r/musicmarketing

Genuine question for the artists in here:

What are we actually doing to grow?

Because sometimes I feel like there’s a huge disconnect between what we’re told we need to do as artists and what we actually want to spend our time doing.

We’re told to: Post every day, Make short-form content constantly, Study algorithms, Build a personal brand, Network, DM other artists, Pitch playlist, Run ads, Make behind-the-scenes content, Follow trends, Analyze our analytics, Engage with everyone, “Tell our story”, etc.

And somehow still find time to actually make the music
And I understand why all of it exists. In 2026, making great music alone probably isn’t enough.

But at what point do we ask ourselves:
“Is this actually how I want to build my career?”

I personally love making music. I love creating weird shit, experimenting, writing, recording, producing, collaborating, etc. I don’t necessarily love feeling like I need to turn myself into a full-time content creator just to get people to hear it. Though I do really enjoy content creation in every way. At the same time, I don’t want to use that as an excuse. If I want people to hear my music, I have to figure out how to reach them.

So I’m curious where everyone else is at.
What do you actually enjoy doing to grow your artist career? And what parts of “artist marketing” do you absolutely fucking hate but feel like you have to do?

Are you posting every day? Networking? Playing shows? Running ads? Making TikToks/Reels? Building community? Sending DMs? Or are you just making music and hoping something catches?

I want the honest answers, not the “10 things every successful artist does” answer.

What are we actually doing, and what do we actually WANT to be doing?

For those of you running Meta ads to drive Spotify conversions in the common 'Tier 1 / Tier 2' structure, what countries are you seeing most of your click-thrus and streams come from?

I appreciate the marketers who are teaching indie artists how to run these themselves, however I often find this piece glossed over when it comes to their suggested results -- that the ads will likely optimize towards lower-cost regions

Of course these are broad prospecting strategies -- and we are in a global streaming economy where we appreciate fans/listeners from everywhere -- but I question the impact of incremental streams from far-away places as a component of true audience development.

(I'm based in the US fwiw)

Many curators are not happy about the hurdles they face when they look for better engagement numbers that helps them to make more money, the problem is that if they complain they risk to be kicked out of the platform. I hope the problem is solved soon because this situation can create a turmoil that can escalate in a bad way. Submithub is a great tool for music promotion and they must find a balance.

there's no easy way to success, and most people here don't realize it.

this mostly applies to people making indie rock/pop punk/emo/hardcore genres but extends to others too.

yall will spend $5k on meta ads to get online followers who consume music through advertisements, do you really think these people will become actual fans? buy merch? show up to your live shows? or do you think the algorithm knows who this subset of people is that are likely to discover music online; and they'll continue to be pushed 500 more songs they like after they like yours, without ever actually truly engaging with any one artist?

you pushing for streaming numbers is purely for your own vanity, and the day you accept that is the day you can start refining your craft to actually connect to people IRL. people who consume you through content don't like you, they like content.

go and actually play live, network with other acts on your bill if you're an opener. stay till the end to watch them. join your city's scene, play at DIY venues. there's no shortcut to any of this lol. that's how i discover the bands i like, and most people in these genres too. from word of mouth, playing sick shows, seeing the same band's name pop up on flyers that other bands i recognize are headlining. this is how most artists pop off.

i can give you a gazillion examples of artists who put in the work to make connections, produce their stuff well, get a good live set, and then skip gimmicks and bullshit content making (like "here's an artist in 2026 who still responds to every comment!" - it's cringe and everyone i know will actively avoid you.) look at first day back, look at riley!, look at febuary, or other rising artists like my point of you, holloway etc.

most of all, do music because you like it, not because you have insane dreams of being a beverly hills celebrity

(this is coming from someone who has tried everything with several music projects and seen varying degrees of success with it - playlisting, ads on whatever platform you can imagine, radio, PR, whatever)

"Releasing music in only one geographical location is career suicide." That’s what a manager told an artist right before she geo-locked her new track release to a single local market. She then made $1.4k from 71 fans in 10 days.

I just read an article, removed the names, to make it non promotional and just sharing the lessons from it so r/musicmarketing can hopefully get something interesting.

Takeaway for me was that releasing everywhere at once could be a trap for indie artists. You drop a track globally on Spotify, post a link into the void, and literally pray.

Instead of chasing global streams, this artist wrote a location-inspired track (example shoutout to hometown) and made it available strictly in one place and nowhere else. No global streaming link on day one.

Why the "Everywhere at Once" Playbook is Dead:

• Scarcity creates a scene; reach makes you invisible. Releasing to the whole world asks 8 billion people to care a tiny bit. Restricting a track to one state forces a local community to care a lot, and people want to feel pride so they'll naturally cover it more.
• 71 real fans beat 400,000 Spotify streams. To make $1,400 on streaming platforms, you need nearly 400k streams. She made it in 10 days off 71 direct-to-fan sales ($5–$65 physical/digital bundles).
• Boots on the ground crush online links. She hit the streets with a local crew, played an exclusive local show, and ran a daily video series documenting the ground effort. Real-world hype pulled in local radio stations, regional creators, and 2,000 hyper-engaged followers. The online content only worked because the work put into the offline world.

Begging the internet to stream your song for fractions of a cent sucks, I've been there. So maybee it's time to try something different.

You think this is replicable or just a one off?

I’ve released a few singles and an EP and my album is set to release in just over a week. I’ve done my best at promotion but it’s flopped so far. I’m already hard at work on my second album and I’ve got a much better marketing strategy for that one as it has a far more concrete concept for brand image, but I’m just wondering if anyone has any advice (from experience or not) for artists whose music doesn’t necessarily fit into a specific genre. I know it’s good to be making something unique and new but it also makes it harder for things like hashtags, writing short form hooks and play listing.

I'm an A&R and a videographer and I like to make content and skits with the artist I work with and just give overall tips on business. I wanna grow my page, but I'm not sure if I'm doing too much or do I just have to focus on one thing

I've recently published my website and I'm curious, what you think about the current landscape and having a website as a marketing tool in general?

How redundant you think is to set up your own website and using landing pages via hypeddit/submithub/etc at the same time? Do you visit your favorite artists' websites or do you just stick to their social media pages?

If you have one, make sure you comment it here so we can take some inspiration :)

Recently I had a new release and I used meta ads through instagram reel I made, engagement type was website visit (added link straight to Spotify) spent 49euro over the 7 days and the results came like this: 15k views, 10k reach, 611 website visits (overall clicks is 784) 3s plays 5k, 20 shares and 8 saves with 0.08 euro per click. This campaign was successful but however only a fraction of people actually listened the song, I've get around 70 streams with 14 listeners. Is it because of the song? Now I'm making a new one which is so much better in terms of sound selection, mix, master etc and I'm thinking to do the same campaign I did before.

At 41 years-old, my wife is set to release her first album. I am immensely proud of her and honestly feel like she's hit a bit of a renaissance entering her midlife. Her album is incredible, top to bottom. I say this as a music fan, not a sycophantic husband, though I admit I share much of her music sensibilities.

My point in the above, is it's my opinion that she has the 1st prerequisite out of the way. The music is good, great even. And the mixing is more than adequate, albeit not studio quality.

Supposing I'm right about the quality of music, I'm asking a couple questions, because I want her to get this release right and to reach an audience, and hopefully get some momentum. Her music should appeal to indie fans who like Weye's Blood, Father John Misty, Frank Black/Pixies, etc.--so a pretty broad indie appeal.

Since the music will be able to be released soon, my questions are:

What should she do right now that other artists make the mistake of not doing before releasing their music?

If she believes her album has multiple "single-worthy" songs, should she release streams of those singles before releasing the full album? If so, how much time should there be between each appetizer, and then the main course?

I started a TikTok for her, but all I have are clips from music videos with early draft versions of her songs. The videos have visual appeal, but she currently has no way to build an audience outside of TikTok and youtube (where full-length versions of these videos live). Should she be trying to build a tik-tok audience without having any landing page and streams available?

Hello fellas, does anyone has any good releasing plan? Or any video on youtube I can use to help me make mine?

I’m in a metalcore band and we have time and some money to make promo, we are just getting started and we have an EP on the way without a releasing date, to make some promo first. I know every marketing plan is different but I really don’t know where to start.

Listen to this okay, animation memes are those short form mostly tweened animation trends that has a song attached to it. Look it up on tiktok if youre confused

When someone makes a cool animation to a song almost always it becomes a trend, and a lot of other artists start making their own

I think commisioning an artist to make an animation meme to your song is a really great idea, once it becomes a trend every animation meme that is made thanks to the first one basically becomes free marketing

the same thing should be like anime/movie edits

a lot of popular songs became popular thanks to animation meme trends, just give it a shot okay?

I’m doing a release show for my next song and I even managed to get some friends to open for it and I’m terrified no one will show up, or worse, like less than 10 people. I’ve only sold one ticket and it’s to my roommate. It’s a cheap price and all the money goes towards the artists, I’m not taking a cut, and I have free flower seeds to give to people for coming (it fits with my song). I don’t want to let the other acts down and embarrass myself with no one showing.

Has anyone dealt with this before? I’m trying my best to promote on TT, Instagram, even YouTube and putting it on event brite.
I’ve already done rehearsals for it. I’m just scared :/ do I put ads on it??

In our ongoing quest to get AMA sessions, what would get your attention ?

A successful artist.

Producer.

Established Platform / service provider.

Start up service for artists.

Publishing / licensing

Something else ?

Let me know ;-)

Edit: keeping up with the comments has become too much, this is a genuine project with feet on the ground. I’ll leave the post here for anyone truly interested.

Music discovery is broken. Every platform runs on an algorithm optimized to keep you scrolling, not to find good work — which means the most distinctive, uncompromising stuff is usually the first thing it buries. Make something great, get 40 views. Make something forgettable that hits the right hooks fast enough, get pushed to a million people. That’s not discovery, that’s a slot machine.

STATIC is the alternative. It’s a 24/7 broadcast channel, not a feed — built entirely from submissions, curated by a human, not a dashboard. No algorithm deciding what you see. No AI-generated art or music, ever — this is a channel for human-made work, full stop. No pay-to-play, no submission fees. You keep full rights to everything, always.

If you make music without a visual, we’ll build one. Submit an audio-only track and if it’s accepted, you get a custom visualizer made specifically for your song, free.

This is real and moving right now — almost 150 submissions in the last month alone, and a live proof-of-concept rotation that gets new work added daily as visualizers get finished and more videos come in.

If you’re making something that doesn’t fit the algorithm’s idea of what deserves attention, this is where it belongs. Submission form linked below — no catch, just a real place for real work.

Hello all! My band just dropped our first single on Spotify and are trying to figure out how to get on playlists! I know they have specific editors that you can pitch your song to BEFORE it's released, but what happens after? Is there no other way?

I released a new track on my label on Friday, and in just a few days it’s had over 7k Spotify streams, mostly via Release Radar.

Any suggestions on how to keep this momentum going into weeks 2, 3 & 4?

Recently I was at an artists meet-up talking about what the best music marketing Loophole is that they know and it taught a lot.

The person next to me for example said : Spotify looks at popularity scores to place your track in algorithmic playlists so if you get above "25/30 popularity score" Spotify will automatically start placing you in 'release radar' and 'radio'

My Loophole was : starting an Instagram account in a niche where there's less content then viewers and then somehow attach your music to it. I for example started an introvert meme account and got millions of likes and a couple of thousand of followers. I just stuck my music to the posts and it helped a bit (maybe couple of 1000 streams) but I think if executed correctly could have a big impact.

Now I'm curious what is your Loophole?