A recent partnership between music intelligence platform The Echo Nest and social media giant Twitter will help to build artist-to-fan interaction. The real question is whether it also may lead to an increase in ticket sales.
The integration between the two companies will enable application developers to incorporate “tweets” from music artists’ Verified Accounts into their app. The partnership, announced earlier this month, is part of a Twitter pilot program that opens Verified Accounts’ public data to the developers of music and entertainment service apps.
“The Echo Nest’s cutting-edge music data platform will enable thousands of developers to build new ways for music fans and artists to connect on Twitter,” said Glenn Otis Brown, Twitter director of media business development, in a recent press statement. “The sky’s the limit on the creative Twitter music applications that the Echo Nest’s developers can now build.”
Discovr Music, a popular music discovery application, was identified as the first Echo Nest app to integrate artists’ tweets. Just one among the many to come, the app allows users to see their favorite artists’ tweets alongside lyrics, music and photos, which means a more immediate connection between the artist and fan.
The Twitter integration could also be good news for the ticketing industry.
Those artists who already rely on Twitter to communicate upcoming tour dates and music releases with fans may be able to reach a wider audience through those apps utilizing the API. Meanwhile, the apps themselves may be able to convert user awareness of a particular artist into consumer transactions.
On a discovery app like Discovr Music, users are encouraged to check out new artists or songs similar to those to which they already listen. The integration of Twitter allows users to more easily receive communications from those unfamiliar artists — potentially resulting in the purchase of new music or concert tickets — without ever leaving the app.
With industry estimates stating that 40 percent of event tickets go unsold — often due to a lack of consumer awareness about an event — such integration could mean the difference between an empty seat and a ticket sale.
