Social Media Week

“Digital Distribution: Beats To Bucks – Making Money With Your Music!” was hosted by Beats FM. It provided the inside scoop on digital distribution, and the different distribution systems for digital audio and video. Internet labels offer distribution, and in some cases, marketing and promotion to unsigned and independent artists. Many artists are able to effectively bypass this and offer their music for sale via their own websites.

One of the major challenges most Nigerian artistes face is generating income from music. The music industry is quite dynamic, with changes to the system affecting income streams. It is therefore pertinent to diversify your revenue streams. The panel of experts explained the different kinds of revenue streams and how to maximize them.

Digital Sales and Royalties – Some artistes sell music via their websites, but they also make more through online retainers. But these online retailers take a percentage of sales (ex. iTunes takes 30%, Bandcamp takes 15%). Whenever Nigerian music is played on services like SiriusXM radio, Pandora, and webcasters, royalties are paid to the artistes.

Brand Endorsements – Brands engage artistes to market their products via endorsement deals. These deals generate great funding, depending on the calibre of the artiste.

Streaming and Licensing – Streaming service helps fans to discover your music and over time, artistes can make money from it even though the pay-out tends to be small. Also when a song is placed in a film, commercial or TV show, licensing fee should be paid to the artiste.

The discussion also covered sales, artiste’s royalties, endorsements, publishing and mechanical royalties, synchronization, public performance royalties, streaming royalties, YouTube, SoundCloud and producer packs.