A Panel at the ongoing Social Media Week (SMW) on Thursday in Lagos advised artists to use technology to ensure that their music business models work.
They gave the advice while discussing the topic, “Financing Music”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that SMW is one of the world’s foremost conferences and industry news platforms for marketers.
It provides brands, agencies and technology providers with the latest insights, trends and best practices together with access to a global community of marketing decision-makers.
Mr Chijioke Uwaegbule, PricewaterhouseCoopers Partner, urged artists to leverage on social media and position themselves to be investable.
“You need to position yourself to be attractive and investable.
“Today’s entertainment business includes not just film, television, music, and theatre but also digital-age content.
“If you do not position yourself well, it will be difficult for you to secure consumers’ intention because it is only the most meaningful entertainment business that consumers reserve portions of their time for.
“You also need to get someone whom you can align and work with and share any profit you make together.
“Banks want to see the efforts you have put to grow your businesses before they can come to you to talk sponsorship,” he said.
In the same vein, the Founder/Chief Executive Officer of Sparkle, a financial technology community and ecosystem, Mr Uzoma Dozie, urged artists to plan for the successful operation of their businesses’ career.
“First of all, as an artist, you have to help yourself and also help people to help you.
“Doing business is not all about getting grants and subsidies because there are people in the music, field and medical industries that also need grants.
“You can start first, by having your information technology to tell your story and making sure that your business models worked.
“For the bank to sponsor your business, it needs to know if your business model is worthy, proven or unproven and what your stake in the game is.
“So, it’s a bunch of things before you start talking about grants. People also need to understand that grant is limited,” he said.
Mr Bashir Salami, Head, Digital Events and Sponsorship Department, Unity Bank, said for an artist to be sponsored, the bank would have to look at the clarity of the music produced.
However, he said financing music was not a challenge for the bank except the way the Nigerian Music industry was structured.
“It is not a challenge for us to look at the financing of artists, except that we really do not have the data that we need.
“Most of the time, because of the way the industry is structured, you cannot get verifiable data. I am talking about the four Vs of data.
“What we mean by a structured industry is that it must have the four Vs of data. First, it must be talking about the Volume of the data itself and how much of it is available for people to see what they have done.
“Secondly, we need also the velocity of the data to know if we invest in this guy. For instance, to focus on reggae, will he make more money?
“The third is the variety; that is, what kind of thing can this artist do. Can he move from writing to strictly production?
“The last is the veracity, to check how truthful an artiste’s data is,” Salami said.
NAN reports that the session was sponsored by Unity Bank, Kuda, Cintron Premium Energy Drink and Sparkle. (NAN)
