The world of DIY Music PR work can be overwhelming: You have to initiate your own send-outs, deliver follow-ups and keep an eye on recent activity, creating your own reports. This is where music blogs come into play.
When working on ForTunes features, we always start from distinct problems that are evident in the line of professional work: Musicians losing an overview due to the complexity and variation of blogs out there? Let’s simplify and visualize everything in one feed. Musicians using tools like Submit-Hub and platforms like Hypemachine? Let’s integrate them, work with great services that provide something meaningful.
That’s basically the way we handle the whole blog category. How do people use them and whats necessary to stay on top of the game? Those are our goalposts, so to speak.
But we also learn a hell of a lot about the Blogs as a form of medium – you see a lot of our work involves really digging into the tools we work with. More often than not, we’ve already encountered them as musicians, which is a big advantage.
So to give you some food for thought, here are some things we have learned while developing a birds-eye view of countless blog-related topics:
Continuity builds relationships
Keeping up a form of continuity, in terms of music release and curator relationship, is key.
It can be a great boost and a door-opener to have a solid track work across a wide range of media. Artists that manage to stay visible, though, oftentimes achieve this by delivering a constant flow out output.
Be it major releases or small features, continuity of certain artists is something that really meets our eye when digging through the blogosphere.
Idea: Try setting up a content plan in advance. This can be a whole selection of music content-pieces, with individual goals and targets. A smaller blog can have an incredibly loyal readership, so try to spread premium content across various types of media (meaning: try not to keep the cherries strictly for the big players).
Realistic Blog analysis
Some Blogs just have an aura of exposure attached to them. Be it by means of design or the way certain topics are transported. Not everything that shines is gold, though.
Check the audience engagement across a variety of platforms, especially if you agree upon certain exclusivity – if at all.
Also, see if there are some branches reaching into the realm of streaming – like Blog playlists and such. Look up your favorite candidates on Spotify and see if there is a potential base of listeners to be reached.
The human factor of curation
Blog curators are humans, not algorithms.
Oftentimes they have to engage in hundreds of submissions per day, while trying to keep a fair ear on things, going for uniqueness instead of the trend.
Be patient with curators, and don’t be afraid to follow up in a kind and sincere way.
In a time of algorithmic playlist curation, we should definitely come to appreciate blog- curation as one of the last frontiers of digital, human taste-making. And that’s what it is: Usually, there is so much text-work involved in featuring new artists, that curators actually have to spend a decent amount of time and energy to get the message over. More than you might think.
Keep it really real
Many, many musical topics that we stumble upon when integrating new blogs offer a sincere and real backstory.
Being honest about how and why your work sounds the way it does go a long way. Especially because people are so used to listening through nameless artists within playlists they consume.
Use the Blog-sphere as a way of establishing biographical depth. Even though it might be necessary to raise a couple of eyebrows, try not to whip metrics around too much. Spend some time on a unique narrative that uplifts your music and gives it some context.
That’s a huge USP blogs can offer, as opposed to fast-paced, playlist-oriented consumptive models. Understand that, and get the most out of your blog game.
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