About Mike Tang

Mike Tang founded several media and technology companies over the last ten years in California’s Bay Area. Today, he is the Founder of Best Of The Next, a multi-genre music label and digital agency based in Los Angeles. 

Mike has an extensive background in both technology and music. He is a music artist himself, which led him to identify specific gaps in the music industry. 

He elaborates, “Over the years, I got a little bit more success with music by throwing events to promote and perform my songs, collaborating with others.. things like that. That’s what really led me to start Best Of The Next as an independent music label and we eventually expanded into launching our digital agency to help market and promote rising artists.”

His background as a music artist gave him an inside look at marketing musicians and starting an independent label. Eventually, he signed several other artists under Best Of The Next and helped them monetize their careers. 

How Does Best Of The Next Help Musicians?

Mike shares that Best Of The Next offers a variety of services to help musicians grow and jumpstart their brands. 

“[We] help them gain powerful exposure on relevant platforms, like TikTok [and] Instagram. Our agency offers a service that promotes artists through strategic advertising campaigns on various platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube plus Spotify. We even developed our own marketing strategy called Radio Influencer Marketing, and that’s really our key differentiator.”

He explains that their flagship service, Radio Influencer Marketing, helps musicians find new audiences more effectively by providing radio and social exposure combined through running a Radio Influencer campaign with our established radio personalities and radio DJs. 

Mike reveals that it’s typically challenging to have your music played on commercial radio in America because it’s costly, and you need to know the right connections to be considered. However, Best Of The Next’s Radio Influencer Marketing services help musicians gain radio and social exposure altogether–fast and affordably. 

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He notes that many people also underestimate the importance of being heard on the radio due to the many streaming services available.  

However, Mike explains, “There are millions of people that still listen to radio, but they’ve kind of evolved to now listening more through different apps, radio station websites and just tuning in online… If you think about it, every car still has a radio. Every new car, every used car, they all still have radios.”

He adds that many people think radio is dead because of how dominant streaming is, but there is still a substantial demographic of radio listeners. Radio also inspires greater trust in listeners. 

“Radio influencers are so influential, and people trust them as consumers, trust them because they hear them on their radio all the time. It’s a voice that they’re familiar with, and they know that’s someone they can trust in terms of if they’re recommending a product or they’re recommending a certain song.”

Radio Influencer Marketing Success Stories

Mike gets in-depth about a Radio Influencer Marketing campaign they did with Kaila Love. After running the campaign for Kaila, she reached out to them about her excellent results. 

He adds, “The campaign had amazing results. I [Kaila Love] had a 2500% increase in Spotify streams for one of her songs that we helped promote using Radio Influence Marketing… Before she started that campaign, the song was at about, I believe less than a thousand streams… She got over 15,000 streams [after the campaign.].” 

Another hugely successful campaign was with Sizzles. After the campaign, he reached out to tell us that one of the world’s biggest radio stations based in New York contacted him regarding putting his song in rotation because they discovered him through his campaign. Sizzles later updated us that his song did indeed receive commercial radio airplay.

What’s Missing in the Influencer Marketing World?

Mike shares that he’d love to see more musicians and labels pushing their music through Radio Influencer marketing. He is also determined to expand into international radio markets to help even more artists gain the exposure they deserve.

“So, the American radio market is where we’re focusing right now, but we’re slowly expanding into the UK market because they have a huge radio scene over there as well. We’ve already had people reach out to us asking if we support UK radio.”

Mike reveals that he’s also working to promote local events, businesses and their products and services. 

“What we’re going to be focused on next is really two things: expanding into the UK and international radio markets along with expansion into having our radio influencers promote local events, businesses and services.”

Closing Thoughts

Mike touches on the fact that iHeartMedia, the world’s number one audio company, recently wrote about radio influencers and their effectiveness. 

“For them [iHeartMedia,] to write about radio influencers and how effective they are based on their study, it’s actually just a huge validation for what we’ve been working on and for us to develop this marketing strategy.”

This study was hugely validating for Mike, as it only emphasizes the importance of Radio Influencers, which is a significant part of Best Of The Next’s offerings. 

As for future plans, Mike proclaims that Best Of The Next will expand into the UK and international radio markets. Beyond music, they already have strategies in place to start promotion of local events, businesses and services.