As you know, we at BRE, don’t believe and don’t push pre-promotions, pre-releases, or any effort prior to the actual song release. Our audience is mainly made of independent, self-funded artists and drilling into their minds the bullsh*t that applies to mainstream artists, as many self-acclaimed YouTubers do, makes us sick to the stomach. You simply can not have success by employing the tactics of artists disposing of label backup, sponsors, investors. You have to be a thousand times more efficient with your resources and go for the bull’s eye right away. And so, we invite you to grab a pen and paper and write down the following 10 steps that you must walk through when releasing a new song.
10. Make appealing social media announcements.
With the multitude of apps and editing softwares available to everyone with a digital device, you have no excuse for poor images, poor cover artworks, or low-quality promotional videos. Your release announcements must be in all sizes, shapes, forms. You have to have reels, stories, posts, TikToks, YT shorts, FB content, etc. The good news is that some overlap and you can reuse the same visuals for multiple platforms.
9. Submit the lyrics to the top respected websites.
If you skip this one step, you will reduce your online visibility tenfold. Google highly favors websites like MusixMatch and Genius to pull the lyrics to the songs from. Songs that have their lyrics on these two websites automatically rank higher on Google Searches and sometimes that exposure translates into a Spotify push as well. All websites are tied with one another and if you place the right components in the right mediums, you will get organic traction. Besides these two sources, you should also submit your songs’ lyrics to at least 10 other websites. The more, the better.
8. Create a custom landing page on your official website.
A new song release is a big deal. So the hype on your official website must accurately reflect the importance of what you just put out. Revamp the main page with custom visuals be it a static image or video, insert a pop-up window if necessary to incentivize people to pay attention to your newest release, and offer something exclusive that your fans can only find on your website. Create a long-term dependency on YOUR website which is under YOUR control in case Facebook or Instagram goes through a MySpace purge. Take a hint from Ed Sheeran’s landing page as of August 2021.
7. Get written press coverage.
Because unless you show you’re worthy of being talked about, you don’t matter and if brutally honest formulated, you don’t exist. Think about it. Would you buy makeup from some unknown company always hyping up their own products while no one else seems to have heard of them or you’d rather buy from a company that, albeit new on the market, is being talked nicely about by credible, reputable sources? Get press coverage and sell your song with someone else’s words! not yours!
6. Update all existing social profiles.
All timeline covers and profile photos must be in tandem with your newest project. Don’t have the main photo represent a music video or cover artwork from a year ago. Make absolutely sure your photos are promoting your newest release thus boosting the interest in and credibility of your song. And of course, you bio and links have to direct your followers to your new release as well.
5. Boost your song’s SEO to the max.
SEO is a lengthy study but nothing complicated or requiring a university course. If you already got some basic understanding of how the major algorithms work, SEO can be learned and applied in as little as two days. One major song booster is creating backlinks. “Backlinks are links from a page on one website to another. If someone links to your site, then you have a backlink from them. If you link to another website, then they have a backlink from you.” So all those Facebook groups you’re part of, actually will help in building an online presence for your song. Get to CTRL+C and CTRL+V!
4. Get third parties involved in advance.
If you have a family chat group on WhatsApp or Telegram, ask them nicely to spread the link like wildfire the day of the release. The same goes for friends and coworkers you can trust. Word of mouth from real people that know you and support you equates to a good $100 paid campaign. The day of the release however is monumental in convincing the search consoles and social platforms that you’re worthy of being pushed to a whole lot of timelines simultaneously.
3. Reach the minimum of 1k streams.
Don’t let those streams be empty on Spotify. It will hurt your credibility as a musician so bad. We’re absolutely discouraging you from paying for streams or cheating the system BUT… It’s okay if you ask a couple of friends to run your song continuously in the background for the first 2-3 days until you hit 1k streams and then you can stop with the boosting. But definitely don’t just leave those streams to chance when it comes to new releases as an upcoming talent.
2. Plan a stream of social media posts for at least a month.
The promotion for your fresh release has to be consistent and abundant. For at least 30 days you should be talking about nothing else BUT the song, its reception, progress, and everything related to it. Take a couple of hours off to plan your posts in advance and use a mass planner to map it out thus saving yourself future time and effort.
1. Record a live performance of the song.
The glue that keeps it all together is an actual live performance of your song. People might like it but they won’t develop a personal relationship with it UNTIL you perform it live. There’s something about the nervousness that comes through with the premiere performance of a new song. There’s magic in knowing that as a fan you’re assisting a new step in this artist’s career. That this might be his/her next big hit. Whether you got the privilege to perform it in front of a crowd or in the studio during a live stream, muster all the courage you need to entertain your followers with your new creation. You will be rewarded tenfold.
From Avant-Pop to Rap and Rock music, these 50 talents need and deserve support more than the ones you hear on the radio. So pay us back for the free articles by hearing THEM out. Thank you.
Blue Rhymez Entertainment 