The rise of social media giants TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube has brought independent artists closer to their listeners than ever before, with their share of the music market reaching an all-time high of $9.8 billion+ globally.
Indie musicians are now connecting directly with their fans on social media and delivering exactly what they want. What do fans desire? MUCH MORE MUSIC.
Papoose released 12 EPs in 12 months in 2021, and his song “Thought I Was Gonna Stop” has received over 1.2 million streams to date, with the remix featuring hip hop heavyweights Lil Wayne, Remy Ma, and Busta Rhymes. NEFFEX released a new single every week for 100 weeks, resulting in 5 million+ active monthly listeners on Spotify.
Don’t just take our word for it.
1 Maintain Constant Engagement with Your Fans
- It used to be about competing for fans’ dollars; now it’s about competing for fans’ time. Users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on TikTok [2}, 29 minutes on Instagram [3}, 18 minutes on YouTube[4, and 148 minutes on Spotify [5]. If you can get users to spend time with your content on social media, they will look for it in digital stores.
NEFFEX, a TuneCore Artist, released 100 new, original songs over the course of 100 weeks, and their Spotify grew to over 5,000,000+ active monthly listeners.
“I grew up loving bands like Taking Back Sunday and Blink 182, and I know if they dropped a song every week, 15-year-old me would be tuning in every f*cking day to hear what they were up to.”]
2 TikTok Viral
The radio personality was killed by video. The video-sharing app transformed how fans discover new music, breaking down previously insurmountable barriers between DIY artists and their audiences. TikTok transformed music listening from a one-way relationship in which fans only absorbed content to an experience in which they can actively and repeatedly participate.
Creating a TikTok trend to coincide with your release can result in a significant increase in UGC (user-generated content) and keep your release trending across social platforms and digital stores. Songs that trend on TikTok frequently chart on the most prominent global playlists, such as the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50.
Your goal is to keep fans engaged for as long as possible, so keep in mind that TikTok trends typically last 5-7 days. Uploading
3. Play Around with Your Sound
Independent music is no longer a genre. Mass fanbases used to be concentrated in specific genres, but listeners are increasingly falling into niches. Today, independent music is all about sharing your content and seeing what sticks. The more raw and unpolished a song is on TikTok and other social platforms, the better.
You may not even know who your entire fanbase is yet, so put it to the test. Involve your audience in the process. Experimenting with your sound is all about finding your core fanbase—the fans who will truly engage with, listen to, and buy your content—so that you can make meaningful and long-lasting income from your music.
“What’s new?” It’s all about what’s next these days, man. Get off your a** and get to work!
4. Practice Makes Perfect
Getting your release onto a prominent playlist is critical to maintaining its performance over time.
Spotify recommends submitting songs at least 7 days in advance for playlist consideration. Keep in mind that the song must already be in Spotify’s system in order to be pitched. TuneCore recommends uploading songs at least 14 days before the release date through your distributor to allow curators enough time to review your music.
The more you pitch to Spotify and other top playlists, the better your chances of landing. Following the placement of your first track, subsequent releases are more likely to be placed.
5. There Are Countless Ways to Waterfall
Previously, the album rollout method consisted of releasing one single in the months preceding an album, and a second to coincide with the LP’s release. With the continued rise of social media, we know that the age-old album-rollout strategy is dead.
A waterfall strategy is when an EP/album is released gradually, one track at a time, until the entire EP/album is distributed when the final track is released.
Before TuneCore went Unlimited, artists had to pay $9.99 per single and $29.99 per album, making the waterfall strategy prohibitively expensive. You no longer have to make a choice with Unlimited distribution.
When you waterfall your album or EP, you will keep fans engaged, optimize your music’s performance across TikTok and other social platforms, and experiment with your sound.
Then What?
I wrote six songs while you were there swiping up on your dmn phone. Now stand up and start writing some music. Oh, tomorrow, you’ll do it, right? Bullsht! We cannot guarantee tomorrow. The time is now. In actuality, the occasion occurred yesterday. Why are you here still?
Himusic
New music is currently being discovered online by your fans. Why do you persist in waiting?