You're striving to advance in the music industry. What tools can help you monitor your progress and growth?

One of the clearest ways to know if you're making any progress in the scene is to see the turnout at your gigs. If you see stagnation, then maybe its time to do something new or different. If you're seeing a steady uptick in ticket sales etc, then you're on the right path. Social media audience is of course another avenue that you can gauge. If managers, agents start connecting with you to book you, you can be sure you're doing something right.

To track progress using data measuring tools is key! 1. For Social Media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Meta, accessing profile and post engagements analytics help measure audience interaction and engagement. You can also select the period in which you wish to measure. 2. For music streaming platforms, dashboards are your answer (eg. Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists), and audience engagement metrics like Songstats. 3. For Project management, apps like Notion, Slack, Trello and Asana etc. help in staying organized, while tracking performance, data and updates, including networking and receiving feedback from colleagues and stakeholders.

All of the data and analytics in the world can easily confuse and overwhelm an artist. If you're building or refining a strategy that is based on metrics and data from the digital age - the target is the key. Don't build a strategy that's derived from an A-list artist, as the insights you'll see are not a true representation of what is right for most up-and-coming artists. Find an artist 'profile' who is rising fast, in your lane and not #01. Look for strong projects, but avoid the elite. Their data will have 0 relevance to the up-and-coming project. If you rank 'success' from 1 to 10, unless you're at 8/9, don't look at 10, those numbers will mislead you. Find data and analytics from those that are a step or two above where you're at.

These platforms are critical places to track metrics for songwriters: - Spotify - Apple Music - Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok - Shazam - Chartmetrics - Google Adsense

I recommend connecting your career goals to your personal life goals. It's easy to stay in the "music business" zone, but how does your music career affect your daily life, ability to start a family, buy a home, etc.? In the end your headstone will reflect what kind of person you were and life you led, not your career milestones.