Saving my old posts!
The rate of change for digital advertising is impressive but staggering. Just when you seem to understand the landscape, new avenues appear to catch you off guard. Those that navigate these environments with an opportunistic lens understand how important attention is, and where you can get it for cheap.
As a platform becomes more established, guidelines or regulations are typically put in place to regulate marketing and corporate influence. We are able to watch this evolve in real-time through Spotify playlists: regular users with big followings can negotiate with record companies for placement on their popular playlists.
^ Gary Vaynerchuk is able to put on his friends and clients by simply slotting them onto his playlist. A drag and drop can equal thousands of dollars and listens, because its where people’s eyes (and ears) are pointed.
The inherent social network built into Spotify allows users and their playlists to be shared and followed. By connecting your account to their playlist, you are able to keep up-to-date with the changing rotation of bangers a celebrity is currently listening to. Spotify curates these playlists themselves, but average users can accumulate a significant following just by using the right title or promoting it on their Instagram.
The core of this marketing strategy is exploiting an undervalued avenue of attention. When Facebook first came out, a company’s post reached everyone that liked the page. Now, however, that same post won’t reach more that 10% of your list without paying. Email marketing campaigns in the mid-2000s had 80–90% open rates, until our inboxes started getting spammed with promotions.
^ Zias turned his Youtube following into a Twitter following, then proceeded to turn his Twitter following into a thriving Spotify playlist, which he now uses as a platform for new artists. You trust the person curating the playlist, so you are more inclined to listen to new songs on the playlist with an open mind and potentially become a fan. Savvy musicians know this, and have used it to land themselves on playlists that are more prestigious than radio station plays. Record companies are now using this strategy to boost their new artists to the mainstream.
A smart way to skip building up the clout is to attach yourself to a big event or a popular song. Many people pick up a big following that way, and try to either flip the playlist or sell space on it. It reminds me of Soulja Boy uploading his songs to Limewire with the name “50_Cent_in_Da_Club_REMIX” to get downloads. He piggybacked on the trust they had of 50 Cent and managed to make a quick career out of it.
What’s fascinating about this is that we are watching this process unfold right in front of our eyes. The same way every online personality needs an Instagram, a vlog, and a website, will they need to keep the world up-to-date on what music they’re listening to? I hold the same principle that I do with pretty much all other influencer marketing — it needs to make sense in context with the rest of one’s personal brand.
I love the idea of adding an extra layer to an online personality by seeing what they listen to. But is what I’m checking out really what they like? Is that really their music taste, on is it another of their revenue streams, with a bunch of lo-fi hip hop producers paying them off to make the cut? Should they disclose the fact that plugged into their “Friday Night Jams” playlist is a record execs newest signee? It will be interesting to see the way Spotify, influencers, and the general public engage with this new area of attention in 2018.
