Promoting music in 2022 has honestly never been easier and yes, I get it with a lot of competition and overall cluttered releases between thousands of independent artists, I can see how many of you feel that it’s tough to get your song hard and to grow your fanbase. While as an indie artist you don’t have the same advantages that the big record labels and their signed artists do, however a lot of what the big artists are doing can be replicated for relatively cheap and only require hard work, determination, and effort. Below are 4 easy and (mostly free) ways for you to amplify and promote your next release.

1. Social Media – We all use it, we all love it, some of us hate it, but it’s a necessity in 2022 for promoting music and growing your brand as an artist. In the modern age of music, social media is crucial to any type of release, whether it’s a music video, a song, your album, new merch or a concert. The biggest advice I can give on social media is to be consistent and really focus on the quality of what you’re posting. Post 3-4 times per week and diversify your feed with video snippets, pictures of yourself, song quotes, graphics, and any other content you think your fan base will latch onto. Specifically, with TikTok and Instagram their algorithm rewards consistent use and overall use on the platform, but the main thing to remember here is that you just can’t post once or twice and expect your entire follower base to do what you’re telling them. You can’t just post that your songs now out once and expect all of your followers to go stream it. This is something that needs to be consistently posted and promoted on your social media channels. When you post, only a fraction of your followers will actually  see the post on their timeline. The more you post, the higher chance you have to reach more people. Your friends are busy just like you –  they’re not on social media all the time so every post you put out is a chance to get a new follower, a new listener, or a new fan of your music. Additionally, it might take followers being exposed to multiple posts before they decide to engage or listen to your music. The constant posts serve as a reminder that you make music and that you just released a new song or video. 

2. Subscriber list – Personally, in 2022 I think having an email or contact subscriber list is the most important thing an artist can do to help grow their brand and fan base. There are so many indie artists that I love, but miss out on their new releases because I am busy. I ALWAYS listen to new music from the few artists that do have contact lists and shoot me a text when they drop. Not relying on social media is crucial because the algorithms can do you dirty (like many of us of experience on Instagram). It’s not self-sufficient to just rely on social media to get your song and new announcements to your followers. You should use those platforms to grow your contact list, taking your followers off of social media and into a contact list gives you a way to directly contact them at will. While this isn’t always free, you can find cheap options; Flodesk for emails is about $200 a year which is insanely cheap for what you’re getting (click here to get 50% off)  and Laylo is a text/email/Instagram messaging platform which is super simple, super intuitive and runs you about $15 a month.

3. Music videos/ video content – It’s no surprise that video is king in the content game. Official music videos and promo footage do wonders for fans to discover new music and make it easy to engage with. Not only is video content great for Instagram and TikTok, but it can be used on YouTube and on Spotify canvas and is easily able to be used across all your platforms. Shooting video content is easier than ever and can be done on your iPhone for very low effort and for cheap. Depending on your budget, you can go big with an official music video, but at the very least you can go out and film promo footage for free off your phone. Download a free video editor app, and go crazy with creating your promo footage. At the end of the day, it really only needs to be 15-20 seconds. I really want to stress that you CAN do this and SHOULD do this even if your only resource is your friend and a phone. 

4. Press – I absolutely hate paying for blog post and press, but if you’re going to do it consider hiring a publicist or someone like myself who can help you pitch correctly and make sure you’re prepared to land placements for your new song or video. On top of that, instead of paying for these placements, build connections with writers and editors on social media. Engage with them by being nice and genuine – don’t just try to pitch them music right off the bat. It’s important to approach them in a thoughtful, intentional, and polite way when you do reach out, AND PLEASE make it super easy for them to listen/write about your song. Give them EVERYTHING they need to cover the song/video you are pitching. The easiest part of their day should be listening to your song and writing an article about it with low effort or back and forth. 

With these 4 things in mind I think it’s important to remember that consistency is one of the best traits you can have as an artist. If you can be consistent and focus on your efforts and what you can do instead of what you don’t have, you can grow in an effective and efficient manner. If you’re looking for help with your next song release and rollout, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we’d be happy to help you progress along your journey as an artist.