Artists Can't Expect Much From Facebook Music

One of the unstated promises of Facebook's recent collaboration with a variety of music delivery services was that it would be a boon to artists, both from an income and a visibility standpoint. It seems that viewpoint might be only a myth, according to a post on Inside Facebook.

It seems that since Spotify, Rdio, and other music service began being automatically shared to the social network late last month, the Facebook Pages of musicians have not been gaining fans any faster than before.

Now matter what the usage, artists and bands weren't going to get rich off of the music streams affiliated with Facebook since they're only making a little over 1/10th of a percent per stream. What they could look forward to however, was increased Likes and visits to their Facebook page. Unfortunately, that just isn't happening. Using Linkin Park as an example, you can see from the chart on the left that there's been absolutely no spike whatsoever when Facebook Music came online.

There is something that FB could do to rectify the situation though. They could add a prominent, one-click “Like this artist” button to stories about listening activity. When users see who they’ve been listening to on their profile Timeline, or discover a new artist by clicking through a story about a friend’s listening activity, they could then instantly become a fan.

Then again, they could also make a deal with iTunes, the one service that's missing from the whole FB Music concept. Although there's a lot less money in downloads than with physical product, it's still a whole lot more than a stream.

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