In this day and age, streaming services such as spotify, youtube music, apple music etc , have made getting ones music out there significantly easier. In this article we will discuss a few steps to gaining traction as a digital music artist.
- Releasing music on Major streaming platforms
There are many many online distributors, ranging from free to paid subscriptions. Generally the free ones, example amuse, would take a cut of royalty proceeds from your music.
Below are a few distributors that I have experience with and I rank them in this order :
- Ditto Music : offering a 30 day free trial , and allowing one to see what they get before making purchase. Their subscription costs about $12.99 or around R280 for a year .
https://dittomusic.com/en/?utm_adgroup=Africa_%2F%2F_Brand_%2F%2F_Ditto_Music_%2F%2F_BMM&msclkid=c7366cb3a5611308545b089ab152acd8&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Africa%20%2F%2F%20Brand%20%2F%2F%20Ditto%20%2F%2F%20BMM&utm_term=%2Bditto%20%2Bmusic&utm_content=Africa%20%2F%2F%20Brand%20%2F%2F%20Ditto%20Music%20%2F%2F%20BMM
This is my primary distributor
- Distrokid : with a variety of great promotional tools, distrokid is one of the best distributors out, with Presave and promotional tools at your disposal , they make getting your music out a simple process. This costs about $12.99 for a year.
https://distrokid.com/signup/?app=distrolock
Distrokid user interface
- Spare music : offering a free package for release , but do withold a certain percentage of royalties.
https://sparemusic.com/
Now that we've covered distribution, lets talk about promoting a release.
1.Presave Campaign
Making use of Presave campaigns by distributors or third parties such as
- Hypeddit
- soundplate
Can result in greater reach with your release. This is beneficial for the algorithm as it shows that people are awaiting your next release. The algorithm is always watching and learning.
2.Social Media
Posting , networking and promoting on social media can have a good reach.
The best way to get supported on social media is to first be supportive to other artists with similar goals and aspirations, this leads to building a good network of artists and this improves the music community.
- Make use of boosting posts on Instagram and Facebook , the paid promotion makes sure that more people will see your post and possibly engage with your account.
Playlist Submissions
There are many playlisters looking for new music. The most quality playlisters with high numbers of listeners can be found on
- Submithub : with many different genres , getting exposure with this platform is very possible
- dailplaylists : this platform makes music submissions very easy , as well as playlisting and networking easy.
- soundplate : this platform is free to use and is updated weekly with new playlists to submit music to.
https://soundplate.com/
- email playlist submission : in spotify if you simply search "
" it will bring up many playlists with contact details for the playlister. Some may ask for paid placements and others not. Ultimately this is your decision.
Thank you for reading. Let me know if you found this article helpful.