Steve PMHThe music industry has changed over the last few decades and streaming music has become the most popular way for artists to get their voices heard.
Spotify, a music streaming platform, sees more than 60,000 songs released every day. From fans of bedroom pop to Grammy-winning albums, there’s an endless stream of music for everyone to enjoy. As a musician, it has become clear that creating music is just the beginning of being able to break through the noise.
Even with this level of music saturation, most musicians don’t think about promotion as seriously as they take music production. Instead, they rely on out-of-date promoting techniques that are often ineffective, expensive, and rarely produce the desired results.
We’ll run through what some of these outdated promotion tactics are, their pros and cons, and the most effective way to get heard today.
Classic Approaches to Promoting Your Music Record labels
Can record labels help you grow? Absolutely. While they have certain benefits and can help musicians distribute music, most don’t have the same power they had a few years ago, and the tide continues to shift away from them.
Pros:
- If it’s a well-known label, they’re more likely to help you with distribution and promotion.
- You may receive an advance if signing a long-term deal.
- In order to be signed to a well-known label, your music should be high quality and well produced.
Cons:
- You’ll likely reach out to many record labels and not hear back.
- You’ll have to split royalties, which means you won’t see all of the profits from your music.
- You may not own your masters. This becomes extremely important with the changing nature of the industry from being able to use your music for any purpose and creating NFTs. Many high-profile musicians are publicly pleading to own their masters for the music they’ve created, and it’s an uphill battle to regain ownership from record labels.
- If it’s not a well-known label, they might make you pay for the promotion and other fees while taking their share of royalties.
- It’s difficult to sign to a label.
Can it work out with a record label? Yes, but it’s often a lot of time, work, and energy for little in return.
DJ Support
There’s no doubt that DJ support can help get your music heard and it’s gratifying when a high-profile artist promotes your song. Whether it’s played on a radio show or at a music festival, exposure from an established DJ is a good thing.
Pros:
- DJs will bring new exposure to a target audience that’s likely to enjoy your music.
- You’ll gain social notoriety by being associated with a popular DJ. For instance, fans of Tiesto recognizing your song because he promoted it will associate you with him.
Cons:
- Similar to record labels, you’ll likely reach out to many DJs and not hear back from them.
- You can pay a service to help you get DJ support, but the price often starts at an expensive rate and a successful promotion is not guaranteed. The chance of a well-known DJ playing your song is equal parts likely and unlikely.
- It’s difficult to quantify the impact of promotion. While your song may have been promoted, it’s difficult to know how many new fans you’ve gained.
While it’s always a benefit to receive support from an established DJ, you have to consider whether potentially paying a large sum of money compared to the level of exposure is worth it.
Music Blogs, YouTube Channels, and Spotify Playlists
Music blogs, YouTube channels, and Spotify playlists are similar strategies that can be effective for promoting your music.
Pros:
- Gaining exposure to a target audience for your genre. These are usually highly engaged users that are able to listen to music on streaming platforms.
- Success on a curated Spotify playlists from Spotify users can help to get picked up by their algorithmic playlists (e.g. Discover Weekly and Release Radar). When multiple people add your music to a playlist they’ve created, it’s added to playlists picked by an algorithm that promotes popular songs to other listeners.
- YouTube videos continue to be popular among viewers and listeners, and continue to gain views for years.
Cons:
- Blogging has largely diminished in recent years, especially in the music space. People rarely write and read blog posts about new music.
- It can be difficult to get in touch with a blog, channel, or someone who creates playlists to promote your music. Like with record labels and DJs, you might reach out to many promoters and not hear back.
- You might have to pay to get your music onto playlists. The fee you pay is unknown, but this method can be expensive and does not guarantee which playlists your songs are on or a successful promotion.
Using these methods can be successful but there are new and effective methods to promote music.
Modern Music Distribution
In the last year, the music industry has adapted to popular trends. The way that music is discovered and engaged with has fundamentally changed and will continue to move in this new direction. As a musician, it’s smart to capitalize on this shift.
Influencer Marketing for Music
With the popularity of TikTok, Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat Sounds, these social media platforms have become a new way for musicians to promote their music to many of their users. Influencer support is the new radio host support. TikToks are the new radio stations. Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, and other ways to add music to a post are what drive your number of streams.
It would benefit you to leverage the popularity of these social media platforms in order to promote your music. It’s inexpensive, it isn’t time consuming, and there’s a chance that your music is promoted to a wide range of users across multiple platforms.
Who has benefitted from capitalizing on this type of promotion? Here are a few examples:
- Imanbek launched his career after going viral on TikTok with his remix of SAINt JHN’s “Roses.” He won a Grammy award in 2021 and now has songs with Afrojack, David Guetta, and Rita Ora.
- Tiesto had a Spotify top 10 global hit with “The Business” by having fans make TikTok videos and Instagram Reels using the song. It’s in more than 129,000 TikTok videos that have been viewed more than 113 million times
- Olivia Rodrigo broke Spotify’s streaming record for first week streams (100 million streams) largely thanks to TikTok virality. These videos led to people streaming her music, talking about it on social media, and back around once more.
- Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” became popular because it was uploaded to TikTok as an audio. Users attached his song to their videos and the popularity of the audio clip he uploaded brought awareness to his music, which encouraged listeners to stream the song.
The list of musicians who receive a mass number of streams continues to grow with each song that becomes viral on social media. Influencer marketing is modern music distribution.
The Challenge with Influencer Marketing for Music
It’s challenging to convince influencers to share your music. If you’re an emerging musician, it can be difficult to begin working with influencers and to settle a fee that both parties agree on. Are these influencers going to open your initial email or direct message? Has this influencer listened to your music and are they willing to promote your music? When and where will they post your music, and how much is it going to cost?
It’s tedious, uncertain, and insecure. But there’s a solution…
Introducing SpaceLoud
SpaceLoud is a powerful new platform that connects musicians and influencers. We empower artists to share their music with millions of new listeners and influencers get paid to share music they love. It’s an easy, transparent, and secure way for artists and influencers to collaborate and grow their careers.
Here’s how it works:
- Find and connect with influencers in minutes.
- Send and receive proposals to share your music in a few clicks.
- You always have full control over your budget, which influencers you work with, and when and where your music is shared.
- Influencers upload their engagement statistics so you know how effective the posts were.
SpaceLoud solves every problem that artists will face when trying to execute influencer marketing campaigns for their music.
We also understand the importance of payment protection, which is why you’ll never pay a penny until an influencer:
- Shares your music to the agreed upon social channels.
- Uploads the engagement statistics for each post to SpaceLoud.
This way, you know exactly how effective their promotion was and how many people engaged with their posts. There are no more guessing games when it comes to music promotion, and no chance you’ll lose money.
One more thing: there are no fees for artists whatsoever. The only price you’ll pay is what you determine is fair for the influencer to promote your music. We don’t take any fees from artists on top of that.
It’s Time to Take Your Career to the Next Level
If it wasn’t clear already, the old ways of music promotion are not enough. Record labels, music blogs, and DJ support give you a shot at making it big, but it’s absolutely essential that you stay up to date with the most effective promotion methods. Influencer marketing is for music.
SpaceLoud solves every single one of them for you. Find influencers you like and leverage them to reach new fans like never before.
It’s a new golden age of opportunity for artists, and we hope you’ll take advantage of it with SpaceLoud and influencer marketing for music:
Sign up and create a free account now.
And get 10% off by using this exclusive discount code: PMH-10OFF
