Today's music platforms are not working for artists. The current streaming royalty models generate insufficient revenue and prevent artists from receiving direct support from their community. Social media platforms also fail to provide the necessary information for artists to identify their audience and create personalized fan experiences.
At the same time, Spotify and other streaming platforms continue to offer the best opportunities for artists to get discovered, while TikTok, Instagram, and other socials continue to be the best outlets for fan-generated content and engagement.
The best support for fans and artists doesn't require creating an entirely new system, but rather augmenting the existing infrastructure by addressing its shortcomings and improving the artist-fan experience.
As the Identity Layer of Web3, Camp wants to do just that. Through the decentralization of data and on-chain identity, Camp makes it possible for builders to create new systems for artists to engage with and reward their fandoms while utilizing established data from Web2 platforms.
The following are examples of new opportunities unlocked by next-generation music platforms and how Camp enables them.
Active Fans
Next-generation music platforms being developed on Camp open up previously inaccessible methods for artists to interact with some of their earliest and most active fans. Content creators, playlisters, or even an unknown person in a groupchat can be the tipping point from a few fans to many.
Up until now, identifying that single person or moment would be near impossible. But with Camp, artists don’t have to. With platforms like Hume and World of Music, artists can offer IRL and on-chain incentives to promote user generated content (UGC) on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and incentivize the sharing of music on Spotify.
Rewarding user generated content (UGC)
In an era of music where content creators have the ability to make even decade old, independent records into viral hits, UGC has become one of the greatest catalysts for building an audience. With Camp, artists don’t have to wait and hope for virality. Through Camp’s data layer, an artist can use social data to reward music KOLs, playlisters, and creators for their content.
This is exactly what Hume is doing today. Hume has created a roster of reshaping what it means to be an artist and a fan. Hume achieved breakout success with its first AI artist, angelbaby, which has amassed an audience of over 300k monthly listeners. By building on Camp, Hume is looking to achieve even further breakout success for its next slate of artists.
Hume is leveraging social data from Spotify and TikTok to further increase engagement for its virtual artists through incentivizing UGC. In a recent promotion of DEATHPIXIE’s single SAFE WORD, incentivised UGC on TikTok for anyone who used the song’s official sound.
Incentivizing music proliferation
Tastemakers, playlisters, and that one friend who continuously drops fire in the groupchat continue to play a critical role in the discovery and success of music. With over 120k new songs uploaded to Spotify every day, music blogs, reviews, and playlists can not only provide an opportunity to be heard through the noise, but can also directly impact visibility on the platform and within the algorithm.
Using Camp, platforms like World of Music offer the previously unobtainable opportunity of tapping into the P2P networks of sharing good music. World of Music is a Web3 record store and music community where listeners can discover new artists and support them as fans. Using The World of Music Studio, artists can drop music NFTs for the community to discover, and fans can support their new favorite artists by minting the latest drop.
Because World of Music is on Camp, these freshly minted on-chain singles can share the same identity as the off-chain song, enabling fractionalized royalty payments for streams on both Camp and Spotify. In doing so, World of Music creates a system where artists can receive direct support from early fans from the mint and the proliferation, while those who share good music with friends and followers can join in the artist’s success.
Passive Fans
Not all fans are created equal. While active fans have the potential to share and grow your fandom, the majority of fans are passive. Passive doesn’t mean they aren’t superfans—in fact it can often be the opposite. Instead, these fans enjoy their favorite artists, buy their merch, and follow their journey in a more personal way.
While both fans are equally important, active fans provide the opportunity for artists to expand beyond their current audience. With the right incentives targeted toward these fans, artists can bring fans deeper into the fandom and convert passive fans into active superfans. Hume and Momentify are making this possible with a gamified system of fandom that provides rewards and access to artists through game-like tasks and UGC campaigns.
Gamifying active fandom
Music platforms built on Camp can create unique, gamified fandom experiences through the linking of both digital and IRL activities. By connecting offchain and offline identities to their onchain identity, fans can be directly rewarded for their support. The offering of unique experiences, merch, and rewards creates shared moments among fans and connections that form the foundation of your community.
Both Hume and Momentify have experimented with gamified experiences specifically designed to build artist communities and push fans further into the fandom.
For Hume’s DEATHPIXIE, fans were rewarded with an exclusive early release of their next track, creating a pre-release excitement around the song and creating a core group of ‘in the know’ fans.
Rather than digital interactions, Momentify rewards physical participation and attendance at live performances. Momentify is a fan engagement and music platform that leverages geo-fencing technology to transform live music experiences into Moments—unique, collectible digital content, verified by location. Moments act similar to exclusive tour merch, but provide a deeper connection to the fans during and after the concert, including fan chats, exclusive content, and post event experiences.
Artists
As an identity layer, Camp aggregates online user data and provides insights to various platforms to create immersive experiences for fans. While these platforms make the opportunities possible, artists are responsible for making each experience possible. Without an understanding of their audience and the data provided by Camp, this wouldn't be feasible.
Web2 companies have been able to create dynamic experiences by constantly collecting user information. As a few large companies aggregate and control this data, they also silo it away from others. This limits artists' ability to understand, engage, or find their audience.
In addition to platform control over data, artists also have to relinquish control of their music and content to centralized platforms. Although TikTok and Instagram Reels may be nearly identical, content on either lacks the interoperability and portability necessary to aggregate their digital identity.
On Camp, artists can consolidate their music and identity across multiple platforms while better understanding their audience through platforms like Sonu. Co-founded by TOKiMONSTA, Sonu (formerly Sona) is a Web3 streaming protocol moving from the Ethereum mainnet to build its platform exclusively on Camp. Sonu bridges the Web2-Web3 divide by enabling artists to automatically generate their profiles, providing a unified music experience for listeners and musicians.
Providing a unified identity on Sonu eliminates information silos spread across Web2 social media sites and ensures consistent engagement with fans. Sonu's unique profile system also allows fans to do the same—leveraging Camp's ability to access previously inaccessible Web2 data to create more in-depth profiles and personalized experiences between artists and fans.