The Biggest Music and Marketing Trends of 2021

For the last edition of our newsletter in 2021, we took a look back at the themes that defined the year in music, marketing, and analytics.

From album release strategies to NFTs and social media algorithms, here's what resonated most with our readers in 2021.

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💽 Album Release Strategies

With major artist marketing campaigns typically planned around new releases, readers were interested in learning more about winning strategies to launch albums, EPs, and singles. Here are some of the most engaged with articles on the topic:

• 3 Lessons We Can Learn From Beyoncé's Content Strategy

• How Lil Nas X's 'Montero' Marketing Strategy Pressed All the Right Buttons

• How Do Pop Stars Come to TikTok? Hat in Hand, Grasping at Buzz

• Why Artists Are Releasing "Mood EPs" to Game Spotify's Algorithm

• Drake’s Desire To Please Everyone With His Albums

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📝 Wavo Labs

In September 2021, we launched Wavo Labs, a hub for our music marketing experiments on TikTok, Spotify, Instagram, and more. These articles quickly became some of the most popular in our newsletter. Here are the most-read: 

• TikTok Boosted Posts for Artists: What Video Content Works Best?

• Spotify Audio Ads vs. Video Ads: Which Format Drives Streams More Efficiently?

• Instagram Dark Ads vs. Boosted Posts: How Do They Compare?

• Spotify Related Artist Fans Targeting vs. Real Time Context Targeting: We Break Down Which One Drives More Streams

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🏦 NFTs

Was there a hotter buzzword than “NFT” in music this year? Interest in NFTs skyrocketed in 2021 after several high-profile sales of exclusive, digital goods by musicians. To make sense of the intense hype cycle, readers wanted to know more about NFT use cases for music. 

• NFTs and a Thousand True Fans

• Why Do NFTs Matter for Music?

• TikTok Launches First Creator-Led NFT Collection

• Live Nation Unveils 'Live Stubs' Collectible NFTs

• What Today’s Social Apps Can Learn from Web 2.0, the Social Network Revolution from 15 Years Ago

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📈 Audience Growth and Monetization

In 2021, social media platforms scrambled to build and integrate tools to help creators grow and monetize their audience. Shopify and Spotify teamed up. Instagram doubled down on social commerce. And Twitter introduced Super Follow subscriptions. Here are some of the most popular articles on the subject: 

• Get More Music Video Views: YouTube Optimization Checklist

• 15 Strategies To Get YouTube Subscribers

• Why Fanbases Need to be Networks, Rather Than Channels

• How to Utilize Your Instagram Profile at Every Stage of Your Sales Funnel

• ​​How Successful Creators Use Social Media To Promote Their Streams

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▶️ All Things Spotify

From collaborative playlists to artist GIFs, a new social app, and full-screen ads, Spotify spent 2021 pushing out a slew of new features to help attract users and grow its ad sales. Learning how to use these new features was top of mind for readers:

• 4 Tips for Getting Placed on Playlists

• How bbno$ Doubled Active Streams Ahead of His New Album

• 5 Advertisers Share What it Takes to Make Compelling Audio Ads on Spotify Ad Studio

• Spotify Audio Ads: A Guide for Music Marketers

• The First and Second Spotify Fan Study

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🔒 Social Media Secrets

Whether debunking YouTube’s search algorithm or understanding what makes TikTok tick, readers kept up on how social media platforms work, and how to use this information to create more relevant and engaging artist content: 

• Get Creative: 6 Frameworks to Tell Your Story on TikTok

• How Search and Discovery Works on YouTube

• Will TikTok Make You Buy It?

• Breaking Down How Instagram Search Works

• YouTube Answers 5 Common Questions About How its Recommendation Algorithms Work

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