By now you’ve likely heard of Spotify Discovery Mode. It’s a relatively new feature, still in beta, that provides more algorithmic exposure for your music. The tracks you opt in will appear more often in two specific contexts: Radio — Algorithmically generated playlists based on any artist, album, or songAutoplay — When a listener reaches…
I’ve been growing my Spotify audience with Facebook and Instagram ads for years. Facebook Ads Manager is pinned in my browser and I check it multiple times a day, sometimes obsessively. I know my way around, but it’s not exactly intuitive. There’s definitely a learning curve, and the platform is constantly evolving. What if there…
Last August, I took Spotify playlist pitching into my own hands using a service called OKTIV.IO (read the gory details here). My efforts resulted in 16 playlist adds, 2K+ streams, and a monster spreadsheet of leads. I deemed the effort worthwhile, but way too much to take on with every release. A new service called…
Playlist Push is a platform that connects independent artists to Spotify playlist curators, boasting over 4000 playlists. It’s a premium service at a premium price, basically a rich man’s SubmitHub or Groover. I first reviewed Playlist Push back in November of 2017 and my results were pretty meh. I gave them another shot in May…
Groover is an online platform that connects artists with playlist curators, blogs, labels, and other music professionals. I mean, you’re not just going to shotgun out cold emails, right? RIGHT? 😅 It’s a lot like SubmitHub, which I last wrote about in 2020, but I’ll save a direct comparison for the end of the post….
I’ve always been skeptical of cryptocurrency. Still am. Early last year when NFTs were at max hype, I sent out an email blast to my fans declaring: I never got around to creating NFTs, and I doubt I ever will. It would by necessity drag you into the crypto space, and I’m convinced that’s not…
Last May I said I’d pick Spotify Marquee over Facebook Ads. Now I’m not so sure. With 28 Marquee campaigns under my belt, I’ve got a lot more data to draw conclusions from. I’ll share all the important metrics and compare them to my current Facebook Ads campaign below. For a detailed explanation of what…
When it comes to Spotify promotion, I’ve tried just about everything short of billboard ads. Here’s a quick and dirty list of ways to promote your music on Spotify, with links to my posts on each topic: You can use Spotify’s own tools, like Marquee and Spotify Ad Studio. You can direct potential fans to…
I’ve been running a Spotify growth campaign through Rise since May of 2021, to the tune of $225 per month. Yessirree, that’s a lot of money! Nearly $4K to date. I first mentioned Rise in this post from September 2021, and have been promising a review ever since. Why the delay? They’ve revamped things significantly…
I last wrote about Spotify playlist pitching back in January, when I detailed my campaign with Playlist Blaster. I’m still getting thousands of streams per month from those placements! As much as I’d love to hire them again, I’m not made of money. So I decided to pitch my single “Crystal” the old-fashioned way: reaching…
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…
Did you know that each time your song is streamed, it generates a mechanical royalty that is not paid through your distributor? You need a publishing administrator like Songtrust to collect it. For a $100 setup fee and 15% commission, Songtrust will help you sign up with a PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, IMRO, etc) if you’re…
I don’t talk about YouTube much, but it’s my top priority right behind Spotify. Most of my videos consist of music over static cover art, yet I’ve managed to accrue 15.2K subscribers, and I add another 250 or so every month. Still, I’m no expert. Over years of tinkering, I’ve landed on an ad campaign…
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…
Tunespeak is a loyalty platform for musicians where fans earn points by performing various actions like streaming tracks, watching videos, and referring friends. Those points serve as entries in a raffle. The more points a fan accumulates, the better their chances of winning a prize. I reached out to Chris Rhein, the Head of Artist…
I haven’t had much luck with influencer marketing, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying! Since writing about Breakr earlier this year, I’ve done some cheap influencer campaigns on SubmitHub. None of them moved the needle in any measureable way, but my experiences have all been positive. When the SpaceLoud team reached out and offered…
Until recently, I only dabbled in influencer marketing. It seemed promising but daunting. To do it right, I’d need to research influencers across multiple platforms and determine which ones align with my brand. Then I’d have to figure out how to reach them. A cold DM? Comment spam? Next comes the really awkward part: negotiating…
Email is my #1 promotion tool. Always has been. I’d been using FanBridge since 2012, but it didn’t integrate with the WooCommerce shop I added to my site earlier this year. Mailchimp did. Moving all of my FanBridge subscribers to Mailchimp would’ve cost me $99/month, so I chose to maintain two accounts: FanBridge for “fans”…
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….
Three weeks ago, I received the following email from SoundCloud with the subject line “You’re invited to an exclusive promotional opportunity.” I immediately created a campaign to promote the opener from my new album: As it currently stands, creating a campaign is relatively straightforward, though the option to choose between simple and advanced targeting is…
You’ll recall from my last installment that streams don’t equal fans. Two campaigns yielded 180K streams, with no obvious boost in followers. Keep those results in mind as we break down my two Spotify PR campaigns with Midnite Blaster, which should ring a bell if you read my article on SoundCloud promotion. Vicky Edward, who…
That's all, folks!
That's all, folks!