What music promo actually works?

try famegrowers, worked well for me

Yeah I don't really like running ads and most If not all ads I see for music on socials are pretty cringe. Especially the ads where the artists are like "Hey my name is... and this is my new song!" Or worse they tell you about the song Without actually playing it. Like why do you want people to listen to your music cause you told them to... atleast just promote a short audio teaser of the song itself Without you talking about it and if your song really is decent people will check it out.

I do think pitching to Spotify is worth it but none of my music has been selected before and I didn't expect it to because I don't think the production itself was up to par.

BUT I love submithub. I have had a lot of success from the indie folk planlist. Like probably 80% of my streams come from them and I'd say the playlist on submit are definitely genuine. If there are fake streams you'd be paying for it. And also keep in mind that most people don't follow artists or save songs until its repeated a few times when listening to a playlist and then they finally decided to save it or check out the artist.

This is all just my perspective and from my little bit of experience.

SubmtiHub founder here. The platform can be difficult to get approvals on - I won't debate that. One strategy is to target those who have higher approval rates, but the higher the rate typically the lower the engagement.

The streams are real, and so are the followers. We put a ton of effort into vetting our playlisters - both when they apply, and once they're already on the platform. We've become pretty good at identifying sketchy playlists and activity, and when we're not certain we err on the side of caution by not letting them on SubmitHub <3

I do not have a large sample of people, but since I started making music I've looked both at my past (when I was not a creator, but just someone who loved listening to it) as well as asked other people how they discover music.

In no particular order, here's where (I believe) the average person gets their music:

• radio (not really common for younger folk)
• algorithm suggestion (letting Apple Music, Spotify choose the next song)
• targeted algorithm suggestion (asking Apple Music, Spotify, etc. to list artists or songs similar to a selected artist or song)
• recommendations from friends
• music used in film, games, or as background for YT vids
• searching for a genre, and playing a recommended playlist on a music streaming service

Those are guarded by algorithms which do not care to discover new music (they'll always offer up new tracks by established and well-liked artists than a new track by an artist which has only a handful of listeners).

They're also heavily guarded by the music industry wherever they can exert their power. Nobody browses the CD's in a music store anymore, but back when that was popular, the recording industry and distributors and such held a lot of power.

So it would seem an impossible task. You have music. You know there are potential fans out there. The fans are already fulfilling their music-listening needs through the above, and aren't in the habit of clicking a link just for the promise of new music.

Then it is reasonable to conclude that offering links, whether through an advert or twitter or whatever, is not going to be that successful. People only click to experience the full offering when it's something they are not yet 'full' on.

I've only recently started making music and have not started promoting anything really. So take everything I say with a large pinch of salt.

But heres my 2c:

Do a live performance. People still like the experience of live music production. Even if its live from your basement! But make the visual component interesting.

Put out content where the music is only a part of it. Make a music video, for example.

Lets say you go on holiday somewhere. If you can do a decent job setting pictures you took there, and video to your music then that could be something people will watch. Don't do it as a music video, or as something official under your artist label. You can just do it personally, and let people know you composed the music for it - with a link to the song.

Do cross-promotion between your hobbies. I do photography and I think at some point I'll take the music I make and the photos I take and see what I can do. Maybe I decide to do a timelapse of something set to music...

Basically just make your music a part of all the other things you're doing. Not in a loud outspoken way, but just there so people hear it.

Making a lot of new friends on social media helps, I got most of my sales through followers and then posting consistently, like a song every week. To work around the Spotify algorithm, you could release a song every week. "Waterfall strategy" is it called: instead of releasing a full album in one go, musicians release singles every week or so, and then post the full album. Creating a waterfall of releases, which pleases the algorithm.

I never ran ads, I think it is a waste of money as I never clicked on an ad myself.

Getting reviews in magazines or websites that are in your niche is key in gaining much more attention.

TikTok might work, it is better than Youtube which is saturated.

Getting a sync is the best, as you can earn a lot of money through having a sync license.

That is all I know from experience.

Would love to hear more suggestions!

Publicist weighing in to say that I love the idea of submit hub as someone who writes for blogs and has done playlists in the past, but from an artist standpoint it is really really hard to get any real traction there. It's why people either hire publicists or spend years developing their own press network (which you can and should do regardless of if you hire someone at some point).
Beyond that, it really is networking. There's never going to be any shortage of new trends to hop on but the thing that I really believe moves the needle the most is the people you meet. If you have 5 hours a week to spend on promoting your music, I'd spend 4 of it on building your relationships.

Hey! There is a workaround to connect with playlist curators directly, searching for keywords that really matches your music. I have used PlaylistCrunch.com in the past and manage to place my artists songs on a couple of playlists that are still delivering streams one year after the placement. Hope it helps.

Your music could just be bad? Can you share with us some stuff you’re trying to market?

Playing live

Having great music is the first one. Most successful artists only release a very small percentage of the songs they write, and they typically don't self-select, they refer to trusted peers or friends to tell them which songs are good enough. It's more or less impossible for promotion to make a mediocre song successful.

I feel like a lot of artists just don't hear enough bad music to realise what people listen to on a regular basis is something like the best 0.0001% of music ever written.

Then, having an active social media following is important. There has to be a reason for people to believe in you or follow you. Most artists develop their following around playing live, but there are many other ways to "be an interesting person on the internet."

Finally, once you have both, your releases will benefit enormously from promotion. Just keep writing new music and grinding out whatever it is you're doing to get followers.

But yeah, don't spend money on promo until you already have a few hundred monthly listeners on Spotify, and even then only if you've taken a digital marketing course.

being an interesting and active person and having good music on the side

https://www.yougrowpromo.com

Just making community everywhere, including here o reddit, post your progress when you work on certain things for promo materials, post questions on forums. Also

BIG one, promo on video games you play, you'll get some haters but you'll also get a lot of love.

You can certainly make a living off your music in 2024 even if you're not viral! This interview with music manager of the underground Chris Jacks, I think breaks it down nicely
https://youtu.be/XZPaTAXFod4?si=_ml5reLkdFrvNsXo

Post your music on my new reddit channel PromoBarryTmusic and on my new website. Link on channel

Post your music on my new reddit channel PromoBarryTmusic and on my new website. Link on channel

I had a lot of success with creating my own Spotify playlists. As a result, in the past two months, I generated about 8k streams. For YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, etc., gaining followers and views was crucial for my music promotion. So, my recommendation is to build a strong online presence and grow your accounts. I used Marketing Heaven for that. There's always huge competition in the music industry and you need to establish a strong presence on every social media to create a chase for your music to be heard. That way you'll be also recognised by the algorithm.

Making good music and playing it live.

If you’re interested in learning some of our success stories and the strategies behind them please dm me - I run a digital music marketing company

Can you advise a good promotion service for metal music?

This is a freestyle from my bro, UK Music - https://youtube.com/@BarrzDaBarbarian?si=zE_sXy85QDQ4FRJd

Anybody have experience with music promo today??

Some people love Submithub and others don't. I'm in the latter. I don't write music with hooks right at the beginning. Some may disagree with that assertion (including the founder of Submithub) but you only get 60 to 90 seconds of the curator's attention per submission so you decide if what I say is true. If you don't have marketing experience then running ads will most likely be a waste of money and effort. I have had marketers on Reddit here say exactly that. Learn marketing and then do it. Maybe. Because of the scrolling culture of Instagram I have seen no evidence that it actually works as good as some say. I have had so many people tell me that if they run across an act they like they don't go beyond the song that's right if front of them. When you're just starting out or an unknown, setting a release date really means nothing. Jesse Cannon has said that many times. He is the only promo person I take any stock in. There are things you can do to break and no one method works for everyone. I still believe a lot has to do with the old, being in the right place at the right time.

Tik-Tok promotion works the best
here you can buy $15/clip any amount clips from real creators instead of buying them for $50/clip
https://nextupcreators.us/product/tiktok

We recently released our debut album 'Chosen Obeyed Forgotten' along with a music video :) I encourage you to check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYLlFUQgVcg&ab_channel=Sundayat9

https://youtu.be/Ae77g1_MOVU?si=jMUgcykP8oaS5mkd