r/musicmarketing • u/Natural-Ad-9037 • 12h ago

Question Social Proof importance ?

How important do you think the metrics like number of followers/ streams/ music videos views are these days ?

Ie how much it affects your decision to say watch music video on YouTube if it has say 100s of views or several 1000s, subscribe to channel etc ?

Lets ignore for now algorithm, just focus my question on social proof only

Basically that to decide whether to run subscription focus ads to YouTube as example? Or maintain number of monthly listeners via things like playlists.

Thanks

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u/asparaguswalrus683 12h ago

What matters the most is that your numbers are overall consistent across platforms (and not TOO low) so that nobody thinks you’re botting or using BS methods, in my personal opinion.

What you should focus on imo is building a fanbase that will follow you wherever you post, be that music videos on YouTube or listening to your songs on Spotify

And your music videos should never say “subscribe to channel” lol

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u/MistakeTimely5761 12h ago

None.

Between bots and various ways to 'game' the system vanity numbers don't equate to what I'm looking for which is great, fresh, innovative new music.

There often is an inverse relation between the two,

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u/HeightsWaves 7h ago

I do think there are certain milestones where things open up more as you have a bit more credibility. Your first “thousand” on a platform is huge.

1,000 Instagram followers started getting me a lot more attention on social media and made it much easier to promote things.

1,000 Monthly listeners on Spotify started to get me a lot more algorithmic push and it made it easier to get the next couple thousand.

I think those are the first milestones where things are beyond just friends and family and you’re seen as a more of a legitimate artist, even in a niche scale.

It shows that you’ve been “vetted” so the thought is “if a lot of other people like this, I might like this” and it makes promo way easier.

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u/dcypherstudios 1h ago

Numbers are important for industry professionals to gauge your worth or draw and help mitigate the risk. Typically A&R want to see about 10,0000 monthly listeners on Spotify which seems to be the major metric used to determine whether or not a band has an audience worth investing into. Booking agents, promoters, all look at this metric as well and if you can show a history of sales even better on the back end

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u/nick_minieri 29m ago

The higher up the totem pole you go, the more important the numbers get. Local labels or promoters probably don't care too much when it comes to signing or booking you if they already know and like you. However the bigger companies are going to expect a return on investment so metrics and social proof are required just to even get your foot in the door, for better or worse.