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Here’s your monthly dose of what we at DigitalRadioTracker.com are finding interesting this month. Hope these articles help you improve your music industry life and your life in the world as a whole. And remember, DigitalRadioTracker.com can help you see where any song is being played, worldwide, at digital (internet) radio...and some terrestrial stations too, as an added plus! Did we mention Worldwide?? Woo hoo!!

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Instagram To Crack Down On ‘Inauthentic’ Likes And Follows “Starting today, we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity,” explained Instagram. “We’ve built machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity. This type of behaviour is bad for the community, and third-party apps that generate inauthentic likes, follows and comments violate our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.” https://musically.com/2018/11/20/instagram-to-crack-down-on-inauthentic-likes-and-follows/

Spotify’s New Ad Metrics Reveal What Happens After A Click While Spotify's Ad Studio feature (available to artists since 2017) has proven to be effective as a promotional tool, the behind the scenes of why was something of a mystery, at least until now. The streaming platform's new ad metrics give artists a much more transparent understanding of what happens behind the scenes when their ads are clicked on.https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/04/spotifys-new-ad-metrics-reveal-what-happens-after-a-click.html?

Music's Big Players: One-Fifth of Streamers Drive Majority of Profits & Should Be a New Industry FocusThe music business has always excelled at mass marketing, but it's more important than ever to launch new projects with targeted marketing. Casinos spend lavishly to attract "whales," high-stakes gamblers whom they lure in with limousine rides, complimentary hotel suites and other VIP perks. Why? Because these consumers -- who can individually bet between $1 million and $20 million over the course of a weekend, according to industry estimates -- often have more impact on the bottom line than a floor full of slot machine-playing guppies. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8507288/music-big-players-one-fifth-streamers-drive-majority-profits-thomas-hesse

Inside A Rare, Controversial Discussion On The Future Of Technology And The Music Industry As fans and music industry figures, alike, reflect upon Nipsey Hussle's multiple acts of social good in the community, influencers also simultaneously recall Hussle's vision around technology and the hip hop world, which now seems to point to important future trends within the music industry. Indeed, Hussle said in a Los Angeles Times interview last year, “In our culture, there’s a narrative that says, ‘Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers,' ” he said. “And that’s cool, but there should also be something that says, ‘Follow Elon Musk, follow (Mark) Zuckerberg."https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurencoleman/2019/04/14/inside-a-rare-controversial-discussion-on-the-future-of-technology-and-the-music-industry/

What Are Songwriting Splits and Why You Need to Agree on Them Now Music mogul Simon Cowell recently parted ways with Little Mix, the girl group he championed and signed after they won the X Factor in 2011.The reported reason? He had a falling out with their reps Modest Management amid a row over a songwriting credit on their single “Woman Like Me.” Some may think it’s a drastic move over a relatively inconsequential issue, but such fallouts are becoming more common than ever before – especially considering the exponential growth in the number of credited songwriters on today’s big hits.https://blog.landr.com/songwriting-splits-explained/

Younger Generations Turning To K-Pop Instead of American Music In Newark, New Jersey, a line stretches the length of the sidewalk in front of the Prudential Center. The line makes a sharp left at the corner, and continues, past the stadium and through the small city. Newark stands in the shadow of New York City, and while it is home to the New Jersey Devils, it makes an unlikely host to an event of this magnitude. https://ppuglobe.com/2019/04/younger-generations-turning-to-k-pop-instead-of-american-music/

The First Four Things To Do If You Want To Make Money In Music Musicians have more ways to self-monetize than ever before, but all too often, it feels like that money is just out of reach. Putting out music yourself is not as hard as it used to be, but making money from that music takes a bit more work and know-how. It’s a minefield most artists still haven’t been able to navigate. The average musician still makes under $25,000 a year, with most of their money coming from live gigs.https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/11/18300863/winter-music-conference-2019-soundcloud-dubset-amuse-money-music

Drake Music: What's The Secret Of His 192 Hits? Here’s a head-spinning statistic for you: ten years ago Drake made his Billboard Hot 100 debut with “Best I Ever Had”, a sleek, charming hybrid of hip hop and R&B. The Hot 100 would not be Drakeless again until August 2017 and even that proved to be a blip. Aubrey Drake Graham’s career is composed of nothing but big numbers: the most this, the longest that. In an era that was supposed to be too atomised to produce Eighties-style megastars, he is as dominant as Michael Jackson or Prince at their peak and he’s more successful than ever. Last year, he topped the Hot 100 for 29 weeks with three different songs. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/drake-music-popularity

Playing to Strangers How do you build an artist’s brand? Can you do it from the bottom up amassing fan after fan until there’s a rabid enough base to breakthrough? It’s a commonly held belief that breaking songs is the result of huge vocal, dedicated fan-bases but fans aren’t actually that loyal. To test this, I analyzed 107 artists on Spotify comparing followers to monthly listeners, using followers as a proxy for fans/heavy users. Only 24% of an artist’s total listenership is made up of fans. That’s it. https://medium.com/@AmberHorsburgh/playing-to-strangers-8568f5e0e2fd

What Does Red Bull's Corporate Exit Means For Underground Music? Yesterday, Red Bull revealed that their popular music platform, event series and radio station Red Bull Music Academy will be closing in October 2019. While there's still some uncertainty about the exact form this will take - both businesses were in fact run by a separate company Yadastar, hidden behind Red Bull branding - their press release closes by saying "The world is full of great ideas. This was one", giving a pretty clear nod towards the finality of the situation. https://thequietus.com/articles/26290-red-bull-music-academy-closing-electronic-music?

Nichification First everybody was gonna have a website, then they were gonna have a blog, then a page on Facebook and now pictures on Instagram. What do all these endeavors have in common? They’re passing fads. Because it was too much work and too few people were paying attention. America is evolving into niches. I’m not talking entertainment, I’m talking people themselves. Zuckerberg has it right that we want private groups, because these are the only people who care about us.https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2019/04/14/nichification/

Could TikTok’s new discovery program create a new revenue stream for indie artists? Independent artists now have a direct line to TikTok‘s 500 million monthly active users globally. For the uninitiated, TikTok is a media app for creating and sharing short videos. In 2018, TikTok was the third most downloaded app in the world.TikTok has just launched a new artist discovery program called Spotlight, which allows unsigned artists to submit their music, making it available to TikTok users. The best part? If an artist’s music gets cleared by TikTok for its users to use for meme-making or short-form videos, they could follow in the footsteps of Atlanta rapper Lil Nas X. https://theindustryobserver.thebrag.com/could-tiktoks-new-discovery-program-create-a-new-revenue-stream-for-indie-artists/

How to Make Your Music More Discoverable in 2019 If you’re serious about creating and sharing music in 2019, you have to think about making your work searchable online. From getting the word out about a new release to selling concert tickets to offering merch to your most devoted fans, focusing on the administrative elements of your online presence for just a few moments (like metadata, tagging, and SEO strategy) will end up making a huge difference. https://flypaper.soundfly.com/hustle/how-to-make-your-music-discoverable-seo-strategy-2019/

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