Promoting Your Music in 2023: Effective Strategies (1/2)

1. Create great music

It’s important to acknowledge that if you want to succeed in music promotion, you need to start with good music. While it may seem like simply flexing your promotion muscles can take a track to the top, the reality is that if the music you’re promoting doesn’t resonate with listeners, your efforts won’t yield much success.

That’s why it’s crucial to put in the effort to create compelling music before embarking on any promotion efforts. Take the time to produce high-quality tracks, refine your mix, and master your music to create a polished final product. When you’re confident in the music you’ve created, you’ll be able to set ambitious goals and promote yourself with enthusiasm online.

Ultimately, striving to make the best music possible is a commitment to your fans and listeners. By creating something unique and special, you’ll set yourself apart from the competition and establish a strong foundation for a successful music career.

2. Make your music available on streaming platforms

With the rise of streaming platforms, the way people consume music has drastically changed. This has also led to a shift in the way artists promote their music.

Having a promotion plan for your upcoming release or existing music catalog on streaming platforms is crucial. These platforms provide revenue streams through song streams, merchandise sales, and concert tickets. They also serve as hubs where fans discover new music through playlists, music journalism, and algorithmic recommendations. It’s important for both big and small artists to have a plan.

While each platform has its own unique approach to achieving success, there are some commonalities between them. For instance, you’ll need to claim and complete your artist profile on each platform. Then, choose a distribution service provider to get your music on all the major streaming platforms.

In this article, we’ll delve into the specific strategies for promoting your music on the top streaming platforms today – Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal.

How to promote your music on Spotify

Spotify offers many promotion tools, such as album visuals, scrolling lyrics, and algorithm recommendations. Claiming your artist profile is the first step to promoting your music on Spotify.

By claiming your profile, you can submit upcoming releases for playlisting and add merch and tour dates. Canvas, Spotify’s visual album art tool, allows artists to add custom looping videos.

Promoting your music effectively on Spotify means having a plan to get your fans to listen to your new tracks. Launching a pre-save campaign with a promo link can drum up excitement and help the algorithm pick up your new track sooner. Spotify is not an intimidating platform if you have great music and a promotion plan.

How to promote your music on Apple Music

Apple Music is a major streaming platform without as many promotional tools as Spotify but still useful.

Claim your Apple Music for Artists profile to customize your profile, add a bio, and custom artwork.

Once you get your music on Apple Music and claim your profile, you’ll have access to song-sharing tools.

Unfortunately, Apple Music doesn’t offer an option to submit your music for playlisting directly, you need to have relationships with their curators.

You can always use a promo link to funnel people toward your streaming profiles, irrespective of Apple Music’s own tools.

Uploading consistently and growing your fanbase of monthly listeners is key for growing your streams and increasing your chances of getting playlisted.

Make authentic good music that your fans love and streaming platforms will pay attention to your tracks.

How to promote your music on Tidal

Tidal is the third most popular streaming platform. Interestingly, it’s known for paying out the best rates per stream. Therefore, planning to promote your music on this platform could be lucrative.

Similarly to Apple Music, Tidal doesn’t have very much in the way of promotional tools compared to Spotify. However, claiming your Tidal for Artists profile once you get your Music on Tidal is an important first step. This way, you’ll be able to add a level of customization to your artist page and have control over your bio and artwork.

Besides the handful of customization options Tidal offers, your best bet for promoting your music on Tidal is to include links to your Tidal page as part of your release plan. So, make sure to include Tidal in your promo links and let your fans know where they can stream your tracks.

3. Write a music press release and reach out to playlists and blogs

The media is influential in music promotion, and even a small press outlet can bring you more listeners.

Playlists are another way to reach audiences, with some having hundreds of thousands of followers and daily listeners.

While it can be tough to secure coverage and get tastemakers to take notice of your music, the potential for generating traffic is enormous.

To get started, learn where and how to reach out for coverage and playlist placement.

Who to contact

Music blogs, like Pitchfork and Stereogum, are influential tastemakers and can break countless artists into the mainstream. But smaller blogs can also have a surprising amount of influence.

To get coverage from blogs, find those that post tracks and artists like yourself and learn how to contact them.

Streaming playlists are also key platforms for the promotion. Though you can’t submit directly to the big branded playlists, there are tons of user-generated ones that can help you move up the ladder.

Be wary of playlisting schemes that offer fake streams in exchange for payment. Instead, stick to traditional promotional methods and identify legitimate playlists to contact the curators.

Reaching out

It’s important to know how to contact your industry connections effectively, not just who to contact.

When reaching out for coverage, there are many do’s and don’ts. However, having an electronic press kit on your website can be beneficial in general.