144 – How to Grow Your Fan Base on Streaming Platforms – with Michael Sloane of Streaming Promotions

What does it mean to be a musician in the digital age? How can you take advantage of popular platforms to get your music heard by more people? In this episode of The New Music Industry, I talk to Michael Sloane, Co-Founder of Streaming Promotions. We get into everything from opportunities artists are missing all the way to how we’re all information marketers. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights; 00:42 – What is your background? 07:16 – Creative pursuits are weird 08:02 – What opportunities are musicians missing in streaming? 10:40 – Music distribution is not an issue anymore 11:19 – Opportunities that can come from music streaming 12:33 – How does Streaming Promotions help artists get their music heard by more people? 16:36 – Inbox overload 19:33 – Who is Streaming Promotions for? 21:02 – You can still reach your career goals 22:30 – Everything is about the story 23:27 – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced to this point? 25:04 – What have been your greatest victories to this point? 26:43 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 27:52 – We’re all information marketers 30:36 – 90-day goals 31:08 – Conduit to growth Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with CEO of Streaming Promotions, Michael Sloane. How are you today, Michael? Michael Sloane: Doing great. How are you? David Andrew Wiebe: I'm good. Thanks. Thank you for asking. I would love for you to talk a little bit about your background in digital strategy, in e-commerce optimization. What did you learn from your work and how has that influenced your direction since? Michael Sloane: Oh, that's a good question. I really started my pursuit of the music industry in 1996. I came to Belmont University, initially, with the thoughts of being perhaps an artist, which was thwarted very quickly. And then decided it would be maybe a better use of my talents to work on the business side. I really thought I was going to get an A&R in the publishing side of things. Got freaked out, left Nashville, got a degree in finance from the University of Kentucky, worked in banking as a loan analyst for three years prior to coming back and getting my MBA at Belmont and getting some jobs in publishing only to get fired. And then, I realized that I was better, more on the technology side, which fortunately for me, is really where the industry has gone. First job was with a company called Echo Music, which was an early web development and fan club company back when the only portal to an artist was really their website. We grew to six when we ended. Got acquired by Ticketmaster. That wasn't a very good fit personality wise for the team. Like the executive the executive team there didn't really jive too well with corporate leadership so I got a job over at Live Nation which have just launched Live Nation Artists Group and 360 deals. Got to work with some pretty notable artists there. Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown band, Cheech and Chong, the Gaither vocal band. I mean on the roster we also had AC DC and the stones and some other really large artists but in that 360 deal was really able to see the ins and outs of the workings of the industry and how things were changing and monetization of you know, real core artists or real core fans there. What's a dedicated fan willing to spend on a Rolling Stones coffee table book if they know there's only 500 of them? That kind of thing. Still got to see the ticketing side of things as well. Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged. And all those companies went away. I started my own firm called Strategic Blend in 2000. I guess that was 2009. And just began to experiment in social media, which was kind of new at the time or for a while we were actually optimizing Myspace pages, but still building websites. And then just figuring out how best to market to fans digitally there for about three years and then sold my interest to my business partner when I got an opportunity to go work with a little artist named Taylor Swift. And so, I joined her digital team and really ran all digital projects. A lot of the eCommerce pieces there were trying to integrate with Amazon, very early days of you know, get direct to fan shipments there. Really build her in entire eCommerce presence on Amazon retail space. And it went really well. From that, I flipped over to the to the label side, to Big Machine label group. They had obviously Taylor but also Florida, Georgia was breaking at the time, Thomas Rhett. They had Tim McGraw and let's see, Rascal Flatts, are some other large artists. We had 13 artists when I started and 36 when I departed. I really departed over my vision of where consumption services were going. 1989 had been released by Taylor and the CEO of the label. Pulled all of her music off of the streaming services in an attempt to sell more records. That worked perfectly. He also pulled the music off of the streaming services for Brantley Gilbert and Justin Moore, who I thought both needed exposures. So, I'm not sure if you're familiar with either of those artists, but I thought they still needed to be able to be seen and discovered by fans that were new to those artists. I thought that Spotify was the future of the industry as far as the way artists will ultimately distribute their music but also get paid from those master recordings, and really just kind of pulled a suicide by cop. "You're wrong." "No, you're wrong." "Okay, cool. You're fired." "I know. I'm packing my stuff." So, I was able to, you know, kind of parlay that into some conversations with Spotify. I think they appreciated my bravado. I was able to have some conversations with them early when Ken Parks was still running Spotify North America. Steve's a vocalist there. He kind of run all artists, I guess artists services, or I guess he's the head of music technically. We learned kind of the ins and outs of how things were working. Streaming Promotions for the longest time was really more of a side hustle for me. I was managing some artists and still doing digital strategy with other artists and some in some brands. But I met a guy named Charles Alexander who had not only found a way into the Spotify curated playlist, but also found ways into these user generated playlists that had some traction on the platform and was working in managing a couple of artists. I said, "Maybe we can do this for a lot of people. I think there's definitely a need there." And really just worked with him to help start to build out what now is Streaming Promotions. Charles left in August, about at that time, and since then, we've really focused in. I guess for about the last year and a half on this user generated playlist, you know, how we're best trying to trigger the algorithms of discover weekly, release radar, daily moods. Spotify, as mentioned, they're going to release as many as another 200 to 250 algorithmic lists this year. We're just trying to position ourselves as best we can to take advantage of these algorithms but also the playlist on the platform that that are created by users that have lots of traction and can help us really trigger the mathematical equations that they get our clients in front of an audience. That's a long way to go to tell you how I got here but all that stuff. It's been a crazy 15 years. David Andrew Wiebe: No kidding. No, thank you for sharing that. I think there's quite a bit of relatability to what you said. Like, I started my life mainly interested in visual art. That transitioned into music. And then eventually, I found my passion in business and writing, which is kind of where I'm at now, but they sort of overlapped in a way and I'm still in music, but I do so little visual art at this point. I don't have a lot of time for that. Michael Sloane: Creative pursuits are weird that way. I mean, I went totally left brain for a while and just did the finance thing but I was still going to shows every weekend and trying to find my way onto a stage or somewhere into the hearts of someone that would let me help them out. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, totally. So, I mean, there's so many paths we could go down based on what you just said. But I think this is something that I must cover because it's something that my audiences are surely wondering. There are many musicians out there that wish they could go back to the days of digital downloads because of how little revenue streaming tends to generate for them. So, what opportunities are they missing? What are your thoughts on what's happening in the world of streaming right now? Michael Sloane: Yeah, I think it's interesting that the industry was so long predicated on the idea that you would, you know, it was a monetary transaction. I gave you 99 cents and I got a download. Or I gave you $15 and I got a record. The mechanicals of all that worked very well because the monetary breakdowns were pretty straightforward. I look at streaming as an annuity, right? Like it's a long-term payout so if you've got a hit, you're set for a long time as opposed to the old days where, if I had a hit, it was purchased. There was a monetary breakdown on the back end that whatever the value of the master recording was and that was it. You really kind of ping that transaction early on as opposed to with streaming and consumption, you're able to do it for a long tail. I teach a class at Belmont. I often say like, "If you told me that I could buy the Beatles catalogue for $250 million 10 years ago, I would have told you to go fly kite, but if you told me I could buy it for a billion dollars today, I'd probably do it." Because it's going to be you know, month over month that those streams are going to happen. Transaction, again, it is predicated on having a hit. But if you have that hit,