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Discover the latest music trends and insights with A&R Factory. Stay informed and inspired as we explore the dynamic music industry landscape where we cover the latest music industry trends, analysis and predictions in the industry. Whether you’re a music enthusiast or industry professional, A&R Factory is your go-to source.

Instagram’s Algorithm Has Changed, So Should Your Self-Promotion Campaigns

Posted on 27 August 2022

If you have noticed a drop in likes and comments on your Instagram posts this year, it can be easy to assume that no one cares about your music anymore. To recapture your audience, get your head out of the digital sand and brush up on how to appease Instagram’s brand-new 2022 algorithm.

The Instagram algorithm determines what shows up on feeds, reels, explore pages and hashtag pages. To do this, the algorithm analyses every image, video and reel uploaded to the platform by looking at captions, image alt-text, hashtags, and engagement metrics. The aim of this cross-referencing isn’t to censor; it is to put the right content in front of the right people to make it harder for users to tear themselves away from the app.

There are numerous ranking factors within the current Instagram algorithm. The three main ones are viewer interest, relevancy and the relationship between the content poster and viewer. Considering mutual follows, private messaging history, comments history, and all other forms of repeated interaction.

How Artists Can Master the Instagram Algorithm in 2022

It is still the case that Instagram promotes high-quality and engaging content in 2022. However, there are additional rules that you have to play by if you want to make the most out of your Instagram campaigns.

For the best chances of gaining significant traction and getting your posts in front of more of your followers, here are some of the best ways to go about it.

1. Brush Up on the Community Guidelines

Posting ‘edgy’ content on Instagram is a surefire way of ensuring that you get shadowbanned or banned entirely. It may not be rock n roll to respect the community guidelines by refraining from getting political or posting anything people could take offence to. However, it will help you to promote your music in the long run. Even if your posts fall into the grey area of ‘acceptable’, you risk being ‘down-ranked’ or hidden entirely.

2. Get Reel

Following the hype of TikTok, Instagram has moved away from solely being a photo-sharing app. By jumping on the trend of reels, you will boost the visibility of ALL your Instagram content. Reels can be an excellent tool for music marketing; rather than just posting video teasers of your new music that feature in the gallery, create reel teasers of your new music or give your fans some ‘behind the scenes/song’ content to gaze at.

If you are struggling with new content ideas, recycle older video material. Instagram reels have opened up a whole new world for engagement – some of the most popular viral videos are from clips that are years or even decades old!

3. Don’t Post Prematurely

This secret to appeasing the Instagram algorithm isn’t new, but it is still crucial for artists to consider in 2022. Scheduling posts for the right time is one of the best ways to boost engagement and ensure maximum organic reach – which means there will be less need to pay for sponsored posts!

Regardless of what some blogs will tell you, there isn’t a universal best time of day to post your Instagram stories, videos, and reels. Instead, you will have far greater success if you use a tool such as Hootsuite Dashboard to analyse your audience’s behaviour.

4. Engage Your Followers

Like independent music, Instagram is all about the community, as proven by the importance of engagement to the Instagram algorithm. Stop trying to seek adoration and start trying to start a conversation. If you’re struggling to engage your followers, review your captions; are they worth responding to? Or are they a dead conversational end?

Comments are one of the most powerful engagement signals to Instagram’s algorithm; likes, shares, and saves also do their part. For perspective, engaging 1 – 5% of your audience is considered “good engagement”, and remember, responding to direct messages is just as important as responding to comments on your posts!

5. Don’t Be Lazy or Spammy with Your Hashtags

With hashtags, less is more, and quality should always be above quantity. Even though you can add up to 30 tags per post, limit yourself to 7 – 10.

If there is anything that the Instagram algorithm knows like the back of its metaphysical hand, it is hashtags. Your first port of call is to ensure that all hashtags are descriptive and accurate – Instagram will know if they aren’t! Always play to your niche with hashtags. Never use generic music hashtags; dig deep into your respective niche with ample consideration for your genre and audience.

6. Keep Your Posting Frequency Consistent

If you take long stints away from Instagram and only pop up to promote a new single or a new tour, this will massively impede the reach of the posts and reels you DO post. Once again, there is a fine line between being spammy and posting far too infrequently.

Bands and artists should attempt to update their Instagram profiles 3 – 5 a week, and keep in mind that just because you CAN automatically share your posts to Facebook from Instagram, this isn’t always the best course of action. If you want your fans to follow you and engage with you across all channels, give them a reason to by mixing up your content.

For your best chances of boosting engagement go live at least once a week and stick to a content schedule. With tools such as Hootsuite planners, you can schedule your posts in advance for the coming weeks or even months!

7. Get Analytical

It is easy to get caught up in vanity metrics; one of the best ways to avoid this is by using analytical tools, which can tell you what kind of content your audience will come back for.

Using analytical tools may initially sound like a lot of extra work but think of all the wasted time and effort you would spend on unsuccessful posts otherwise.

Along with telling you when your audience is online, analytical tools will point out which posts, reels, and stories are accruing real engagement, which of your hashtags are working for you, and which ones aren’t!

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Amelia Vandergast

How Independent Artists Can Recession-Proof Their Music Careers

Posted on 20 August 2022

Remember when it was perfectly acceptable to post demands across your social media pages on music consumers to financially support independent artists? Yeah, it is a little hazy for me too.

With the economy biting low-income people across our capitalized stratosphere, the collective sense of fear has muddied the creative waters to the same extent as UK waterways that are now pumped with sewage. It feels as though we’re heading to a Dickensian dystopia, where relative financial comfort in the present does little to quell the fear of the future.

To conflate all of this, poverty and financial instability have a major impact on behaviour; it shifts focus almost solely on meeting immediate needs and navigating threats. So, it comes as little surprise that engagement in arts, culture and leisure diminishes with reduced financial stability. In 2021, a study conducted by the department of culture in the UK reported that poorer people felt alienated and excluded by the arts and in their day-to-day lives, art was increasingly irrelevant.

With the cost of living ever-increasing, naturally, there are far more people with reduced inclination to spend money on merch, records, gigs, and all the other expenses that come with them. And on the flip side, artists will be far less comfortable making those demands of their fans. There is a way to move forward, but success will be determined by an artist’s ability to adapt and overcome.

How to Recession-Proof Your Music Career

The future might seem bleak when you turn on the news or scroll through social media. But remember, a recession doesn’t mean that every revenue stream will suffer a drought. There is always money SOMEWHERE; you just have to be savvier at finding it.

As tempting as it may be to let nihilism consume you and put your creative projects to one side, the power of choosing a glass half-full or half-empty perspective is still ultimately with you. If you take on the weight of the world every time you contemplate how to move forward in your career, you won’t get very far.

If you retain some perspective and refuse to be overwhelmed by the sum of human suffering, you are in a far better position to sustain your music career and add value to your listeners’ lives. If you were looking for permission to throw in the creative towel, you won’t find it here.

Instead, we will point you to some of the most viable income streams for independent artists during the recession, taking into consideration the attention recession, the ACTUAL recession, and how the global pandemic also left its imprint on the industry.

1. Make Peace with Spotify

An independent artist should never expect any given revenue stream to sustain them. It is easy to bemoan streaming royalties, but over time, they *can* add up, especially if you release your music across all platforms with the help of a distro company, such as Ditto, which allows you to keep 100% of your royalties.

At a fraction of the cost of traditional promotion and advertising, streaming platforms are also one of the best ways to allow new listeners to discover your music. Once a new fan has gotten a taste of your sound, there is no telling how much they will invest in you further down the line.

2. Get Over the Music Publishing Royalties Learning Curve

Figuring out publishing royalties and how not to get shafted may not be the most exciting thing you can do in your music career, but it can be one of the most lucrative. Your compositions and recordings come with publishing rights; every time your music is used, you are entitled to compensation.

Whether that is when your music is played on the radio or physically reproduced, you should be compensated; registering with a music royalty collection agency is often the easiest way to do this. Once again, Ditto has saved the day with their music publishing service. They take a 10% cut, but that is a small price to pay when they also pitch your tracks to sync companies.

3. Be Inclusive with Your Merchandising

In a recession, limiting your costs is vital. But if you have a big enough fanbase to justify creating merch to supplement your other expenses, don’t rule this out as a revenue stream.

Not every fan will be able to spring for an expensive piece of merch or a vinyl record, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be interested in supporting you by purchasing smaller-ticket items, such as enamel pins and patches. If you produce physical copies of your music, make your CDs or cassettes as aesthetically appealing as your vinyl records.

As music fans are now being more careful with their budgets and are limiting the number of live shows they go to, always give your fans an e-commerce option to buy your merch.

4. Get In Sync

Cultural engagement is becoming increasingly more digital, so even if there is more tumbleweed in your local scene than music fans, that doesn’t mean you can’t cash in on the digital dollar.

Sync deals allow artists to earn money through their music being featured on different forms of visual media, such as TV, films, and video games. The flat fees can stretch up to £10k per placement; that is before you consider the continuous pay-outs for repeat usage.

5. Brand Sponsorships

If you are good enough at what you do, there is no reason why brand sponsorships and partnerships should be out of the realm of possibility. Not every up-and-coming artist will get the chance to rep their favourite music brand, but those aren’t the only companies that would be interested in brand sponsorships with musicians.

If you can boost the visibility of a brand, which aligns with you as an artist, with your established online presence, there is always the potential for brand sponsorships. Reach out to independent brands with a proposition, and always be prepared to negotiate.

Amelia Vandergast

Oversaturating the Home Turf: Why Playing Locally Too Often is Bad for Your Music Career

Posted on 6 August 2022

Oversaturation infringes every corner of the music industry, but none quite as cloyingly as the arena of live music. Bands start out with the eagerness to play as many gigs as possible. It comes as no surprise that when they’re at the point of overplaying in their hometown, they fail to realise that their prolific presence on line-ups can ultimately damage their career in the long run.

Why Playing Locally Too Often Impedes Your Music Career

Two main traits of artists able to sell out hometown gigs, talent aside, are their tendency not to excessively gig in the same area and their commitment to giving each show a purpose.

Every time someone sees you on a bill, they will weigh the pros and cons of seeing you. It is all too easy to become the band that someone disregards because you’ll probably be playing again soon anyway. Or it could be that they just saw you a few weeks ago at a venue down the road, and they doubt seeing you again will be worth the time, money, energy, and backache, if they’re over 30!

Taking every opportunity extended by various promoters to play in your hometown or in the same area can be tempting. So tempting, it can lead some artists to become oblivious to the fact there is only a certain number of people in any given scene. And yes, that goes for big Metropolitan cities too!

See the irony in the fact that most local bookers are hesitant booking out of town acts because they won’t realistically bring their fans to fill the venue. Even if you do have a devout local fanbase, don’t assume that they have got little else going on in their lives that they will constantly be there to support you.

If you’re still under the impression that the more gigs, regardless of the location, the better, consider how excited you would be if you knew that you could go down the road and see your favourite artist EVER play every week.

Unless there is something fundamentally wrong with you, which means that you’d retain excitement from replicating an experience over and over again, the gloss would quickly get stripped off your favourite artist being perpetually available and demanding your attention. Even the greatest pleasures have the potential to become monotonous. ‘Things’ are only as good as the measure of them.

If you play gigs less frequently in your hometown, you will get MORE of a draw because you will create scarcity and a sense of exclusivity. Music consumers, much like any consumer in our modern late-stage capitalist hellscape, thrive on scarcity. Marketing executives love to abuse the fact that the masses are mercenary enough to make Gollum look altruistic. The trend of absurdly expensive music NFTs proved it! As do the people who collect white label records or drool over the prospect of owning an icon’s guitar. And realistically, there would be infinitely less hype over Glastonbury if everyone could snag a ticket every year! Demand being greater than the supply is a consumer’s kryptonite.

If you do become a band known for selling out venues – regardless of the size – in your hometown, people will be far quicker to purchase tickets when they go on sale, to avoid another great driver behind modern marketing, the fear of missing out! Additionally, you will become infinitely more attractive to gig promoters outside of your local area and festival bookers when you can show them glimpses of adoring fans eager to inch their way front to your shows. You’re not fooling anyone by posting gig photos taken a long way from the barrier or the stage that don’t show a single audience member.

How Often Should You Play Local and How Should You Play It?

There is no short answer. The general rule of thumb for playing in your local circuit tends to be four times a year, or at least playing gigs 6 – 12 weeks apart in the same area, the number also depends on another factor; the quality of your shows.

Every show should be an event. If you don’t have new music to promote at your shows, get creative in coming up with why fans should see you for the first time AND subsequent times. Go acoustic. Come up with a concept, beyond just giving your run of shows a clever name. And never underestimate the impact of creating something that seems unmissable to fans old and new.

Hopefully, I have pulled you out of the “but, but, but EXPOSURE!!!” trap by this point. Because even if it does seem like common sense that more shows = more fans & tickets sold, the effect is almost always the reverse! Any good band manager would tell you not to overplay your local circuit, but with so many more 100% independent artists doing everything themselves, there is no-one to impart this sound advice.

If you are playing the gigs needlessly and aimlessly, that time/energy could be far better expended on networking, self-promotion, writing and recording new material and actually coming up with a long-term plan. There may be no glory like taking a roof off a venue and hearing the demand of an encore, but for that to be sustainable, your tour plans have to be logical.

It may be easier and quicker to play a venue that is on your bus route instead of clocking up the miles in your tour van; that is no reason to allow convenience to override common sense.

For some, all of the above will be a bitter pill to swallow and I will have undoubtedly burst some bubbles by opting for harsh truths over adding botox to lip service. Yet, I offer very little apology in pointing out exhausting every local gig you can is akin to aural incest. Don’t get hooked in the big fish in a small pond mentality.

If you still need convincing, take some advice from Ari Herstand, artist and author of the best-selling chart-topping book, How to Make It in the New Music Business, which has been adopted by music business schools globally. His definitive guide on accepting gigs, factoring in career-building potential, merch opportunities, pay and enjoyment, is freely available here. For the love of God, bookmark it!

Amelia Vandergast

How to Market Genre-less Music

Posted on 30 July 2022

In 2022, more than ever, it is less about the genre and more about the mood for music artists and consumers. The loss of arbitrary and constricting labels isn’t exactly something to mourn. Yet, it can make the industry a minefield for independent artists that have obliterated genre constraints with their music – if they are approaching their PR with a traditional mindset and approach.

In this article, we will cover how that shift happened and the best way for artists to move along with the tides and market music to younger generations of music fans, considering that 78% claim that their music tastes can’t be defined by genre, as recently shown in a Vice Magazine survey.

How Music Became Genre-less

Unlike everything else in 2022, music is becoming less partisan; the days of music tribalism are numbered. It is getting rarer to see hip hop and rock fans refusing to believe they have anything in common as boundaries between genres disintegrate, enabling the ascent of the genre-less fan. That doesn’t just boil down to how artists, such as the music-culture-unifying Lil Nas X, curate their songs; it has plenty to do with the trend of psychological playlists on streaming platforms.

The modes of music discovery have taken tectonic shifts in the past few decades. No longer do you head to the part of the record store that houses crates of your preferred genre, pick up a genre-specific magazine, watch music TV (RIP MTV), or rely on the radio. As cringey as the phrase is, it is all about the vibe and how music fits into people’s lives to become a soundtrack. Just been dumped? There’s a playlist for that. Playlists to chill out cats? Yeah, that too. Playlists for when you see a goose, yep!

In 2022, almost 524 million people currently use streaming services to discover new artists, and for many, the best means of discovery is by listening to playlists curated by mood. That isn’t great news for artists releasing EPs and LPs. Especially considering that many people listen to artists they can’t remember the name of, and the majority of them would need the Clockwork Orange treatment to actually sit through a whole album, let alone memorise all the lyrics to one.

Somewhere in this century, there was the death knell of the die-hard music fans. Again, this isn’t exactly a bad thing. If you’re only in the industry to amass a ragtag band of sycophants, you’re everything that is wrong in the industry; take your vanity elsewhere. For everyone else, take this new shift as a sign you need to switch up your self-promotion tactics.

How to Promote Genre-Fluid Music

Coming up with a niche genre to describe your music might feel clever, but it is time to think far beyond genre-defined niches. In our oversaturated market, a new sub-genre may as well be born every minute, and there is certainly not enough of an appetite for them all. Seriously, no one wants to listen to your psychedelic pirate jazz; or whatever it is you’ve come up with.

Know Your Place Beyond Genre on Streaming Platforms

Genre isn’t the only way that music is categorised on streaming platforms. Geographical locations, instrumentation styles, moods, and song styles should also factor into indie music promotion.

Love them, or loathe them, Spotify knows how to market to the new generation of music fans that are indifferent to music genres, as long as the music matches their mood or music styles. Soundcloud and Bandcamp have also started enabling artists to use mood tags. Just like record collectors liked to deep-dive into crates, digital music consumers also head into music tag rabbit holes to find more music to suit their mood.

From sad to sexy, ballads to beats, study playlists to morning commute playlists, there are tags and playlists for everything, and more often than not, there’s plenty of range between the featured artists on any given playlist. It is all about the emotional connotation and the energy of your music.

If the mood and style of your music away from the genre isn’t immediately evident, look at similar artists and pay particular attention to their music tags and the playlists they feature on. Once you know your place, submit your music to the relevant playlist curators and allocate the appropriate tags.

Submit Your Genre-Fluid Music to Bloggers Covering All Music Styles

Take the fall of genre-focused print magazines as a major clue to how much the music industry has changed. A&R Factory has always welcomed talented independent artists who have struggled to garner press and critical acclaim from other sources due to the narrowness of the pigeonholes.

A&R Factory has been ahead of the genre-obsession game for a decade. Knowing that independent artists that paint across the sonic spectrum with little mind to using the same strokes as the artists that came before them are some of the most talented. Just as there are genre-inclusive blogs, indiscriminative record labels are springing up at a rapid rate.

Create An Aesthetic

With the popularity of social media rising in line with the tendency for humans to see themselves as a ‘brand’ while they are online, sadly, and surreally, any chance of an independent artist succeeding rests on their ability to create an aesthetic and appeal to a niche.

From the album artwork to press photos to your stage outfits to your music video, each visual is an opportunity to appeal to your intended fan base by sharing the personality of your music after mapping out the colours, imagery and tone.

If your skills are lacking in the visual art arena, use building your visual brand as an opportunity to collaborate with visual artists; you will also benefit from sharing a fan base with your collaborator.

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In conclusion, even while we are in this transitional phase where artists are ditching genre and much of the PR world still relies on categorization, not all hope is lost. Especially for artists willing to put their differences with certain music streaming platforms and social media apps aside.

A little self-promotional creativity will go a long way for artists already thinking constraint-less ways with their sound. Other blogs, labels, radio stations, event promotors and magazines may take their time to get in line with the rapid changes in the industry. However, that doesn’t mean you need to sell your creative souls to appease the archaic dinosaurs, too stubborn to loosen their capitalist and commercial grip on the industry.

The Crypto Crash Burst the Music NFT Bubble. Here’s What All Artists Can Learn from the Rise & Fall

Posted on 23 July 2022

Web3 and music NFTs were primed to be one of the biggest trends in the music industry in 2022. Some of us dared to dream of a digital world where artists could operate free from the money-grabbing middlemen, exploitative platforms, and generally just the crushing weight of capitalism. That vision was shattered by a crash that showed us the true volatility of the market. The optimism was sweet while it lasted, but reality quickly soured it, and the tears of all the investors now at a loss salted it.

The foundations were laid for a more egalitarian music industry when sites such as Royal.io, SongVest and Royal Exchange launched. However, NFT holders keen to invest in their favourite artists weren’t immune from the cryptocurrency cash. In January 2022, NFT sales peaked at $12.6 billion before plummeting to just over $1 billion in June. For context, some of the big ticket NTFs, such as GIFs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, dropped in value by 60% between May 2022 and June 2022.

The music NFT market was never perfect. The ecological impact from the NFT carbon footprints was enough to raise alarm bells. The volatility of the markets meant that people could only invest what they were prepared to lose. Many music fans were priced out by the tokens, and their utility certainly didn’t match their value.

So, no great loss, right? Not quite. There were several notable innovations and moves in the music industry that happened alongside the frivolous acquisitions of ridiculously expensive NFTS. The Whitney Houston NFT containing an unreleased demo which was recorded when she was 17 selling for $999,999 was never going to equate to adequate income for independent artists. But there are lessons to be learnt from the digital trends that echoed around NFTs.

A Retrospectively Realistic Review of Music NFTs for Independent Artist

Throughout the hype over music NFTs, it became evident that they were for the few, not the many. The few people with excessive money to burn and the few artists with the ability to make their fans fetishize everything they touch.

During the economic crisis that is shifting the comfortable into discomfort and evaporating the notion of disposable income, it’s a stretch to ask music fans to purchase a t-shirt, CD, or £5 gig ticket. Let alone make high-risk investments in their music careers via NFT.

At this stage in the game, it should go without saying, taking music NFTs off the table while promoting independent music and building your brand is a sensible move but don’t forget what initially triggered the love, fascination and novelty of music NFTs.

The true beauty of NFTs included their ability to act as collectable keys to digital archives curated by artists, they gave the thrill of exclusive content, and they became an incredible way of beating the ticket touts by acting as gig tickets.

The Legacy That NFTs Should Leave Behind

Before we get into it, for clarity, we’d like to emphasise that in the context of music, NFTs aren’t just a piece of digital art that can easily be copied and shared. The irreplicable digital asset, which exists on a blockchain, is ideal for storing and sharing music, videos, and artwork with NFT holders.

In one (not so simple) transaction for the average Web2 user, fans could own exclusive bonus tracks or entire discographies, collect keys to music communities, earn royalties from the music they invest in and receive perpetual perks courtesy of the gratified artist. Even if you abstract crypto, NFTs and Web3 possibilities from the equation, the short stint of success of the music NFT market highlighted a few things for every independent artist to take away.

Scarcity Sells, Create It

Even though many like to believe that humans are the most advanced species on earth, when it comes to possessions, we’re no better than magpies looking for the shiniest objects to take back to our nests. The case for species superiority weakens even more when our obsession with hierarchies is called into question.

Just anthropomorphise a silverback mountain gorilla trying to gain dominance in the jungle based on what they own in the ether on their metaphorical iPhone to get the picture; that is where we are in 2022; chasing scarcity, out of want, instead of need. Because when you chase scarce necessity, that is desperation, but when you financially scurry after a marked-up luxury, that is a privilege that you can flash to the rest of society to prove you are worthy of following.

Like numbered limited edition vinyl records or rare first pressings, NFTs were briefly great at triggering a sense of scarcity amongst digital consumers. It isn’t the non-sentient NFTs’ fault that they beckoned people into status/dick swinging contests of people proving they have ludicrous money to burn. Independent artists can curse the sociologically warped marketplace, or they can learn the value of exclusive products and content.

For example, incentivise physical sales of your music by including bonus material that isn’t online on limited-edition releases or send exclusive previews to members of a mailing list. Maybe don’t go as far as Fyre Festival on creating FOMO, but don’t be afraid to use it to your advantage.

Music Will Always Be More Than Just a Transaction

A massive part of the appeal of music NFTs were the special privileges that came through NFT ownership, which could be everything from exclusive content to custom content to royalties to naming rights on songs. Around NFTs, artists got more inventive than ever before with how they could thank fans for their loyalty and increase engagement and excitement. There is little room to wonder why so many got caught up in the ill investment frenzy. Honestly, artists should be funding their NFT investors’ therapy at this point.

We’re not saying that all independent artists should be out of pocket to offer freebies to their fans. We are saying that for any remote shot of success in the contemporary industry, you will have to stop treating music as a commodity you throw out in the world and realise the power of building connections. Artist & fan connection was the key driver behind the multi-million-pound music NFT market. And time after time, we see the artists that truly care about their fans thrive with cult like followings. You don’t need to be the next Jim Jones, just don’t think you’re above thanking the people you rely on for success.

If Snoop Dogg has his way, the Web3 world will be back with an appealing vengeance. Until then, bring the perks of NFTs to your fans, without asking them to stump up insane cash for the privilege of recognising their loyalty.

Amelia Vandergast

Is TikTok the New Myspace for (Not Just Gen Z) Unsigned Artists?

Posted on 16 July 2022

If you experienced Myspace, no matter what TikTok does (we are talking about the platform here, not the creators, before you start bemoaning the dance moves and the lip-syncing proclivities), it will probably never scratch the nostalgic itch.

For younger independent artists oblivious to the culture of Myspace, there is little hesitation to jump on what became the most visited website in 2021. You can see it as a sad sign of the times that users spend more than 850 minutes every month on the app, or you can also see it as one of the best opportunities the internet has extended to artists looking to cast their digital net wider.

Just about anything can go viral on TikTok, proven by the sea shanty trend in 2021. And for anyone that thinks TikTok is for ingrates who blasphemously appropriate music culture, think again. 40% of active users of TikTok have a monthly music subscription, compared to 25% of the general population. Even more remarkably, only 9% of the general population frequently buy merch; for TikTok users, it is 17%. That is before you consider how many users get inspired by music before putting it into their posts.

TikTok has become so vital to the music industry that publishers change track names to how they are referred to on TikTok. And don’t forget about the deal signed between UnitedMasters and TikTok in 2021.

What We Can Learn from the Legacy of Myspace

Myspace used to be one of the best platforms for music discovery. Facebook may have left it dead and buried but social media is still the number 1 method of discovering music for Gen Z and Millennial music fans, followed by YouTube videos, recommendations from friends, radio, TV shows, and soundtracks.

In 2022, TikTok is as renowned for its viral video humour as it is famous for launching new artists’ careers. Lil Nas X, Tai Verdes, Loren Gray, and Baby Ariel have TikTok to thank for their stratospheric fame and revered positions in the music industry.

The other remarkable feat of Myspace was its networking capabilities; it became a place for artists to create genuine connections with fans, other bands, venues, and other figureheads in the music industry.

Newsflash, it is still easy to create connections online. The real issue with music promotion in 2022 isn’t the inability to make those connections; it is the undeniable oversaturation in the music industry; there are more artists on Spotify than people living in Hong Kong. The fault does not lie with the technology of today. The fault lies within the cramped confines of the industry, filled with fame-hungry chancers looking for adoration and easy money. The good news is that these narcissistic hacks are easily separable from talented artists. The difference lies within the art and the effort to ensure it is heard. Now, there are more platforms than ever to expand your reach and collect royalties.

How the SoundOn Feature Became a Game Changer for Unsigned Artists

In 2022, TikTok launched its new SoundOn initiative across the US and the UK to support unsigned artists. The feature allows artists to licence their tracks for use on the platform via the partner streaming service, Resso.

The SoundOn feature enables artists to upload music and earn royalties. In the first year, artists will receive 100% of their royalties; after that, it drops to a still very reasonable 90%. As the cherry on the self-promo cake, the feature also offers a range of promotional tools and support.

Anyone Can Go Viral on TikTok

TikTok has become one of the ultimate equalisers of our technology-driven times. Forget Twitter, which leaves sycophants in a frenzy every time the object of their infatuation Tweets about their breakfast and bowel movements and ignores the voices that deserve to be heard.

Forget Facebook, which will all too happily effectively leave you screaming into the void while you are attempting to promote your new single, album, merch or tour. To go viral on TikTok, you don’t need thousands or millions of followers at your disposal or a massive social media marketing budget; all you need is a little creativity; which should be something that artists have in abundance.

How to Create Viral Worthy Posts to Promote Your Music on TikTok

– Keep it short and sweet. TikTok may be a great platform, but it can’t lengthen the tragically short attention span of social media users. 8 – 15 seconds seems to be the sweet spot. So, share the hookiest segment of your new track or the most eye-grabbing fragment of your new music video.

– Stay in trend. Even if you don’t bow to the mainstream trends with your music, if you want TikTok success, you might have to make an exception to that rule. Head to the discover page to find out what is trending in your niche and make the algorithms take your content to new heights.

– Don’t use generic hashtags. When finalising your TikTok posts, don’t be tempted to use the most obvious tags. Do a deep dive on the trending tags for your niche on the platform itself, and utilise sites such as tophashtags.com.

– Collaborate with popular creators. Influencers, including TikTok influencers, are becoming increasingly valuable for independent artists looking for effective music promotion. As the adage goes, if you can’t beat them, join them! Offer your music for other popular creators in your niche to use in their videos.

Conclusion

I don’t want to get all Dr Pepper on you, but what is the worst that can happen if you choose to invest some of your time in promoting your music on the platform? In 2020, 70 unsigned artists snagged major record label deals, which may not sound too impressive, given the number of independent artists releasing music. But getting signed to a label isn’t the be-all and end-all for artists anymore. With a loyal enough following, there is no stopping independent artists from being able to fund their music careers and running things on their terms.

Amelia Vandergast

Live Music’s Glass Ceiling: Up and Coming, But Going Where?

Posted on 9 July 2022

There is always more than one angle on any given scene. But there is an elephant in the live music industry taking up the unattended room and gorging on the irony of our desire to save iconic indie venues while being ambivalent about the reason they exist in the first place. And no, that isn’t to keep the doors open on your sentimentalised fragments of youth.

The future of music is disintegrating around the fixation of legacy acts that hold the monopoly of the live music industry while only creaking out of their coffins to effectively catfish us at £50+ a pop on their anniversary (read: crucifixion) tours. At some point, recollection became more compelling than discovery, causing more artists to concuss themselves on the glass ceiling invisibly constructed around indifference of newness.

What does the average music fan care if the current hierarchy of gods and nobodies creates classist unsustainability for your average independent artist? Not a lot. They have no vested interest in the future of artists they’ve never heard of. Ignorance is bliss.

Until revered by dictating tastemakers, they have paid their way into the industry or just got INCREDIBLY lucky; independent artists are up, coming, and going nowhere. That isn’t an insinuation that the music industry has ever been an egalitarian dream; far from it. For some perspective, imagine the current state of the music industry if we ignored the bands on the rosters of Rough Trade, Factory Records and Mute Records because we were too preoccupied with what happened five decades before. That’s precisely where we’re at in 2022.

While the majority raved at how impressive it was for McCartney to headline Glastonbury at 80, in context, it’s a symptom of a far more insidious disorder in the live music industry.

Independent artists are lucky if they break even on tour, let alone break into the industry. Where does this past-decade-sonic-memento fascination end? Do we only let new blood seep into the industry if it sates the affluent artists that need a cheap/free opening support band? Sure, the stamina of an octogenarian icon is impressive. As impressive as the new music that constantly comes our way? Absolutely not.

For what it is worth, I understand the lack of enthusiasm for discovering and supporting independent music. I’m as prone to lapses of jaded disillusion as the next person. Consumer confidence hasn’t been in pits deep as this since the 70s. It plunged with the cognitive bandwidth that gave us the luxury of being able to care about such frivolous things.

Buying tickets to tours just announced doesn’t seem as appealing with the constant reminders that inflation keeps rising at the same rate as the water we have to keep our heads above in this hyper-warped time. Lest we drown in the entropy force-fed by entities that prefer us cowed into fear, division, and isolation. As if a collective of awkwardly amalgamated bodies at gigs that have forgotten to be in a crowd wasn’t enough to make music fans give See Tickets a wide birth.

In the run-up to Glastonbury, the BBC speculated how overwhelmed attendees would be. That same funk and social awkwardness have been floating around every venue since July 2021. If you haven’t noticed it, that’s probably because you’ve started treating gigs like kebabs. In the cold light of sobriety, you’d give it a miss; with your favourite anxiety-quashing poison, you’re numb to the questionable sensory appearance, and that legacy acts give their apathy to their roadies as the heaviest thing to carry.

Something has got to give before the reality of live music plunges deeper into a Black Mirror plot and we are left with an ageing population of icons that we will glue ourselves to before they appear on our screens as holograms on tour and rave about the experience.

But who am I to imply that supporting independent artists should take precedent when every passing day the media etches into our psyches a scarcity complex and teases us further into nihilism? Someone painfully aware of the cognitive dissonance choking the live music industry and desperate for the resurgence of the punk ethos.

How many times have you heard some iteration of “if you are in it for the money, you are in the wrong industry?” as though we should let live music be another death knell of capitalism and its greedy for independent artists to not be out of pocket for all that they contribute to society?

After all the insistence on the value of music and creativity that echoed in lament while it was on pause for 18 months, independent artists gritted their teeth through the cumulative blows and prepared to play their role in society once again. Only to find that getting enough advance tickets sold to leave the promoter inclined to carry on with the event is near impossible.

Independent music has triumphed over the oligarchy before. Just as it did after the economic crisis in 1974 when punk and electronica burst the pop bubble that would have been impenetrable if it weren’t for the likes of Tony Wilson and Geoff Travis. Technically, the industry is more accessible than ever before through the power of social media and software enabling artists to create masterpieces in their bedrooms on a shoestring. But what use is the power of technology if we passively accept its manipulation?

And for anyone thinking that the threat of the world ending is enough justification to mentally nope out of giving a fuck about culture, every generation before us has believed that they will see end times. Fear is a fundamental part of the human experience; the end is always nigh when prophecies of doom are so attractive to our ego-driven minds that believe we will see reality crumble around us.

Turn off the news. Support scenes that allow artists with autonomous voices to thrive. Smash the illusion that enough fame makes a person celestial, and maybe apply some self-awareness to the sycophantic fetishization of a few key figures.

Amelia Vandergast

How to Submit Your Music to Club DJs

Posted on 4 July 2022

Getting a big-name DJ to drop your new floor-filler during their residency at a renowned club may be the dream, but how do you make it a reality and submit your music to club DJs?

There are three main ways to go about it:

Using services such as DropTrack Digital DJ Pool which send your music to the top international DJs.
By individually reaching out to DJs and sharing your music.
By hiring a specialist DJ plugger

There are cons to both methods, namely the cost of PR for the first option and the success rate for the second. There are also pros to both methods; digital promoters often offer instant feedback, and using the personable approach can help you acquire a new connection in the industry if they love your sound. Just imagine what a remix from a world-famous DJ could do for your music career!

In this article, we will cover how to get DJs to play your music using the DIY approach. If your music is of high enough quality and fits with the DJ’s style, it isn’t impossible to stand out from the masses of producers that are oversaturating the EDM scene.

How to Submit Your Music to Club DJs

Though it may be tempting to approach a DJ at a club and ask them to promote your music, it is by far the best method.

If you were working at Subway and someone came in to show you a sandwich they made at home, would you be impressed? That metaphor is pretty out there, but you get the gist.

The best way of contacting DJs is via official channels; most big-name DJs out there will have a website which provides contact details, usually an email, so start practising your pitches!

Always Personalise Your Emails

The number of emails you need to send before you get any feedback, let alone success, can be soul-destroying. But does that mean you can get away with firing off generic emails to DJs? Definitely not. By using the generic approach, you are destined to fail.

When submitting your music to DJs, always use their name in the email subject, then again in the body of the email, before explaining why you want THEM to play your music specifically – never make your email all about you. For an extra shot of success, drop the ego and bring the personality.

Choose the Right DJs

Researching the DJs’ style before contacting them may take up a fair amount of time, but sending pointless emails to unsuitable DJs will take you even longer. If it doesn’t sound like your music will blend into their set due to the vibe or the genre, save yourself the effort of sending them an email. The same also goes if you don’t connect with the DJ too!

Only Send High-Quality Tracks

There is a place for Lo-Fi music; unfortunately, that isn’t on the playlists of big-name DJs! With every pitch, you should include a high-quality WAV file of your music that is good enough to put through club sound systems. If you’re not sure if your music is up to that scratch, try to gain feedback first! As downloads from Dropbox or WeTransfer can take a while to complete, put a SoundCloud link in your email too!

Know What To Say in Your Pitch

As someone who has seen more band bios than I have had hot dinners, I can safely say that many artists struggle to find the best way of presenting themselves and their music. Much like everyone else in the industry, DJs don’t have the time to read a 1,000-word bio that documents every stage of your life. Keep it concise, and always try to give an insight into your music by mentioning your style, influences and vibe.

Be Persistent

If at first, you don’t succeed, don’t take this as a personal slight. If there is a DJ you really want to play your music, a polite follow-up email won’t hurt; just know the difference between spamming their inbox and sending a friendly follow-up! If when you submit a track to a DJ, you receive a rejection reply, use this opportunity to get feedback on how you can improve your chances in the future!

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Submitting your music to club DJs isn’t the only way to promote your music! There are plenty of electronic music blogs to submit to, which have just as much capacity to put you on the electronica map. Avenues such as submitting to genre-specific radio stations, labels and playlists can all aid you in your journey of becoming a big-name producer in your own right.

How to Submit Music to Influencers?

Posted on 30 June 2022

Like it or loathe it, influencers are a big part of popular culture in 2022. And no, we aren’t just talking about the beauty influencers showing their audiences how to contour their face beyond recognition or the ones that have a meal in an independent restaurant before asking if they can eat for free because they have 250k followers.

Most influencers include music when they go live or create a video and there is no reason why that music shouldn’t be yours! With each year, influencers are becoming an even more integral part of the self-promotional process for independent artists. So, if the traditional methods have only got you so far, don’t be afraid to embrace the modern alternatives to record labels and radio play!

This article will cover the role of influencers in the industry, how to find them, and the best way to make a good first impression with them.

How Can Influencers Help Artists Gain Exposure?

Forget your damning perceptions of influencers, otherwise known as content creators, and start seeing the potential in their power, which can influence potential consumers within a respective niche.

When an influencer is ‘famous’ enough to have thousands of followers behind them, their ‘fame’ brings a certain amount of credibility to their promotional posts. In 2022, a good majority of consumers won’t purchase without ‘consulting’ with an influencer first. Think about it; you’re buying a new guitar, you have found seemingly the perfect one; do you enter your card details there and then? Or do you head to YouTube to find someone with some authority demoing it and reviewing it?

The point is, in every industry, there are influencers, and as plenty of them aren’t musicians themselves, they need to source music for their promotional videos from somewhere. There are several music influencers out there, but artists looking to promote their music to influencers don’t have to limit themselves to just the musos.

For example, EDM producers can submit music to fitness influencers. Ambient artists can submit their soundscapes to influencers in the mindfulness/meditation niche. Hip Hop artists can submit their tracks to TikTok teens to lip-sync with. With a little ingenuity, you can tap into an existing audience, ready to lap up anything their favourite influencer promotes! It’s a fickle world, but you may as well use it to your advantage! If you can’t beat them, join them!

How to Find Music Influencers?

Instead of trawling through social media for hours to find suitable influencers to submit your music to, you can use services such as Playlist Push or Submit Hub to put your music out there without having to fire off those soul-crushing emails that seldom get a response.

However, if you do encounter an influencer that you would like to connect with, don’t be afraid to reach out with an irresistible offer. While some influencers will charge you for the privilege of promotion, others will be happy to do it for free. Rather than solely reaching out to the influencers with over 1 million followers, consider content creators with a smaller but infinitely more engaged audience.

The best platforms to search for influencers include YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Search relevant hashtags and find the most influential figures in the masses of posters.

The Best Ways of Contacting Music Influencers

TikTok makes it hard to send direct messages, so when making your pitch, always look for an email address or at the very least, an Instagram handle. When you reach out to them, always approach the conversation as if you are brokering a mutually exclusive deal. Let them know WHY your music would be a good fit for their Instagram Reels, Facebook Stories or TikTok videos.

It is always advisable to attempt to create a rapport with influencers before making your big pitch. This can be done by liking and commenting on their content, so your name is recognisable to them before they open your private message or email. If the influencer does propose a fee for promotion, it will always be a gamble whether it pays off or not, especially with the higher-end rates, which stretch into 5-figure sums.

For more advice on the artist development music industry, take a look at our other blogs on how to promote your independent music. Or get in contact with a member of our award-winning A&R team, who can put you on the right path in your self-promo campaigns or do all of the heavy PR lifting work for you.

How to Submit a Music Demo

Posted on 27 June 2022

Recently finished a demo that you want more than just your fanbase and network to hear? The list of self-promo options for up-and-coming artists is almost endless. To *hopefully,* make it a little easier, we’ve curated some of the best ways to get your new music heard by brand-new audiences. We also included tips on making a positive first impression with labels, playlisters, promoters, and other industry figures with a loyal following of music fans that are always hunting for the next big thing.

How to Submit a Music Demo

Submitting a demo isn’t rocket science, but it is a fine art if you want your campaigns to succeed. Ideally, when submitting a demo, you will have all of these boxes ticked:

– Create an EPK with a press release, artist photos/cover art, social media links, and a link to your music.

– Practice your pitch. Hint, leave your ego for your live show, and walk the fine line between friendliness and professionalism while introducing yourself and your music.

– Know your audience and focus on the quality of your pitch rather than the quantity of frantic half-baked emails sent!

– Don’t make it all about you! Want to submit original music to a label? Talk about bands already signed to that label, or mention how your ethos matches theirs!

Where to Submit a Music Demo

In our digital era of music that is extensively lamented, it isn’t only record labels that can take artists to new heights. So, if your original music doesn’t scream P R O F I T to a label owner, not all is lost!

You can submit your original music demo to independent music blogs and magazines which fit your niche. Try to gain the attention of influencers. Bid for a spot on a relevant playlist. Plug your demo to indie radio stations, or if you have money to throw at your promotion, you can invest in some PR help.

If you want to go it alone, if your music is good enough, there are plenty of ways to boost your sales and streams while bolstering your fanbase. Although we can’t stress this enough, make sure your music is worth it first. If you can’t stay objective, find someone that can, preferably someone that knows the industry and isn’t your mum.

Some of the best-known sites for independent and unestablished artists to submit their demos to include:

– Indie Underground is always crying out for creative, substance-fuelled, and melody-focused music.

– A&R Factory, we are recognised as one of the top 10 UK music blogs for independent artists for a reason!

– Obscure Sound: an online blog which has been running since 2006 and repping some of the most promising up-and-coming artists.

– Various Small Flames: for artists that want to make a connection with their music, this site which celebrates home-recorded indie music, is a must.

– Indie Shuffle; instead of running as a blog format, Indie Shuffle is a hybrid between a streaming service and a blog.

– Submit Hub; in just one click of the ‘submit a song’ button, your single is transported to a network of indie music curators.

– High Clouds; if you are looking for airplay as an unestablished artist, this multimedia platform is hailed as the Holy Bible for music junkies!

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