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Now that you’ve recorded your new music and uploaded it on streaming platforms, you’ve been getting streams from direct links you share on social media and people who already know about your new music release.
Normally, the streaming platforms will expose your music to a lot of listeners but it’s not that simple. You need to know how to promote your music on streaming platforms to reap its rewards and maximize your music marketing efforts,
Most music streaming services want their users to discover new music because this will make the users come back for more music but how do you get your own music in front of these users if you do not know how to promote your music on streaming platforms?
As an independent artist, you can make a full-time living off the revenue generated from streaming platforms but you need to know how to promote your music on streaming platforms first.
Most upcoming musicians think making their music available on these platforms is what they need but what they do not know is this is just the first step. There are other processes involved to be able to reap the favors that come with having your music on streaming platforms. This is why you need to learn how to promote your music on streaming platforms.
In this article, I’ll share with you surefire practices to help you promote your music on streaming platforms but before I begin, you need to know which music streaming services are available to musicians.
The Best Streaming Platforms For Musicians In 2022
Tidal
Tidal is at the forefront of high-quality streaming as it provides high-quality streaming services to users. But the service’s pricing structure has recently been reviewed, making it become more accessible to users with the inclusion of lossless 16-bit 44.1kHz audio streams in its standard plan.
Although tidal seems like the big boys streaming platform, it’s not entirely bad to learn to promote your music on streaming platforms like it.
Spotify
Although there are critics that have criticized this streaming platform, Spotify remains comfortably the most popular and convenient way to get your music fix. Spotify offers the most exhaustive and easy-to-navigate catalogs while also offering decent 320kbps quality.
Spotify is popularly known for its music discovery algorithm and due to this, the platform proves to be one of the best to promote your new music hence the need to learn to promote your music on streaming platforms. If you want to know how to increase your Spotify plays, here’s an article for you.
Apple Music
Although Apple Music is majorly aimed at Apple users, other device users can now get Apple Music on their devices and use the music streaming platform as well. With over 50% of smart device users using Apple devices, it’s important that you leverage this as these users are major users of Apple Music.
With this number, you can capture a lot of fans and potential fans and convert them to your listeners by learning to promote your music on streaming platforms like Apple Music. Here’s a detailed article on everything you need to know about promoting your music on Apple Music
Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon music unlimited is compatible with smartphones and tablets due to its Android and iOS apps. The platform is also compatible with PCs and Macs due to its web player or desktop software. TVs and tablets are also compatible while some in-car systems and audio products also support the device.
Amazon music unlimited has some cool features like allowing its users to stream music mixed in spatial audio on iOS and Android devices with their existing headphones, as well as on select devices that support Alexa cast. This has led to an increase in the number of users that use the platform to stream music hence why you need to know how to promote your music on streaming platforms like Amazon music unlimited.
Deezer
Deezer became the first music streaming service to celebrate its 10th year anniversary in 2017. Although Deezer doesn’t provide any special audio quality that attracts users, this has put the platform at a disadvantage when compared to the previous audio streaming platforms.
Thankfully, the platform’s extensive catalog, vast device support, user-friendly interface lays the foundation for a service that can still rival the best. Users can use this platform just like any other platform out there hence the need to understand how to promote your music on streaming platforms so your music can reach Deezer users.
Qobuz
This is not really a well-known streaming service but it also has loyal users who subscribe to the platform’s services hence why you need to know how to promote your music on streaming platforms to be able to reach this platform’s users.
YouTube music
With a solid user interface, this platform’s USP has already sold itself out to users which made users fall in love with the platform. Although the platform doesn’t offer great quality as the top-rated streaming platforms, users still subscribe to this platform due to its USP- music videos. So it’s quite important you learn to promote your music on streaming platforms to be able to reach YouTube music users.
The Best Streaming Platforms For African Independent Artists
Ranked from the most used by consumers to the least used, the following are the best streaming platforms for African independent artists to have their music on:
- Spotify
- Apple Music
- Audiomack
- YouTube Music
- Tidal
- Deezer
7 Best Practices To Boost Your Music Promotion On Digital Streaming Platforms
Now that you have your music on your preferred digital streaming platform, you’ll need to promote it to help you get your music to a larger audience. To get organic audiences, here are 7 best practices to help you promote your songs on digital streaming platforms:
Understand How Music Recommendation Algorithms Work:
To understand how to promote your music on streaming platforms, you need to understand how the music recommendation algorithm works.
Here’s an example of how the algorithm works:
Assume users A, B, and C listen to the same songs. User A and B listen to new songs. Because user C has similar music taste with users A and B, the new song is then recommended to user C.
This is the basic overview of how the algorithm functions. Although in real-world situations, the algorithms are much more complex. This outline helps you understand basically how the algorithm sets out recommendations.
Understanding this algorithm will help you understand how to place your song in popular genres and how your songs will be recommended to listeners.
Many streaming services also feature multiple styles of recommendations. They include:
- Recommended playlists
- Radio style Streaming
- Related artists
- Recommended artists/albums
Each type of recommendation features a unique algorithm that accounts for many different elements of user activity across the platform. Here are some factors used by streaming algorithms:
- What songs users have saved
- A user’s most-played songs
- Playlists made by curators
- Popular playlists featuring music in the user’s niche.
These algorithms can get very complex but understanding the entire concept helps you know how to promote your music on streaming platforms and target a more niche audience.
Claim Your Accounts On The Platforms And Access The Analytics:
To help you promote your music on streaming platforms, you need to claim your accounts on the platforms to help you access the platform’s analytics. This will help you understand what works and what doesn’t.
These streaming services have artist interfaces that allow you to customize your profile, use on-platform marketing tools, and view analytics that will help your marketing efforts. The interfaces include:
- Spotify for Artists
- Apple Music for Artists and Apple Connect
- Pandora AMP and Next Big Sound
- Daily trending reports (for Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify) in your CD Baby dashboard
Get Placement In Well-followed Playlists:
Placing your music in well-followed, niched playlists can be a very good way to promote your music on streaming platforms as these playlists will help you draw more traction to your music especially if you create good music.
These days, if you get a placement on well-followed playlists on these streaming platforms, this is automatically similar to getting played on the radio. So make sure to use this to your utmost advantage.
Here are the steps to help you get on the right playlist:
Step 1: Find the right playlist
Step 2: Find the owner of the playlist
Step 3: Message the playlist curator on social media
Don’t Stream Your Own Music On Repeat:
While promoting your music on streaming platforms, it’s important to not stream your music continuously for a certain period of time after its release to avoid being detected as spam.
Although you may be doing this genuinely without aiming to spam the streaming platform, you need to understand that you can’t stream your music on repeat for 2 days straight else you’d be detected as a fraud.
In the process of getting more streams and boosting play counts, make sure not to stream your music on repeat as this may be termed as a fraud on these platforms and this may lead to them removing your music from the platforms.
Embed Players and Smart Links On Your Website:
Prioritizing your listener’s convenience will help your potential listeners discover your music easily anywhere on the web and listen anywhere they want. This will in turn help you promote your music on streaming platforms since you’ve easily gotten your music to your potential audience.
Try to make it easy for your fans to listen to your music anywhere they want to hear it by embedding the streaming platform’s music player to your website and smart links to your social media platforms. So, whenever a new fan visits your music website, likes your content, and wants to stream your music immediately, they can do it on the go without leaving your website to the streaming platform’s website.
Go Off-platform To Promote:
One of the best ways to get new listeners is to go off the streaming platform to promote your music and get users to stream your music on these streaming platforms.
You can promote your music on streaming platforms by promoting on your social media platforms, your website, etc. Most of the traction on your streaming platform will come from the work you do off the streaming platform, driving listeners to your Apple Music, Spotify, etc. Your followers on social media can be converted to your listeners with the right social media promotion strategy. Remember you need to create great content to get people to stream your content so, put in great efforts to create great music.
Release New Music Regularly:
Creating and releasing new music has proven to help promote your music on streaming platforms over the years. Check out previous successful musicians’ steps, the more music they released, the more they broadened their horizons and reach new potential audiences from different locations and different parts of the world.
Releasing new music very often draws new listeners to your page on these streaming platforms. The more you release new music, the closer you are to getting your music to the front of new listeners.
It’s important to know that releasing new music doesn’t mean you should spam the streaming platforms with new music. Create a music calendar with the potential release date for your new music and follow the calendar to the latter. While you continue to release new music regularly and implement your music marketing strategy, you’ll gradually notice an increase in your listeners. This is a proven method to help you promote your music on streaming platforms.
