Three months of no posts! I’m sorry. But I’ve got a good excuse… Earlier this month I released my 13th studio album, Underneath These Dying Stars. I’ve got a lot to share with you, but I thought I’d start with something relatively painless and uncontroversial. When’s the last time you sat down and actively listened…
Over the years I’ve managed to rack up over 17K subscribers to my YouTube channel despite only having a couple of “real” videos. Sure, I could take my phone to the beach and lipsync. But I won’t. I’ve spent my entire adult life learning how to play the piano, sing, write songs, arrange, mix and…
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…
Unless you’ve been avoiding social media (good for you), you’ve likely heard of ChatGPT, a conversational AI that’s currently free to test. It does a lot of things really well, and some things quite poorly. It’s a consummate bullshitter who will readily and unapologetically admit to being wrong. Can it write lyrics? You betcha. For…
Last weekend, I had some time on my hands. My wife was in Vegas for a soccer tournament, my daughter was at UCLA for a Model United Nations conference, and my son was at UCI where he always is. So I went out drinking. Haha, no I didn’t. I stayed home and worked on expanding…
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…
No doubt you seen AI-produced images popping up all over social media. One such AI is DALL-E, credited with creating the world’s first AI magazine cover. The one I’ve heard the most about is Midjourney, and the beta is now open to all! Over the past couple of days, I’ve had a ton of fun…
A How I’m Promoting My Music This Month email subscriber recently asked: I would personally be really interested in an overview post of where you are at and what you are trying to achieve with your promotion. Both in terms of fans, reach, impact and financial side – I’d love to understand the big picture…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A little over a year ago, I released an updated version of my Depeche Mode tribute album with three new tracks. I detailed my attempts to sell the CD to strangers on Facebook here. When the dust settled, I still had over 700 of them in my garage. The tribute has always been the best…
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…
That's all, folks!
That's all, folks!