Unlocking Success for Artists in Nigeria through Effective Branding in 2024

This article is focused on – growing your artist branding in Nigeria in 2024. Explore effective strategies for music promotion and content creation.

So, during my regular Saturday meeting with my artists, I brought a simple case study to them:
“A new artist planning to release a song and was given three million naira to promote it.”
I provided them with three different options:

1. Merchandise
2. Streaming
3. Content Creation.

I received different answers from them before sharing my response based on past experiences with music promotion in Nigeria. Emphasizing the key phrase in the case study, “new artist”, I highlighted the importance for a new artist to allocate a good budget to content creation. This, I explained, is crucial for growing their brand and gaining notice on social media before converting their music into streams.
I also spoke about streaming promotion, that money spent on playlisting and DSP ads does not measure up to the streaming income, it is usually a waste of money, i.e $1,000 can earn a new artist about 30,000 streams on Spotify, which would yield just $30, which is a total loss of $970. Merchandise should just be personalized to make content not for sale because people will not be willing to buy merch of infamous artists. My artists all agreed on the power of content creation as very vital key for growing an artist brand.

How can an artist promote his brand in 2024?

Moving on to the current landscape in 2024, I compared an artist to an all-around content creator, serving their audience much like a TV station serves its viewers. I stressed the following points for growing an artist’s brand:

1. Consistent: Music should be treated like any other profession, such as Medicine, Law, or Engineering, requiring a strict schedule.
2. Quality and Quantity Content – They need to work hard at making sure they have a lot of content to fly, and that the content is good and engaging. Told them, when people are scrolling on their reels, and TikTok to check content, they should make sure people are captivated and made to wait to watch their content.
3. Artists are not comedians – I told them they need to work more on showcasing their talent, which is entertainment, they might not be able to make people laugh, but they can hone their singing skills and vibing skills in their content.
4. Sponsored post – They need to sponsor many of their posts and not wait until the algorithm boosts their posts each time, which means being intentional, increasing visibility faster, and as a result getting them more followers which might eventually turn into fans.

When people stream your songs

When people come across your songs on streaming platforms as a new artist, two things usually happen:

1. Discovery – It takes a big deal for Nigerians (our primary audience) to stream a song hard, when they don’t know you, no matter how sweet and melodious your song is, they will scroll and pass.
2. Streaming – when they eventually stream, if the song is good, then you are lucky to win a fan.

Branding in a nutshell, is it very difficult?

The answer is – it is not difficult, but many artists don’t see the journey in a nutshell. The goal is to win Nigerian fans to your side, to properly get their attention. For example, there was a foreign musician called, Enisa on Twitter, and she supported Nigeria’s End Sars movement in the year 2020, since that time, her music career skyrocketed, and she has a lot of subscribers and loyal fans from Nigeria. I have some answers on how an artist can be buzzing in Nigeria:

1. Participate in trends e.g. Oluwadolarz(an influencer always creating content around trends).
2. Go for shows like Big Brother Nigeria, and Idols – this helps push you to a lot of Nigerians on TV, which helps to get millions of followers.
3. Participate in music covers, challenges, and contests.
4. Collaborate with other artists to make good songs – you will be able to win a lot of fans to your side
5. Collaborate with influencers to make great content – it will enable other followers to get opportunities to see you.
6. Be very consistent.
7. Sponsor your ads to be seen frequently.

Difference between growing a brand from an independent artist to a record label.

• Independent Artist
  • Indie artists should wisely work on their brand and not be too bothered by the streaming numbers. When he gets that following status, little promotion would yield great results on both social media and streaming promotion.
  • After getting good followers, he would be able to attract investors, because investors will be able to see a working system in him to generate profit through his music.
• Record Label
  • A record label would spend money on your post’s creation, and also scrutinize them, making sure they have a chance to go viral.
  • A record label also promotes adequately, to make sure your streaming numbers are impressive, outsources for favors with other record labels, runs A &R on your music, and other music-related promotions.

Irony of an Artist’s Career Path

The higher you climb on your artist progress level, getting your brand more visible out there, the cheaper it takes for you to promote your music to achieve good results.