As consumers shift towards streaming, there is mass combat taking place between the services: Tidal with their concert exclusives; Apple with their artist exclusives; Spotify with customizable playlists. They are all wielding and yielding weapons meant to woo us, but is it working and, if so, how can you, as artists, take full advantage?
Well, sirs and madams, it’s working.
Some estimates put the number of streamers paying for streaming services as high as 60 million. Spotify, Rhapsody, Amazon Prime Music, Pandora, Apple and Google Play all offer this service, and that’s to name just a few! So what can you as artists, somewhere in the middle between Taylor Swift’s status and your dad’s Sunday garage band’s, do to take advantage somehow?
Fan Discovery
Don’t view them as income generators; per-stream payouts from streaming services tend to be small, but these services also help new fans discover your music.
Schedule Your Events
Promote your uploads in advance: Grow your listeners by sharing your next and newest uploads, and remind them just before you do it, and the exact moment you have.
Chance Exposure
Spotify, for instance, offers a match algorithm; as an artists you may have never been considered by someone who has a solid picture of the bands and artists they strive to keep up with, but a song of yours may match a particular moment or activity the app thinks they’re likely to be doing and—TaaDaaaa—you enter: the savior of their workout! Playlists are like the mixtape of today: you can happen to find yourself on someone’s and you have a new fan… and one new fan usually equals more. Slow and steady, guys. Slow and steady.
P-R-O-M-O-T-E
Push out to local stations and international ones, too. BBC Radio One in London is one of the best tools around — they have a program called BBC Introducing, which is a platform for showcasing unsigned, self- signed and new artists. Apply to them; look for other similar platforms/concepts locally and internationally, and have your music updated on all of your own platforms: social media; your site; the site of any collaborators and, of course, on streaming services.
Interested in getting your YouTube video discovered by masses of targeted fans? Click this link: www.promolta.com
Maxie Reynolds is a pilot, writer and one-man dog walker. She can be found on Facebook, Instagram and at www.maxiereynolds.com
Leave a Comment