BandPage CEO J Sider On The State Of The New Music Industry
Op-Ed by J Sider, the founder & CEO of BandPage, a leading service for musicians to engage their fans across the web. He's been named to Billboard and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for the last 3 years.
2013 was a year when the full scale of the Internet became increasingly useful for the music industry. The collected engagement across dedicated music services, including streaming and entertainment platforms, now rivals that of social networks. Hundreds of millions of fans are interacting with musicians through these services and represent a powerful audience for musicians to engage with. Moving forward, it will be just as important to engage your fans across these music services as it is to engage them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Additionally, 2013 saw the music industry adapting many of the established targeting tools that are available and enabled including retargeting and interest-based targeting. We are at the very beginning of what is possible. As we are able to reach musicians’ fans across these platforms we will be able to learn more about them.
Because of these targeting techniques, musicians will not only be able to reach millions more fans, but reach the “ 
right” fan more effectively than ever before. This will lead to more money in musicians’ pockets and a better ability to grow a musician’s fanbase.
All of this creates a huge opportunity for the music business in 2014 to build on these trends and hyperfuel revenue. It starts with musicians being able to reach their fans across music services with their content and commerce. The next step is displaying the right content and commerce to the fans depending on if they are a passive, active or superfan. As musicians better understand the LTV (lifetime value) of their fans, they will be able to reach them more effectively through their marketing efforts. We’ve already seen Rhapsody, Spotify, VEVO, Xbox Music and a few others take initial steps in this direction, and I expect this opportunity to increase across all music services.
To this end, I believe music services in 2014 will take an increasingly inclusive stance towards working with artists to develop new and meaningful revenue streams. It has already proven to be beneficial to the musicians, their fans, and these services. These new trends can generate a very tangible impact as it relates to increasing
musicians revenue. As our main goal at BandPage is to help musicians make more money and grow their fanbase, these are the innovations that will make conversion rates grow in a significant way. We are looking
forward to advancing these initiatives with the music industry in 2014.
Musicians are still using bandpage? They must be hanging by a thread from the massive series B they raised back at the end of 2011.
TIMMBBEERRRRRRRR
Man, I think Bandpage is right on with what you guys are doing! I can’t speak to the cross-platform music services, but BandPage Experiences is one of the coolest ideas I’ve come across all year for the independent musician. If you take it where I hope you will, you’re almost creating a revenue stream that hasn’t existed, or at least hasn’t been optimized, before. And every revenue stream counts, especially nowadays. THANK YOU
and also crazy, I did a presentation in college about developing an independent fanbase and basically came up with a three-tiered system that is pretty much the passive, active, and superfan idea you present here. so n sync w u bb!! such a bandpage groupie <3
There has been so much consternation about musicians and music services finding a way to work together. It would be great if the music services really took this to heart and were more inclusive of artists interests and helping them make more money going forward.
I’m not a musician, but I used bandage to buy a meet and greet with third eye blind earlier this year. pretty awesome, actually, since my gf and I got a photo w/ the band as well. good show. would use it again for sure.
Right on, boss.
thank you for this great and informative article!
everything is true, real and relevant! with great spontaneous comments!!
I know u have every thing u ever wanted . But wat about the fans . And the strrugle they live the e even if family is dieing and only wish is to feel or even try to live the lovely life u do but dont hsve or can ever mske it in life