Catherine MacKeen

And by 2023, it is estimated that over 50 million new PlayStation consoles and 30 million new Xbox consoles will have been sold worldwide. You’re less likely to find them scrolling through their timeline and more likely to find them watching their favorite streamer going live on platforms like Twitch. If digital advertising is more your style, there’s plenty of opportunity to place banner ads on sites like Twitch, with digital real estate available on their homepage, leaderboards, and website columns. The virtual world is quite literally what you make it, and if you’re not leveraging these platforms for your brands/artists, you’re missing out on an eager and engaged audience that’s at the frontline of our tech-powered world.

In a year where fans were begging for any form of live music, late night performances gave us the chance to hear our favorite new tracks live, indulge with new content as we aimlessly scroll newsfeeds, and provided an outlet for artists to voice their creativity from their bedrooms. In the marketing sense, what were once brief television performances have now often become alternate music videos, and these pieces of art should be supported by proper advertising to engage core fanbases and reach potential new fans. Not only have opportunities arisen for independent artists in a creative sense, but the logistical aspects of booking performances has made it easier for artists abroad to have their music heard on American programs. On Facebook and Instagram, we can overlay television and host interests on top of existing targeting to make sure we’re not only hitting users interested in your artists’ music, but also those who are interested in these programs.

Initially launched in 2015, Triller is an entertainment and music platform that allows users to create organic music videos in the form of music & lip-sync vertical video content. Triller’s partnerships within the music industry make it the premier location for sharing user-generated music content. The average Instagram Reels or Snapchat Spotlight user may not be an avid music fan, but the average Triller user is definitely keeping up with the latest and greatest in music & supporting their favorite artists. Although we’ve seen statistically higher sound-on rates with users watching vertical videos, like Instagram Story ads, it’s important to make sure your video will make sense to the user watching without sound too.

In January, Billboard made a change so that in order for a merch/album bundle to be counted as an album sale, all the items in the bundle must also be available for purchase individually on the same website. The changes in January did not serve the purpose intended, as there were easy workarounds, such as placing the merch without the album buried on a part of the website that was hard to find, while the bundle was prominently displayed. Finally, Billboard will no longer allow sales of physical albums or singles that are bundled with digital downloads to be reported as digital sales. To boost first week sales, artists would often at the last moment put up a pre-order for a vinyl that wasn’t manufactured yet and wouldn’t ship for many weeks or months.