Shazam is the most important new piece of data in music streaming...

Do you Shazam? If so, you’re part of the more than one billion installed users of the audio and image app. Shazam was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang, and Dhiraj Mukherjee. It was sold to Apple in 2018 for $400 million. In 2019, Apple launched the “Shazam Discovery Top 50,” a weekly, global ranking of 50 artists that it describes as “on the move and trending” — in other words, new and emerging artists. Interestingly, even though the technology has been around for 20 years, most artists aren’t grasping the importance of Shazam as a piece of data showing which tracks in their catalog pique listeners’ curiosity and why certain tracks are converting.

Let me make this easier for you: **Shazam is the most important new piece of data in music streaming…**

I am no Ed Sheeran (the most “Shazamed” artist of 2017). My catalog of mostly “mindful music” (read: new age and ambient) cranks away on hundreds of streaming platforms, and it does pretty well. However, since the “Apple for Artists” app launched officially in August of 2019, I have been tracking my growing listener activity on their platform along with seeing how many “Shazams” I have for the week, month or year. This data has changed how I approach getting my music on playlists because of the success of certain songs. It…