You’ve got a new song and you want people to hear it. Despite all the iOS tracking changes, I still think Facebook and Instagram ads to Spotify are your best bet. For an overview, check out my post on Facebook Ads for Spotify Best Practices. I’m going to tackle a very specific problem here. Are…
I’ve written about Facebook and Instagram ads for Spotify many times, like here, here, and this one from April of 2018 where I noted that I’d spent $5888.35 on Facebook ads to date. Three years later, it’s $20,614.84. While there are still useful angles to explore in those older articles, this post supersedes them. Not…
UPDATE: I’m doing things differently now! There are still some great pointers here, but don’t miss my latest post on the subject, Facebook Ads for Spotify Best Practices. As of today, I’ve spent $5888.35 on Facebook ads. Does that make me an expert? No way! Promoting music on Facebook, and Instagram through Facebook Ads, is…
I recently explained my strategy for choosing the 22 Spotify countries I typically promote to Now minus one evil empire, it’s 21. Those countries were chosen with the express goal of growing my audience on Spotify. If I were planning a tour (I don’t perform, but hypothetically) I’d make different selections. Similarly, if I wanted…
UPDATE: I’m doing things differently now! There are still some great pointers here, but don’t miss my latest post on the subject, Facebook Ads for Spotify Best Practices. If you were wondering how I found your work, it was through Spotify. I was looking for vocal synthwave playlists. Yours had the most followers and I…
You may have noticed that whenever you schedule a video release on YouTube or Facebook, you have the option of making it a premiere. In the spirit of “why not?” I tested the feature out on both platforms to determine the premiére premiere-er. The winner, in my mind, was cliére (I’ll stop). The idea is…
UPDATE: Be sure to check out my latest post on Spotify Ad Studio here! I’ve been looking for ways to boost my Spotify streams. What could be better than advertising directly on Spotify with an audio ad? That way people will hear my music without needing to click on anything first. And if they hear…
This changes everything. Over the course of many posts, we’ve established that I can get potential fans from Facebook and Instagram to my latest release on Spotify for about $0.20. Today I’m going to make a case for paying $0.50 to do the same thing from within the Spotify app instead. Let me back up……
How do I promote my music to streaming? You’d be forgiven if you thought it was 100% Facebook and Instagram ads to Spotify. I’ve written about Facebook Ads many times, and they’ve become my most popular posts. The biggest challenge is getting potential listeners off Facebook and Instagram and over to Spotify. Wouldn’t it be…
In our last installment, I detailed a process to evenly distribute your Facebook and Instagram advertising budget across Spotify countries by splitting them into tiers. But what if you’d rather focus on only the countries most receptive to your music? I had an idea to do just that, and so far it’s worked out pretty…
I’ve been releasing a new track every 4-6 weeks for some time now, and I daresay I’ve got it down to a science. I upload the track to DistroKid a month or so before release, then work my way through the checklist below. Many of the items won’t apply to you, but they’re sure to…
I gave up on Spotify playlist pitching services. They just aren’t worth it. First off, there’s the risk of bots, which could get you booted off Spotify. Every service denies using them, but what human would choose to listen to unthemed collections of random songs by unknown artists? And yet there they are, sometimes with…
Matt Mancid and I just released an album of 80s covers that we’ve worked on since 2013. As much as we would’ve loved pressing CDs or even vinyl, paying the rights for 1000 CDs doubles the cost. We would’ve absolutely, positively lost money. So we released it digitally in two flavors: a 12-track standard edition…
It’s been four months since my last post. Sorry about that! My new album of 80s covers with Matt Mancid has been keeping me busy, among other things. On the promotional front, I’ve got plenty of irons on the fire, including three big reviews in progress. I share all the details in my How I’m…
Strangers routinely hit me up in my DMs with overly broad questions like, “I’ve got a new song coming out. How should I promote it?” I’d generally just refer them to my blog, where they wouldn’t find a dedicated answer to that question. UNTIL NOW. It obviously depends on the budget. And to be honest,…
Way back in 2001, my song “Ponytail Girl” spread like wildfire on Napster, mislabeled as an unreleased Depeche Mode b-side. Turning lemons into lemonade, I used the incident as the basis for a tribute album to the band. It quickly became my top seller, and the initial CD pressing sold out. Not wanting to become…
Seven months ago, I added a WooCommerce shop to my site for a free CD offer, which I discussed here and here. It ran from May through the beginning of August, netting $3249, which I used to press 1000 copies of each of my last two albums on CD. At the end of September, I…
In my last installment, I detailed the mechanics of my free + s/h funnel. If “free + s/h funnel” is gibberish to you, you can get yourself up to speed here. When I started, I had eight titles available on CD. Now I’m down to five, with less than 20 copies of the two I’d…
Why would anyone buy a CD in 2020? Let me count the ways: Getting stuff in the mail is fun Superior sound quality The artwork, lyrics, and liner notes It has value as a collectible, especially when autographed To support the artist! I first heard about the “free + s/h funnel” through Chris Robley, who…
It’s been over two years since I wrote How To Promote Your Music with Facebook Ads, and it’s still one of the most popular articles on the site. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’m still learning! The truth is, the platform is constantly evolving, along with the Ads Manager interface. It’s hard to…
In March of 2016, I published what quickly became my most popular post: These 59 Music Blogs Will Listen to Your Song, Guaranteed. Four years later it’s up to 1100+, and also includes radio stations, YouTube and Twitch channels, Spotify playlisters, and Instagram influencers. Jason Grishkoff, the founder of SubmitHub, walked me through the submission…
Your new music video cost $2000 to make. One week after its YouTube premiere, it has 134 views. What to do? You could share the link on your socials for the seventh time, at the risk of annoying your friends and family. But even if they click through, the lack of social proof is unconvincing….
John Gold, founder of Hypeddit, recently published a course called Fans on Demand Formula, promising a thousand new fans in one week. I put it to the test! Well, kinda sorta. I took three weeks, and experimented with different audiences more than any sane person would dare. But hey, I completed the training and am…
Spotify launched their Ad Studio platform early last year. I was giddy with excitement. For the first time, I could make potential fans hear my music. If they liked it enough to click through, my entire catalog was at their fingertips, AND I’d earn royalties on every play. Maybe I’d even earn enough to pay…
That's all, folks!
That's all, folks!