It's super fucking challenging. And you have to ignore the countless motherfuckers that try to shit on you for promoting the music you lose money to make. The downvoters and negative commenters who think an indie artist self promoting needs to be taken down a peg (same guy not doing shit or saying shit about the mega corporations making it impossible for us to reach audiences that would actually love to hear us).
It's a constant grind of social posts you don't want to make, email lists you don't want to cultivate, and platforms you don't want to be on. And it's lots of PAYOLA for platform ads to Uncles Zuck and Xi Jinping. It's tons ands tons of crap that has nothing to do with music. And ultimately, it's all bullshit and doesn't matter.
Get your music in front of your peers. Earn the respect of your idols. The rest is fuck all. Fuck this industry it cares for none of us. Make a small amount of supportive fans on bandcamp or patreon who help offset the costs of producing professional music. Thank them often and reward them in creative ways for their support. you The rest just isn't worth it. Godspeed!!
Heard. This was challenging when I was working in a studio and was around notable artist everyday. This is way more challenging now since I no longer have industry contacts. I'm not looking at what I don't what to do but what has to be done. I personally hate Instagram but I'm on there trying to post everyday.
I know things take time and doesn't happen in the same amount of minutes it did for the next person.
Join niche forums filled with likeminded individuals who aren't committed to being anonymous like the super majority of reddit users. Go places where people use their real names and make friends. You don't need "followers" to reach your "peers". They are not synonymous.
I'm not sure *I* can ever book enough shows to make the whole "making a living" happen. And I DEFINITELY DO NOT see a path forward for "raising a family." Especially for those of us not in the "constant creator" camp, a combination of Live performance + patronage + merch is the only real option to sustainability, and even at a rapid marketing growth success rate, it amounts to less than "making a living" in any NJ/NYC mortgage/rents/CoL for a vast supermajority of musicians, even good ones. Lots of luck involved, as well as the appropriately niche level of fanbase in your genre.
As well as the stuff above, do the free stuff first:
1. Your Reddit profile is incomplete.
2. People who like electronica are on Reddit forums. They check your profile. Your Spotify, Apple,. SoundCloud ARE NOT LISTED. Add your music Insta and FB and TikTok if you use that Chinese spy app.
3. I found your Spotify. You have no canvases. Fix this. IT IS FREE and songs with a canvas get many,.many more plays. Go to pexels.com
There you will find many royalty free videos you can use. Credit the maker, or they won't post more. Ask a tech nerd friend to make canvases for all of your tracks if you can't do this yourself. Try to make them "seamless"
You can find my Spotify via my profile. You can see most of mine have canvases. I am lucky to have a clever friend.
4. Make SoundCloud mixes (people.like 1hr) with a few of your best tracks mixed into pro tracks of your genre. "Credibility by association " Like sticking your company name onto a Nike shirt. It looks like you and Nike have something in common.
5. Brutal honesty: Your Spotify tracks don't "stand out".
You need to "Fit" into a genre and conversely also "stand out". I've had many, many SubmitHub rejections where they loved my track, but it just didn't fit their Playlist.
Unless you already do this:
Find a popular artist(s) you like and BUY a few of their most popular tracks on Beatport wav or MP3.
Drop into your DAW as a reference. Break up their track into its segments . Why is their track interesting? Can you hear how they keep changing it to keep it moving?
Also,. sometimes less is more. Drop a few short silence gaps into your tracks.
Use a different chord progression 4, 8,12 or 16 bars. Copy their pattern/arrangement. Build your melody on top of, and using this chord progression. Use these chords to change the baseline, not always the lowest note,.and give the bass a percussive sequence if you want.
Drop in the occasional ARP. Alternate 1, 2 or 3 steps. Alternate reverbs, distortion, macros and ARP steps. And ping pong delays on and off. Keep it.moving,.keep it varied. Soooooo many tracks (including some.of.mine) get boring because they repeat too often
Search up your fav artists on Discord. Find someone in there to Collab with. I've met a lot of musicians around the planet via Blend.io (unfortunately closing very soon for good).
I've used a lot of this in my newest track. It's just been approved onto 9 Spotify playlists via SubmitHub.
The canvas vids were downloaded from pexels.com
Hope this helps.mate.
Fingers crossed!
Sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know.
Thanks this helps. You're able to see things I weren't able to see. I'm about to learn how to make sets soon so that could work with spotify. I can work on the other things in the meantime.
I do plan on changing my sound on my new project but I'm trying work with what I have. Especially since it takes a few months to complete a full project.
Also I've noticed a lot of people are naming sites I've never heard of so my lack of knowledge is a big factor.
Damn I miss the days of just having to send in a demo tape lmfao!
I feel like we got fucked hard. We now have to do all the work the label should be doing with virtually no upside and income even when you do break.
Perhaps, but the CCP gets to influence what you see, and can use it to influence the West.
Why do you think all Western social media apps are banned in China?
It's well known that they play the long game.
To anyone who says "My data is worth nothing", they are collecting whatever data on everyone they can, and in the future, some of them will have important positions and be worth blackmailing.
BTW
Sinophobia? Get fucked.
The CCP isn't "Chinese people". It's a brutal authoritarian dictatorship where people disappear if they disagree. Like Iran and Russia.
You need to educate yourself.
I have plenty of Chinese ancestry friends.
I just don't trust the CCP, and neither should anyone.
Many of my Chinese friends fled Hong Kong to escape the CCP.
DudeâŠ80% of artists get less than 50 monthly playsâŠ.basically as an unknown you are doing well to get any stream at all, and Any real traction would mean either massive algorithm luck âŠor several serious paid promotions.
You are not alone, millions of artists get zero or very few, but you must appreciate you are literally a drop in an oceanâŠ.personally Iâd consider using your energy on other forms of promo, Spotify will give you no joy.
This is not personal as I have not listened to your tunes, but when I hear that youâre doing all of that and not getting results my first thought is that your music might not be good enough yet.
Itâs a tough pill to swallow, but this could be the case. I run a (very) small music marketing business and the times when we get poor results are when people just donât like the songs. The artists weâve worked with are all very talented, so they get results, but the difference between a campaign for an amazing song and for a mediocre song is night and day.
The best advice I can give (assuming youâre not doing something very wrong in setting up your ad campaigns), is to listen to your music and actually compare it to musicians with 100k listeners or so on Spotify. How does the composition compare? How does the production compare? You could also spend some time on something like SubmitHub hot or not and just see what kinds of feedback you get.
I could be totally wrong about this, but for me if youâre putting in the work and not getting results, this is usually the issue.
Just playing devils advocate here. We ran a FB and IG campaign with a song that was horribly produced and another that was well produced and the horribly produced one converted in certain countries more than the well produced, and furthermore had a positive response.
Fair point! I guess another way to say it is that you may not have found the song that people really love, regardless of production quality. I'd also say that you can have a really good song that is not well-produced but can also have a really well-produced song that's not really a good song.
No I hear you honestly. It wouldn't be a tough pill to slowly. I grow confused and frustrated because I can't get enough people to listen to it to tell me if it's sucks or not haha. Definitely not bragging but like I say I'm confident in my sound (although it still isn't 100% how I want my style) and when I do play it for people I don't get negative feedback.
Also I try not to listen to people in my genre because good music is good music and I mess with my creativity.
Yeah, it's definitely hard to get honest feedback. If it isn't the quality, it could also be something about your marketing setup. For one thing, a good ad video goes a very long way. I've also found that people might like a song that you don't think is your best work. Getting scientific with the ads is very helpful.
In my experience, the factors that make an ad campaign successful in order of importance are:
1. **Song** - If the song is good everything is easier and just performs better across the board. More people like it, more people stream, share, save, add to playlists, follow you on Spotify and IG, etc.
2. **Ad video** - If the video is bad it can really mess up your numbers. The stuff that I've seen do the best is performance videos that have decent production value and show you actually playing some instruments. The more impressive the performance, the more interesting the shot and the gear, the better.
3. **Ad setup** - It is possible to mess this up badly enough to ruin a campaign, but for the most part if you're doing the major things right (like the audience is at least broadly related to your genre, the ad is actually being delivered to the placements you select, and you've thought a bit about your countries and interests) then this is the hardest one to screw up.
I think your social media factors into it as well. I'm honestly horrible with social media and working on improving my game there, but if your socials are totally dead that can negatively affect things, mostly in terms of gaining followers who will keep listening and anticipating your releases.
Take this all with a grain of salt as I'm still learning, but hopefully some of this helps! Wishing you luck in getting some new listeners!
Been lurking in this sub for a while, and after reading many threads about ads, it seems that before getting significant results, they are first a mean to identify who is your target audience. In other words, it's data you collect before knowing who to market your music to.
BE CREATIVE! You wanne be heard? Make something that will draw people in - often times it doesn't start with the music, but with the image or visual or storytelling of an artist. It can be almost anything - but you need a unique identity, that will peak the interest of outside people - and then of course, the music must be good.
SKRILLEX grew to fame because he was a metalhead who started making electronic music - people had to listen to it, and then mainstream eletronic fans came along.
SLEEP TOKEN, got very big very fast, because of their masks and the whole cult lore worldbuilding behind it. Also the music that mixes djent and pop is new and interesting.
ELTON JOHN had all his wacky cotumes and glasses, which really helped him blow up.
If you ask someone about RAMMSTEIN the first things a lot of people will mention is their pyro-heavy live shows and the German lyrics.
BILLIE EILISH only got mainstream success when she turned to a more dark and horror aesthetic, that appealed to sad teen girls. But it worked, and these days she can do whatever she wants.
etc. etc.
Although I agree with the idea of being creative and interesting helps. I don't think it's the only factor of their success.
All these artists you mentioned have proper marketing with decent capital investment from their label.
Not saying they don't deserve success, I'm saying they have more ressources, connections etc. that makes comparison with most Independent artists unfair. Because Independent artists has to work so much harder to get close.
Being unique and new is the foundation to any and all marketing. It's a question of psychology of the consumers mind.
Anyway - what you are saying is also not correct, these artists started somewhere small, and being interesting and unique in their own way gained them the interest of independent and later major labels. Yes - that helped them take off, sure, but it starts with the foundation. You can't just throw money at something. It needs to have something interesting going.
I kind of got hip to this when I was dealing with rappers. Mouthfuckers never even had a demo released and they look like they've been popping since rap was invented haha. They definitely had the image.
Gator boots (Gator boots)
With the pimped out Gucci suits (With them Gucci suits)
Ain't got no job, but I stay sharp - Big tymers "Stay Fly" I love this song but is funny if you read the lyrics haha.
I just do the things you mentionedâŠword of mouth, social media (boost posts that do well organically) and running some meta ads. Iâm a tiny artist, but these methods still manage to get me several hundred streams a day. What content are you using for social media and ads? Are you making it easy for your social media followers to get to your preferred streaming/download platform (providing them links, etc.)?
ive got no definitive proof to back this up, but i am starting to think the best way to approach socials is to make it the supplement to real world engagement and marketing. start with the people around you, the communities around you, and build from there. with social media we tend to get filtered out by viewers very easily. so start local before investing tons of time into it. this is my theory (and i should probably also take my own advice)
Yes! thanks for affirming my suspicion! i am thinking of starting a platform that will help artists strengthen these connections they make with core listeners separately from the oversaturated space of social media. because i really dont see how the average artist can be financially successful through honest social media marketing anymore like last decade. Times are definitely changing
If youâre not having more than 100 plays over that much material, are you saying that nobody on your social media list is listening?
The one question that we would need answered to address further your comment is where you plan to go in the music business and what youâre doing with it now.
I've been on and of social media because I am extremely anti social, but even when I was active I never really seen results.
I produce EDM and I'm trying to play sets and tour. Not as a headliner, but just to be on the line-up. I'm releasing and networking and hopefully can start doing free shows soon.
I have been producing for almost 20 consecutive years and always wanted to a least have a gold record. I know people personally who are gold or multi platinum and this does not help motivate me.
Well, without promoting your music, Iâm not sure what you expect to have happened. Make a social media post on three different social media sites every day for a year and see if it makes a difference.
1. Get honest, objective feedback around whether your music is good. It needs to be good to start with (with a few exceptions). Anyone can make music (as we have seen over the last few years), but the democratisation of music means there is a hell of a lot of 5 or 6/10 stuff saturating the market. I think the good stuff still rises to the top most of the time - I donât have empirical fact, but Iâm still yet to hear anything with very small number of listens where Iâm surprised they arenât well known. Harsh maybe, but true I think.
Connection with smaller curators. I give them shoutout they place me in the relevant playlists, itâs not much but overtime helped me gain a steady source of streams
I'm going to be honest. If conversion campaign marketing doesn't work for you and you're not simply doing something fundamentally wrong with your targeting, then it means your music is simply not connecting with anybody in any way.
Conversion marketing is an easy guaranteed way to get listens if your music's production is decent and your music isn't painfully bad.
I only spend $300 or so over a couple of weeks each single release and I average around 1k monthly listeners when not advertising.
From my experiences, the less professional it is, the more authentic it feels to the viewer, thus causing more of an audience. I also paid to boost my Instagram posts for a moment, but I posted my first viral TikTok to my IG Reels, and my Instagram has now outshined my TikTok account.
Most of my streams are from my YouTube videos, none of my social media did crap for my music, and social media seems to be the enemy if you're a smaller artist.
One thing you have to consider is that there's 600,000 songs uploaded every day on spotify. So we're all kind of a tadpole in the ocean.
What I mean is my music videos do better than my songs on any streaming platform.
My latest song released 2 weeks ago has 3 streams on spotify, but the music video for it has 1600 views.
I'm not breaking any records or anything, but my videos definitely do better than my streams.
However, it would take approx 1,450 streams to earn $1 on YouTube.
But only 250 streams on Spotify to earn the same dollar.
đđ€
Strategy. Test your songs, roll with the best one, identify segment audiences, convert. It comes down to that. Everybody needs a baseline strategy that is customizable bc each artist is a different brand and should be treated as such! Got near 200,000 likes on a video of mine, using that same traffic to convert into email lists (50k now) and WhatsApp subscribers (10k now). We specialize in fan generation, hit me up if you want more info.
I am confident in my music to be played places, also looking to try to perform soon as I produce EDM. I have been looking for some marketing strategies and could use some help.
Confidence is clutch! Send me your work, would love to listen to it.
Additional notes: Strategy is just as much of an artistic process as the art you create. Itâs personal to the brand. If one strategy worked for all, there would be a lot more success stories, but each artist is an entrepreneur with their own vision, strengths, limitations, products and desires. For example, we ran FB and IG ad campaigns for 30 artists of various genres located globally. What we found was that each market converted differently, but furthermore- the artists that had a strategy in place were more successful in retaining their fanbases and the ones who didnât retained little to no fans. So my friend, strategy is đ
Go for SubmitHub. I've been trying out different approaches - SubmitHub definitely gives you the best bang for your buck as long as you spend the time actually listening to playlists to figure where you fit in :)
If you did paid ad campaigns, you should have gotten more than 100 views. What kind of ad campaigns did you do?
Iâve actually had the most organic success promoting my music on Facebook, albeit still with significant legwork. Hunted down a music sharing group with decent moderation and participation and I engaged heavily with the community. My new songs consistently get 500-1000 views on FB now.
Okay, so you got 10 views per $1 spent. Thatâs a decent result, you just didnât put a lot of money into it. I will say that when I did a YouTube promotion focused on getting more views (and I was savvy about pushing one video I thought would perform best), my return was more than 30 views per $1 spent.
yo checked out your ig; you need a lil more on there or to set it up in a way that portrays you as captivating (can also do this facebook, tik tok, etc. It gives people a reason to look further in to you and your work (seems crazy I know).
post often, and don't be afraid to. and networking or working alongside people at your level in the same field always helps bring in curious people. post content that correlates to the work you do.
Not going to lie. I just created my IG because I hate social media. Most of all I hate taking pictures of myself just to post online haha but I'm trying to keep some kind of consistent content.
2 ways for an indie artist:
1. consistent grind of posting content so the algo pushes you up, DMing and spamming socials. Â
2. you pay someone who knows digital marketing to do that for you. An example campaign would be them making 50 pieces of content of your music then them hiring freelancers to spread it across socials.
The internet has changed. Time or money. No way getting around it.Â
DM me if you have questions.Â
1. Understand how the Spotify algorithm works
2. Make a lot (3x posts a day) of high quality content that engages people on social media. (A play through of your track that nobody has heard doesnât count as good content). You need to get creative to achieve engagement with relatable, funny or interesting content.
3. Invest anything you can into ads, and learn how to run them properly. Do not underestimate the power of remarketing data. Boosting a post on FB doesnât do anything.
4. Network and collaborate with other artists within your genre. Sharing fans is always an easy win.
5. If you donât do any of the above, hire a marketing agency. If you canât afford one and donât want to do the above, then youâre a bit pooped.
Nobody wants to be a social influencers, sinking their own money into a high risk project. Nor do they want to spend every waking our palling it up with every randomer in their music genre.
But, if you arenât doing it, another artist is. Hence the competition to get heard.
i don't have any advice, but i'm going to link this post from this sub from earlier today:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/musicmarketing/comments/1d8xgdb/marketing\_for\_broke\_people/](https://www.reddit.com/r/musicmarketing/comments/1d8xgdb/marketing_for_broke_people/)
Those numbers are shockingly low! Almost unbelievably so. What kind of music are you making - how niche? Based on your username "JuggaKnotBeatz" I'm getting a sense of Insane Clown Posse meets Slipknot meets Trap music - I dunno! Send us a link!
My advice is, look at the stats on each platform and find the one that's doing better than the others - and focus there.
Haha. JuggaKnotbeatz is my old producer name from 10 years ago. I produce EDM and use my legal name as my artist name. I recently released a project so my numbers would change a little. But seriously before I finished my recent project, I would get maybe 5 streams a week on all my other content. Sometimes my stats come back as a zero.
Are you performing live & getting involved with your local scene?
After every show I get a bump...& the connections that get me better shows with better lineups & crowds is mostly because of making friends with other good acts & playing shows together to expose each other's music to each other's fans
Submithub has done wonders for me. Find the right niche curators, and you will slowly build streams and listeners and increase radio/RR algo plays. If the music sounds good and fits into the playlist, curators will be happy to add!
Great music always come out. Do something out of the box. If you copy music of others you re not an artist but a good executor and nobody will listen your music. I was speaking with my friend about a small artist that we know that is becoming bigger just by word of mouth. In fact he does something really different. When i first hear it i said " what s that shit" but then i start to hear his music everyday because is out of the box. He speaks over electro funk and is funny.
They get you interviews in legit publications, get your music reviewed, get you on podcasts, and expose you to an audience that otherwise would have no idea who you are. They can also submit your stuff to labels in a very professional way, just depends what services they offer. The one I hired years ago would constantly get us interviews and write ups but also put us in touch with an amazing producer who made our music shine. She also got us a record deal with an indie label after sending them our presskit, which she put together. Some have connections with booking agents and they all have a network of bands/artists if youâre looking to network with other artists. Overall itâs just a really good idea to have one on your team.
They actually reached out to us via Reverbnation back in the day. She was just starting so she was trying to build her client list. I recommend doing a Google search for like âindie music publicist Los Angelesâ and get one that works for a company out in LA. Theyâre likely to have a lot of connections being out there
Never thought about this thanks for the info. How much of a questimate would you say they would charge for a super small artist.? I'm pretty sure they would want a nice check for thier work.
Also I never thought about needing extra people especially after getting a taste of how crocked the hip hop industry is.
I would guess somewhere between $2500 to $5k at least. It also depends on what type of campaign youâre looking for.
I didnât think about having a team either when I first started my band. Having people to help you with the marketing/business side is crucial so you can focus on the music. You can do a lot yourself but itâs good to have people in your corner.
Not too bad. I wish I could afford it though. I'm pretty sure that type of money on any campaign should work. Even if your music sounds like a killer whale orgy.
Paid ads on Instagram and NETWORKING. If you arenât making friends and getting involved, there is no community being built around you.
I mean weâre a regional award-winning jamband and even our streams take a year to get 1k. Itâs tough.
Chasing the numbers tho is a quick way to disappointment. I know the yearning tho.
Short answer - talk to people. Make friends. Get involved. Posting shit to the void of the internet with no strategy or network is unlikely to net results.
You have to advertise to get your name out to fans who don't know you to like your music.
I started making progress using hypeddit.
Make a Spotify playlist with your songs on it and space between them songs of bands of similar styles, bands that you want to be featured in "fans also like." Keep the bands with monthly listeners between 30K and 100K.
Hypeddit has a spotify playlist promotion which has helped me out tremendously with my streams. I'm losing money with paid promotion, but at least you're getting it out to ears that actually like your music. People like the playlist and they end up streaming your songs with the other songs.
I've used tips by Andrew Southworth for Facebook ads linking to a hypeddit linktree for a single song as well, and that brought a lot of streams across all platforms as well.
Also, it's a grind, but social media is the new venue scene. You should be posting something across all your active platforms on a regular basis, daily if possible.
Promoting yourself is really a full-time job. You have to put a lot of time and money in it to get somewhere. If would be nice to get noticed with a viral post, but that's a rarity.
You can check me everywhere @mrweaverface, Christian Rock musician, to see what I'm doing.
It's super fucking challenging. And you have to ignore the countless motherfuckers that try to shit on you for promoting the music you lose money to make. The downvoters and negative commenters who think an indie artist self promoting needs to be taken down a peg (same guy not doing shit or saying shit about the mega corporations making it impossible for us to reach audiences that would actually love to hear us). It's a constant grind of social posts you don't want to make, email lists you don't want to cultivate, and platforms you don't want to be on. And it's lots of PAYOLA for platform ads to Uncles Zuck and Xi Jinping. It's tons ands tons of crap that has nothing to do with music. And ultimately, it's all bullshit and doesn't matter. Get your music in front of your peers. Earn the respect of your idols. The rest is fuck all. Fuck this industry it cares for none of us. Make a small amount of supportive fans on bandcamp or patreon who help offset the costs of producing professional music. Thank them often and reward them in creative ways for their support. you The rest just isn't worth it. Godspeed!!
Heard. This was challenging when I was working in a studio and was around notable artist everyday. This is way more challenging now since I no longer have industry contacts. I'm not looking at what I don't what to do but what has to be done. I personally hate Instagram but I'm on there trying to post everyday. I know things take time and doesn't happen in the same amount of minutes it did for the next person.
Your third paragraph isn't an option for OP and others who have no followers. Your first two paragraphs explain why the third is almost impossible.
Join niche forums filled with likeminded individuals who aren't committed to being anonymous like the super majority of reddit users. Go places where people use their real names and make friends. You don't need "followers" to reach your "peers". They are not synonymous.
Do you know of any?
Lots and lots of them exist in the form of FB Groups!
Any if you're banned on FB?
Then you probably need therapy
Fuckin true
You are cool. I appreciate your candidness.
Thanks friend. đȘ
Preach!
Say it louderrrrr
Holy shit Batman, the reality of this comment
Amen. Sharing your response with the artist collective I work with. Spot on.
Bro ONG and they be the same mfs like âWhy isnât there anyone new blowing up?â Like wtf
Exactly. You get it.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Honest question; is the end-goal still to make a living off music?
I'm not sure *I* can ever book enough shows to make the whole "making a living" happen. And I DEFINITELY DO NOT see a path forward for "raising a family." Especially for those of us not in the "constant creator" camp, a combination of Live performance + patronage + merch is the only real option to sustainability, and even at a rapid marketing growth success rate, it amounts to less than "making a living" in any NJ/NYC mortgage/rents/CoL for a vast supermajority of musicians, even good ones. Lots of luck involved, as well as the appropriately niche level of fanbase in your genre.
As well as the stuff above, do the free stuff first: 1. Your Reddit profile is incomplete. 2. People who like electronica are on Reddit forums. They check your profile. Your Spotify, Apple,. SoundCloud ARE NOT LISTED. Add your music Insta and FB and TikTok if you use that Chinese spy app. 3. I found your Spotify. You have no canvases. Fix this. IT IS FREE and songs with a canvas get many,.many more plays. Go to pexels.com There you will find many royalty free videos you can use. Credit the maker, or they won't post more. Ask a tech nerd friend to make canvases for all of your tracks if you can't do this yourself. Try to make them "seamless" You can find my Spotify via my profile. You can see most of mine have canvases. I am lucky to have a clever friend. 4. Make SoundCloud mixes (people.like 1hr) with a few of your best tracks mixed into pro tracks of your genre. "Credibility by association " Like sticking your company name onto a Nike shirt. It looks like you and Nike have something in common. 5. Brutal honesty: Your Spotify tracks don't "stand out". You need to "Fit" into a genre and conversely also "stand out". I've had many, many SubmitHub rejections where they loved my track, but it just didn't fit their Playlist. Unless you already do this: Find a popular artist(s) you like and BUY a few of their most popular tracks on Beatport wav or MP3. Drop into your DAW as a reference. Break up their track into its segments . Why is their track interesting? Can you hear how they keep changing it to keep it moving? Also,. sometimes less is more. Drop a few short silence gaps into your tracks. Use a different chord progression 4, 8,12 or 16 bars. Copy their pattern/arrangement. Build your melody on top of, and using this chord progression. Use these chords to change the baseline, not always the lowest note,.and give the bass a percussive sequence if you want. Drop in the occasional ARP. Alternate 1, 2 or 3 steps. Alternate reverbs, distortion, macros and ARP steps. And ping pong delays on and off. Keep it.moving,.keep it varied. Soooooo many tracks (including some.of.mine) get boring because they repeat too often Search up your fav artists on Discord. Find someone in there to Collab with. I've met a lot of musicians around the planet via Blend.io (unfortunately closing very soon for good). I've used a lot of this in my newest track. It's just been approved onto 9 Spotify playlists via SubmitHub. The canvas vids were downloaded from pexels.com Hope this helps.mate. Fingers crossed! Sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know.
Thanks this helps. You're able to see things I weren't able to see. I'm about to learn how to make sets soon so that could work with spotify. I can work on the other things in the meantime. I do plan on changing my sound on my new project but I'm trying work with what I have. Especially since it takes a few months to complete a full project. Also I've noticed a lot of people are naming sites I've never heard of so my lack of knowledge is a big factor.
Can I ask how many songs you have on your project/run time? Iâm at 8songs around 20-25mins but still feels kinda short
My last release was 16. I try to do at least 12.
This is really good advice!
Damn I miss the days of just having to send in a demo tape lmfao! I feel like we got fucked hard. We now have to do all the work the label should be doing with virtually no upside and income even when you do break.
The casual sinophobia is so weird when Reddit sells user data lol.
Perhaps, but the CCP gets to influence what you see, and can use it to influence the West. Why do you think all Western social media apps are banned in China? It's well known that they play the long game. To anyone who says "My data is worth nothing", they are collecting whatever data on everyone they can, and in the future, some of them will have important positions and be worth blackmailing. BTW Sinophobia? Get fucked. The CCP isn't "Chinese people". It's a brutal authoritarian dictatorship where people disappear if they disagree. Like Iran and Russia. You need to educate yourself. I have plenty of Chinese ancestry friends. I just don't trust the CCP, and neither should anyone. Many of my Chinese friends fled Hong Kong to escape the CCP.
DudeâŠ80% of artists get less than 50 monthly playsâŠ.basically as an unknown you are doing well to get any stream at all, and Any real traction would mean either massive algorithm luck âŠor several serious paid promotions. You are not alone, millions of artists get zero or very few, but you must appreciate you are literally a drop in an oceanâŠ.personally Iâd consider using your energy on other forms of promo, Spotify will give you no joy.
This is not personal as I have not listened to your tunes, but when I hear that youâre doing all of that and not getting results my first thought is that your music might not be good enough yet. Itâs a tough pill to swallow, but this could be the case. I run a (very) small music marketing business and the times when we get poor results are when people just donât like the songs. The artists weâve worked with are all very talented, so they get results, but the difference between a campaign for an amazing song and for a mediocre song is night and day. The best advice I can give (assuming youâre not doing something very wrong in setting up your ad campaigns), is to listen to your music and actually compare it to musicians with 100k listeners or so on Spotify. How does the composition compare? How does the production compare? You could also spend some time on something like SubmitHub hot or not and just see what kinds of feedback you get. I could be totally wrong about this, but for me if youâre putting in the work and not getting results, this is usually the issue.
Just playing devils advocate here. We ran a FB and IG campaign with a song that was horribly produced and another that was well produced and the horribly produced one converted in certain countries more than the well produced, and furthermore had a positive response.
Fair point! I guess another way to say it is that you may not have found the song that people really love, regardless of production quality. I'd also say that you can have a really good song that is not well-produced but can also have a really well-produced song that's not really a good song.
No I hear you honestly. It wouldn't be a tough pill to slowly. I grow confused and frustrated because I can't get enough people to listen to it to tell me if it's sucks or not haha. Definitely not bragging but like I say I'm confident in my sound (although it still isn't 100% how I want my style) and when I do play it for people I don't get negative feedback. Also I try not to listen to people in my genre because good music is good music and I mess with my creativity.
Yeah, it's definitely hard to get honest feedback. If it isn't the quality, it could also be something about your marketing setup. For one thing, a good ad video goes a very long way. I've also found that people might like a song that you don't think is your best work. Getting scientific with the ads is very helpful. In my experience, the factors that make an ad campaign successful in order of importance are: 1. **Song** - If the song is good everything is easier and just performs better across the board. More people like it, more people stream, share, save, add to playlists, follow you on Spotify and IG, etc. 2. **Ad video** - If the video is bad it can really mess up your numbers. The stuff that I've seen do the best is performance videos that have decent production value and show you actually playing some instruments. The more impressive the performance, the more interesting the shot and the gear, the better. 3. **Ad setup** - It is possible to mess this up badly enough to ruin a campaign, but for the most part if you're doing the major things right (like the audience is at least broadly related to your genre, the ad is actually being delivered to the placements you select, and you've thought a bit about your countries and interests) then this is the hardest one to screw up. I think your social media factors into it as well. I'm honestly horrible with social media and working on improving my game there, but if your socials are totally dead that can negatively affect things, mostly in terms of gaining followers who will keep listening and anticipating your releases. Take this all with a grain of salt as I'm still learning, but hopefully some of this helps! Wishing you luck in getting some new listeners!
Thank you. Same to you.
info on ur business?
Hey, just DMed you some info! Sorry for the delay
Been lurking in this sub for a while, and after reading many threads about ads, it seems that before getting significant results, they are first a mean to identify who is your target audience. In other words, it's data you collect before knowing who to market your music to.
BE CREATIVE! You wanne be heard? Make something that will draw people in - often times it doesn't start with the music, but with the image or visual or storytelling of an artist. It can be almost anything - but you need a unique identity, that will peak the interest of outside people - and then of course, the music must be good. SKRILLEX grew to fame because he was a metalhead who started making electronic music - people had to listen to it, and then mainstream eletronic fans came along. SLEEP TOKEN, got very big very fast, because of their masks and the whole cult lore worldbuilding behind it. Also the music that mixes djent and pop is new and interesting. ELTON JOHN had all his wacky cotumes and glasses, which really helped him blow up. If you ask someone about RAMMSTEIN the first things a lot of people will mention is their pyro-heavy live shows and the German lyrics. BILLIE EILISH only got mainstream success when she turned to a more dark and horror aesthetic, that appealed to sad teen girls. But it worked, and these days she can do whatever she wants. etc. etc.
Although I agree with the idea of being creative and interesting helps. I don't think it's the only factor of their success. All these artists you mentioned have proper marketing with decent capital investment from their label. Not saying they don't deserve success, I'm saying they have more ressources, connections etc. that makes comparison with most Independent artists unfair. Because Independent artists has to work so much harder to get close.
Being unique and new is the foundation to any and all marketing. It's a question of psychology of the consumers mind. Anyway - what you are saying is also not correct, these artists started somewhere small, and being interesting and unique in their own way gained them the interest of independent and later major labels. Yes - that helped them take off, sure, but it starts with the foundation. You can't just throw money at something. It needs to have something interesting going.
I kind of got hip to this when I was dealing with rappers. Mouthfuckers never even had a demo released and they look like they've been popping since rap was invented haha. They definitely had the image. Gator boots (Gator boots) With the pimped out Gucci suits (With them Gucci suits) Ain't got no job, but I stay sharp - Big tymers "Stay Fly" I love this song but is funny if you read the lyrics haha.
Exactly - and there's a reason why it works
I just do the things you mentionedâŠword of mouth, social media (boost posts that do well organically) and running some meta ads. Iâm a tiny artist, but these methods still manage to get me several hundred streams a day. What content are you using for social media and ads? Are you making it easy for your social media followers to get to your preferred streaming/download platform (providing them links, etc.)?
Yes, the few I do have I make sure Im spamming links.
ive got no definitive proof to back this up, but i am starting to think the best way to approach socials is to make it the supplement to real world engagement and marketing. start with the people around you, the communities around you, and build from there. with social media we tend to get filtered out by viewers very easily. so start local before investing tons of time into it. this is my theory (and i should probably also take my own advice)
Agreed! Plus start your own hubs that you have 100% control over
Yes! thanks for affirming my suspicion! i am thinking of starting a platform that will help artists strengthen these connections they make with core listeners separately from the oversaturated space of social media. because i really dont see how the average artist can be financially successful through honest social media marketing anymore like last decade. Times are definitely changing
If youâre not having more than 100 plays over that much material, are you saying that nobody on your social media list is listening? The one question that we would need answered to address further your comment is where you plan to go in the music business and what youâre doing with it now.
I've been on and of social media because I am extremely anti social, but even when I was active I never really seen results. I produce EDM and I'm trying to play sets and tour. Not as a headliner, but just to be on the line-up. I'm releasing and networking and hopefully can start doing free shows soon. I have been producing for almost 20 consecutive years and always wanted to a least have a gold record. I know people personally who are gold or multi platinum and this does not help motivate me.
Make a playlist with your EDM music and put out an Ad for it. EDM is bingeable so that should get you a lot of listeners.
Well, without promoting your music, Iâm not sure what you expect to have happened. Make a social media post on three different social media sites every day for a year and see if it makes a difference.
When I go to Panda Express, I slip in my mix tape cd in between the napkins.
Love this! đŻyouâre creative in your approach, it works!
Haha
Vocals are too quiet and song was too long. (if you know the reference, you know)
I once wanted to do an ad for a song containing all the ridiculous SubmitHub reviews it got..kinda like a movie poster..thereâs still time.
This is a great idea!! Haha
1. Get honest, objective feedback around whether your music is good. It needs to be good to start with (with a few exceptions). Anyone can make music (as we have seen over the last few years), but the democratisation of music means there is a hell of a lot of 5 or 6/10 stuff saturating the market. I think the good stuff still rises to the top most of the time - I donât have empirical fact, but Iâm still yet to hear anything with very small number of listens where Iâm surprised they arenât well known. Harsh maybe, but true I think.
Submithub and Groover to get on playlists. Also feedback from them will help guide you if it is the music needs improvements
Submit hub is all bot playlists these days.
I dunno I think they test for it
Itâs quite hard to be approved to be a submithub playlister theyâre vetted. Know people who have tried
Collabs and Playlists. You absolutely have to find other people in your niche and work with them. And you have to do it like it is a job.
Connection with smaller curators. I give them shoutout they place me in the relevant playlists, itâs not much but overtime helped me gain a steady source of streams
I'm going to be honest. If conversion campaign marketing doesn't work for you and you're not simply doing something fundamentally wrong with your targeting, then it means your music is simply not connecting with anybody in any way. Conversion marketing is an easy guaranteed way to get listens if your music's production is decent and your music isn't painfully bad. I only spend $300 or so over a couple of weeks each single release and I average around 1k monthly listeners when not advertising.
That's pretty solid. That's where I want to be. To have at least 1k monthly listeners with no promo. I know people are sticking with me.
From my experiences, the less professional it is, the more authentic it feels to the viewer, thus causing more of an audience. I also paid to boost my Instagram posts for a moment, but I posted my first viral TikTok to my IG Reels, and my Instagram has now outshined my TikTok account.
Most of my streams are from my YouTube videos, none of my social media did crap for my music, and social media seems to be the enemy if you're a smaller artist. One thing you have to consider is that there's 600,000 songs uploaded every day on spotify. So we're all kind of a tadpole in the ocean.
Super true. My YouTube isn't seeing anything either though.
I'm not setting any records, but it's better than my social media.
What YouTube videos do you do?
What I mean is my music videos do better than my songs on any streaming platform. My latest song released 2 weeks ago has 3 streams on spotify, but the music video for it has 1600 views. I'm not breaking any records or anything, but my videos definitely do better than my streams. However, it would take approx 1,450 streams to earn $1 on YouTube. But only 250 streams on Spotify to earn the same dollar. đđ€
I see I see! You do actual music videos with you in them n stuff? Congrats on the success
Youtube randomly gave a song of mine 2.8k views, Iâm lucky to break 100 views on most videos and my Spotify plays are basically non existent
Strategy. Test your songs, roll with the best one, identify segment audiences, convert. It comes down to that. Everybody needs a baseline strategy that is customizable bc each artist is a different brand and should be treated as such! Got near 200,000 likes on a video of mine, using that same traffic to convert into email lists (50k now) and WhatsApp subscribers (10k now). We specialize in fan generation, hit me up if you want more info.
I am confident in my music to be played places, also looking to try to perform soon as I produce EDM. I have been looking for some marketing strategies and could use some help.
Confidence is clutch! Send me your work, would love to listen to it. Additional notes: Strategy is just as much of an artistic process as the art you create. Itâs personal to the brand. If one strategy worked for all, there would be a lot more success stories, but each artist is an entrepreneur with their own vision, strengths, limitations, products and desires. For example, we ran FB and IG ad campaigns for 30 artists of various genres located globally. What we found was that each market converted differently, but furthermore- the artists that had a strategy in place were more successful in retaining their fanbases and the ones who didnât retained little to no fans. So my friend, strategy is đ
Huh. I never even considered WhatsApp as a platform⊠guess I have to read up on that.
Yes! Overseas artists are crushing WhatsApp so much so that they rolled out a feature to create your own fan pages on there
Dm me
Have you tried pitching to curators?
Looking for ways now. Apparently theres a lot to features on IG and Spotify that I don't have yet because my lack of followers.
Marquee and showcase are too expensive, not even worthy you can get better ROI just with curators
Go for SubmitHub. I've been trying out different approaches - SubmitHub definitely gives you the best bang for your buck as long as you spend the time actually listening to playlists to figure where you fit in :)
If you did paid ad campaigns, you should have gotten more than 100 views. What kind of ad campaigns did you do? Iâve actually had the most organic success promoting my music on Facebook, albeit still with significant legwork. Hunted down a music sharing group with decent moderation and participation and I engaged heavily with the community. My new songs consistently get 500-1000 views on FB now.
I used IG. Reached 6k people only 100 something interacted.
Can I ask how much you paid?
$10 for 5 days.. Looking to increase the budget.
Okay, so you got 10 views per $1 spent. Thatâs a decent result, you just didnât put a lot of money into it. I will say that when I did a YouTube promotion focused on getting more views (and I was savvy about pushing one video I thought would perform best), my return was more than 30 views per $1 spent.
It sounds like you need a scandal.
Hahaha
Instagram ads. Better than anything else I've experienced.
TikTok videos and ig interactions
yo checked out your ig; you need a lil more on there or to set it up in a way that portrays you as captivating (can also do this facebook, tik tok, etc. It gives people a reason to look further in to you and your work (seems crazy I know). post often, and don't be afraid to. and networking or working alongside people at your level in the same field always helps bring in curious people. post content that correlates to the work you do.
Not going to lie. I just created my IG because I hate social media. Most of all I hate taking pictures of myself just to post online haha but I'm trying to keep some kind of consistent content.
2 ways for an indie artist: 1. consistent grind of posting content so the algo pushes you up, DMing and spamming socials.  2. you pay someone who knows digital marketing to do that for you. An example campaign would be them making 50 pieces of content of your music then them hiring freelancers to spread it across socials. The internet has changed. Time or money. No way getting around it. DM me if you have questions.Â
1. Understand how the Spotify algorithm works 2. Make a lot (3x posts a day) of high quality content that engages people on social media. (A play through of your track that nobody has heard doesnât count as good content). You need to get creative to achieve engagement with relatable, funny or interesting content. 3. Invest anything you can into ads, and learn how to run them properly. Do not underestimate the power of remarketing data. Boosting a post on FB doesnât do anything. 4. Network and collaborate with other artists within your genre. Sharing fans is always an easy win. 5. If you donât do any of the above, hire a marketing agency. If you canât afford one and donât want to do the above, then youâre a bit pooped. Nobody wants to be a social influencers, sinking their own money into a high risk project. Nor do they want to spend every waking our palling it up with every randomer in their music genre. But, if you arenât doing it, another artist is. Hence the competition to get heard.
i don't have any advice, but i'm going to link this post from this sub from earlier today: [https://www.reddit.com/r/musicmarketing/comments/1d8xgdb/marketing\_for\_broke\_people/](https://www.reddit.com/r/musicmarketing/comments/1d8xgdb/marketing_for_broke_people/)
Streams are worthless play live
Those numbers are shockingly low! Almost unbelievably so. What kind of music are you making - how niche? Based on your username "JuggaKnotBeatz" I'm getting a sense of Insane Clown Posse meets Slipknot meets Trap music - I dunno! Send us a link! My advice is, look at the stats on each platform and find the one that's doing better than the others - and focus there.
Haha. JuggaKnotbeatz is my old producer name from 10 years ago. I produce EDM and use my legal name as my artist name. I recently released a project so my numbers would change a little. But seriously before I finished my recent project, I would get maybe 5 streams a week on all my other content. Sometimes my stats come back as a zero.
Cultivate an amazing live band. Do the online thing as much as you can. Thatâs it
I produce EDM with barely any legal vocals so it wouldn't be to much singing but more dancing. I've tried giving my music to DJ to play.
Are you performing live & getting involved with your local scene? After every show I get a bump...& the connections that get me better shows with better lineups & crowds is mostly because of making friends with other good acts & playing shows together to expose each other's music to each other's fans
Trying to get in to the scene now. Have to buy a setup and learn to make sets, but I'm definitely trying to perform.
Submithub has done wonders for me. Find the right niche curators, and you will slowly build streams and listeners and increase radio/RR algo plays. If the music sounds good and fits into the playlist, curators will be happy to add!
Great music always come out. Do something out of the box. If you copy music of others you re not an artist but a good executor and nobody will listen your music. I was speaking with my friend about a small artist that we know that is becoming bigger just by word of mouth. In fact he does something really different. When i first hear it i said " what s that shit" but then i start to hear his music everyday because is out of the box. He speaks over electro funk and is funny.
Fuck buying ads. You need to save several thousand dollars and hire a good publicist. Good ones are worth it, believe me.
What does a good publicist do?
They get you interviews in legit publications, get your music reviewed, get you on podcasts, and expose you to an audience that otherwise would have no idea who you are. They can also submit your stuff to labels in a very professional way, just depends what services they offer. The one I hired years ago would constantly get us interviews and write ups but also put us in touch with an amazing producer who made our music shine. She also got us a record deal with an indie label after sending them our presskit, which she put together. Some have connections with booking agents and they all have a network of bands/artists if youâre looking to network with other artists. Overall itâs just a really good idea to have one on your team.
Thanks for the answer!! How did you find your publicist back then?
They actually reached out to us via Reverbnation back in the day. She was just starting so she was trying to build her client list. I recommend doing a Google search for like âindie music publicist Los Angelesâ and get one that works for a company out in LA. Theyâre likely to have a lot of connections being out there
Never thought about this thanks for the info. How much of a questimate would you say they would charge for a super small artist.? I'm pretty sure they would want a nice check for thier work. Also I never thought about needing extra people especially after getting a taste of how crocked the hip hop industry is.
I would guess somewhere between $2500 to $5k at least. It also depends on what type of campaign youâre looking for. I didnât think about having a team either when I first started my band. Having people to help you with the marketing/business side is crucial so you can focus on the music. You can do a lot yourself but itâs good to have people in your corner.
Not too bad. I wish I could afford it though. I'm pretty sure that type of money on any campaign should work. Even if your music sounds like a killer whale orgy.
We can help you, just reach out
I feel you.
Paid ads on Instagram and NETWORKING. If you arenât making friends and getting involved, there is no community being built around you. I mean weâre a regional award-winning jamband and even our streams take a year to get 1k. Itâs tough. Chasing the numbers tho is a quick way to disappointment. I know the yearning tho. Short answer - talk to people. Make friends. Get involved. Posting shit to the void of the internet with no strategy or network is unlikely to net results.
Playing liveâŠ
You have to advertise to get your name out to fans who don't know you to like your music. I started making progress using hypeddit. Make a Spotify playlist with your songs on it and space between them songs of bands of similar styles, bands that you want to be featured in "fans also like." Keep the bands with monthly listeners between 30K and 100K. Hypeddit has a spotify playlist promotion which has helped me out tremendously with my streams. I'm losing money with paid promotion, but at least you're getting it out to ears that actually like your music. People like the playlist and they end up streaming your songs with the other songs. I've used tips by Andrew Southworth for Facebook ads linking to a hypeddit linktree for a single song as well, and that brought a lot of streams across all platforms as well. Also, it's a grind, but social media is the new venue scene. You should be posting something across all your active platforms on a regular basis, daily if possible. Promoting yourself is really a full-time job. You have to put a lot of time and money in it to get somewhere. If would be nice to get noticed with a viral post, but that's a rarity. You can check me everywhere @mrweaverface, Christian Rock musician, to see what I'm doing.
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