👋 The Knowledge #30: your weekly sideways glance at the modern music industry

MUSIC MARKETING TIPS, MUST-KNOW SKILLS & ESSENTIAL NEWS
Need more Knowledge? Music Ally's Learning Hub will teach you all the skills you need!

Hi <<First Name>>, and welcome to The Knowledge – Music Ally's weekly missive from the poolside of the modern music industry. This week and next week's Knowledge is a Summer Holiday special and is a bit shorter than normal (normal service will be resumed on 16 July).

Below are highlights of the news, analysis and learning that make up our industry-standard subscriber services.

Please consider forwarding this email and signup link to anyone who'd like this newsletter to sneak into their inbox each Friday. (And hit reply if you've ever had a late night conversation with a friend that resembles that of these two lynxes.)

Knowledge is power!

In this week's Knowledge Summer Holiday Special:

🎧 PODCAST: In case you missed it: Music Ally Podcast Greatest Hits
👍 TRAPITAL: Inside the Major Labels' Arms Race For Your Attention
👩‍🎓 LEARNING HUB: Drive discovery – YouTube strategy & optimisation best practice
🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA... Our favourite unusual stuff found online this week

Note: Ⓜ️ = link to Music Ally subscriber content

🎧 PODCAST: In case you missed it: Catch up on the Music Ally Podcast's Greatest Hits

There are a billion podcasts to listen to these days, so why pick Music Ally Focus Podcast? Because they're like a jockey giving a TED talk: short, quick, and full of interesting information. Oh, and one useless fact per show, guaranteed.

Here's a few of the best episodes where journalists Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow give brief, deep analysis of important music business stuff:

Focus Ep. 8: Music NFTs fever heats up - is this another crypto bubble, and what might the actual good uses of NFTs be for artists?
Focus Ep. 9: Spotify’s new "Loud & Clear" website promises ‘more clarity’ on streaming economy... "If the music industry is generating so much money, then where the hell is it going?"
Focus Ep. 15: Twitch "Rockonomics" report – how Twitch's economy works for musicians, artists, performers and rightsholders.
Focus Ep. 20: Roblox is sued over uploaded music in $200m copyright infringement lawsuit – what does this mean for platforms like Twitch?

Each episode is as long as it takes a rocket to reach space (about 15 mins): it's the perfect podcast for space cadets who like music biz analysis!

👉 Listen and subscribe here: Spotify / Apple / Anchor

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👍 TRAPITAL: Inside the Major Labels' Arms Race For Your Attention

Trapital's Dan Runcie wrote an intriguing essay on the strategies behind the major record labels. Runcie gives a thorough breakdown (and some critical takes!) on Universal, Sony, Warner, and the streaming era.

Here's part of the essay:

"The strategies of the Big Three record labels — Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music Group (WMG), and Sony Music Entertainment (SME) — dictate the future, even for companies outside of the major label system. They are investing billions of dollars to keep your attention for as long as possible. Their moves signal the best opportunities, and the areas getting slept on."

👉 Read the full essay here. And if you haven't yet, we recommend you sign up for Trapital's free weekly memo! It will keep you ahead of the latest trends in the business of hip-hop. Sign up here for free.

Learn with us: For over a decade, Music Ally has upskilled people in all levels of the music industry: from major label teams, to Indies, managers, and DIY artists. Our Learning Hub is designed so that everyone – from students to CEOs – can get the edge they need. Always up-to-date with the newest digital marketing knowledge and future-facing strategies: Music Ally trains the best to be the best.

👩‍🎓 LEARNING HUB: Drive discovery – YouTube strategy & optimisation best practice

YouTube offers many opportunities to grow highly-engaged fanbases. But how do you customise channels to drive viewers to your videos and raise your profile? This YouTube Best Practice strategy & optimisation module is detailed and hands-on – so you can optimise artist channels, improve SEO, and drive discovery.

But first you need to think about how people discover music on Youtube:

70% of YouTube watch time is via algorithmic recommendation.
There’s no other listening platform where artists have so much control over how they present their music. This is really valuable for artists, increasing their chances of being discovered by new listeners, connecting with fans and facilitating consumption of their music
Playlists drive just under a third (30%) of music discovery on YouTube.
Subtitles are important: they improve SEO and make your content and music more accessible to fans globally
The great thing about YouTube is that it allows artists to upload all sorts of content - music and not music-related. These other types of content can enrich your channel, tell the artist’s story and engage different audiences.

Subscribers to The Knowledge get a fabulous 50% discount on our YouTube Best Practice module, full of hands-on, essential skills for YouTube strategy and optimisation. Everything in this module is something you can do on your own, for any size of artist – so once you've learned how to fully best set up a channel, you'll make the videos as visible as they possibly can be.

🆓 GET COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS TO MUSIC ALLY: sponsored subscriptions – giving full access to our news, reporting and analysis – are available to people who work for independent labels, artist management, or music publishing companies. To find out if you qualify, please contact rocio@musically.com.

🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links and a couple of Knowledge extras:

An offensive pothole.
This is merch we can get behind: there’s now an official toaster for the game Destiny 2.
A "Where's Wally/Waldo" game but with emojis.
A baby barn owl hearing thunder for the first time.

Music Ally is a knowledge company for the global music business. See our recently launched Learning Hub which contains over 30 videos of up to date and fully certified content. We also offer in-house learning and development as well as marketing strategy and implementation for labels, managers, artists and publishers. Talk to Anthony to find out more or set up a call.