There is no magic bullet.
At the end of the day, you have to build a business. That takes time, patience and consistency.
Artists are always told to ‘just be consistent’. ‘Create content every day.’ ‘Wait for it to happen organically.’
Consistent quality content creation is a proven strategy, but in all honesty, I have seen that strategy work for less than 10% of artists.
From a marketing perspective, one of the most well known and effective tactics for reaching a new audience is to leverage people, places and platforms who have already brought together those audiences.
Think about it… you could have the best restaurant out in the middle of nowhere, and it would not be successful. Businesses have to go where people already are.
Influencer marketing takes that a step further and gives you the opportunity to get in front of the audience of a popular social media influencer or content curator. So you get a quick and easy way to reach their audience while also getting the ‘social proof’ that comes from having popular accounts endorse your music.
Instead of struggling against the algorithm or paying for social media ads, you are paying for the help of other content creators and promoters who have built a network of influencers, curators and playlists.
TikTok and Spotify have become the platforms that artists are most focused on to grow their audience. There are two main reasons for this:
Music industry professionals such as labels, publishers and managers look to those platforms to monitor an artist’s growth and likelihood of success.
Both TikTok and Spotify have insanely accurate recommendation algorithms that can supercharge artist growth when there is a high level of engagement in their content.
That being said, TikTok definitely favors artists who are natural content creators. Those that aren’t often try to become content creators, but because it is not authentically who they are, they find themselves being drained by the process. They often lose motivation to create content and sometimes even lose motivation to make music at all. That is a recipe for disaster!
This idea spills over into Spotify growth, because the number one way that artists are told to drive traffic to Spotify is by creating content on social media to promote their releases. We see it constantly in the HOME Community. Artists are making incredible music, but because they haven’t cracked the social media content creation code, they are still struggling to gain listeners and followers on Spotify.
So we decided to do something about it.
HOME is now using vetted partners to get your music heard on TikTok and Spotify!
It’s an easy process, it’s affordable and the results are guaranteed or your money back.
Here’s how it works:
It works because our partners have a LOT of influencers and playlist curators in their network. They can guarantee results because they will continue to promote your music until the campaign goals are reached. If they don't, HOME will refund your money!
We are now offering TikTok influencer campaigns to everyone, whether or not you are a HOME Member.
The Spotify playlist curators are often very picky about the music that they put on their playlists, and rightfully so. So the Spotify campaigns will only be available for music creators that we have vetted through HOME’s Elite Artist and Verified Producer programs.
HOME Members get exclusive access to Spotify campaigns and they also get 35% off of TikTok influencer campaigns!
These campaigns will get your music in front of real people, NOT bots or fake accounts. It is also important to note that the Spotify campaigns are for independent (3rd Party) playlists NOT playlists that are made by the Spotify editorial team.
Keep in mind what I said at the beginning of this post… there is no magic bullet.
We can guarantee to get your music in front of a certain number of people, but at the end of the day you still have to figure out how to develop a holistic marketing and monetization strategy.
For more information on building a holistic music marketing strategy, check out my latest blog post ‘Top Music Marketing Hacks for 2023’. I used the acronym ‘CLASSIC’ to describe a seven step approach to effective marketing. At best, these TikTok and Spotify services cover 3 of those steps - Leverage, Social and Streaming.
You still need to focus energy on finding the right collaboration opportunities and on advertising (so that you can retarget people who engage). You must also learn to identify your biggest fans and capture their data so that you can build a ‘return path’ to continue engaging them without paying for ads.
And remember, effective marketing comes from analyzing your results so that you know what is working and what is not. Start with a mix of different marketing strategies, and then double down on the most effective ones!
When you do start to gain fans, you must ENGAGE them over and over again with new stories, music, shows and other opportunities. You have to figure out a way to keep your fans interacting with you in ways that provide monetization while continuing to reach new audiences and converting them into new fans.
Realistically, you will probably still need to create content and keep your social pages fresh for influencer marketing to work in your favor over the long run. After all, when people find out about you, they will probably go check out your social pages… and hopefully they don’t find them completely stagnant.
But you can hack the process of reaching new audiences and getting them to listen to your music. And HOME can help you with that.
For more thoughts on how to build your business machine and your team, check out my blog post ‘Top 4 Challenges for Music Creators in 2023’. I also wrote a lot of important information for you to consider on the TikTok Promo page and the Spotify Promo page.
