MBW Views is a series of op/eds from eminent music industry people… with something to say. The following op/ed comes from Mark Meharry, who founded Music Glue in 2007 as a specialist e-commerce platform for the music business, which allows artists to sell physical and digital music, merchandise, and event tickets in multiple currencies and languages direct-to-fan. The company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York and Sydney.
In an era where streaming platforms and social media algorithms reign supreme, musicians face an unprecedented challenge: maintaining meaningful connections with their audience while navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape. The question isn’t whether data matters – it’s whether artists can reclaim ownership of their most valuable digital asset: their fan relationships.
Today’s musicians find themselves in a peculiar paradox. From the early days of MySpace to the global dominance of TikTok, online platforms have created seemingly lucrative opportunities for artists to engage with their audiences, but often at the cost of surrendering ownership and control of their own fan data.
While digital platforms offer unprecedented reach, they’ve simultaneously created a dependency that threatens artists’ autonomy. Social media algorithms dictate visibility, platform policies control access, and third-party services hold the keys to crucial fan information. For most artists, their key relationship with fans is still mediated through social media, and while it remains true that these platforms offer invaluable tools to engage directly with followers, these sometimes come with a significant downside: those platforms don’t share their data.
If, for example, a platform decides to supress certain types of content or alter its policies, artists can quickly lose direct access to their fanbase. Viral moments can turn into career-changing opportunities but radical and unexpected policy shifts such as Meta and X stepping back from fact-checking and regulating content, can sometimes add a worrying unpredictability to an artist’s outreach, with hard-earned marketing efforts vanishing into the ether if posts fail to gain traction within these shifting sands.
Artists who’ve built their presence on these platforms suddenly risk losing their entire audience overnight. Similarly, the costly nature of paid social media promotion has created a fragmented, pay-to-play environment where visibility often correlates directly with marketing budgets rather than artistic merit.
It’s important to remember that data isn’t just binary code and raw numbers – it’s the foundation of sustainable artist-fan relationships. But what exactly constitutes valuable fan data?
Put simply – If an artist doesn’t control their data, they are not in control of how or when their audience sees them. Many artists don’t even own their mailing lists or have direct access to data that could be pivotal to their growth. Third-party companies collect data on behalf of artists but often do not share it directly.
Obviously contact information plays a key role as does the geographic location of fans, but increasingly purchase histories, concert attendance and engagement metrics alongside a real understanding of fan demographics and segmentation are driving value in this space.
When properly collected and analysed, this information enables artists to create targeted marketing campaigns, plan tour routing, develop merchandise that meets fan preferences, build direct communication channels and make more informed creative decisions.
And it’s not just about collecting data – it’s also about doing it legally and ethically. GDPR compliance isn’t optional; it’s essential for building trust.
So, can artists reclaim control of their data and what are some of the practical solutions?
The path to data sovereignty requires a strategic approach that combines immediate actions with long-term planning.
It begins by harvesting data from existing social media platforms through meaningful transactions. This can mean, for example, implementing exclusive content strategies that incentivize direct mailing list signups, partnering with ticketing services that provide customer data access, and above all, reviewing and revising existing licensing agreements where possible to ensure data ownership rights.
Just some of the long-term strategies that artists can implement include:
- Developing a robust owned website as a primary engagement hub
- Creating value-driven fan clubs that encourage direct engagement
- Building data infrastructure that’s platform-independent as well as establishing clear data collection and management protocols.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the key to meaningful engagement and to creating ‘intimacy’ is for artists to take control of their own narrative themselves and to talk regularly and directly to their audience. Emails and other communications are much more likely to be clicked on and opened if they come directly from the artist rather than a third party.
An alternative and often easier way is to use reputable, direct-to-fan services where artists retain control of their fan information and can manage their own mailing lists and sales.
Building their own dedicated online store is another critical step, as it allows artists to collect fan data directly through purchases, while also providing a platform for selling merchandise, music, tickets and more.
The future of the music industry belongs to artists who own their data. While social media platforms and streaming services remain important discovery tools, they should complement – not control – an artist’s relationship with their audience.
For new artists this means building data ownership into their strategy from day one. For established artists, it means gradually transitioning to more controlled, owned channels while maintaining their existing presence.
Whether an artist is just starting out and growing a fledgling fanbase or already has a large following, taking steps to secure own their data will help ensure their independence from algorithmic whims and cement long-term success in what is becoming an ever more volatile digital ecosystem.Music Business Worldwide
