Steve PMHSuccessfully promoting music online is one of the aspects that many musicians struggle with especially if you are just starting out and you don’t have the much-needed marketing skills. Music promotion is a great way to reach more listeners, get more plays, and consequently build the momentum you need to launch your career.
With so many music promotion services in the market, it can be a little overwhelming deciding where to start, so here is a guide on some of the best platforms that you can use to increase exposure.
Radio Airplay
Radio Airplay is closely associated with Jango, which is a free internet radio platform that is similar to Pandora. When you enter an artist’s name into Jango, it automatically generates a playlist of songs that are similar. Radio Airplay includes songs from up-and-coming artists into these generated playlists.
When you subscribe to any of the monthly packages, you are entitled to a maximum of 1000 additional free plays in a week for each of the songs that get at least 100 plays. There are 5 promo packages:
- $10 for 250 credits
- $30 for 1,000 play credits
- $100 for 4,000 play credits
- $200 for 9,500 play credits
- $500 for 25,000 play credits
The number of free plays that you receive is based on the weekly PopScore of your song, which will be determined by how listeners interact with it by liking or disliking it. Another way through which you can earn plays is the artist tipping feature which is integrated with NeuCoin, a virtual currency. Jango Radio listeners are given 25 NeuCoin for tipping up-and-coming artists and earn more coins for listening on a daily basis.
When your song appears in the listener’s playlist, your “promo unit” will appear on their screen. The listener can opt to close it, ignore it, vote on the song, or perform any other actions depending on the setting you select. If your song is given thumbs up, the listener becomes a fan and has the option to leave a comment and/or share their email address.
You can view recent listens, fans, and plays on your dashboard. Listeners have the option to limit the ads that they hear to one per day by linking their Facebook account. When a listener does this, you will see a link to their Facebook profile on your dashboard.
You can even send them a friend request if you want to. You can also send your fans messages via the internal messaging system featured in Radio Airplay all at once or individually.
The performance of your songs, which is determined by your PopScore, is mainly based on who you target. You have the option to create distinct sets of targets for each song. This is known as Song-Level Artist Targeting, and Radio Airplay provides you with Fan Overlap Report, which is an efficient tool that you can use to optimize artist targeting.
Targeting is broken down into two categories:
- Standard targeting
This includes basic Geographic Targeting, where plays are based on the areas you choose, and Artist Targeting. It will cost you one credit per play.
- Premium targeting
Premium targeting also includes Demographic Targeting (plays based on gender and age) and strict Geographic Targeting (plays limited to only areas that you choose). This will cost you two credits per play.
Pros
- You are provided with an accurate Fan Overlap Report that helps you determine what your fans are listening to.
- You can interact with your fans through the messaging system featured in Radio Airplay.
Cons
- It would have been nice to have a toggle switch that you can use to optimize targets which are dynamically based on the recent performance of songs.
- You won’t make any money back in sales
Playlist Push
Playlist Push is a service that is meant to help independent musicians get their songs on playlists that are featured on Spotify and gives playlist curators an opportunity to monetize their music discovery.
The cost of setting up campaigns starts at $185, and they run for two weeks. The price of campaigns increases with the popularity of a genre as well as the number of genres, allowing for more placement opportunities. The main genres in Playlist Push are hip hop, pop, and indie rock.
There is no standard payout in Playlist Push, rather determined by your reputation score as a curator, which depends on a number of factors such as leaving useful reviews, the amount of activity on your playlists, and the period of time you have been on the platform. Your mileage on Playlist Push will typically, but you are better off avoiding submitting niche genres to mainstream playlists.
Playlist Push previously struggled with an influx of curators which made it hard to screen them properly. Currently, the service carefully screens and monitors all the accounts for suspicious activity, multiple accounts, inactive or fake followers, and any other violation. All in all, there have been massive improvements on the curator end.
Pros
- Playlist Push provides you with a variety of Spotify curators.
- Playlist Push allows you to get your songs to a wider audience of curators all at once without requiring too much effort.
Cons
- If you are a beginner, it will take some time before you earn a substantial payout.
- If you are music falls in a niche genre, Playlist Push may not be the best option for you.
Hypeddit
Hypeddit is a service that helps creators and music artists to build bigger fan communities around their music. It allows you to create download gates and submit music of any genre to playlists, blogs, and labels.
Download/ fan gates allow you to build your fan base by sharing downloads of your songs in return for fan likes, reposts, email addresses, comments, and followers on platforms such as SoundCloud, YouTube, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and MixCloud. Whenever a listener clicks “Download’ on your music in SoundCloud or any other compatible platform, they are automatically redirected to your fan gate which provides a “Download & Like/Follow” button.
The fan gate process is broken down into two parts. First, you select a track in your SoundCloud account that you want to add a gate to, choose the genre, and then upload its MP3 version to Hypeddit. By doing this, you will have created your fan gate page.
The second next step of the process involves adding the URL of your fan gate page to your track on SoundCloud. Add the fan gate page URL to the “Buy link” field and then change it to “Download”. This way, when a listener clicks on the download link in your music on SoundCloud, they are redirected to the fan gate page where they are required to log in to their SoundCloud account so as to be able to download the track.
Hypeddit allows you the convenience to share your link when sharing your track, allowing your fans to download music more easily. When a download is complete, listeners automatically like it on SoundCloud, and all you have to do is promote your Hypeddit link as much as you can.
Pros
- It is a genuine and ethical way to get likes, followers, and plays.
- Those who download your music automatically like/follow your content.
Cons
- You still have to do your part when it comes to promoting your track so as to get activity.
RepostExchange
RepostExchange is a music promotion service that comprises of SoundCloud creators who promote, support, and collaborate with each other by sharing like-minded audiences. When you promote another user’s music, you are rewarded with credits, which basically means that anyone that follows the user can see the track.
You can use your credits to request reposts from other members, or you can opt to come up with a campaign which all members can repost. You can earn more credits by reposting campaigns or accepting requests.
If a member opts not to repost your music (or if they fail to accept requests within 24 hours), you will get back your credits. Posts are monitored by the service for 48 hours, and if a member removes a repost before this period of time, you will receive a refund and the account of the user may be terminated.
Generally, you get to earn 1 credit for every 100 followers that you have. If you have over 2,500 followers, your account will be processed by the FollowScore system feature of the service which adjusts your earnings by taking non-active followers into account.
With a campaign, you can choose a track and a budget. The track of your choice will then be made available for members to repost- they have the option to browse various campaigns and repost whichever tracks they like. A campaign only comes to an end when all the credits have been claimed or after a week (if you have unspent credits, you will be refunded)
All members are limited to 10 reposts a day, although you can make an unlimited number of reposts that are requested by other users. Consider reposting only the tracks that you and your audience will enjoy. Once you gain more credits per repost, your points will add up faster, and soon you will be able to promote a new song on a daily basis.
RepostExchange is run by Audiu, which is an established music platform that has been in operation since 2014 and is secure to use thanks to the latest web technologies incorporated. Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about putting your SoundCloud account at risk by using RepostExchange since it is compliant with the terms of use stipulated by SoundCloud.
Pros
- There are a variety of ways provided through which you can earn credits.
- Once you have more followers, you have the option to request individual users to repost your songs.
Cons
- You risk losing credits if you are unable to post tracks within 24 hours.
Feature.fm
Another way music service that you can use to promote your music is Feature.fm. Feature.fm costs less than 2 cents per play, and unlike similar services, you are only charged for plays that are over 30 seconds.
The sole streaming partner of Feature.fm is 8tracks, which hosts a wide variety of user-created playlists that you can stream or free. Feature.fm adds your song between playlists, which could explain the high percentage of listeners who don’t make it past the 30-second mark. If they listen to the whole song, 8track will automatically select a follow-up playlist to allow for continuous listening.
A huge benefit of using Feature.fm is that it streams your song via SoundCloud’s API as long as you provide the link. Even the free plays that are under 30 seconds are still included in the count towards your SoundCloud play count.
To get started, you will have to specify the artist and name your campaign, after which you will be required to provide the song name, genre, tags, cover image, YouTube URL, and SoundCloud URL. The Targeting page is essential in helping you determine your audience- you can select gender age, countries, and even states in the U.S where you would want your song to be heard.
You have the option to select from four calls to actions (CTA) or come up with your own. You can send a message to your users, which can be a simple bio or the story behind your song.
The budget page helps you set your spending rate. Consider setting a daily limit so that you don’t end up burning through thousands of plays within a day even when you have a highly targeted campaign. Once everything is set up, your song will be integrated and plays will kick off within an hour or two.
Pros
- Feature.fm is unique in that if your plays are below the 30-second mark, you don’t have to pay for the services.
- A feature.fm play contributes to your SoundCloud play count.
Cons
- Feature.fm is yet to incorporate a feature that allows listeners to share their contact information.
- The engagement numbers are relatively sparse and may fail to justify how much you spend from a ROI standpoint.
Verdict
Music promotion is essential for music makers who want to reach a wider audience.
It is therefore important to go for music promotion services that will generate more activity on the platform you use and generally get you noticed. I hope one of these platforms does that for you. Good luck!
