r/musicmarketing

After going viral many times in Norway through TikTok, being recognised almost daily, getting hate, love and many, many gigs the last 18 months - I got fed up with playing that game.

I also realised that low level internet fame is easily forgotten and the downsides from just being the "music guy", putting out many videos daily is just not worth it.

But one thing has stucked with me - I see the same 40 - 50 people on my videos every day. They share, connect, send me DMs, ask me when I am having a concert next and stream my music unpromted. I think this is where I am trying to get to now - from being someone for everyone - into becoming everything to someone. What I mean is, I would love to make these 50 people my inner circle, and then try to scale to 100, 500 and 1000 super fans the upcoming year.

But what is the best way of doing so? An e-mail and sms-list with gifts, unreleased gems and inner circle-videos? Invitation to secret performances?

I already have a content machine system working for me (making 2 - 4 videos daily) and reaching 200 - 500k monthly mostly in Norway - so maybe I should spend some on ads to find more of those like my followers?

I have some budget, 500 dollars a month to advertise, and I expect this to be a slow movement to begin with, getting 50 - 100 new subscribers a month and making a lot more content so my viewers connect with me as a person and my music in more depth.

I am not working to become an a-listed celebrity and earn millions, I just want to build a solid fanbase so I can tour, sell merch, make music for them and build momentum.

Any people doing the same here? Any mentors here? How should I start with this?

note: im not talking about ads manager / boosting posts, i am specifically looking for guidance for running influencer / micro influencer campaigns to seed a song as a viral audio

the song/audio im working on is showing incredible potential based on reactions on my own short form content, and i have a pretty sizable budget set aside for this release ($10-20k)

im looking to recreate recent trends on tiktok, especially with “aesthetic” audios and the recent “underground indie” scene (wifiskeleton, overtonight, s0rrow, mthu, h4teboy, imar, etc).

what should my strategy be for finding creators to work with and evenly distributing my budget to these creators? I’ve run these campaigns on my music before to decent success, but never nearly to this scale.

I recently made the decision to commit to daily reels. Not only reels with just audio snippets and a picture, but many high effort ones too, where I bought one of those phone selfie sticks and filmed myself playing and then went into video editing program etc. Lasted for three weeks and sure, performance was good enough for >!me but at the end of it I was so burnt out and put my new single on pause, and now I’m just sick of!< music and can’t bear myself to continue. Don’t post every day, you will burn out.

Like most things in life you look back at your early work and you cringe. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist and want my entire album to be hits or something I think is close to perfect, but I look at these deep tracks, or these sappy fillers and I’m like their ok, but too many mistakes your more experienced mind can see. I just can’t fight the urge to either delete them or make better versions..

But most importantly my question is will this hurt my Spotify ranking? Not matter at all? Or could help?

The music industry has always been about community. It's about artists helping artists, sharing knowledge, opening doors, and creating opportunities that many people never had access to. That's the part of the industry I care about most.

I went to graduate school and earned a Master's degree in Artist Management because I wanted to help artists....especially those who don't have industry connections or thousands of dollars to spend on consultants. My goal has never been to chase celebrity clients. While I've worked with artists who have achieved recognition and have referrals from clients I've helped, what motivates me is breaking down barriers to access.

Too many talented musicians never get the opportunity to speak with experienced professionals because the industry often feels closed off or inaccessible. I want to help change that by sharing what I've learned over the past 16 years working in music marketing.

That's why I spend time on Reddit.

I answer questions, write detailed posts, participate in discussions, and try to help where I can because Reddit is one of the few places where independent artists from all over the world can connect, learn from each other, and build genuine community.

This mission isn't something I came up with to market my business. It goes back to my graduate research.

My master's thesis focused on access to arts education through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT). I researched how practices like standardized testing and academic tracking reduce access to arts education, particularly for students living in poverty.

The research found a strong relationship between access to the arts and overall academic success. Expanding arts education, both inside and outside the classroom, can increase graduation rates, strengthen school communities, improve social-emotional learning, reduce absenteeism, and help close opportunity gaps.

Furthermore creative placemaking overal helps reduce crime and increase commerce.

That research shaped how I view the music industry today.

I believe knowledge should be shared, not gatekept.

Yes, I offer marketing services. I'm not going to pretend I don't. but If I can answer a question, point someone toward a useful resource, or help an artist avoid an expensive mistake, I'm happy to do it. Sometimes those conversations turn into clients. Most of the time they don't, and that's okay.

I'm here because I believe stronger artists create a stronger music community.

Whether we ever work together professionally or not, I hope something I share helps you move one step closer to your goals.

I have a couple songs in the vault and have decided on the one I want to finish and drop and I’d like to know how I should go about marketing it as a first drop and a pretty unknown artist.

After spending a month to make my last music video and it getting less than 500 views, I'm gonna say screw it and post a ton of short content, even though I hate tiktok and I really don't wanna have to do it this way.

This is after a LOT of research and denial about the current state of music and social media. Breaks my heart that people think music videos are dead and people can't even listen to 10 seconds of a damn song.

The reason I'm posting this is in case anyone who hasn't tried this wants proof that it works (myself included) and if any of you beautiful people have already done this I would love to hear your experience!

I guess I'll report back in 30 days to let you know how it went

Edit: My genre is alternative pop. I make music similar to Sombr, Ari Abdul, Isabel LaRosa, Chris Grey, and The 1975.

Hi everyone. I'm an independent artist, and my goal is to make this my career.

I'm fortunate enough to have around $10k to invest per release. I know money alone can't make someone famous, and I'm not looking for a magic formula, but I'd like to use that budget as intelligently as possible.

If your objective was maximizing the chances of breaking through, how would you spend that money? I'd love detailed advice on the entire process, from making the record to positioning, content, PR, marketing, release strategy, touring, networking, or anything else that actually moves the needle.

Assume the music is genuinely competitive. What would your roadmap look like?

Mine hasn’t updated since July 1st and it’s now the 4th. It’s never taken more than a day to update and “finish gathering data.” Are other people having this problem or is it just me?

People have always said you should give reviewers at least 3-4 weeks of time when you pitch for editorial playlists.

I've heard of artists doing it with a much smaller window, anyone here who landed a placement or know someone?

I got a cover dropping in 11 days (it has been very successful on Youtube, so may have a decent chance) and I'm thinking if it's worth to postpone the release.

We se all the discussions about the usual suspects here when it comes to submissions / review / promo and so on, but what was the last method that returned any level of success for you.

Please dont post any external links....just tell us about your experience ;-)

Tracked my time across my last release cycle because it felt like I was working constantly and getting nowhere. Rough split over 6 weeks: about 80% went to admin (building the smart link, formatting pitches, updating the spreadsheet, scheduling posts, chasing curator follow-ups) and maybe 20% to things that actually moved numbers.

What was worth it: the Spotify for Artists editorial pitch (free, most people skip it, submit 3-4 weeks out), follow-ups (over half my curator replies came from the follow-up email, not the first one), and posting 3 short clips a week for the month after release instead of one big release-day push.

What wasn't: mass-emailing curators with a template (2% reply rate until I started referencing a specific playlist track, then it roughly 5x'd), presave campaigns with no existing audience, and honestly most of the time I spent making the rollout "look professional."

Curious what everyone else's split looks like. What's the admin task that eats your time that you suspect isn't doing anything?

Sorry, long post. I am one of the curators on a majority of these submission platforms listed below (disclaimer, throwaway account to stay on these platforms). I frequently see complaints here from artists about “Curators do not provide value for artists” or “playlist pitching is not worth it for independent artists.” If that is your take, that is totally fine, but I feel like it doesn’t have to be the case.

I feel like it is the current system that creates part of the trouble artists experience, and I would like to once and for all debunk the idea that it is “the curators” who lack to provide value for artists. A curator can only invest in their playlists based on the percentage they receive from the submission platform. The submission platforms often already take a 50%+ cut first. On top of that, curators must write lengthy reviews, which artists often don’t even care about. The first 1000 are fun, but at some point you want to allocate a bit of compensation for writing the 1,001st similar forced review. Here is my list, where I would suggest to support the platforms that allow curators to invest into their playlists, and you will be more likely to get good results in return. 

An overview of all submission platforms and how revenue is shared with the curators:

Name	Artists price per curator	Minimum package	Amount paid to curator	share back to curators (%)
1. Yougrowpromo	10€ - 97€	97€	7,5€-75€	80%
2. Playlistsforyou	2,50$	49$	1,75$	70%
3. Recordlabel	10$-50$	97$	5,5$-28$	55%
4. Submithub	1$-5$*	10$	0,5$-2,5$*	50%
5. Groover	2€	10€	1€	50%
6. Unhurd	6£	70£	3£	50%
7. One-submit	1$-5$	50$	1$-2,50$	50%
8. Songrocket	3$	3$	1,5$	50%
9. Curator Club	2$	30$	1$	50%
10. Submitlink	2$-5$	30$	1$-2,5$	50%
11. Playlist Push	8$	285$	1.25$-15$* (avg: ~3,5$)	44%
12. Orion Promotion	5,5$	79$	1$-14$* (avg: 2$	36%
13. Wallstream	1-10$	10$	0-4$, royalty deal of 1-25%	30/40%** (and a 15% wallstream-fee)
14. Soundcampaign	10$	150$	1$-14$* (avg: 3$)	30%
15. Muso Soup	0$	42$	1-25% of royalties	0%-25%**
16. Songtools	0$-3$	70$	No data available (NDA), often 0$.	10%
17. Daily Playlists	0$	0$	0$	NA (Free submission platform)
18. Soundplate	0$	0$	0$	NA (Free submission platform)
19. Pitch Playlists	0$	0$	0$	NA (Free submission platform)

* = Depending on the estimated curators “level” of engagement (not always reliable)
** = With a lucky super-viral song you might get something worth it. On average though, with 250 streams from a playlist, a curator earns 0,25$ (assuming 25% equity, 4$ per 1000 streams) (+ base pitch fee for wallstream, so 0-4$.
NDA = No Data Available

Methodology:

On many submission platforms, I am a curator (though I want to stay anonymous to not be banned). For the ones where I am not a curator, I used Google to fill the blanks. If no data is shared, they get an NDA (No Data Available). For simplicity, I do not take discounts into account unless they are included in the smallest available package.

Disclaimer:

I am part of the United Curators Association, which tries to balance the payment between curators and submission platforms, as the situation is unsustainable. I am posting this individually. They are trying to make the conditions more fair for curators, as most of the major submission platforms are happy to squeeze out the curators.

tl;dr: If you want to actually get value-for-money results from a submission platform, look at the top of this list I made. By supporting platforms that give a larger share to curators, you’ll likely get better results for your money.

My lane is lyrical/conscious rap, but this song I feel has way more mainstream and commercial potential than what I usually make, and I have gut feeling that I need to go all in on it. Every minute, every bit of effort, every dollar I can invested in it, for at least 2 months and maybe longer. Up until this point I’ve primarily just been doing text on screen videos with an iPhone SE, but I plan to get some better recording equipment and some props for videos, I might take an Amtrak to go shoot in my local city whenever I’m able to, and maybe play it live at open mics in said city (I’ve never performed live.) I spent my days off Wednesday and Thursday making and scheduling the last weeks worth of content for my single dropping the 7th, just so I can start planning my roll out for this special song earlier. I just need as much wisdom as I can get because I’m going all in on this.

Hey there. I've been using SubmitHub to submit my latest 3 singles to playlist curators.

Apparently, the average share rate is 28%.
My success rate has been a lot worse than that for the first two singles, but for my third and latest single, only 1 out of 44 curators accepted it for sharing on their playlist. That's roughly 2%! Two percent!!

This is so confusing to me. I really thought these songs would at least perform closer to the average. I've spent years refining these songs and I'm very happy with them, but obviously all this rejection is starting to make me question everything. Clearly there's something I'm doing wrong, that's for sure.

While my music is definitely mixing genres a lot, it's still clearly fundamentally Pop-Rock, so I always try to send it to a wide mix of pop- and rock curators. I try to reach curators with an average acceptance rate between 12% - 30%.

Their feedback is frequently "nice production, nice songwriting, cool drums, nice vocals", and always really positive and complimentary, but then its either too pop or not pop enough, too energetic, or lacking energy. The vocals fill too much in the arrangement, or they're not standing out enough. It's too modern, or its too retro.

That makes me conclude it's a matter of bad fit. I must be extremely awful at figuring out which curators to send my music to. But honestly, the same names keep coming up, so I guess there's practically no curators on SubmitHub that has playlists my music fits into. I almost can't believe this.

I'm not even sure what my question is. Just desperation, I guess.

I guess it would count as self-promotion to share a link to the song, which is against the rules, so I'll not do that, but if anyone wants to take a listen and provide some feedback as to which curators, similar artists, or genres to align myself with, please feel free to reach out, and I'll send you that in a DM.

I have tried posting my YT music videos on FB, insta, TT but never get any fans or interaction.

None of my friends / family on FB care about my music.

I have also tried to find collaborators in local FB community, musician and acting groups to no avail. Also CL.
I’ve had minimal luck with Kompoz a music collab site.

My genre is usually Comedy & Satire, sometimes offensive / lewd. Or just weird. Rarely serious.

Does anyone here have any other tips on how to get your creations out there?

I just created a TikTok account to post clips of my instrumental guitar songs, but i think i have to delete it just as quickly. TikTok absolutely crushes my audio. My masters aren't excessively loud, they sit around -12 to -10 LUFS usually, but TikTok absolutely destroys especially the drum transients on some of my songs. How the heck can TikTok assault audio in a way that other platforms don't? Do anyone else have this problem and is there some sort of solution?