Ocean House Music strives to provide information you can use to help create awareness for your music. This is for the artists that feel stuck, or are just starting out. We hear you. Here’s a helpful list of what the bigger artists already know.
Part 1: BE CONSISTENT
Have a bunch of music before you release. This isn’t about flooding the market with AI, this is about writing music, recording it and then putting a strategy on when to release it. A general rule for releasing a new song is every 4-6 weeks. This means you’ll need to stock up on music before you come across as a consistent artist. By having a bunch of music ready to go, you can set a nice release schedule that goes deep into the year, while you plan your next set of songs. Remember, we live in a world where attention spans are very short and most marketing firms will tell you that your audience needs to hear you 8 times before they “get it.” Being consistent with your releases is your best foot forward.
Part 2: WORK THAT SOCIAL MEDIA
Speaking of short attention spans…’what was I saying?’. All jokes aside, speaking of short attention spans, social media audiences have the shortest of attention spans. They are being fed content in seconds. So, in order to get their attention be good at Part 1, but with social media as well. Not 4-6 weeks, everyday. Remember, when a person is watching your video or you are going live, they want to be seen and heard too. Replying to comments, asking your audience questions, mentioning them in your lives, being interactive, will build your community. That’s what is needed to effectively share your music with them. But this isn’t all about music. It’s about stories…it’s sharing who you are…what you’re about. Share with your audience and don’t be scared to be vulnerable, open and honest. If you care about them by being interactive, they will care about you. That’s how you grow your audience.
Part 3: BUILD AN ARTIST COMMUNITY
Speaking of building a community, you can’t do this alone. You need support, you need ideas, you need to be out there talking to other artists. We find when artists interact with other artists, it makes them better, they create more and who knows, maybe you’ll collab with them. A “collab” is when two or more artists, release a song together. When it’s released, it populates on two different retail profiles as a new release. Unlike a feature, collabs, or co-primaries, will allow both artists to introduce their audiences to the other artist that they are collaborating with. We have artist here, that spend their days everyday working on their next collab. They reach out, they introduce themselves via email or DM. This, in our view, can be one of the most impactful way to grow your audience and if you’re working Part 2 really well, this is an absolute winning combination.
Part 4: EDITORIAL
You would think that this would be number 1. It isn’t. If you don’t do Parts 1-3 well, playlisting will rise and fall for you. Editorial playlisting is when your song gets recognition in a corporate retail playlist…you know what it is….never mind. I’m sure you want to know how do you get into a playlist right? Ok, well…if you’re just getting started, you may have heard of Spotify For Artists. This is when you can claim your profile on Spotify so you can pitch your next song to the editorial team. Well, there’s also Amazon Music For Artists, Tidal For Artists and Deezer For Artists. After you release your first song, claim these profiles so you can pitch your songs. Remember, you will be amongst a lot of other pitches so make sure you pitch (and your song) stand out. Oh and by the way, here’s a hint (according to ex-Spotify employees, pitch your song 3 weeks in advance of your release because the editorial teams are making their decisions way before your release is out.)
Part 5: INDIE PLAYLISTING
Same idea as Part 4, however now your talking directly to a regular person who happens to have a well followed playlist. This idea is simple but time consuming. If you want to hit up the owner of a playlist, simply do it. Try it, what takes time is researching and finding these individuals. Most are on IG and you can DM them. Some leave their email address in their Spotify profile and the rest can be found on SubmitHub, Groover, Playlist Push, Daily Playlists, where you can pay them a small fee to review your song for their playlist. If you don’t know where to start, find an artist friend you respect (they don’t have to be huge), see what playlists they are in. You can find that out on their Spotify profile.
Part 6: DIGITAL ADS
You may have heard of Meta Ads or Google Ads or Spotify Ads. The idea that you spend money to have digital ads across Instagram and/or Facebook, and Spotify respectfully, to bump up your streams and awareness. Some people make a living helping artists performing these tasks. We do them here. However, before you think about spending your money, be great at Parts 1-3. Digital ads are nice…they work, you’ll see your streams go up during a campaign but when the campaign is done, if you don’t have those foundational parts figured out, your numbers will slide back down. This can be discouraging for an artist and if you’re not in place to spend, and you think this is the way to break, you’ll feel lost. It’s not a foundational piece but can be a weapon in the arsenal.
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