First music releases can be quite exhilarating. You’ve been planning for months, maybe longer, have something special to introduce to the world. If you’re doing everything alone, you have a multitude of platforms to keep your eye on. You might also be in contact with media or a booking agency, that’s interested in your work and in a shared journey.
All of this can get quite stressful. Especially if things start cooking, you’ll probably be bound to your mobile device for quite a while. The early stages of artist development are certainly important. Going for the attention of early listeners, and building relationships early on is definitely a key to steady audience growth.
To help you stay cool during this hot phase, we collected some food for thought. You can take it or leave it, but these are some ideas that can help you stay focused. Focused on your routine, on different channels, on the way your release is developing.
Let’s start off with communication:
Regular checkups
As opposed to being online constantly, try working with regular checkups. You can waste a lot of time, staying glued to your devices, trying to grasp every interaction in real-time.
Think about setting up regular checkups. Be it every half hour or so, and try to focus on other things in between. Even though you’re probably excited as hell, things won’t go any faster if you keep hitting that refresh-button on your Instagram.
Be a positive realist
There’s a world of music being pitched to the likes of Spotify, Apple music etc. Try do go into the game with solid expectations – but be realistic about it. Slots are limited, and every playlist placement is a battle of its own.
Also in terms of media or blog coverage, similar realities apply. Being a positive realist means, hoping for the best, but being perfectly fine with various types of results. There is a world of factors involved in the release of music, and the quality of your art or the effort you put into a campaign are only a few parts of the puzzle.
If you’re a seasoned pro, with several releases stashed away, you’ll be aware of these realities. If it’s your first release, every feature acceptance or decline is a mood changer.
Try to think long-haul, multiple releases, and constant growth.
Expectations vs high potential features
Having some potentially large-scale media features lined up is a great sign that things are running the right way. They aren’t guarantees though, for long-lasting exposure or impactful audience growth.
Every media feature works on its own accord. A huge fanbase won’t necessarily dive into your music automatically. So try to keep the expectations in line. The migration of thousands of followers via social media rarely happens through a single posting. More often than not, it’s a consequence of continuous work, engagement and content production.
Have your links in line
This might sound like a no-brainer, but it happens. And it happens a lot. Dead links, bad referrals etc. can destroy a release. You rarely get as much attention as the first postings of a given music campaign. Its the nature of things – people are bound to limited attention, and if something doesn’t intrigue them right away, they rarely stick with it.
So make sure you deliver the content that you promise.
Check and double check all of your links to various platforms, or set up a service like geni.us to do the link magic for you. By doing so you can also get insights on how your links perform, from where your audience arrives etc.
Use smart monitoring
Without bragging here – but this is one reason why we developed ForTunes. You can save loads of time by monitoring your release via the app or desktop solution, keeping track of everything buzzing around your work.
We built the ForTunes app especially for creators – so they could keep cool during releases, and let the tool do all the heavy data lifting.
Get notified when new playlists ad your music, when blogs write about you, or when users across the globe upload your songs. You won’t miss a heartbeat with this little tool in your pocket, and you can just infuse it into your routine of regular checkups, that I mentioned above.
Dive into your own groove of smart monitoring, with whatever tools suit your needs. It can and will save you loads of time, and give you a professional edge on every release.
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