Top Analytics Tools For Audience Development

Both artists and industry executives employ analytics tools as a means of assessing their niche in the market, as well as identifying weaknesses and key areas for growth. In this piece, we look at six of the best tools for understanding and unpacking your music industry stats.

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman of the Symphonic Blog

Industry professionals and artists alike utilize music analytics tools to help them further understand their place in the market. Knowing where you stand and where you have room to grow is the key to excelling in this industry. To help you truly understand your stats, here are some of the best tools out there to guide you in the right direction…

Best Analytics Tools for Audience Development

Next Big Sound

Next Big Sound is an OG in the world of analytics for artists. Next Big Sound helps artists and their teams use Pandora to understand performance, grow audiences, and improve their strategy for free. Before you groan about the mention of Pandora, don’t underestimate the power of this old school platform! They still have a lot to offer when it comes to analytics.

With it, you can dive deeper into data with their powerful collection of tools that can help you see trends, pull reports, and make graphs across multiple artists and tracks. Data like this will help you identify where to focus your efforts and see how they pay off as time goes by.

SoundCharts

SoundCharts offers social media data from six different platforms, playlist data from three different streaming platforms, and charts from seven different social and streaming platforms to give you actionable music streaming data, all in one place. Where’s this data coming from? Spotify, Apple, Shazam, YouTube, Deezer, Radio, SoundCloud, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Songkick, to say the least.

ForTunes

ForTunes is a hidden gold mine for indie artists. This platform is an easy-to-use mobile app for music data analytics on the go, drawing data from Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. It gives you basic streaming and social media tracking results, just like the other platforms we’ve mentioned in this post, but having it all at your fingertips with the mobile app is life changing for artists and teams on the go.

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TikTok Analytics

With TikTok Analytics, your data-filled dashboard is separated into three main categories: overview, content, and followers. By clicking through each tab, you’ll be able to see videos views, profile views, follower count, and follow demographics in terms of gender and geography.

If you’re looking to up your TikTok game, having access to these analytics is key. Keep in mind, TikTok analytics are only available for Pro accounts. To switch to a Pro account, go to your privacy settings, click “Manage my account” and then “Switch to Pro Account” at the bottom. Easy peasy.

Spotify for Artists

The best part about Spotify for Artists is their absolute count of artist’s streams, listeners, and saves. This analytics platform provides an easy-to-understand breakdown of playlist categories (algorithmic, editorial, and listener generated) and absolute counts for listeners and streams of an artist’s tracks on those playlists.

Detailed insights into streaming metrics like these are key for artists and their teams in this increasingly data-driven industry where Spotify reigns supreme.

Apple Music for Artists

With Apple Music for Artists, artists can keep track of the volume of their streaming plays on Apple Music and album/song sales on iTunes, all within a data set that updates every day.
In addition, artists can:

• Gain insight into how specific songs/albums are performing.
• See how their fans are growing in international markets in over 100 countries
• Find out which locations they’re the most popular
• Plan future shows
• Specifically tailor set-lists for fans in each location

In Conclusion…

When it comes to developing your audience, you need to understand which aspects of your strategy are working for you and which parts are simply falling flat. Having access to data that shows you where your streams are coming from, which streaming platforms are performing the best, and even which social media apps are creating the most engagement are all things to pay close attention to.

With services like these, it’s no longer a guessing game. You have concrete data to back up your every move. Use it wisely!