According to a somewhat depressing study shared by Next Big Sound, 90.7% of all artists go undiscovered. The extensive research that NBS carried out as part of their review of 2013 revealed that around 80% of artists receive less than one new Facebook like a day, as well as showing that “mega-sized” artists make up a whopping 87.3% of total Facebook likes of all artists on the social network. It’s an interesting look at the scales of artists and how greatly effective social media can be, but it does make things look a bit bleak for the little guys.
Elsewhere, the report highlights the ever increasing reach of social media for artists and reminds us yet again how important streaming music has become, with over 223 billion plays (a 140% increase on the previous year) recorded across Spotify, Rdio, YouTube, Soundcloud and similar.
