by Francesca | Mar 7, 2024 | Music Marketing
You’ve been prepping for this day for months, excited to finally drop that badass music video you’ve been pouring your heart and soul into. If you want it to perform the best it can, there are some things you can do on release day to improve your chances. In this post, we’ve got some tried and true tips to help you make release day a hit.
Music Video Release Strategy for Better Performance on YouTube
First things first… Channel Optimization
Before we dive in, don’t forget about the basics. When you upload a music video to your YouTube channel, making sure it’s fully optimized is key in setting it up for maximum discoverability. This means making sure your video’s Title and Description correspond, tagging and categorizing your video appropriately and utilizing an eye-catching, yet non-misleading, thumbnail. Once you put out the video, make sure to also set it as the featured video on your channel. That way, it’s easy to find for anyone who visits your channel.
In addition, YouTube has a huge focus on influencing users to do more than just consume the video and leave the platform. They also want them to participate, engage with, and create their own content. How can you do this? This is where the the Multi-Format Release Strategy comes in. If your own strategy follows this guideline, your video will perform better on the platform and be pushed further by YouTube’s algorithm. Here’s how it works…
What is a “Multi-Format Strategy”?
Exactly how it sounds, a Multi-Format Release Strategy is a content strategy that utilizes more than one type of format to promote a release. When it comes to YouTube, this is the best thing you can do to ensure your content is pushed to every corner of the platform, to as many fans as possible.
Although the main squeeze is the music video itself, your release strategy should also include features like YouTube Premieres, Shorts, and more. With YouTube’s billions of months users eager to consume new music, these are your best bet at catching (and keeping) their attention.
Release Day Premiere
YouTube Premieres lets you announce what time your new video will go live and show an announcement for your video in your audience’s feed before it does, giving them plenty of time to prepare to tune in. Once they do, you and your viewers can chat with each other just like a live stream. The more you engage with your fans during the Premiere, the more likely they are to engage with you and your new release even further. (For example… with the YouTube Shorts you create with the release. wink, wink)
How does it work? A public watch page is created for your video to eventually premiere on, then you can share the watch page URL since the watch page is public before the Premiere begins. Premieres show up across YouTube just like regular uploads, so you can find them through search, the homepage, and video recommendations. When it’s time to start your Premiere, remember to do these 5 steps:
- Enable chat replay
- Invite fans to ask questions or answer prompts
- Use moderators to find and reply to comments more quickly
- Engage with fan comments by liking, replying or pinning
- Thank viewers who showed up to support you and this release
Release Day Shorts
Speaking of Shorts… With these, you can create up to 60s of a snapshot to show fans the various sides of you and your art. You can show off your personality, interests, talents and creative flare, all using your new song. YouTube Shorts are also a great way to encourage fans to create their own additional content with your music. Not only does creating a Short with your new track to let your fans know its officially available, it gives them the opportunity to interact with you as an artist. When posting Shorts, consistency here will ensure all the attention is on your new song, whether you create a behind-the-scenes look, promo sneak peak, or whatever else your creative mind can come up with.
Like TikTok, YouTube Shorts have their own built in creation tools you can use to help elevate your videos. Features like the green screen effect, the align tool for seamless transitions, filters and more are all there to help you make the best videos you can. Adding features like these make your videos more engaging, which snags the attention of your viewers and keeps them there for the long-run.
Additional Release Day Videos
Your official music video isn’t the only thing you can put out on release day. It’s always a good idea to be as accommodating as possible for all kinds of fans by releasing alternative types of videos like Art Tracks, Visualizers, Lyric Videos, etc.
Good luck!
by Francesca | Feb 21, 2024 | Legal
Interested in starting your own label? There are a couple things you’ll have to do first to make it happen. In this post, we’ll give you a general rundown of the most important steps. Here’s what we know…
How To Register Your Own Record Label
What does a label do?
A record label is the entity responsible for releasing your master recordings to the public on retailers, streaming services, radio, etc.. Major parts of a record label’s work involve promotion, marketing your music, landing sync placements, and more. In addition, major labels often pay out advances to cover the recording costs for the album or single in addition to paying to produce physical releases like CDs or LPs.
“How do I know if I’m ready to start my own label?”
There are a couple reasons why someone would want to start their own record label. Whether you want to represent yourself or other artists, it’s a great way to gain some independence, learn more about the industry, direct the futures of other artists and genres, and give yourself the ultimate control over the destiny of your own music.
Regardless of why you want one, however, this is a complicated and time-consuming process that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Doing this on your own is possible, but not recommended if you have no experience in the game. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, so build a team that encompasses every skill you need to do this right. Once your team is in order, here’s what you need to do.
Define Your Vision
Your brand identity as a label will play a huge part in your success moving forward. It’s important to choose a specific vibe or genre you’d like to encompass as a label in order to solidify your brand identity in the industry. If you plan on taking on other artists under your wing, they’ll want someone who specializes in their specific genre and gets their vision.
In addition to deciding what genre (or genres) to focus on, this is the time to choose a label name that best represents you, get your official website set up, and trademark your label name. — Before you release anything, you MUST create your website and claim ALL social media pages for your brand prior to releasing your first album. Having your social media in order first gives it time to gain some traction before it’s time to promote you (or your clients) music.
Choose a Business Structure and Register with the State
Next, it’s time to decide on a business structure. Common options include sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), or corporation. Each structure has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it’s not a bad idea to consult with a lawyer or accountant to figure out the best choice for you.
- For example, an LLC exists separately from its members, which means that those members are not personally responsible for any business debts and liabilities that may arise down the line. Instead, the LLC is responsible. On the other hand, a sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business owned and run by one person.
Choosing to go the sole proprietorship route gives you more personal control over everything, but an LLC saves you some liability if things don’t work out. These are just some general things to consider, but it’s up to you to thoroughly do your research and choose the right path for you.
Once you have made your choice, you will also need to register with the Secretary of State and update that registration annually.
Register with SoundExchange & Neighboring Rights Collection Societies
The royalties that SoundExchange collects and distributes are for the featured artist and the sound recording copyright owner. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC collect and distribute royalties for the songwriter, composer and publisher. — The difference is both satellite radio providers and webcasters pay SoundExchange when they stream music.
That means the only way to get that money is with SoundExchange.
They’re the ones who collect these digital performance rights from non-interactive music streaming on internet sources like SiriusXM and Pandora. If you don’t want to miss out on this money, Symphonic can collect SoundExchange royalties on behalf of sound recording owners and/or rightsholders.
Set Up Distribution Channels
Now, it’s time to get your (or your clients) music onto streaming platforms and DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc. To do this, you’ll have to go through a distributor like us. When you sign up for music distribution with Symphonic, we go to work to make sure your releases make the biggest impact possible on as many platforms as possible.
In Conclusion…
Creating your own record label can be an exciting and fulfilling venture, allowing you to discover and promote talented artists while leaving your own mark on the music industry. Although the process of registering a record label can seem daunting and complex, we hope these general steps will help the process go as smoothly as possible. With consistency, determination, and a passion for great music, there’s nothing you can’t do!
by Francesca | Feb 15, 2024 | Music Industry, Music Marketing
Want to learn how to build a fanbase and improve your skills as an artist from one of the best in the business? Musician’s Fanbase Growth Workshop offers all of that in their weekly Wednesday workshop. Here’s how to secure your spot for free.
Reserve Your Spot for Modern Musician’s Fanbase Growth Workshop
Here’s the rundown…
Founder of Modern Musician and host of the Modern Musician Podcast, Michael Walker is hosting an in-depth “fanbase growth workshop” for artists who are ready to level up their music career, and thrive during these challenging times. In this workshop, he’s revealing some of their best techniques that are usually reserved for his $5000+ clients at Modern Musician. This is the first time he’s given away this information for free, and you don’t want to miss out on the valuable insights he has to offer.
“How do I get involved?”
Every Wednesday @ 3PM ET, they offer LIVE training in 3 main topics:
- Artistic Identity: Hone in your music brand to give you clarity about who you are as an artist, so you can attract the best-fit audience who will love your music.
- Thriving Fanbase: Set up your marketing so we can build your loyal fanbase based on your artistic identity and your strengths.
- Revenue Multiplier: Create an automatic monetization system to fund your artist lifestyle so you don’t sacrifice your talent or lose touch with your musical identity.
If you’re interested in tuning in, click this link to register in one-click:
Reserve Your Seat – Fanbase Growth Workshop
Once you’ve done that, you’ll receive a “welcome pack” with all the resources needed to take part in this special, one-time event.
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Want to learn more?
In addition, you may have also heard about the Gold Artist Academy, Modern Musician’s flagship mentoring program. This program is a great resource for artists who are ready to truly commit and step up their game.
- Learn more about the program, plus testimonials and additional details, right here.
See you there!
by Francesca | Feb 8, 2024 | Music Marketing
It’s undeniable that TikTok has given many up and coming artists a chance at major exposure with its algorithm. As long as your music is on TikTok for you (and other creators) to use, you have the chance to promote yourself through challenges, trends and so much more. If you’re ready to promote your music on TikTok, here’s everything you need to know.
How To Use TikTok To Promote Your Music
First things first…
Before you can start anything, you have to upload your music to TikTok.
Back in 2019, we announced our partnership with TikTok which allows our clients to deliver their tracks onto TikTok for its millions of creators to use in their videos. This offers an amazing opportunity for our clients to spread their music through one of the most popular apps in the world, with us to guide them along.
In the meantime, think about what part of your track has the most potential for going viral. — That means 15 seconds of catchy, groovy greatness that you can imagine people singing or dancing along to. Don’t be afraid to dig into your back catalog to find songs that truly fit the bill. Oftentimes when one song goes viral, it may bring some of your other songs right up with it.
Hop On TikTok Trends
Every week, something new is trending on TikTok. Hell, it seems like something new has taken the platform by storm almost every day. Even if a trending challenge doesn’t necessary align with your brand, it’s still useful to get involved. If an unrelated video of yours goes viral, it may bring your other posts along for the ride.
Hopping on the latest trend is a great way to get seen by more people and blow up the engagement on your present and past posts. Whether you’re on the hunt for audio, effect or hashtag trends, there are tons of ways to find what’s popping off on TikTok. // To help you out, we wrote a whole post that gives you all the sneaky tips and tricks we know about how to find what’s trending.
Post Music Video Sneak Peeks
While you’re working on that new music video, take behind-the-scenes clips during the process. Even better, you can tease final cuts of the video by posting them as a Reel before the launch date. You can do this by using captions like, “Coming Soon… 👀” with the launch date worked in. You can even link to Spotify for presaves, YouTube premieres, or wherever else they can find your music once it comes out.
Create Your Own Challenges & Trends
If you want to go viral on TikTok, you’re going to have to get creative. The most popular challenges and trends on TikTok are lip syncing, dance routines and comedy type videos. That’s why it’s important to have songs on TikTok that are catchy enough to support these type of challenges.
Need some ideas?
- If you hate dancing, you can tell your fans to create their own dances to your song and tag you on TikTok.
- If you have a song with amazing lyrics, do a VoiceOver of you lip syncing along with the lyrics on screen.
- Want fan engagement? Tell your audience to do covers of your song and repost them when they do.
- Want to collaborate with others? Try the Duet, Stitch and Collaboration features.
Just how tagging other creatives can double your video’s reach, so can collaborations. Finding your niche is important in anything you do, as it helps engage a more loyal audience and helps you secure yourself in a more manageable, less saturated space. — Be sure to comment, like, share, duet, other artist’s work and encourage your followers/viewers to do the same.
Try Covers Of Your Song in Different Styles
One of my favorite trends that musicians like to do on TikTok is when they give new life to an existing song by creating new versions of it you would have never expected. For example, those videos captioned: “If my song, [blank] was a metal song” or “If my song, [song here] was an EDM banger”. As an artist, you have many strengths you can leverage when creating content. If you’re low-key really good at making beats, show off that talent with a cover. If you aren’t so good at another genre, you can ask your audience to do their own version.
Use The Right Hashtags
Hashtags are important on pretty much every platform. With the right hashtag strategy, you can increase the reach, engagement and visibility of your posts on TikTok in no time. Luckily, figuring out which hashtags will work best is fairly simple.
- First, go ahead and open the app, tap on the “Discover” tab on the bottom of your screen and scroll through the previews of all the trending hashtags.
- Now, let’s dive a little deeper. In the search bar at the top, go ahead and search whatever hashtags are relevant to you. Once you hit search, you’ll be able to see related hashtags and view counts for each of them.
- With a quick Google search, you’ll see that the most popular hashtags for musicians are: #music, #singer, #artist, #songwriter, #livemusic, #newmusic, and the list goes on and on.
However, these are just the most popular, overall hashtags. If you’re looking for more interactive engagement with a more segmented fanbase, we recommend looking into artists like you on the platform and checking out the hashtags that are popular in their circles. Then, you can make a solid list of these and keep them in mind for your own efforts.
Try TikTok’s Promote Feature
With Promote, you can turn any organic TikTok video into an ad, right from the app. You can start reaching new audiences, build a following, and drive traffic to your business website. Once you run a Promote campaign, you also get insights into your audience and how your videos are performing to help you improve your efforts moving forward.
We wrote a whole post that breaks down exactly how to do this; you can check that out right here.
Utilize TikTok Analytics
Driven by machine learning and a technical algorithm, TikTok thrives on data and metrics. If you want to improve your content’s performance, understanding your profile’s detailed analytics is the first step to improving your efforts. With it, your data-filled dashboard is separated into three main categories: Overview, Content and Followers.
By clicking through each tab, you’ll be able to see videos views, profile views, follower count, and follow demographics in terms of gender and geography. With this information, you can see which videos are working and which aren’t. Then, you can adapt your strategy as you go to improve in the future.
Not sure how to find them? Check out, “Where to Find Detailed Analytics for TikTok” to learn all the different ways to access these analytics.
In Conclusion…
Aside from being an addicting past time for most of us, TikTok is also a wonderful tool for your promotional efforts as an artist. If you work with the algorithm and all the features the platform has to offer, you’ll see your content start to thrive.
On that note… As you reach a wider audience on TikTok, you can funnel those users over to your socials and streaming platforms in the process. By taking steps like adding links to other platforms in your bio, cross promoting content on your feed and following the tips mentioned above, you can grow your audience everywhere in no time.
Good luck!
by Francesca | Feb 8, 2024 | Music Industry
Job hunting. We’ve all done it, and most of us will continue to have to do it until retirement comes along. Indeed and Glassdoor are great for seeing everything and anything all at once, but what if you’re tired of wasting your time sorting through thousands of unrelated jobs? Believe it or not, there are job sites just for us music biz folks. Here are some of the best music industry job sites to help you land your next job…
9 Music Industry Job Sites To Help You Land Your Next Job
The Digilogue
The Digilogue is a diverse community of creators and industry professionals in music and tech. They curate conversations and programming around industry education, artist discovery content, and a great career resource on their website. Under their Music Careers tab, click on Job Postings, and you’ll find tons of job listings up for grabs. // Check it out for yourself on their website here.
Music Business Worldwide
This site is one of the best resources for anyone looking to broaden their horizons in the music biz. Music Business Jobs is a website for the global music industry to find the best candidates for their open positions. They post openings all over the country, and you can filter results by location, companies, and job type. // Check out what’s available right here.
Doors Open
The world of electronic music is shaped not only by artists and fans, but also by thousands of small businesses, from clubs to booking agents to publishers and promoters. If you’re looking to work in the electronic music scene, this resource is for you. Doors Open is a place for people to connect with companies and projects they believe in, and for independent music companies to find the staff they need to turn ideas into reality. // Check ’em out here.
Shesaid.so
Shesaid.so is a global community of women and gender minorities in the music industry. They’re absolutely awesome, and they happen to also provide a very useful job portal tab on their website where you can browse open positions and apply. // Click here to see what’s available.
Music Careers
Music Careers is built for music professionals by music professionals to help you find your next job in the music industry. They post up to date jobs, refresh every 30 days, and give you the ability to refine your search by specific niches within the industry. They even post freelance opportunities, too. // Check out what they’ve got to offer here.
Digital Music News
You may already be a fan of Digital Music News‘ industry articles to keep up to date on the latest news, but have you checked out the jobs tab on their website? There, you can check out music industry jobs from major record labels and streaming services to universities, merchandising companies, startups, and more. // Check it out here.
A2IM
A2IM has their own job board to help you find your perfect position. Whether you’re looking for temporary work, an internship, or full-time, their database can search jobs by keywords and location. // Check out jobs on A2IM here.
Music Jobs
Music Jobs is part of a global publication and online community which brings their subscribers industry opportunities and daily news from the world of film, TV, music and gaming. On their site, you can also sign up and subscribe to emails with job opportunities tailored specifically to what position you’re looking for. // Click here to check out the site and search for jobs.
Entertainment Careers
Entertainmentcareers.net is a great site which features jobs in in Film, Television, Music, Production Companies, Radio, Animation, Acting, Production, PR, Design, and more. Whether you’re interested in the music industry or something adjacent, this is the ultimate place to check. // Browse available jobs on their site here.
You got this!
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