggest threat to the music industry is the ever growing attention share that it captures consequently leaving less time for consumers to listen to music. As Netflix content continues to resonate more deeply with consumers there is a growing brand affinity to the shows and actors or participants rather than deepening their relationships with artists and their songs. The Netflix show "Love is Blind" is a great example of this. The show which turned into a cultural phenomenon saw the social profiles of all the participants rise exponentially once the show aired. Consumers had very quickly built a deep affinity for the concept of the show and select couples. Capitalizing on the opportunity participants of the show created Youtube channels and/or increased their time on social media engaging with fans and creating content. As this continues to happen, the impact of this is much larger than the music industry seems to recognize because the change in how artists primarily make money. In my article Music is the Loss Leader I explored the various ways that artists make money. A huge one for artists is through brand partnerships namely where they leverage their following on social media to financially benefit from promoting a brand. With brands having an ever growing pool of influencers to pick from artists can potentially lose out on a much needed source of revenue because consumers have built deeper relationships and are more engaged elsewhere.

How Netflix Helps Music

Netflix has positively impacted the music industry in numerous ways. From music discovery, an additional stream of revenue, and another platform for artists to communicate with fans (albeit in a non-directional way) the platform has certainly proved itself to be a value-add in the music industry. Many credit the Netflix movie, Something Great, as a catalyst for putting Lizzo's two year old "Truth Hurts" track on peoples radar. The movie features a scene where the protagonist (Gina Rodriguez) sings the song as she attempts to get over a breakup. Netflix has continued to double down on music discovery by paying artists in exchange for content. In the last year alone we were blessed with Homecoming, Beyonce's docu-series and live performance at Coachella. The streaming giant paid the singer $20M just for Homecoming which is reportedly rumored to be one of three pieces of content according to the contract. (Sidenote - I think Netflix should partner with artists to create fitness videos leveraging their music on the platform, you can read more of my thoughts on this here.) While the terms of their deals have not been disclosed Taylor Swift and Travis Scott have both profited from agreeing to distribute their documentaries through the platform. Experimenting with a new release schedule Netflix launched "Rhythm and Flow" a music competition show designed to find raps next star. The show which boasts T.I, Cardi B, and Chance the Rapper as judges took a somewhat unique approach in its prize package. Rather than awarding the winner with a record label deal the winner is awarded with $250,000 and the freedom to navigate their music career the best way they see fit. The winner has the the autonomy to sign to a record label or remain independent. In the event that the winner was to sign to a label, Netflix has significantly de-risked the artist for the label as they already have begun to build a growing and engaged fanbase thanks to the show.

The Evolution of the Curators of Cool

The rise of social media has paved the way for an even more fragmented music supply chain. Record labels enjoyed decades of dominance mainly because of their ability to control and maintain relationships with DJs, media outlets, and program managers. Reflecting on this music supply chain, radio program managers quickly reveal themselves to have been the most important constituent in music discovery as they had the ability to decide what songs got played on the radio. With the decline of consumers listening to terrestrial radio and the increase in radio shows being syndicated, it means that in addition to less people listening to the radio there is less variability in the music heard and the hosts featured. As a result, while getting on the radio can be a huge tool in an artists arsenal in a lot of ways it is harder than ever before.

In the future everyone will not be famous for 15 minutes but to 15 people. - Unknown

As social media grew the rise of "influencers" presented the first real threat to a self serving music supply chain that had thrived uninhibited for decades. With influencers capturing the attention of their viewers they now have a direct channel to wield influence in a variety of ways- the clothes people wear, the brands they purchase, and the music that they listen too.

Taking Influence to the Top of the Charts

Taking a quick glance at social media during summer 2018 would flood your feed with people doing the "In My Feelings" challenge. The challenge created by Instagram influencer/comedian Shiggy launched the song to number one on the charts, a position which it held for weeks. The challenge went viral with everyone from Will Smith to Odell Beckham Jr. posting videos doing the dance. Drake himself has been transparent that he never planned for the song to be a single, have a video, or let alone go number one. Drake acknowledged Shiggy's role in propelling the song to success by putting him in the video and bringing him on stage for select tour stops in NYC. It could be said that Drake, one of the most commercially successful artists of our generation, did not need help promoting his music, alternatively it makes the perfect case for how influencers have become the tastemakers for the music people listen to and engage with. While artists who already have brand awareness are well poised to benefit from these challenges what is the upside for smaller artists with less brand recognition?

When the New York Times piece by Taylor Lorenz brought light to the fact that 14 year old Atlanta creator, Jalaiah Harmon, had been the original creator of viral dance Renegade, the response was remarkable. Thousands of people around the world took to the internet to make sure that Jalaiah was awarded the credit that she deserved. Jalaiah has since gone on to perform on Ellen, the NBA all star halftime show, and even did a video with the songs creator K Camp. Jalaiah has been able to build her profile from the well deserved recognition that she received by being creator of the dance highlighting the underlying concept that develops when influencers popularize music. Jalaiah has elevated her profile and reach tremendously (even garnering a shoutout from Michelle Obama) while the lift for K Camp will be temporary if best. K Camp will enjoy increased streams, hopefully gain some new fans that stick around to listen to other music beyond Renegade however the person that ultimately benefitted is Jalaiah.

Making It Work for the Artist

For artists that embrace the deep relationship that consumers have with influencers what are techniques that they can adopt to make sure they are best poised to capture a piece of the upside when their music is utilized? The most actionable thing that an artist can do is acknowledge the challenge. Embracing the challenge and participating, whether it is performing the challenge yourself and/or amplifying the posts of those that do encourage people to tag the artist giving them increased visibility. Artists can also actively create their own challenge and reach out to influencers to post them doing the challenge. This strategy however comes at a cost as many were appalled when Fabulous and friends clowned Shiggy when he said that in order for him to create a challenge for him he would need to be compensated.

Ultimately as the way we continue to create and engage with content continues to evolve the strategies that artist employ to get their music discovered and build fanbases will need to evolve as well. By recognizing the shift in influence and the gatekeepers to attention artists can leverage new strategies to introduce their music to the world.

My headphones:

Nobody - DJ Neptune ft. Joeboy and Mr.Eazi (I am going through quite the Ghana withdrawals right now)

D!

P.S - Hope everyone is staying safe <3 I plan to use this time to work on a few side projects. write more for Stan, and chat music-tech and fandom with folks ping me if you want to have a virtual lunch/happy hour.