Facebook’s New Music Partnerships Don’t Seem To Be Doing Much To Help Musicians
This post by Josh Constine comes via Inside Facebook, a leading source of news and analysis on Facebook’s global growth, corporate developments, and product innovations.
Facebook has yet to create an easy and obvious way for users to Like the Pages of musicians they listen to, costing artists significant marketing opportunities. Since the listening activity of Spotify, Rdio, and other music service users began being automatically shared to the social network late last month, Facebook Pages of musicians have not been gaining fans any faster.
Musical artists and record labels should push Facebook to implement a better retention mechanism that helps them convert listeners into fans who they can then reach with marketing updates through the news feed. This could come in the form of a Like button for an artist’s Page on feed stories about users listening to them, or a a “Recommended Musicians” panel that suggests users Like the artists they listen to most.
Until then, Facebook is gaining compelling feed stories about listening habits and data it can monetize through ad targeting without returning the favor to musicians.
Musicians Need Likes, Not Listens, to Make Money
Currently, to Like an artist they have been listening to, users have to find a story about their listening activity in the news feed, Ticker, or Timeline. The use can then click through the artist’s name to visit their Page and Like them. A lesser known method is to hover over the artist’s name and use the Like button in the hover card. The hidden buttons and high friction flows mean only users already intent on Liking an artist will become fans.
Facebook’s music partnerships are making some money for musicians by driving usage of streaming services that pay out royalties when an artist’s songs are streamed. However, these royalties can be just a fraction of a cent per listen. Artists depend on concert ticket and merchandise sales that Facebook’s music apps aren’t helping them increase directly.
Many artists use their Facebook Pages to promote their tours and merchandise lines in the news feed, but only fans receive these updates — not listeners. However, the 20 most popular musician Facebook Pages and the Pages of a dozen smaller artists we checked showed no increase in the rate of new Likes starting on September 22nd when the music partnerships launched. Therefore, it’s important that Facebook make it easier for users to Like the artists listen to.
Very interesting and insightful article. I think what Facebook is missing is that they don’t motivate the fans to interact and promote musicians. There is a missing link.
Check out this video and tell us what you think?
http://www.youtube.com/rockcityclub
Do these services work with aggregaters (sp?) to connect the artists social media to their services?
Hasn’t anyone learned from Myspace.
Social networks are a joke.
The people who bitch that Facebook’s efforts aren’t helping musicians are the same people who complain that radio does a bad job at supporting new artists.
It’s not their business model(s) – artists and the music community need to stop it with the entitlement.
That’s a good point. But Facebook is a platform rather than utility/channel. Artists can choose to spend ad dollars, development resources, and engagement with fans elsewhere, while radio was for a long time the only real mass distribution channel for music. Therefore I see it in Facebook’s interest to keep musicians happy.
I don’t believe that Facebook is really concerned at all with this to begin with. They make money and collect data. Even when we’re not logged in. They’re doing what they want. They’re in control. Program or be programmed.
Bonnie Brae,
It’s interesting how you say Facebook has no obligation to appease us musicians since it’s not in their business model, despite the fact that they started FACEBOOK MUSIC–the thing that this article is friggin about.
In other words, if Facebook isn’t going to support new artists, then they shouldn’t use our music.
This article is unfortunately very correct. Facebook is NOT doing anything new to help artists. They are expecting artists/bands to upload music onto their platform and just bc they are FB it should be good enough. Well.. this is not good enough!! In order for artists and bands to gain success and popularity they need fans and additional interactive help.
I have found the answer to any artist or band that is looking to break into the music industry with a BANG!
http://www.rockcityclub.com- I am actively involved with this company and we are PASSIONATE about helping artists reach the top.
We understand the hoops an artist has to jump through to get in front of the right people. We have made it easy for anyone to become star(if that’s what they want, or just help get your music heard and increase fan numbers).
This website not only caters to the development of the artists careers, but the site drives fans to the artist. This is not another ‘point and click’ website like Myspace. The platform will actually be a one-stop shop for uploading music, driving fans and then will put artists/bans who meet certain criteria in front of a elite Producers Circle(over 120 Grammy awards)that will review the music for the opportunity to not only just compete online, BUT have a chance to perform live on a televised concert series.
Think “American Idol” meets “Facebook”, but knowing that if you have the talent, your music WILL be put in front of some of the biggest names in the industry- all through social media and FB applications. The fans and bands will interact together which will in turn help the bands gain success. The site is designed to help artists build their success…. not just upload their video, sit and wait.
Check it out!