What you need to know about Musical.ly
Music blogs are dead. No one cares what I have to say. Streaming playlists will eventually prevail, but growth is slow at Spotify and Apple is dividing the community. So who’s winning music discovery right now? The answer is China.
Shanghai based startup, Musical.ly, is the biggest player in music discovery, despite none of their 70 million “musers” being on the app to find new music. They just want to be entertained and become famous, and that’s why it works.
In a timely piece last Friday, Business Insider quoted an investor calling Musical.ly "the next MTV". I disagree. MTV is corporate and bureaucratic. Musical.ly, on the other hand, is genuinely democratic. Fifteen-year-old girls decide what gets played on Musical.ly. Yes, the Daisy Fuentes of Musical.ly is an ordinary tween from Tallahassee. She doesn't have shareholders, a board of directors or a program manager, just 10 million fans who spend 3 hours a day watching every move.
Like GaryVee (from whom I first heard about Musical.ly) says, you gotta “day-trade attention”. Right now attention is cheap on Musical.ly, and the payoff is massive.
If you want millions of teenagers to have an emotional connection to your artists then contact me here. Also sign up for the Muuseletter where I keep you informed on what music marketing strategies convert on Musical.ly and beyond. And if you're wondering how to get the modern Daisy Fuentes to play your music on “the next MTV”, then you're in the right place. I can show you how.
- Max