Music releases can be overwhelming at times.
Especially when dealing with hindrances and unexpected bumps, this fluid process can turn into a formidable challenge quite easily.
We want to show you ways of staying zen, even if things diverge from the planned path.
Identify your powerhouse platforms
It’s a noble task to try to engage equally in all platforms. Definitely, a task one should try and pursue.
Working on DIY music releases means identifying powerhouse platforms. This involves knowledge of where your audience is most active and acting upon that information.
Be it solid playlist performance of past releases on Spotify, or Soundcloud movement due to strong blog features. Keep an eye out for these engagement spearheads.
That doesn’t mean neglecting other platforms. It just lets you know where a solid starting point might be, to kick up the initial traction and run from there.
Monitoring tools like ForTunes let you identify where your strongest audience lies, and you can use this knowledge to make better decisions. Optimizing the overall awareness of where to head first in your campaign will give you a definite advantage over many other releases. It gives you peace of mind that your activity is actually working all the right turns and switches.
Find the spaghetti that sticks
A quirky yet valid way of describing many contemporary release strategies could go a little like this. Your music is like spaghetti, delicious, hot spaghetti, in a big bowl that you’re carrying around the room. Now that you found your perfect wall, take a big hand-full of juicy mass and smash it against the surface. Let it fly around and throw it with all your strength, then just take a step back and see what sticks. Dylan from Indieshuffle dropped this one by me; definitely stuck on for apparent reasons 🙂
The more pressure you build on one single release the bigger the risk of resources going to waste.
A sure way of keeping a “Zen-like tendency” is spreading the risk across a broader variety of minor releases. Each with the potential of generating some decent exposure.
Tastes and dynamics among gatekeepers of media and distribution are just to undiscerning to know exactly what might happen with a single type of release – and they shouldn’t affect your personal level of hyped-ness or fun when carrying out a release.
By unleashing a broad variety of music over a controlled time-frame, you heighten the chance of discovering what really clicks with your audience or a specific tastemaker.
Hit the echo-chamber
A huge part of staying motivated and zen when engaging in structural aspects of music distribution is gaining solid feedback. Be it positive or negative, personal insights on how your music is perceived and ingested is utterly valuable.
Spreading stuff out there without getting the slightest echo can be frustrating, and quite honestly even level out any form of learning curve that could elevate your output on the long run.
So – try using a song-pitching tool like submithub. It let’s you target and send out music specifically to blogs that matter in your genre and style, and (this is super helpful) delivers short feedback directly from the blog-owners on why or why not your music is accepted.
This way you can learn from one release, apply it to the next, and build a strong case of knowledge development and release strategy improvement.
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