How people promoting their songs

[eskojramo]

Hello

I just wondering whatkind of methods are the easiest and most common ways to get people to find your music on the internet? I just released songs and album throught the Distrokid and thought there are listeners atleast from Spotify and Apple Music. Nothing was happened and I think people just cant find my music..? I understand if it is so worse music that people are just not interesting that, but I can see the stats that no one havent even click those. So I wonder what is the easiest way promoting those, that I am there??

[john]

10 hours ago, eskojramo said:

Hello

I just wondering whatkind of methods are the easiest and most common ways to get people to find your music on the internet? I just released songs and album throught the Distrokid and thought there are listeners atleast from Spotify and Apple Music. Nothing was happened and I think people just cant find my music..? I understand if it is so worse music that people are just not interesting that, but I can see the stats that no one havent even click those. So I wonder what is the easiest way promoting those, that I am there??

 

It’s a common issue. It’s very easy to fall foul of the “if my music is any good it will take off” and the equally wrong “if my music doesn’t take off it can’t be any good”.

 

Don’t get me wrong, there are circumstances this is true but they can’t like it if they never hear it.

 

You are right, discovery does play a part, an important part, but it is still just a part.

 

For a start, what about starting with previous listeners? More to the point, what about starting with previous fans?

 

Each of these groupings contains separate and distinct audiences.
 

• The largest grouping being those who have never heard of you.
  • This group contains the most distinct audiences
• Closely followed by those who have never heard you
• Then those have heard you but are not regular listeners
• Those who are regular listeners
• Fans
• The smallest being Super fans
  • This group contains the least distinct audiences

When you release music, start with the bottom as they are the easiest to target. As a new artist you won’t have super fans, fans or regular listeners… save a very small number who are drawn from your initial audiences of family and friends, possibly acquaintances.

 

There comes a point for every artist when they stop focusing on family, friends and acquaintances, and using that bias base as the guiding factor, the target audience. Generally the sooner the cut that dependence the better. For most artists the largest response from this grouping is at or not long after initial launch. Thereafter this audience starts to diminish, though sometimes it can produce a small group of very loyal fans.

 

So where are you at? Are you a new artist? Do you have fans? Listeners? Have people heard of you?

 

Equally, have you defined target audiences at any of these levels?

 

Easy?

 

It doesn’t need to be rocket science and heavy analytics. Equally if you don’t want to be wasting your limited promo budget (even if that budget is time alone), then you can’t easily avoid all the science and all the analytics. At least, it is a path where you can very easily guess the conclusion.

 

So, as I say, where are you at?

 

[eskojramo]

On 5/14/2023 at 12:56 AM, john said:

 

It’s a common issue. It’s very easy to fall foul of the “if my music is any good it will take off” and the equally wrong “if my music doesn’t take off it can’t be any good”.

 

Don’t get me wrong, there are circumstances this is true but they can’t like it if they never hear it.

 

You are right, discovery does play a part, an important part, but it is still just a part.

 

For a start, what about starting with previous listeners? More to the point, what about starting with previous fans?

 

Each of these groupings contains separate and distinct audiences.
 

• The largest grouping being those who have never heard of you.
  • This group contains the most distinct audiences
• Closely followed by those who have never heard you
• Then those have heard you but are not regular listeners
• Those who are regular listeners
• Fans
• The smallest being Super fans
  • This group contains the least distinct audiences

When you release music, start with the bottom as they are the easiest to target. As a new artist you won’t have super fans, fans or regular listeners… save a very small number who are drawn from your initial audiences of family and friends, possibly acquaintances.

 

There comes a point for every artist when they stop focusing on family, friends and acquaintances, and using that bias base as the guiding factor, the target audience. Generally the sooner the cut that dependence the better. For most artists the largest response from this grouping is at or not long after initial launch. Thereafter this audience starts to diminish, though sometimes it can produce a small group of very loyal fans.

 

So where are you at? Are you a new artist? Do you have fans? Listeners? Have people heard of you?

 

Equally, have you defined target audiences at any of these levels?

 

Easy?

 

It doesn’t need to be rocket science and heavy analytics. Equally if you don’t want to be wasting your limited promo budget (even if that budget is time alone), then you can’t easily avoid all the science and all the analytics. At least, it is a path where you can very easily guess the conclusion.

 

So, as I say, where are you at?

 

I have promoting my songs only my family and friends because I dont know how to meet larger listeners find my music? I have any knowledge of social media so Im in stuck promoting listeners even find my songs. I used distrokid and songs are every listening platforms but very few listeners found my songs if I check the status..

[Machine Man]

It’s really hard getting your music heard. You could try to hire sone Spotify promoters to pitch your song to playlist curators. Just be careful, there are a lot og scammers out there that will put it on botted lists. You can also pitch it to curators yourself on submitlink for instace. Good luck

[john]

On 5/20/2023 at 12:12 PM, eskojramo said:

I have promoting my songs only my family and friends because I dont know how to meet larger listeners find my music? I have any knowledge of social media so Im in stuck promoting listeners even find my songs. I used distrokid and songs are every listening platforms but very few listeners found my songs if I check the status..

 

You need to set your sights beyond friends and family. Most will like you, but that doesn’t mean they are real fans of your music, so they behave differently. Motivating them to spread your music only really works if they are in touch with your target audiences. Better to lean heavily on the few that you know ARE in contact with that audience…. And use the benefits, leverage their effort to make actual fans from people you don’t know and learn how to motivate those people to help.

 

• Who are your target audience. Write down profiles. Include who they listen to.
• Where do you find these people?
• How do YOU reach those people and put your music in front of them.

[john]

1 hour ago, Machine Man said:

It’s really hard getting your music heard. You could try to hire sone Spotify promoters to pitch your song to playlist curators. Just be careful, there are a lot og scammers out there that will put it on botted lists. You can also pitch it to curators yourself on submitlink for instace. Good luck

 

i think there is some homework to be done first on target audiences and reaching them. Know what you are paying someone else to do before you pay them to do it. Learn by hard work. There are no quick fixes, just ways to lose a lot of money!

[Machine Man]

18 minutes ago, john said:

 

i think there is some homework to be done first on target audiences and reaching them. Know what you are paying someone else to do before you pay them to do it. Learn by hard work. There are no quick fixes, just ways to lose a lot of money!

Very true. I’ve tried quite a few ways to loose money.👍🏻 Trial and error.

[john]

15 minutes ago, Machine Man said:

Very true. I’ve tried quite a few ways to loose money.👍🏻 Trial and error.

Learned experience is definitely the best teacher. Notice the emphasis on learned and teacher. Without learning we might as well burn our money and our time. Yet artist after artist keeps repeating what is already not working and then become disillusioned and sometimes bitter.

 

• First we have to learn how to get attention
  • We fine tune that by getting attention from the right people
• Then we have to learn how to keep attention
  • We fine tune that by creating an audience hungry for attention
• Then we have to learn how to direct attention. We have to learn how to give them something to do and engage them fully
  • We fine tune by asking them to do something and they do it
    • Share a post, leave a comment, play a song, buy an EP, share this post etc.

[HoboSage]

Seriously?  There is nothing in your post  - and nothing in your profile here at Songstuff - that even has a link to your music on Spotify or Apple Music.  Can you even find your music there? 

[john]

15 hours ago, HoboSage said:

Seriously?  There is nothing in your post  - and nothing in your profile here at Songstuff - that even has a link to your music on Spotify or Apple Music.  Can you even find your music there? 

 

I deleted my reply... I thought you were talking to me (as it was the next post) but re-reading I am not so sure you were addressing me!

 

Onwards and upwards.

[HoboSage]

LOL  No, John  I was just giving a good-natured ribbing to the OP by pointing out that he might try to drive traffic to his music on those sites by posting links to it in his profile and posts posts here (i.e.via his profile signature) on Songstuff.  I guess my intended humor missed the mark. 

[john]

1 hour ago, HoboSage said:

LOL  No, John  I was just giving a good-natured ribbing to the OP by pointing out that he might try to drive traffic to his music on those sites by posting links to it in his profile and posts posts here (i.e.via his profile signature) on Songstuff.  I guess my intended humor missed the mark. 

 

It was only confusing because there was no quote and came right after my reply, was like “eh? Wtf?” Lol

[eskojramo]

Thanks for the advice! To what\where can I tell an ad from my own pages here?

[Peggy]

11 hours ago, eskojramo said:

Thanks for the advice! To what\where can I tell an ad from my own pages here?

We have several board locations for ad placements that are available for members: Top of page, footers, side bars.  You can see what's available in the store.  If your interested, here's the link.

 

https://forums.songstuff.com/store-front/

 

[GregB]

On 5/13/2023 at 8:07 PM, eskojramo said:

Hello

... I just released songs and album throught the Distrokid and thought there are listeners atleast from Spotify and Apple Music. Nothing was happened and I think people just cant find my music ...

Perhaps it's time to determine realistic expectations and face some hard truths.  Industry quotes from mid-2023 stated more than 100,000 new releases were uploaded EVERY DAY!!  This is rapidly increasing as AI production ramps up and also as people game the system ... e.g. chopping songs into the minimum lengths allowed per platform.  This all adds massively to the tens of millions of tracks already available. 

 

More than half of all listens are to established artists and, more so, just the 'golden hits' from the six previous decades.

So ... who are these people you believe are searching for 'new music' and that you hope will find yours? 

Even IF there were one million people dedicated to just listening to new music (i.e. stuff they've never heard before) ... and they each devoted one hour a day to this thoughout the year (though, personally, this would drive me insane!  ) ...

• That's 365 days x 60 mins x 1,000,000 people (21.9 billion minutes of listening) / 3mins per track = 7.3 billion tracks of new music heard by just 0.0125% of the world's population (which has just clicked over to 8 billion people).
• What is the chance that this tiny number of people who may hear and pay attention to your music are in the right frame of mind to listen properly.  (To most people, music is interchangeable background wallpaper).
• If attentive, do they even like your genre (now more than 100 categories in an ever-fracturing music scene?)
• If they like your genre, will they vibe with and like your TRACK?
• And will they like it enough to rave about it on social media, or privately to friends, or even listen more than once themselves?

Of course, this is just my personal view which tends, as you may have surmised, to be less than optimistic.   As a fellow amateur singer/songwriter, I posted some of my ideas and experiences in 9 affordable ways to get "heard" in Musician's Lounge, Nov 25, 2023.
 

I should add that there's no reason why you cannot succeed.  The likelihood simply depends on perseverance, luck, networking/contacts, effort, money and, most importantly, what YOU regard and set as your measure of success.

Cheers,
Greg