How to promote your music in 2023 | Artists Tips

You have some cool music, maybe even an EP or an album ready, and of course, you want it to get heard.

Nowadays you can either choose to promote your music without social media (which is a little bit more difficult but I have already written an article about it here), or you can choose to use them to reach more people.
In this article I am going to focus on the contemporary ways to promote your music, so, using and involving social apps in the process: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook (yeah I know but it can still be very useful), Snapchat, even BeReal can be useful in the process of promoting music.

1 - Instagram

Even though many people are saying that Instagram is dead, this is absolutely NOT true. Instagram is one of the best social media to visually represent who you are, your music, and your personal style, both musically and fashion-wise speaking, plus, young people are still using it a lot to document their day-to-day life. 

On Instagram what counts the most and boosts your account on the Explore page is your engagement with fans, so, sadly, you'll have to spend a little bit more time creating content for your Instagram stories, and also you'll have to spend more time thinking about how you want to be portrayed online, taking the right pictures and so on. 

What can get you more engagement?
Starting with stories, show how you're working in the studio, maybe some spoilers on who you're working with, this is so important because it raises curiosity, and you know, with social media people got more and more nosey.

Also, use reels. Maybe you might not like them a lot because they remind you of TikTok, an app that I am not a fan of either, but, they are great to get some engagement. You can post covers, short videos of your live concerts, post some visual content using your music as the sound of the reel. For example, if you've made a song about ghosts (?), make some content that is related to that specific subject, film yourself at night, and add some effects and filters. You can also use A.I. to create the effects, but be careful, this is how A.I. added corpse paint on one of my pictures:

2 - Make music you actually like

This might sound obvious but in many cases, it is not. There are a lot of people that are making music they "kinda like" because they think that by following a certain trend, they are going to get signed faster. Actually, following trends you don't like is going to lead you to major burn out and that's when you are not going to keep up with your music anymore. Do something that you like, even if it is something as niche-specific as medieval music. If you really like that, then there is a higher chance that people are going to follow you for your music and buy and stream it. Of course not following the trends can result in a smaller audience, but do you really care if the audience is smaller but more affectionate? Trust me on this one, do something you really love, whatever it is, get to know other musicians in your niche, collaborate with them and everything is going to be alright, it might take a little bit longer but still, I feel like it's good for your soul to do music that makes you effectively happy.

3 - TikTok

As much as I absolutely hate that app, it's one of the easiest platforms where you can actually grow an audience very fast. Sadly. People find themselves lost in the rabbit hole of the ByteDance app, and so they spend a lot of time consuming content there and mindlessly scrolling through millions of videos. As much as I don't think that TikTok can give you a lasting and meaningful music career, I have to admit that, unless it gets banned worldwide, it's a great place where to give a kickstart to your career. So, here are some tips:

- Make sure that the music distribution service you're using also distributes to TikTok and makes your song a sound for the app;

- Try posting consistently content to promote your music, whether it is a funny video or just some visuals to showcase what you are doing, maybe even posting a "day in the life" as a musician, people usually go crazy for those types of videos;

- Interact with other musicians on the app, try stitching videos and commenting on other people's music, duet with other people (there are tons of musical duets on TikTok) and maybe even just send a nice private message to the musicians you like the most, that's a great way to find someone to collaborate with.

So, as much as this app can seem very bad, and we all know that many musicians out there get forced by their managers to publish content daily, still, it can be great for you as a Kickstarter now, and as a way to promote your music once you've reached a certain amount of followers and views.

4 - Playlists

Getting playlisted on Spotify is absolutely NOT easy, I know this for a fact, some independent artists wait years before getting on an editorial playlist on any music platform, while some others get lucky with their first release. 
So here I am with some tips for you:

- Create a playlist yourself, and give it a catchy name such as "[insert something] vibes", put your music in there as well if it matches the title of your playlist and promote it on your social media, trust me, this is going to help you a lot;

- Take a look around and see some playlists that accept artists' submissions and send your music around, there is a good chance that people are going to put it in there if the song is good for the playlist and your monthly listeners are absolutely going to go up!.

As you can see, you can still get playlisted in different ways while waiting for Spotify's editorial team to notice you, and remember, Spotify is NOT the only distribution service so there is a good chance that your music might get playlisted on other music stream services. 

5 - Send your music to music blogs

Please, if you have some good music send it to me as well!! It would be so cool to write some kind of review!
Also, send your music to blogs, when someone tells you that blogs are going to die and so on, I really feel like it is not true. If you look closely, it was actually social media platforms that died, while people still use the Internet to look up how to do everything. But, before sending your music to blogs I have some things to say:

- Present your music, if you are submitting it you should explain what it is about, why you decided to record it that way, who inspired you, what the artwork represents, how many instruments, how long did it take to record and to decide whether it was worth it releasing it, all these things.

- Have some patience, sometimes blogs have to deal with hundreds if not thousands of daily music submissions, so, if your first tries do not succeed, don't get discouraged and keep on trying, remember that blogs such as Pitchfork and Stereogum have helped many artists succeed.

6 - Don't forget that the quality of your music matters

If you are an independent artist I am not expecting that you are willing to spend a lot of money on something that you don't know if it is going to work out or not. But still, remember that the quality of your music matters, I'm talking about the mix, the sound, but also about the lyrics, the music, the bases, the production, everything. It has to be well done and you need to be focused while you are making it. If you don't want to go to a studio, buy a good microphone and find a very good DAW, for example, Cakewalk is a great free one that you can use to record yourself,  and make sure that everything comes out as good as possible.

This is all that I have to say about promoting your music in the "contemporary traditional" way, there are offline ways that I have already suggested, and these are the best ones if you are also using social media.

In my humble opinion, content creation has ruined the way that we look at music, and it has also ruined the quality of music since it's the first thing that artists have to focus on. Still, if you want to make a living out of music and if you want to make it in the music industry, it's better to be reachable to not miss any opportunity. 

My personal and final tip is, make content to reach as many people as possible, but remember to not focus just on that. Focus on music that you actually love, on making good quality music, using good equipment, and so on. At the end of the day, things are worth it if you actually enjoy the process.