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We Have A Problem

This fall I got a suspicion that a lot of what we thought we knew about music promotion might be wrong. There hasn't been a study out in years on music consumption, and these apps have changed in big ways since they're changing fast - like how Reels caught up to TikTok with being an effective algorithm to promote music. Most of the studies took place before that happened. I got to thinking and kept realizing a feeling I have all the time: the people around me talking online are full of sh*t and basing their beliefs on false information or things they're just making up and yapping for attention about. Who would have guessed it on the internet?

My Solution

So I did what I do - thought to myself how can I get ahead of the curve if no one else is doing studies on music? Then it hit me: I have money, I have an audience, I'll get people to take a music listening survey and see how they respond. I sent a $20 Amazon gift card to one out of every 50 people who took it, and we got nearly 3,000 responses. This is now one of the biggest surveys of music listeners in years. I want to show you what you should learn so you don't mess up your music promotions, since I got to tell you - a lot of this shocked me and we're getting a lot of things wrong here.

KEY FINDINGS

DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

So first off, 52% of respondents are musicians or other music professionals, and a lot of you found this concerning since you didn't want to market to musicians. But here's the funny thing - when I excluded them from the data, it didn't really change more than a percentage or three points. Musicians are music listeners too, and I really couldn't find any significant differences in their habits.

What actually moved the needle were 2 big factors: age and genre. You'll be shocked - as we went into younger demographics, we saw much bigger internet addiction and show attendance. And genres are where we see real cultural differences. Take folk music and Americana listeners - they use technology far less than other genres, which kind of makes sense since their music is less reliant on technology to begin with.

Social Media Habits

When comparing social media usage we found something really interesting. Most people are watching Instagram Reels more frequently than TikToks, which explains why a lot of us see better numbers on Instagram. Here's the big revelation - 58% of respondents actively used all three short-form video platforms (Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts) in a given week.

This means you should stagger your content releases across platforms instead of dropping everything on the same day. Even dedicated viewers who spend hours daily on these apps often forget what they've seen, so spacing out your releases gives you better visibility. Since most people are using all three platforms, posting your videos across Reels, TikTok, and Shorts maximizes your chances of getting your music stuck in listeners' heads.

To dig deeper into platform preferences, I had respondents check every genre they listen to, letting us analyze how different genre fans behave on social media.

Demographics

We got a solid age distribution across all decades, with good representation from our teen respondents (16-19). This broad range lets me break down marketing insights by age, genre, and target audience in my future consultations and member feed questions.

Oh yeah, and speaking of that membership feed - for just $5 a month, you get access to the entire back catalog of over 70 videos on the latest music marketing techniques and what I'm experimenting with. This includes dissections of artists who've gone from no fans to viral across nearly every genre of music, plus advanced lessons on things like how to position yourself against other musicians to stand out. I answer your questions every week and listen to all submitted member music monthly. Hit the description for just $5 a month to get over 6 hours of videos every single month.

SOCIAL MEDIA AGE PATTERNS

One of the things that made me feel good is my results lined up pretty well with Pew's poll about young people's app habits - showing YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Reddit as the top platforms. Now Reddit's numbers are way off from Pew's, but I imagine that's because this audience is a bit nerdier - they took a survey after all - and Pew only looked at 13 to 17 year olds, which isn't really Reddit's demographic. That age factor also explains why Snapchat spikes in our younger dataset and basically dies when you get over 40. And why it ranks so high on Pew's list - I think we kind of could've guessed all of that.

STORIES ENGAGEMENT

Now the next question we asked was whether you watch stories on an app each week, and what really shocked me here is that so many people watch Facebook stories - almost as many people as TikTok stories. Since Instagram lets you auto post to Facebook, that's something you should be setting up immediately. It's a no effort way to probably get more views

ENGAGEMENT PATTERNS

The commenting data shows something important - most people don't comment, and that's normal. You shouldn't feel bad when you're not getting as many comments as followers. All comment options scored high except on short form text apps like X, Blue Sky and Twitter, where lurking is often a given. And let's be honest, the comments on those apps are frankly often what I call thinking for people who don't think.

MUSIC DISCOVERY

This is one of the most interesting data points - where people discover new music. Spotify and YouTube dominated, which isn't shocking, but the number of people getting recommendations from Instagram grid posts and X, Blue Sky or Threads was pleasantly surprising. A lot of people see grid posts as for announcements only and avoid short form text apps for anything but announcements. But this tells me you should always attach one of your songs to grid posts and clip your videos for short form text app posts - it's crucial and you should be doing that all the time.

SCROLLING HABITS

I asked how much you all scroll the apps, and I mostly did this to feel better about my own habits. But really, we know people watch a lot and they often underestimate how much they scroll. I mean, just ask your friends how much they scroll and then ask to see their watch time - you'll get some phones that will not come out.

How We Discover New Music

WORD OF MOUTH

But let's get to one of the most interesting questions for music promotion here. We asked how people discover new artists, and the top two answers were friends online and friends in person. This connects to my recent video dissecting the most viral artists of 2024 (link in description) where I found something crucial - the most viral artists give a quick way in their profile for listeners to understand who they are and tell friends about them.

Since word of mouth is still the biggest way people discover artists, this matters. Think about it: your new fan is trying to tell a friend about you, hoping to bond over your music. If that friend asks "what are they like" and the only reply is "they rock" because you didn't tell them how to see you, it might not be compelling enough. But if you figure out how to sum up who you are in a unique way with a quick and snappy answer, you can change that. You can see some great examples of this on the screen now.

COLLABORATION

In third place for music discovery - and this may surprise you - was collaborating with another artist. Literally when there's two artists on a track and listeners like it, they check out the other artist. I've been telling you all this for years, making videos about it, and so many of you doubt me. But I've seen this in the data for years - it's one of the most important ways and one of the things labels value most in their budgets.

This works even with smaller artists who don't have many monthly listeners. Make a good track with another talented artist, and fans will investigate you both, growing relationships with both artists. When one of you gets bigger, you bring the other one up with you.

YOUTUBE

The next method was the YouTube browse page, which is way more powerful than most realize. YouTube is now surfacing artists with only like 2000 plays and almost no subscriptions to tons of us each day because YouTube knows what we probably will like. If you have a good-looking thumbnail and are getting plays, this is a huge opportunity.

BLOGS AND WEBSITES

As for blogs and websites, our survey showed most people only occasionally check them for music recommendations. This tells me getting reviews, articles, or interviews is still worth your time, but paying for a publicist on a limited budget seems silly - the conversion rate just isn't there when most people aren't that interested.

ADS

Next, another shocker was that 25-33% of the audience does click on ads on different platforms - and as the king of hating ads in this space, I thought that would be much lower. Instagram and YouTube were the most common ones people clicked, with TikTok and Facebook falling behind, and the rest performing pretty badly. Next year I may phrase that question with a more limited time frame to understand how regularly this habit occurs, but I will say the ad hater right here can admit to being a little shocked.

What Makes People Investigate New Music

SNIPPETS

This next question revealed a lot. What makes you go out of your way to investigate new artists? The number one answer at 54% was their song snippet on social media was good and had to check it out. That says a lot about how powerful TikToks and YouTube shorts are when you're promoting yourself with real skills.

IRL MEETS

Meeting and seeing the artist in person came up really high, as did featuring on a song which I was just telling you about. The data shows it right here - don't underestimate how much personal interactions, community work, and collaborating with other artists helps you get discovered.

SPOTIFY LISTENING HABITS

Next we asked about Spotify listening habits, and the majority say they don't use Spotify-curated playlists at all. The most popular thing was algorithmic playlists - those daily mixes, discover weekly and release radar. And of course that stupid AI DJ was lower down. But here's what's interesting - artist playlists tied with editorial playlists in popularity.

So when I'm pushing you all to make those artist playlists all the time, this data proves why. You have a huge opportunity to make playlists featuring smaller artists to get algorithmic ties to them. This helps you get bonded in those algorithmic playlists that are much more popular. This is something proactive you can do right now.

FLYERS AND STICKERS

Now another thing I think people really get wrong is that flyers and stickers in the real world are dead. We asked do you notice stickers and flyers in your local city where you go to shows, and the answer overwhelmingly was yes, with sometimes helping bring it up very high in the percentage points.

And this really matters - 54% answered yes to having checked out an artist because they saw stickers or flyers. I truly believe flyers and stickers in your local area help make you feel like somebody people should know and really help convert people to checking you out. Right now they are so underutilized in so many cities because everybody is so fixated on online promotion since it's so much easier.

LIVE SHOWS AND MERCH

Another notable misconception is that nobody watches bands or artists they haven't listened to when they go to see them live. But over 60% of people do that at least once if not more a month, and an overwhelming majority buy merch at shows, with a quarter of them buying 75 to 100% of the time. I'm one of those people so that wasn't shocking.

But here's what did shock me - the number one reason people buy merch is the design is cool. Not that they like the artists, feel a connection, or want to support them. While those answers were high and common, they didn't beat cool design. This tells me what I already knew from experience - good designs convert people into walking advertisements for you. Taking the time to research and develop good merch designs, not just something you shout out in 5 seconds on Canva, can help make you money and get people who barely care about your music to wear a shirt and think about you more.