Macroeconomics

The American Music Industry 5

The American Music Industry

Jose Andres Bermudez Martinez

Dr. Katie L. Males

Southern States University

MUS305

12/01/2022

Platforms to reach different Audience

The music industry is heavily reliant on large audiences to make more profits and boost product recognition. Today, different musicians struggle with how to make their music popular and how to reach large audience. However, there are a few strategies already working for different musicians that could be replicated by others. One of the popular strategies currently utilized by all musicians to reach audience is streamlining channels and services (Salo et al., 2019). YouTube is currently the leading site for music streaming due to the its global customer base. It has over 3B active subscribers making it an ideal channel to reach large audience. Secondly social media channels such as Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are currently being used as marketing tools to refer the audience to streaming suites such as YouTube and Spotify (Salo et al., 2019). Due to the increased number of subscribers and almost a total of over 4B subscribers the channels provide a network to effectively reach large audience from different demographics, and geographic segments.

According to Hudson et al. (2018), Streaming sites such as Spotify, Boom play and Apple Music are also critical for reaching large audience with the new and existing contents. Most musicians are creating profiles in these streamlining platforms and relying on them as revenue generating tools to avoid overreliance on old school channels and services. The final platform to attract the audience is shows and music tours. This involves selling tickets for concerts and performing in different places to attract audience. The shows and tours heavily rely on social media marketing to drive ticket sales and attendance (Hudson et al., 2018). Concerts still remain a popular platform to reach audience however in the future, its impacts may decline greatly.

Can American Music continue to compete on the World market?

For generations, the American music dominated the global music industry with top American musicians being the most recognized musicians. Today, this is rapidly changing as countries are currently witnessing the rising of younger icons making it to the global levels. The American music dominated the industry for so long due to the technological revolutions especially in the American industry that enabled the musicians enjoy greater marketing and global content viewership. As this technology is rapidly growing, American music faces stiff competition from music from different countries with no advanced technology. According to Reesman (2019), the rise of music streaming, global television channels and sites such as YouTube enables other musicians gain audience globally hence increasing their global audience.

The American music also faces stiff competition as more countries are currently preferring to be proud of their own genres. The rise of different genres is currently stealing away the glory form popular America dominated genres such as Blues, RnBs, Hop hop, pops, Rap and Jazz Reesman (2019). Today we have popular genres per countries such as Amapiano in South Africa, Genge in Kenya, Afro Beat in Nigeria. Some of these genres such as Afro Best are penetrating to the global platforms and gaining popular audience in America, Europe and Australia.

This competition will likely stiffen and with time, the American music will share the same spot as European and African music. Today, the American music still controls the global market due top famous talents such as Jayz, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez. One trend is notable here, the fame is attached to a few individuals and not an industry as a whole and that can be a challenge in maintain the top spot (Pallota, 2020). The American music industry needs to diversify, become more creative and utilize uprising technology to remain competitive.

How music industry can remain profitable

The profitability of the American music industry will depend on the integration of various activities. One of the key actitivities is increased marketing, the music industry must rely on various marketing strategies especially digital marketing strategies to boost content viewership and attractiveness to the audience. The industry must use a combination of different marketing strategies to boost product uptake and viewership. Other strategies such as targeted marketing, social media marketing, SEO and referrals will be critical for increasing viewership.

Another strategy is collaboration with various agencies and partners to promote music. One of the current collaboration is between film and the music industry where movies use new music in their films as a strategy to market the music and the movies. This is evident in the latest collaboration between Rihanna and the Black Panther movie which was critical in marketing her song Lift me Up (Sykes, 2022). Digital companies such as Google, AWS, Facebook and Microsoft can also collaborate with musicians to create marketing partnership for the benefits of both parties.

Finally, the industry can still rely on the power of technology to help in the creation of unique content hence boosting profitability no viewership. AI will also help in reduction of the production time and costs hence reducing development costs (Shang & Sun, 2020). AI aspects such as voice recognition can help musicians set certain pitches for their songs and produce music with the best tones modified by technology hence boosting the music aesthetical value.

References

Hudson, S., Roth, M. S., Madden, T. J., & Hudson, R. (2018). The effects of social media on emotions, brand relationship quality, and word of mouth: An empirical study of music festival attendees.  Tourism management,  47, 68-76.

Salo, J., Lankinen, M., & Mäntymäki, M. (2019). The use of social media for artist marketing: Music industry perspectives and consumer motivations.  International Journal on Media Management,  15(1), 23-41.

Reesman, W. M. (2019). Music in the Digital Age: An Analysis of Declining Revenue in the US Recorded Music Industry.

Pallotta, F. (2020, February 28). The music industry was left for dead a few years ago. Now it’s booming again. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/28/media/music-industry-streaming/index.html

Shang, M., & Sun, H. (2020, October). Study on the New Models of Music Industry in the Era of AI and Blockchain. In  2020 3rd International Conference on Smart Blockchain (Smart Block) (pp. 63-68). IEEE.

Sykes, S. (2022, October 26). Rihanna to make long-awaited return to music with “Black Panther” movie sequel. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/rihanna-makes-long-awaited-return-to-music-with-black-panther-sequel.html