 So it's about that time again, right? It's about that time for me to be Saki Kory. You may be wondering to yourself, what the hell is Saki Kory? And if you've been following this channel for at least the last two years or so, then you know that at the end of every year, I like to do my marketing predictions or at least my music marketing predictions for the following year. So basically trends and things that we've seen that I think are going to stick around into the next year or possibly have a resurgence in the next year or possibly just blow the hell up and just become something way bigger than we thought it was going to be. Now, I'm not always right. And I'm saying that, thinking about IGTV. But a lot of these predictions have allowed artists to be able to prepare themselves for things that may be coming and at the very least be looking in the right direction so they can pivot if these things end up turning into something else that needs to be cared about. Once again, looking at IGTV. So with that being said, let's go ahead and get into my music marketing predictions for 2021. But before we get into all that, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. Links will be in the description below. Come and give me some video ideas. Let me know what you think. Let me know if there's something on your heart and on your mind that you need me to talk about and trying to make these videos a bit more personalized to you guys' problems. And I don't know your problems if you don't hit me up. So once again, those links will be in the description below. Tap in when you get the time. It's the mat work. Prediction number one is that there will be an increase in pay advertising. Now, pay advertising is not as taboo as it once was two years ago when I first made that prediction. Since then, we've seen people slowly evolve into using Facebook ads and YouTube ads for marketing the arts. I've even seen bigger artists running Facebook ads. I got a whole slew of Travis Scott and YG and Tyler Decretta ads just this year alone. But the reason that I say that there will be an increase in pay advertising is because more and more platforms are hopping going to the pay advertising trend. We've seen TikTok create an ad platform this year. Spotify has went on to revamp their ad platform and then there are so many other ad platforms that haven't even been tapped to as heavy in the music space and I'm thinking about Twitch. I'm thinking about Pinterest. I'm thinking about Reddit. I'm thinking about Snapchat. There are so many ad platforms out there that honestly you could build a very comprehensive marketing campaign just by using a few of those that make the most sense for your audience and your skill level. So if you're willing to learn how to use Reddit ads and Pinterest ads, you can throw them right into the mix with your Facebook ads and your YouTube ads and because of pixeling and all that great good stuff, you'll be able to hit the same audience over and over on these different platforms. And you guys already know how I feel about pay advertising. It's one of the best marketing tools that you can do if you know what you're doing. It's budget efficient. You can make it work for whatever amount of money you have to market yourself. And at the end of the day, you control that data. You have access to that data and no one can take that away from you. So I see there being just this huge surge of pay advertising 2021 and moving forward. Once again, more people are becoming comfortable with the platforms. More people are finally starting to see the benefits of pay advertising. And more people at the top of the chain in the music industry are realizing that, hey, we don't have to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into radio and things that don't work. We can just go spend two racks on Facebook ads and get some great results. And you guys know what that means. Once the music industry as a whole is catching on to it, you're already too late and you're behind. Music marketing prediction number two is that there will be an increase in virtual concerts and that they're here to stay. Now, due to COVID, we saw a rising amount of virtual concerts that were being thrown just because people weren't able to attend real life concerts. And while I do think that that spared the process of people being okay with virtual concerts, I do still see that there's going to be work in order to get the masses a hold to accept virtual concerts. Either way, we've seen some great virtual concerts from artists of all level this year. I've seen artists like BTS have virtual concerts all the way down to smaller artists like Kerry and even some mid-sized market artists doing virtual concerts as a way to appease their fans. Now, the reason I say that virtual concerts are here to stay is because that one, it doesn't look like real touring is opening back up anytime soon. So many major festivals are still canceling. They don't know what's coming. We don't know what these lockdown mandates are gonna look like for the next couple of months. But even on top of that, even if the touring does come back, virtual concerts are something that artists are seeing that they can throw into their arsenal even if they are hitting the road. And it's been a great benefit for fans who are not able to attend your shows either because they're not wherever your tour has been routed to or because they can afford your tickets to your shows or because they missed it for whatever reason, you know? That happens. I think that what's going to happen has to happen with virtual concerts or that artists are going to have to get more creative with them. Big artists have been kinda lazy and taken the easy way out of almost treating it like a real concert but just through your screen, which some people are cool with that. They like the arts enough and what I've been seeing in just different comment sections and different reviews, a lot of people don't like that. And it doesn't sound good in theory. The best virtual concerts that I have seen have been able to incorporate really nice brand aesthetics, great visual storytelling and some interesting aspect of the artist brand in a way that could not normally be presented in a traditional concert setting. And the artist that figures out a way to do these consistently and do these well is going to be a big winner in 2021 and moving forward. Even if you are not a big artist on the artist with a huge budget who can do them in the most visually pleasing way, if you can figure out how to make virtual concerts work for you and your brand and do them in an entertaining way that suits your fan base, you will win so much in 2021 and moving forward because it is an easy way to monetize a fan base. It is an easy way to create a digital experience and repurposeable content as you can use for other things. And then still something that not all artists are hopping on, even though we've seen so much talk about it this year. Music marketing petition number three is that there will be a rise in subscription based service around music artists. Now, this has been something that I've seen coming for a while. It felt like something that artists have have typically been against, but for whatever reason, COVID has opened up a lot of artists' minds to the possibilities of digital monetization and building around themselves. Now, thanks to accounts like Patreon and OnlyFans, artists are now able to treat themselves like subscription services. Meaning that if you can figure out a way to become valuable enough to your fan that they're willing to pay $5 or $10 or $20 a month through one of these subscription based services, you will be winning in such a huge way. And I've seen artists get creative with these in a bunch of different ways. I've seen people go to a more traditional route and offer things like exclusive access to content or first looks at certain content all the way up to, there was one artist I saw that if you were a certain level tier of Patreon supporter, he would like give you a free FaceTime call every month and like people were subscribing to it. I encourage you to look into subscription based models, building out these models around yourself and figuring out ways that you can provide consistent value to your fan base in different forms and at different price points. So that way they'll be willing to pay for these things time and time again. And once again, if you're a small artist who only has, you know, 50 real fans, but you can convince all of them to pay $10 a month, you know, that's $500 extra a month. And you know what I'm saying? I don't know if you at the level yet where they don't hit for you, but I could use $500 right now, you know? And once again, just due to COVID and the fact that a lot of artist monetization opportunities are gonna have to move towards online experiences and digital experiences, this just fits right in with that. Like if you can get creative with your Patreon account or your only fans account or whatever other subscription based platforms that are out there that you can use, once again, you will win in such a huge way. And people are prime to be cool with things like this. We've seen YouTubers have Patreon accounts for years. We've seen different content creators and influencers use their only fans accounts in so many different ways. And it makes sense that music artists finally hop on the bandwagon and start making this bag that's been sitting there for them for years. So that's my prediction for 2021. More artists will hop on this subscription based modeling in the form of Patreon or only fans. And if you have the fan base to do it, if you have enough creative ideas to build around yourself, I suggest you hop into it too. Music marketing prediction number four, there will be an increase in the popularity of short form content. Now, this is one of those predictions that makes me wrong on one of my predictions last year. Last year I predicted there would be an increase in the popularity of long form content because of the time we have saw IGTV come about. It felt like Instagram was taking serious strides to compete with YouTube. YouTube was trying to increase watch time on that platform, which really means people make longer videos so we can watch more stuff on YouTube. It was a lot going on. Now, this year with the increase in popularity of TikTok and even Instagram's Reels platform and Snapchat's Highlight platform, it seems like most of these platforms are moving towards trying to get people to consume shorter form content in a much higher volume. And it makes sense just when we talk about the weight of people's attention spans and how thanks to platforms like TikTok, we are really used to consuming content that's 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds. And it increases the average watch time on a lot of these platforms because people are able to consume much more content in the shorter period of time. And just to put it in perspective, think about how many videos you can watch on TikTok and the amount of time it will take you to watch one video on YouTube. It's a big difference when you really think about it. So I think that we're going to see more platforms follow suit, you know? Man, I guess there's not really too much more to really jump into the trend, but I'm sure they'll all figure out a way to do it. But when it comes to platforms like TikTok, of course that's been their bread and butter. They're not going to really deviate from that too much in the coming future. Instagram is putting a lot more emphasis into Reels and since it is their new platform, I expect the emphasis to be there at least into the summertime. IGTV had their extra engagement boost on it all the way up into like June or July of this year. So I'm expecting Reels to be performing about the same in about the same timeframe, at least up into the summer. So if you're someone that hasn't really felt like they're the best when it comes to creating long form content on your YouTube account or something like that, take a shot at making TikTok videos. Take a shot at making Reels, you know? Because people are a lot more acceptable to short form content. They almost crave it from you. And for what I can tell from working clients on TikTok and even posting my own TikTok content, is short form content makes people want to consume longer form content from you. So TikTok videos make people want to go check out your Instagram account or go check out your YouTube account and see what else you have going on because they're getting so attached to you in such a short period of time. So take advantage of it, get those 10 second, 20 second, 30 second, minute videos out and stop letting the length of video content be the reason that you don't make enough video content in 2021. So there we have it guys. Those are my music marketing predictions for 2021. Now hit the comment section if you think I'm wrong on anything, if you think there's something that I missed. If you believe that something's gonna hit differently next year than it did this year, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the whole situation and what predictions you have for the year moving forward. Maybe it'll help our artists out, maybe it'll inspire somebody to get moving on something. Right, we're out here to help each other. So once again, let's drop those in the comment section below. Other than that, if you feel like you learned anything today, please like and share this video, hit those post notifications as well as I wouldn't want you guys to miss anything. Once again, my name is Cory and I'll see you guys next time.