I’ve released a few songs on Spotify, but I’m having a hard time trying to find ways to get my music to more ears. What are some of the most effective and most creative ways to promote music? I would love any tips or tricks.
What are the best ways (paid or unpaid) to promote my music?
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3mo
fucking bot but it's a really legit looking comment I gotta give you that
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3mo
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3mo
This post is spam, or generally not relevant to this subreddit.
I've personally become completely reliant on Instagram for the vast majority of my music promotion these days. I've spent the last year and a half experimenting with various "black hat" strategies on Instagram and been gaining a pretty decent listenership through the " instainfantry" method.
The general premise of the method is that you create hundreds of identical accounts for yourself promoting your music and automate them to execute various actions like posting reels, interacting with followers of other similar artists through stories and sending them DMs to users who followers on of our "clone" accounts, imploring them to check our music.
It's super OP method because you're basically getting a crazy amount of reach on a daily basis and multiplying your chances of going viral through reels by like 100x (depending on how many of these "clones" you create). IG is difficult to grow on nowadays that you basically have no choice but to course a couple of months but if I was doing this on just one account, it would've been taken me literal years to get anywhere.
This method isn't really good if you're trying to grow just one "main" account (considering your audience will end up being split between however many of these "infantry" accounts you have running) but it's hella good if you're just trying to harness more attention for your music and don't really care about having a centralized audience on a single account.
I honestly can't wait for someone to create a tool like instainfantry for TikTok because with TikTk's level of organic reach, this method would've probably be 1000x more effective. With IG, it's just a way more of a crapshoot if you don't already have a massive audience. But if I had to choose between posting TikToks from one account by hand or posting 100 reels per day from different accounts completely automatically, I'd choose the latter any day. Way more effective on a long-term scale.
You should consider trying URC (UnstoppableRecords) A subscription based artist multi-tool that combines everything in one place.
Currently accepting applications for a closed beta, and planning a launch soon.
Interesting, but I have 2 questions. 1. What measures do you take to prevent IG banning you? Surely you'd need to vary the IP addresses, devices, etc of these hundreds of accounts? So how do you go about doing that? 2. Seems like setting up all of these hundreds of accounts and automated behaviors for each account would take a crazy amount of time. So how did this get accomplished?
You greatly overestimate how much of a shit meta gives
It just seems like hundreds or thousands of accounts with the same IP would be something that would be automatically detected and deterred. But I'm prob overestimating the developers' abilities, seeing some of the bugs that exist.
It also doesn't answer the question of how they found the time to create and manage all of these accounts regularly, esp if they had to vary IP and/or other details. Seems like something that would take a team months, at minimum.
What makes you think instainfantry runs all of its automation through a single IP address? Their automation handles what you mentioned in the second paragraph as well, it’s pretty much the core of their service.
Oh, I thought he was just referring to a method based on the way he worded it; didn't think it was a service so didn't look it up.
IMO these are the universally important factors:
Consistently release music, at least one song every 1-2 months. You are dead in the water if you don't do this. Treat every release like a special event, submit to playlists, talk to bloggers, etc.
Be actively talking to fans and potential fans on the Internet. The specifics aren't that important, just make sure that you're doing this in some form. Find out where fans of your micro genre hang out and start hanging out in those places. Respond to every single fan who messages you.
Regularly collaborate with similar artists. This can mean playing shows, doing split releases, featuring other artists on your songs, etc. Building rapport with other artists is very important.
If you make music in a genre with live appeal, then play live. Start locally, try to play out at least once per month, and, once you are drawing people besides your friends and family, start branching out to other cities near your home base.
Sell merch. Start small with buttons and stickers, maybe DIY some burnt CDs, then start thinking about shirts, hats, vinyl, etc. once you're generating revenue from your cheaper merch. Make sure that there's something tangible that people can buy and keep, even if it's just a sticker.
Make visually-appealing content. Album covers, music videos, light shows, costumes - take all of this seriously. Do a professional photoshoot so you have pro photos that you can post on all of your accounts and send to the press.
Every time someone tells you that they like your music, treat them like royalty. If someone comments on YouTube "great song", then give them an honest thank-you for checking it out. There is nothing that makes me cringe more than watching artists basically ignore people who leave nice comments or try to talk to them after shows.
This is so helpful. Thank you so much
I feel like 6 is way more crucial than I ever gave it credit for before this year. That's great advice. People want a total artistic experience but it also serves to draw people in that otherwise would scroll by.
1 is also fantastic and another thing I have recently learned. The audience wants something new to explore and you have to game the algos.
I have a question about merch tho? Is there like threshold on audience before you start? And what's the best platform to use for unique, not so run if the mill stuff like mugs and tees?
For merch I'm really just saying that you should have something physical that you can exchange for money (or give it away if you can afford to do that). Burnt CDs are great because they're cheap and will remind the person to listen to you every time they see it. I hate it when I see a band live and want to buy something, only for them to tell me "sorry, we don't have anything." At least have some stickers available!
As for platforms, I'm not the right person to answer that question, but I do encourage you to go wild with your creativity. A lot of artists rush right to putting thousands of dollars into a vinyl order, only to sell 13 copies and be left with a living room full of unsold wax. Artists with more creative solutions will always have an advantage.
Right on, thanks for the advice. Merch has felt like a minefield of sorts
You can make your own clothes and knick knack stuff like poplockets and keychains/wallets and such. People might like it and ask for one.
merch: I go with Spreadshirt, it is On Demand, you get a cut if sb orders - what is 0 if you are nobody. But you can order, I ordered 3 Tees for $70 CAD .. yeah, that's more than in 2nd hand where I am usually to be found... But ! you can wear an appealing logo (of your CD/Cover Single) .. I mean most people wear (and pay for) stuff with other brandnames on it... why not own stuff... do. not. underestimate. visual. attraction. it signals you put thought into your things, so also into your music.
I'll check them out, it sounds worth it. Thanks for that!
That’s like $23 a tee?
yup, Canadian Dollars. 1 was more than the other 2, because it's a fancy one. including shipping.
Pretty good list but I have to take issue with 2 things. First, I agree releasing every few months is a great way to promote, but if you don't you are not "...dead in the water..." That's ridiculous.
Secondly, from my first-hand experience, don't sell merch. (At least until you have a large base of fans.) Focus on giving it away as part of #7 and other giveaway opportunities. Buy branded merch that is inexpensive and that people will use. No stickers, buttons, etc. Get pens, pencils, pads of paper, cups, candy - anything that a normal person would actually want to have.
Merch is a legitimate way to make money on shows where the pay is abysmal. Investing in good merch is half of your income for a live touring act. You don’t have to spend a ton to get a good amount of quality merch. That money fills the tank to the next show.
Where can you get mercy made? Do you sell through Instagram?
You can sell merch online for free (and make profit). Sites like Teespring, Printify, and Printful allow users to design and create merch for free. They'll handle all customer support inquiries and just take a small portion of the final sale. You can also set your own price.
I think this is the best way to go about selling merch online today.
If you're going to be performing live you may want to have some physical merch on-hand to sell during and after the show.
This is really helpful! Thank you!!
You're welcome!
Have you ever got anything done by any of these companies?
There are thousands of screen printers out there. I use redbudprintco out of Austin, Tx for my shirts and I use Skinny Armadillo for koozies and hats and sticker mule for stickers. Sticker mule is constantly running deals and that’s the best “freebie” to hand out cause they are cheap.
I have merch available on my website and through my link tree on Instagram.
In my opinion it’s important to have quality designs made and buy quality shirts/hats because that’s what will sell.
How much are they?
How much are what
To use there clothing service/buy a shirt
It all depends on what you want and how many you buy.
Imagine if you could instead invest that money and effort into promoting your act? You are trading potential fans for gas money.
But merch is a form of promotion? Someone wearing your hat or shirt is advertising that someone paid you for rather than you paying for it.
It’s one of the most valuable investments a band/artist can make
Bingo. It's a 1-2 punch of income + promotion. If merch doesn't make you money, then where are you going to get an income? It's not going to come from streaming revenue.
I understand the other commenter's point, but the fact is that merch is too expensive to produce and too essential to most musicians' income to just start giving it away. If people want to give you their money, then let them give you their money. If they don't, then they probably don't want your merch for free either.
In every other industry, for every other product, merch is also called "promotional items." If you go to professional conferences you'll get bags of the stuff. It costs money to acquire customers for your product, and your product is your music, not t-shirts.
Ultimately your live show is your product. Your music is an advertisement for your live show.
You can’t make money off of the music itself unless you a) sell tons of hard copies which is next to impossible or b) have tons of streams which is extremely difficult.
Merch and pay for live shows bring in cash until one of those two things happen (if they ever do).
Having been in touring bands for 10+ years I cannot stress enough the importance of merch. It pays the bills.
Agreed, we had our first gig after 2 years. 1000km for 300€ which only covered gas cost. Merch made us 300€ profit at least (and 400€ in free food drinks and accomodations easily)
I need to know the metrics of those numbers to see if that’s viable or not.
What kinda metrics? There were 500 visitors, we sold a bunch of merch, I didn't run the numbers yet but It checked out +/- some. The 400€ in drinking and food is easy with 4 members haha
Releasing music consistently can be an album / EP per year, a song every month or two, a live album, collab, etc. Basically what I'm saying is: don't be that person who compares themselves to Radiohead and thinks that they can go 7 years between releases because that shit doesn't work if you don't already have a fanbase.
Agree on giving away cheap merch. Giving away burnt CDs is incredibly cheap and a great method of promotion.
I would probably have to quit my job if I wanted less than 5 year between album cycles for my main project. It is intense compositional work for me. Luckily I have lots of other side projects and my socials are top level branded for all of my projects so hopefully when I put out a little jam video here or there it is still building an audience for when an album is actually ready.
Do people still listen to CD's? I'm not sure I know anyone who even has a CD player.
disagree about the merch. tshirts sell, pins a little bit too. stickers are good to hand out for free to everyone you can and also to start slapping around your city. but really it’s all about playing live and networking with ppl thru that.
I actually really hate it when an artist only seems to release singles. I want to put a whole album on not just one song!
#2 is really hard. whether its DJs on stream or twitter or whatever, if you just promote your own stuff to other people, you usually get bitched at or frowned upon. the BEST option is to join a discord of more famous people, like Elimiate HQ, you suck at producing etc. that have "music share" or "self promo" or something of that nature.
Agreed you cannot be spammy. I generally recommend that people become a genuine, helpful member of a community. One method is to use your artist name as your username and have your music easily accessible on your profile, but then to just interact normally and not directly talk about your own music. I've seen that work on Reddit.
The way I am reaching out to people without sounding too spammy right now is through Instagram. I follow people that already follow similar artists to myself and then I DM the ones that follow me back about my music. I always make sure to be sincere and give them a genuine compliment and then ask for feedback on my music. Asking for feedback helps me get good advice and while also making the listener feel valuable and a part of the process. It’s great for creating community.
I did it. Your process is a lot like participating in the threads on subreddits like this one. Obviously you just have to be thick-skinned for both criticism and those people who aren't actually interested in listening to other people's music.
This is some really solid advice!
Every time someone tells you that they like your music, treat them like royalty.
I do this, even tho I am a hobbyist. If someone takes the time to like, follow, or comment, I make a special effort to thank that listener, even the record label bots get the same treatment.
Reach out to as many playlists as possible, Submithub is a great resource to submit your music. Email the top YouTube playlists in your genre.
A big upvote for this answer. I started using Submithub and I'm more than pleased.
I would like to help my so promote his music. Whats the best way to do that as a parent and not be a momager. I share it on my facebook but other than that.(O.Munyun)
Basically do what I said in the comment. Pay for playlist submissions on Submithub and reach out to big YouTube playlists via email. You’ll have to pay for these submissions obviously but it’s not that much. Allocate maybe $50 to some Submithub submissions and go from there.
in my experience promoting your music is about much more than the actual process of music promotion. when you are able to be socially well connected and people like you and want to be around you, any art you make basically promotes itself, especially if it happens to be good but honestly if youre popular enough that is not at all a requirement. if charisma and social skills don't come naturally to you (I get it, im on the autism spectrum) then that's something you might have to study and read books about (how to make friends and influence people is a classic for a reason, great starting point). just make sure everyone you know in real life knows what you're up to and what you're making.
Don’t forget about local promotion. The internet is great and all, but followers and stream counts are only part of the equation.
Play some gigs if it’s safe to do so in your area. Meet some other local musicians and get on a bill with them. Make some posters and t-shirts.
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12d
i bought some niche targeted views and it looks nice, thanks
Best?.... well if you have a few million dollars to hire and run a continuous ad campaign that will spam every media outlet there is available...... TV Radio, social media, etc.....
But until you have such wealth the advise given thus far will serve you well, it may work, or it may not.
Yes it is extremely,extremely difficult to get noticed from the million plus pieces of work/songs that are uploaded to the internet each year. Many share your frustration.
I show my music to people as I make it. From the very first draft all the way to the final product. I get feedback along the way and as it gets better they are more invested in the songs and more likely to share it once it's "done."
Building from the ground up is tough, sometimes impossible. Making connections that create relevant cross promotion opportunities is the best way to jump start things. You'll need some very good songs out there first as proof of concept showing what you can do on your own. Once you get a sizeable following that way, traditional marketing tactics will be more effective.
You sort of need to have a following to get a bigger following if that makes any sense. A bit of a Catch-22, i myself am constantly trying to improve upon.
The perfect example would be a feature. If you connect with someone more popular than you either locally or however, who has a fan base that would crossover to yours well, getting them to feature you in a song would jump start things. Now that doesn't apply to every situation. I'm just giving an example. You could also partner with a local gym to play your edm music or something. Gotta work any angle you can while being personally likeable. If you're likeable and the music is good people are more inclined to help you.
Even then it's a long grind and will likely take many, many opportunities to achieve a small amount of success.
Post screen recordings to r/FlStudio, post videos to as many Reddit groups as possible while claiming your only 12 years old and this is your first beat. Spam anything even remotely related to music while ignoring the fact that 99% of musicians NEVER hit the jackpot.
You’re a genius
Keep a consistent social media presence with updates about your music, play a lot of shows. Might be also good to check paid services like Marketing Heaven just to get some credibility and reach. That way you'll get more traction... After you have that, you should engage with the community on your socials the same way you do here, be part of the conversation, engage with fans, respond to comments, and offer exclusive content to them. Engaging with your fans will encourage them to share your music with other users. Also, you can include links to your music on social media posts so that fans can easily stream your music.
Feel like this question is asked about 3-4 times a week so you may want to hit up that search box above.
i think having a network of people is extremely important, it can start off with just friends, ask them to help you promote if they like the music, can be a simple as asking them to repost on their story. if they truly like the song, when they hang out with their friends, they’ll definitely mention it.
same thing happened to me, i have a videographer friend that helps to shoot MVs. One day he told me about some girl whom he’s helping to shoot having really great music and asked me to listen to it. It was entirely out of context, we were just talking about our lives and he suddenly just said it, and after that out of curiosity i check her music out. And this is just between me and him, imagine how many people he talked to about this girls music.
one thing i learnt is don’t be afraid to ask someone to help you promote, but don’t be too pushy about it. you could say something like “help me promote i’ll treat you a drink”. some people are pushy as hell, they expect you to help them promote like “help me promote pls pls this is my dream” and it quickly becomes quite a turn off.
oh and also, as controversial as it might be, tiktok is a really great way to promote your music. although it’s pretty much a gamble whether you land on the fyp, but there’s quite a lot of people that start off their careers from tiktok.
the thing about tiktok is that it caters to all age groups. there are millennials, baby boomers, gen x, y and z. as much as some people hate it, there’s no doubt that it’s taken a huge part of most peoples lives, and it takes way less effort in making. a short and memorable 15s tiktok can garner you way more traction than a 10-15min youtube video. record labels and talent finders are also using tiktok to find potential candidates.
as harsh as it is, in a digital age, gaining traction online is more important than doing it live ( of course you must still do live to garner real and genuine feedback )
The problem with TikTok is they disable the option to promote your video through ads due to detected audio copyright infringement, even if it's your own music, whether you added the music into your video before uploading, or created a video using the track in your Music tab on your TikTok profile. It's a major issue with TikTok that other platforms such as Instagram, Facebook or YouTube don't have.
live performance
Live streaming is a great way to promote too. It's cheap and easy and can reach a lot of new people.
I don't think this is the answer anymore. Certainly used to be the case when pressing cds/cassettes was expensive and you had to mail them to everyone or physically give them out/sell them.
I believe in today's climate you can now build an audience that will then support a touring effort. Spend that time focusing on writing, recording, promoting. Live gigging is a tough road.
Given i only had like 6 or 7 but one show with maybe 30 heads got me up to 18
Did a show a month ago and doubled my monthly listeners on spotify
As an amateur musician and totally sub par game developer, there's a sweet spot in releasing music packs, and especially giving developers (and video creators) free music.
Consider just one game or YouTube video which has your music does really well, and your track gets to more ears than most people's entire music catalog.
I know it's not always well received to say give your music away for free. But reality is that's how some people get very well known in the creator circles and that's one step away from making decent income.
I know this is a two year old post but wanted to know how the game development world is treating you these days?
I know this is a two year old post but wanted to know how the game development world is treating you these days?
Blast from the past! I got to release my game since then. It went way better than I expected, I should really put some more work into it.
There's so many ways to do this, best is what works for you. For me social media has been king for the last 10 years.
The Key is knowing and targeting your market before promoting.
How do I find that community though?
Which community are you talking about?
Like a community of people. From what I’ve seen there isn’t a place where I can just find a huge community of people who are really engaged with music online
Any social media platform will reveal this. Type in a hashtag (music genre related). Pay attention to the people that are replying.
Pay attention to any producer or artist that makes the same or similar genre of music that you do and look at their engagement.
Tap into Facebook groups centered around specific genres of music.
From there you have to connect with the people, that's how you'll build your own community out of a market that will engage with your music.
idk man, it's an impossible game. i just try to make good shit, lol.
It's not impossible - it just takes money, effort, and some luck. Success favors those who win the battle of perception.
Yep
Play live
Try to sit in a dark room in silence, that's the shit
First worry about making good music before worrying about how to get ears listening to your average/below average music (not saying that's you I have no idea but 90% of people try promoting shit wayyyy too soon.)
Upload your stuff in various places if you feel the need, so at least you kind of have a portfolio so to speak. But if your music isn't the best that it can be why waste time on promotion? Stop trying to play the game and focus on what matters. The game doesn't matter, it will never matter. Why you make music matters and if you prioritize fame over making good music you will fail 99% of the time.
yeah, you should start promoting once you reach like 10,000 listeners in an organic way
Ummh... How the hell would anyone reach 10000 listeners without promoting what they produce in any way?
Making good music, applying to playlist and being selected, being consistent with your releases
that’s promoting
As sort of a precursor to all the great advice here, pass the tunes to your friends who are into the same music as you are making. If they aren’t overly excited about it, it might be a little early to be worrying about how to promote it.
play shows
Music videos, social media posts, multimedia collaborations with other artists who will cross promote your shiz.
I find the tips we get on this topic amusing, because there's things that people I've represented just won't do, and things that I just won't do, and stuff we can't afford to do for a while since the project put us so much in the red so far – and we're not then gonna call it a day just for not trying to hit every potential source of promotion.
Youtube can be monetized, and the nice thing about youtube's algorithms is that it will push your content without you paying for advertising once you get enough views/traffic. Music Industry How To has a free ebook with some basics on setting it up, and other marketing tips
Well, for me, social media and connections are considerable ways to promote your music. Target your audience, do live shows, and collabs with other artists as well will do.
remember it's an art, and treat it as such.
Best way to promote your music is contact creators on tiktok and instagram to use your music in his videos , then you can see a good results , good luck
Whatever you do, DON'T USE SOUND CAMPAIGN!!!
True
Search through previous posts on this sub. You wont have to scroll far.
I own an Instagram page that I get a lot of engagement, like on the regular I get like 20k views per post, I edit videos with songs so if you are interested I can add your song to my edit and post, but it’s a paid promotion so you’d just need to pay something little to promote your songs, it would get you more recognition and more people would likely stream your song
Ayo, if you don't mind, some day could we discuss that opportunity? When I get the money of course!
Of course you can dm me on Instagram @tales_of_bana So I’d be expecting you to text me
Allright, alright! lets me honest to each other and directly pass the useless ''best music promotion tactics which include playlistings, google ads, collab with other artist... BLA BLA BLA
Trust me, I've been in the indie music game for years, and I've seen it all when it comes to promotion. But nothing has come close to the results I've seen with SpotifyPanel.com. I know, I know, it sounds sketchy, like some bot-driven scheme, but hear me out. Their methods might seem unconventional, but they're all about getting your music in front of the right ears. And let me tell you, it works. My monthly listeners skyrocketed, and I even got featured on some major playlists.
on the other hand everyone know that biggest record labels use their bot plays etching as well. Then why we have to spend our money to useless other tactics.
Take your own risk and Give it a shot, you won't regret it I believe
Post your music on my new reddit channel PromoBarryTmusic and on my new website. Link on channel
Just add a link to your music on everything you post on the internet.
You need to hire a promoter who works in the genre of music that you perform. It will cost thousand dollars for a good one. You might also see if a college or university near you has a music marketing program and find a student who is excited about the possibility of working with you.
https://www.instagram.com/damiankeyes1/?hl=en Maybe check out this guy on ista ,its pretty all his content is about , sure will find something related of use , he has youtube too.
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1.3y
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8mo
This submission has been removed. Music can only be posted in the most recently weekly Promotion thread or the most recent bi-weekly Feedback thread. If you want someone to listen to your music and tell you about it, it belongs in the Feedback thread. Do not post this content outside of the weekly threads.
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Use this new site! You can livestream and play your own music, every viewer in your livestream will count as a stream and you get paid! siki
@izabellaband Instagram go and check!!!
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