As a musician, your goal is to share your music with the world – and that requires investing time and money in promoting each release, be it a single, an EP, or an album. While creating great music is the foundation, promoting the content you create ensures that your work gets the attention and exposure it deserves. To avoid disappointment or spending your time and budget ineffectively (especially if the budget is limited), you need to approach your promotional efforts tactically.
Here's the key concept: Not all songs will achieve equal traction. Certain tracks will simply resonate more with listeners, and it often might be those you wouldn't even expect to do so well – filler songs, or songs you wrote in 5 minutes. These, however, deserve much more promotional effort (and a much bigger chunk of your budget) to maximize the impact of the promotional resources (and also the number of your listeners).
The starting point: social media
Social media should be your first stop for promoting your music. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok provide free access to a large audience, but you need to post regularly and ensure your content is interesting and engaging. For a release: mix your teasers, pre-save campaigns, and just-released content through regular posts, reels or TikToks, live sessions, and stories. These can be much more interactive – make sure to include personal/organic (and not only music-related) content to avoid coming across like a salesperson 😆
Don't forget little features like polls, “Add Yours” templates, questions, personal comments, behind-the-scenes, the story behind the song, acoustic sessions, and more to engage with your followers naturally.
Ensure that most of your content is approachable (without constant CTAs). Interacting with fans and being yourself can help build a much more engaged and loyal fanbase.
While social media promotion is very low-cost, it demands time and creativity. Ideally, you should be posting every few days and be consistent. Consider a post planner to help you plan ahead and keep the content coming.
Blogs, playlists, and more: reaching the curators
Securing spots on popular playlists and getting featured on music blogs, radio, and YouTube channels can significantly boost your visibility and help the release, especially at the start or later on, when it starts to feel a bit forgotten. Blog features can improve your SEO presence and provide great (and different) content for your socials. Playlisting, especially on platforms like Spotify, can lead to a surge in streams and new listeners, helping you with getting over the 1k streams you need to get paid by Spotify.
But that's not the most important thing – the key is to trigger the algorithms and teach Spotify where your song belongs. With that, more Radio and other algorithmic playlists' plays are triggered as well. Independent curators are not the most important element in your promotion, but if used well, they can be a great asset to give your song that rocket start that may trigger longer-term exposure.
Reaching out to curators and bloggers requires not only time (for research and a personalized approach) but also a bit of budget. It is possible to get some free placements (cold emailing is, however, not the ideal means to do that if you want to avoid bots or payola, both against Spotify's terms of service) by using free (standard) credits or earning free premium credits in Hot or Not, but it's harder and takes more time.
We recommend having about 20 bucks ready for any song, and based on its reception and feedback, invest more only in those showing greater potential.
Live shows: connecting with the audience
Live performances offer an unparalleled connection with fans, so we definitely recommend aligning them with your releases. Think locally and reach out to smaller local venues, especially if you're a smaller or less live-experienced artist. Or get in a routine of using Twitch or other live streaming platforms' to enjoy a different kind of connection, and regular practice of playing in front of people.
The hardest part is starting. Once you do it a few times, it will get much easier, we promise.
Music videos: that special touch and extra content
A music video can be a fantastic promotional asset. Not everybody uses Spotify – but everybody knows about and has at some point used YouTube. Yes, we bet your parents and even grandparents know about it ;-)
Sharing a unique music video, even if simple, reaches a different audience. The video itself can be promoted separately, but the video description can also promote your other channels. And it's an asset you can easily turn into a teaser story, TikTok/reel/short, or get pictures from, making the most out of it.
Even if it's only a lyric video, this element adds a great touch to your promotion, especially for those who love to sing along to your songs. It will cost you time and effort, but it's absolutely doable and can be quite worth it.
Email marketing: reach without algorithms
Email marketing is another powerful tool for promoting your music. By building and maintaining a mailing list of your fans (pre-save pages are a great place to start), you can keep them updated with your latest releases, tour dates, and exclusive content. There's no algorithm in your way – your content reaches everyone who willingly subscribes!
Make sure your emails are concise, well-designed (simpler is better), and regular, but not overwhelmingly frequent to avoid appearing spammy. Focus on one main piece of news and perhaps one secondary item. Don't forget to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) and important links.
Ads: the fanbase-building investment
Any music marketing expert will tell you that Meta (and other) ads will, long-term, help you grow the most. Whether the song itself is promoted or you promote your own This Is kind of playlist (This Is playlists are Spotify-generated playlists that act kind of like an artist's Greatest Hits), those showing interest in what you're promoting will click on the ad, and listen – meaning the biggest engagement and fanbase-building potential. It can, however, be one of the most expensive promotional tools, which is why some thinking about the budget is necessary.
Start lightly, analyze the results, and based on the engagement you see, consider either raising the budget or allocating it to a song that does much better than the one you're promoting at that moment.
... in all that, some songs will do much better than others. How do you know?
Which songs are naturally performing better? With curators, you get better responses and more approvals (so, check your approval rates for starts). More engagement on socials – more likes, comments, shares, and reactions – often also indicate that. The song may create more buzz during live performances, and also get more above-average comments in Hot or Not. But mostly, check your Spotify for Artists' data. More saves, more adds to playlists, and more engagement in terms of Views of your Spotify Canvas immediately show people resonated with a song more. So make sure to upload a Canvas, however simple.
Higher engagement can, and usually will, also result in more Radio and other algorithmic playlists plays on Spotify. Promoting a naturally more engaging song will only boost that effect, possibly also helping with editorial playlist placement (yes, you can be placed on an editorial later after release).
What's the ideal promotional effort ratio for organically successful songs versus the rest of your music?
We recommend a 70/30 or 80/20 split in terms of budget. Each song deserves apush at the start, but really invest in those that make the most out of the budget. By tracking the performance of your releases in Spotify for Artists, on your socials, in Meta's Business Manager, etc., and recognizing which songs are gaining traction organically, you'll know which “naturally popular” songs are worth investing more in.
| We know each song is your baby, and it feels like a shame not to help the one which actually needs help. But try to be realistic and think about larger artists – they also don't push every single song on the album. From the stream count, you can see the “hits” are simply much bigger than other songs there. You should aim for the same thing, boosting what already works.
The takeaway
It's not about diminishing the value of your less popular songs; it's about identifying high-potential songs and allocating resources strategically to grow your fanbase more effectively.