Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jason Swartz grew up around the entertainment business. With a father in the music industry, Jason’s reading list consisted of Variety and Billboard magazine at just nine years old. His father, Jerry Swartz was a music business manager for industry titans Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, classic rock band The Doors, and more. While his family’s history existed within the realm of management, Jason found himself engrossed with the business side. He would immerse himself in Nielsen ratings and keep up with the Top 100 Billboard charts all through childhood. The business side of the industry piqued Jason’s curiosity. After studying at London School of Economics and working at UK-based record label Ninja Tune, Jason began to contemplate new ways to evolve the business of music.
In an era where society is inundated with technology and social media, Jason saw his own business opportunity within the music industry. He recognized new technology opportunities for artists to take advantage of within their online fan bases. Jason created ways to monetize artists’ social media accounts with viral videos, news articles and more. Jason and his company Alliance Talent have made the process completely seamless for artists. In fact, the artist is not required to do any more than they already do on a regular basis on their social media accounts. It’s as easy as licensing the artist’s name to an app or select technology in order to create social media monetization. In this sense, Jason has worked with artists Ludacris, Akon, Snoop Dogg and others. Using data from radio analytics and social media insights, Jason’s team at Alliance is able to identify what’s trending based on an artist’s fan base not just domestically in the U.S., but internationally as well.
Coming up, Jason Swartz is launching an app called So Close that essentially provides influencers and celebrities the tools necessary to create premium subscriptions for their fans with no additional work outside their daily social media routine. The platform will launch with services for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube so that fans can get closer to their favorite celebrities and enjoy a premium experience. Despite his family’s history of traditional business within the music industry, Mr. Swartz took the knowledge handed down from his father and not only expanded on it, but reinvented the evolution of social media monetization for artists, influencers, and celebrities. He continues to look for new, innovative ways to capitalize on an industry that’s existed for years, yet remains ever changing. While Jason enjoys helping artists tap into new opportunities via social media monetization, he looks forward to developing new ways to help the music business and social media business continue to evolve.
