tombentlecmpsongwriterproject

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Playlist Experiment

Overview

A major aspect of my first run of single releases was to experiment with marketing techniques for promoting music as an independent artist. Essentially, I narrowed this down to three core strategies: (1) organic growth; (2) paid social media marketing; (3) streaming platform playlists.

As I’d had experience promoting music through social media in previous projects and already had a good understanding of how it worked, I decided to focus on pushing my music into playlists to compare the results. I’d spoken to friends who’d had success with playlists and the universal feedback was that they’re very hard to get accepted onto but incredibly worthwhile if you are successful, with some people boosting their monthly listeners from below 100 to over 1000.

Outcomes

I decided to use SubmitHub to approach playlist curators as it allowed me to pitch directly as opposed to going through a third-party curation service.

I was unsuccessful in being added to any popular playlists however did have some success with some of the more niche curators who don’t have huge followings - this proved that it is possible to achieve playlist features if you target the right playlists. One of the benefits of SubmitHub is that curators have to give feedback to artists (if you use premium submissions) as so even though I suffered a few rejections I was still getting some benefit in the form of valuable feedback, the general consensus of which was that my vocal production technique was slightly too dreamy (i.e. too much reverb) for playlists in my genre although the production in general was very good and sounded professional. I took this feedback into my EP production by making sure I was mixing my vocals to be more upfront to match the alt-pop vibe of the playlists I was targeting.

Although I wasn’t able to hit my objective in terms of being able to gage the effectiveness of playlists, it helped me gain an insight into how to pitch songs and what curators are actually looking for in the songs they accept. I believe that moving forward I will be able to approach playlists with more confidence and, coupled with my existing knowledge on social media promotion, could help me achieve greater long-term success in terms of organic growth.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

‘Covers Project’ – Market Research

Overview

This project is an extension of my social media marketing as I want to create content that a brand-new audience is able to instantly connect with. As I have no pre-existing audience for my music, I am limited in who I’m able to market my original content to and there is also very little incentive for new audiences to engage with my music as opposed to more established artists. My rationale for a “covers project” is to create audio-visual content in which I perform covers of songs by artists similar to myself. Substantial audio-visual content is the most frequently engaged with content type on social media and by performing covers of popular artists I will be able to market the content directly to existing fans of those artists. As fans of the song those audiences will be more likely to interact with my content and those who enjoy my version will then have an incentive to interact with my original content.

Similar Existing Content

Larkin Poe - https://www.youtube.com/user/LarkinPoe/videos - have just released a new covers album. They also grew their initial fanbase by uploading cover videos to YouTube. They have covered songs by artists that are both similar to their own music and wildly different which gives them a vast audience to market to, however they always infuse their own sound into every cover to give it a more distinctive edge.

Conal Kelly - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9iSor_Voy3o5cTJcDY4TEQ/videos - started building his initial fanbase through his ‘24 Hour Covers Project’ in which he recorded and produced a cover song in 24 hours and then released an accompanying video on YouTube and Facebook. He put his own sounds into every cover so that audiences engaging with this content would be more likely to listen to his original music as it’s very similar. Conal released the audio from this project as a mini album on Spotify and Soundcloud.

Platforms / Channels

My aim is to release content onto as many platforms as possible in order to fully maximise my outreach. I want this project to have both audio and visual components and therefore I will only upload content onto platforms that support that format (social media) rather than platforms that only support audio content (streaming platforms).

·      YouTube – this is the most obvious platform for content of this nature. A webinar I viewed of Rick Barker (Taylor Swift’s former manager) discussing digital promotional strategies highlighted the importance of treating YouTube as a search engine rather than social media as users tend to search for specific content they want to see. By covering popular songs that are likely to have a lot of people searching for them it enables your content to feature in popular search results and will therefore achieve natural outreach.

·      Facebook – this is the only social media platform that will allow me to upload full length (60+ second) videos directly into the primary content feeds. Facebook algorithms also boost videos that are longer than 3 minutes into organic sharing feeds and allows me to create paid promotions in which I can push my video directly into the content feeds of people who have liked the artist I’m covering on Facebook, thus giving me the best chance of reaching the audience most likely to engage with my content.

·      Instagram – I will be able to upload the full version of the video to Instagram TV however this is the least effective Instagram feature in terms of instant audience outreach. I can upload a video preview (up to 60 seconds) in the main content feed and use hashtags to push the video into quality content feeds. The shorter video will act as its own advertisement as it gives audiences a brief glimpse into the content and those who enjoy it can then access the full video through IGTV.

·      TikTok – similar to Instagram I will only be able to upload 60 seconds or less. TikTok is a platform that relies on organic growth and so there is very little in-platform marketing that can be done to boost the success of content. As I’ll be uploading a shortened video to Instagram I may as well upload it to TikTok as it’s simply another channel to reach a wider audience.

Audio-Visual Aesthetics

There is a huge variety of audio-visual aesthetics when it comes to song covers. There are some creatives who choose to record a live performance of just vocal and guitar/piano on their phone and upload that directly to their chosen channels. There are also examples of studio-recorded audio with a professionally filmed music video. I want to create content that aligns best with my brand as a bedroom-producer and indie-pop artist.

In order to demonstrate my ability as a producer and musician I will record everything into a DAW and mix/produce each song as I would with my own music. This will allow me to build full productions for each song and will give me more freedom to embed my own identity into the cover compared to the restrictive vocal-instrument combination. By creating covers with a production aesthetic that is similar to my original music it gives audiences who like my covers an incentive to then engage with my own music.

As part of my current branding/identity is focused on me being a “bedroom-producer” I want the visuals to reflect that. My aim is to record the vocal and guitar for each song live in my bedroom and record that performance on my phone in real-time – this footage will then serve as the visual content for the song. Once I’ve completed the audio aspects of the song I can then edit the audio and visuals together to give me content with a DIY/”bedroom” visual aesthetic and a polished/professional audio aesthetic, therefore showcasing my artist identity perfectly.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Research & Development – The Power of Playlists

The most popular form of music consumption in the current market is undoubtedly streaming services, whether that’s Spotify, Apple Music or one of the many other options available. Because of the commercial popularity of these platforms, a lot of music promotion is focused solely on driving listeners to an artist’s music on those streaming services as it means audiences can listen to the music at no extra cost to their monthly subscription that they’d be paying anyway.

One of the most common forms of promoting music to both new and existing audiences is social media advertising as it’s easy to get content into the feeds of those most likely to engage with it. However, engagement on social media doesn’t necessarily amount to engagement on streaming services. I would suggest that the main reason for this is likely to be the contrasting forms of content interaction audiences are able to experience on the different platforms. For example, streaming services only offer the ability for their users to listen to music (there are no music videos or memes to engage with); while social media offers a much more multimedia focused selection of videos that are both visually and sonically engaging. Because of the differing content types available on each platform, they both serve very specific purposes to their users. If someone wants to listen to music then they’ll be using Spotify, Apple Music, etc. to fulfil that activity – no one will be turning to Facebook as their primary source of music. It’s therefore safe to assume that most people scrolling through their social media feeds are unlikely to be wanting to listen to music in that moment, at least not in isolation from some form of visual accompaniment. While it still makes sense to promote an artist’s visual content on social media (photos, music videos, performance videos, adverts, etc.) as that content still appeals to the multimedia framework of the platform, surely it would make more sense to focus on promoting the music directly on the platforms on which it is being consumed in order to capitalise on those users’ content desires in that moment.

While social media promotion is accessible to everyone with no gatekeepers deciding which content can and can’t be promoted, streaming platforms do still offer their own version of in-platform promotion – playlists!

How Important Are Playlists?

Playlists are a guaranteed method of getting music in front of the people who are most likely to enjoy it due to the genre-focused format of most playlists. For example, if you’re an indie-pop artist similar to the 1975, Arctic Monkeys, etc. then having your own songs featured on playlists alongside those artists (or at least other similar artists) is a sure-fire way to reach the right audiences. Not having music on playlists means an artist will be missing a huge market of listeners that are actively engaged with their genre.

There are case studies such as this one - https://fortune.com/2019/12/12/spotify-artists-success-streaming-playlists/ - that show how being featured on the right playlist can lead to a huge search in engaged listeners on the platform.

In my opinion, the biggest positive of streaming platform playlists is that users don’t have to go onto the app with the intention of listening to your music in order for them to end up engaging with it – this is particularly important of you don’t already have an engaged audience of your own. Someone could simply be in the mood to listen to a certain genre they enjoy and select a popular playlist made up of songs from that genre – if an artist is able to get their music into that playlist then they have the opportunity to get discovered by the listener; an opportunity they wouldn’t have otherwise had.

How to Get Playlisted

Unfortunately, getting playlisted is really hard. There’s such an abundance of music for playlist curators to choose from when building a playlist that the chances of them including your song, or even of them finding your song in the first place, are very small. Fortunately, the capitalist economic model of the 21st century found a solution for artists struggling to get music featured on playlists – that solution came in the form of Playlist Pitching Services who will pitch music to popular playlists on an artist’s behalf in return for payment from the artist. Some of these services will pitch music to external playlist curators while other services will add music into their own playlists. There are also playlist directories available (again, for a price) that contain lists of popular playlists in a range of genres that artists are able to pitch their music to independently.

I’ve compiled a list of some of the most prominent pitching services available here:

https://www.themicco.com/?fbclid=IwAR0eZjmkojAJ0ll8gCUllyGKpudqauoKHTDrZJl97UTFVXx4eJj1Ub-fk7I

https://playlistbooker.com/submit-now/?fbclid=IwAR0uVC1Y_wIcnBMb5obsD7RNlc5TDTe1vgpJmukPoU_rhlsSR7iEDiXftm0

https://soundcamps.com/?fbclid=IwAR2VlnAbOiPfmJrIoItDKoTl-E5xPOJWGfshW-Qw_UH3EiKZEYepY5yLsm4

https://www.submithub.com

Another way to feature on hugely popular playlists is by pitching music directly to Spofify’s own curators through Spotify for Artists. This has to be done at least 1-2 weeks prior to a song being released and is hugely competitive but it could only take one prominent placement on a Spotify Editorial Playlist to reach millions of listeners – seeing as it’s completely free to submit and takes less than 10 minutes it’s worth doing even as a bit of a “just in case” submission.

Other methods of capitalising on playlists are being added to your follower’s own playlists – while this is unlikely to achieve any huge surge in listeners it will ensure those followers are regularly engaging with your song and may result in them sharing the playlist with their friends, who can then add the song to their playlists which they’ll share with their friends, etc. etc. which could create nice lowkey organic growth over time. Artists are also able to make their own playlists to share with their followers – adding a range of popular artists who are similar will attract listeners wanting to listen to those artists and adding in your own music to the playlist will mean that people are engaging with your music while engaging with your playlist.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Social Media Research / Development – Maximising Digital Engagement

Having launched my social media accounts and started attempting to build an engaged audience on digital platforms I felt as though I wasn’t utilising platforms like Instagram and Facebook to their full potential in terms of encouraging high levels of engagement with my content. To start with I was simply posting either images with short captions or short single release adverts with a short snippet of audio over a video of the single artwork changing colours. The primary focus of my initial social media marketing was attempting to get people from one platform (Instagram or Facebook) onto another platform (Spotify or Apple Music) in order to listen to my music. However, the people that were seeing these posts had no incentive to engage with the content and therefore weren’t buying into the overall brand to a great enough extent for them to want to switch platforms and listen to my music.

I decided that I needed to switch marketing tactics if I wanted to build an engaged digital audience on the key social media platforms. Rather than focusing on pushing people (who probably aren’t really that bothered that someone they’ve never heard of is releasing music) away from social media and onto streaming platforms, I felt it would be more effective long-term to focus on creating content that encouraged people to engage with me on Instagram, Facebook, etc. in order to grow an engaged audience who would be more likely to listen to my music off their own initiative because they enjoy my social media content.

Changing my approach to social media meant changing my approach to creating content. I’m confident that my use of hashtags is getting my content in front of the right people, it’s simply that my current content isn’t exciting enough for those people to want to engage with.

I’ve collected a range of online research sources that have helped inform my decisions as to what sort of content I should be focused on creating:

https://blog.hootsuite.com/content-idea-cheat-sheet/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-ideas/

https://coschedule.com/blog/social-media-content/

https://coschedule.com/blog/social-media-content/

https://www.postplanner.com/blog/types-of-social-media-content

https://bandzoogle.com/blog/11-killer-content-ideas-for-musicians-to-get-more-fans-on-social-media

https://www.thecraftymusician.com/50-engaging-content-ideas-musicians-can-use-for-social-media/

Research Conclusions

·      Create content that focuses on me as a musician/artist - performance videos/photos, candid shots of me making music

·      Build a story for people to connect to – my influences as a musician, my creative processes, musical background, etc.

·      Create content that new audiences can instantly relate to

·      Write longer captions – longer captions means there’s more content for people to engage with on each post

·      Use captions with a call-to-action – asking my followers to comment their opinions or share my content with their friends

·      Create videos – videos are more engaging for audiences as they are both visually and sonically stimulating as well as giving audiences something to engage with for a sustained period of time compared to a photo that is instantly consumable

·      Utilise cross-platform marketing to encourage people to follow me on both Facebook and Instagram

New Content Ideas

I now want to focus on creating a series of performance videos in which I cover popular songs by the artists that inspire me as a musician. This will not only show off my talent as a performer but by covering other artists’ songs it creates a situation in which the focal point of the content is already familiar with the audience and they are therefore more likely to engage. Choosing artists who are stylistically similar to my own music will allow me to appeal to their fans who are likely to also enjoy my music if it’s similar. This will help me achieve my aim of growing an engaged social media audience that is more likely to actively engage with my content elsewhere.

By creating a series of cover videos, it will not only allow me to market myself to a range of fanbases will also create an incentive for people to follow me. If they enjoyed one of my videos, then they will want to follow my social media in order for them to continue engaging with my similar content.

I also plan on utilising the varied platform content formats to encourage cross-platform advertising. Instagram only allows videos of maximum 1 minute in length whereas Facebook allows videos of any length – posting the first minute of each video to Instagram gives audiences a snapshot of my content for those wanting quick engagement, but by posting the full video on Facebook it gives audiences wanting to see more an incentive to follow me on both platforms. The 1-minute video format will also appeal to a TikTok audience which could offer another platform to start growing an adjacent audience alongside my Instagram/Facebook followers.

I will utilise my video captions more effectively as well. I can write longer captions that give an insight into my creative processes by explaining why I chose each song and how that artist inspires my own music, therefore helping audience buy into my own artist brand. I will also focus on call-to-action captions that encourage viewers to comment with their opinions but also to tag their friends in the comments so I can make the most of sharing-culture to achieve organic growth.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Releasing My First Single

Generally speaking, singles are used as part of a marketing strategy to gather interest and momentum from an audience before an artist releases an album. This means artists release 2 or 3 of their best (or most commercially viable) songs from that album in order to engage an audience who are then likely to listen to that artists album. As I want to start creating an audience for my music then my singles serve the same purpose, however a key part of my project is to develop a deeper understanding of commercial marketing strategies for popular music - therefore I plan to adopt a different promotional strategy for every release in order to compare the results in terms of audience engagement and follower growth.

For my first release I decided to focus on sponsored advertising on social media. This was a key aspect of Carl Hitchborn’s promotional strategy for Coasts and The Hunna that he outlined in his book ‘Zero to Record Breaker’. I thought this would be a good starting as it can be the ideal way to promote both an artist’s music but also their social media simultaneously.

I targeted an audience that fit the age and geographical demographics of my desired audience and specified interests that were similar to my brand/music. My boosted video was then shared as a promoted post to the content feeds of audiences who best matched my specified demographics on both Facebook and Instagram.

You can view the advert here - https://fb.watch/1_4gEWbDJo/

The outcomes of this promotional strategy had both positives and negatives. The positives were that my video achieved a high number of views on both platforms and received a lot of ‘likes’ on Instagram in particular. The negatives were that those in-platform engagement rates didn't amount to many additional followers on either platform and also didn’t result in many link click-throughs to listen to my music on external streaming platforms.

I think this promotional strategy could be effective if I’m able to refine it further. If I was able to focus on organic growth to a more substantial level it would give me a better understanding as to the audience demographic that naturally wants to engage with my content and therefore I could be more focused when it came to defining my target audience. I also think it’s a strategy that is likely to yield better results for promoting content I want views on in-platform, such as a music/performance video, as opposed to trying to promote an external piece of content.

General Brand Development Around the Release

Once I had access to my Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists and Amazon Music for Artists I was able to update my profile on all of the streaming apps. By filling my profile with high-quality images and an artist bio it should legitimise my artist brand further by making my online presence seem as professional as possible.

I also uploaded my track to BBC Introducing and received radio plays on my local BBC station (BBC Hereford and Worcester). Although this will have very little short-term impact on growing an engaged audience, in the long-term it will affirm my credentials as an artist and songwriter who is capable of creating radio-worthy music, which will be beneficial when pitching myself as an artist for features on other radio stations, streaming playlists, music blogs, etc. but also a songwriter pitching my services to other artists. If I am able to receive consistent support from BBC Introducing on my releases, that’s when it could lead to more long-term audience gains by receiving radio plays on more prominent BBC stations and performance opportunities as notable venues and festivals.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Launching My Social Media

A week before my first single is released, I decided it was the opportune time to launch my social media accounts and begin building a following for my brand. The rationale for the timing was that a week will give me enough time to start building an initial following whom I can then market my release to, however won't be too long a window that my audience loses interest before I’ve actually released any music.

Facebook

Launching my Facebook account was an incredibly straight-forward process. I created a new page under my artist name (which coincidentally is also my real name) and added a hi-res profile picture and a bright cover banner that will serve as a marketing tool for my first release. I also added a simple biography that sums up what my project is in minimal detail, so that anyone looking on my Facebook page can easily understand what it is for without having to read a huge block of text (which undoubtedly would cause them to lose interest immediately).

In terms of initial content uploads, I posted a short preview video for my first single that shows off the genre of music I’m releasing - again aimed at giving potential new followers an immediate insight into my brand. That video can be found through this link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=280741046649001

To try and gather some momentum with an initial following, I utilised Facebook’s “invite all friends” feature to invite all of my Facebook friends to like the page. Although not all of them will accept the invitation, it’s the quickest way of essentially telling everyone you know “hey, this is what I’m working on, be great if you could check it out”.

Instagram

Launching my Instagram account was very similar to Facebook in terms of simply making it look professional, engaging and instantly obvious what it is I do.

By posting a few photos and a preview video (the same one I put on Facebook) it will give potential followers something to engage with if they come across my page. I felt it was crucially important to have content uploaded before initiating any marketing/audience growth strategies as there’s no point marketing an Instagram page that has no content.

To grow my initial following I plan on following all of my friends/family/music contacts as they are likely to follow me back and engage with my content. I will also go through the followers of pages similar to mine and follow anyone that’s interacting with their content in a positive way as they’re almost guaranteed to be my target audience and are likely to have an interest in my content if they’re engaging with similar content created by similar artists. This is a strategy I employed when managing the social media accounts of my previous project, Indigo Haze, and it wielded great results in a short space of time - we went from roughly 250 followers with a 10% engagement rate to over 1000 followers with a 20% engagement rate in less than a month.

Uploading New Content

I’m aiming to upload new content to Facebook 2-3 times a week and to Instagram 3-4 times a week. The Facebook content will be preview/announcement videos, performance videos and sharing links to any reviews I have. The Instagram content will be a mixture photos as they fit the instantly consumable criteria that Instagram users tend to favour, but I will also upload the videos to make my content more varied and give my most engaged followers something new to interact with. I will also regularly post content on the Facebook and Instagram story feature whenever I’m working on something exciting for my project as this will help keep me top-of-mind with my audience.

By planning what sort of content I want to post a month or so in advance, it means my content creation schedule can run roughly 1-2 months ahead of my content release schedule. This will mean I am never rushing to create content and will always be able to maintain my schedule; even if I fall a week or two behind my content creation schedule every now and then, I’d still have a 2-3 week buffer in which to create the content.

Encouraging Organic Growth

A key part of social media growth is to find ways of attracting new people to your content organically, i.e. any way that doesn't require monetary payment to promote content. Instagram as a platform is set up with organic growth in mind due to the option to include hashtags when posting any content. Including hashtags in captions and comments of the photos/videos uploaded to Instagram will then allow the platform itself to share that content into the feeds of those platforms, allowing more people to find the content they are interested in. Rather than simply guessing which hashtags I should be using, I searched for artists similar to myself in genre and general branding who were also achieving good engagement from their audience, and found out all of the hashtags they were using to encourage high levels of engagement on their content. I then went through the hashtags and found the ones most relevant to my content and brand so that I have a default stack of hashtags I can include on every post to push my content into the right places.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Instagram Growth Strategies

Prior to launching my social media for my artist project, I wanted to gather a deeper understanding as to how I can use Instagram to organically grow my audience on the platform. Facebook is incredibly straightforward as growing an audience relies on posting content that audiences want to share with their friends, who then share it with their friends, etc... and this can be enhanced by using paid advertising to push content into the feeds of target audiences. Instagram is different in that growing an audience/following relies less on content being shared between users and more on building connections with people. In order to give myself the best opportunity to grow an audience on Instagram, I researched strategies that will help me make the personal connections necessary for success on the platform.

These are some of the articles giving advice on building an Instagram following:

https://buffer.com/library/instagram-growth/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-growth/

https://brand24.com/blog/instagram-growth/

https://www.blog.curate-app.com/20-modern-instagram-growth-strategies-that-work-in-2020/

https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/how-to-get-followers-instagram-2020/

I have condensed the key strategies that I plan on using into a bullet-point list below.

- Post as frequently as possible. There’s a direct correlation between users with more posts also having more followers. Use analytics to post at peak times. Instagram provides direct feedback as to what days and times your audience is most active on Instagram - be flexible with your posting schedule to capitalise on those peak engagement times. It may even be necessary to post multiple times a day if it compliments your followers’ engagement schedule.

- Use stories and Instagram live to upload engaging visual content such as videos as these are becoming increasingly popular with Instagram users.

- Use well thought-out hashtags that will put content into the right feeds to boost organic exposure to followers. Track the hashtags you use over time to analyse whether they’re effective or not - change any that aren’t yielding results and keep the ones that are. If there are too many images for a hashtag you’re using, it will be harder for your content to appear at the top of the list - aim for hashtags with between 50k-300k.

- Share user-generated content (e.g. when your followers post about you) and create collaborative content with similar content creators.

- Engage with followers by responding to comments and leaving likes on their content when they engage with yours.

- Use cross-platform marketing. E.g. promoting your Instagram on Facebook, YouTube, etc.

- Use high-quality, engaging images with a call-to-action caption that encourages people to leave comments on the post.

- Follow targeted users on a regular basis. Look at users who are actively engaging with pages similar to your own - follow people who are leaving comments on similar pages’ posts as these users will be more likely to want to engage with your content as well.

- Engage with micro-influencers. They often have small yet incredibly engaged audiences and so them sharing your content and/or profile will lead to a lot of traffic to your page.

These are all generic tips on how to make the most of every post by being meticulous on the content you post, when you post it, how you caption it and what hashtags you use.

This article - https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/how-to-get-followers-instagram-2020/ - interesting as it offers more of a schedule as to what type of content you should post and which promotional strategies work best to grow your following quickly depending on how many followers you already have. I’ll use this as reference throughout my Instagram marketing campaign and supplement it with the tips from other articles to fully maximise my Instagram engagement.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Creative Development: Refining My Songwriting Techniques

As a major part of my CMP project (and my career in general) relies heavily on commercialising my skillset as a songwriter, I thought it would be beneficial to spend time refining my working practice in that field. The book ‘Songwriting Without Boundaries’ (Pat Pattison, 2011) offers insights on how creatives can better utilise writing techniques in order to create more compelling songs, poems and prose. My aim for this aspect of creative development was to learn new writing techniques that would not only improve the quality of my lyrics but would also give me a toolset that enables me to write songs quicker and with more focus while having techniques to tap into when I need to write quickly to meet a deadline or to overcome “writers block” without sacrificing quality.

Below, I’ve detailed some of the key writing techniques outlined in ‘Songwriting Without Boundaries’ and discussed how I plan to incorporate those techniques into my own working practice as a songwriter.

Use Of Senses

- Using the five basic senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) gives the listener a more vivid description and helps them relate to the story more clearly

- Additional senses that can be used are: (1) “Organic Sense” (or “body”) which is your awareness of inner bodily functions such as heartbeat, pulse, muscle tension, stomachaches, cramps, breathing, etc.; (2) “Kinaesthetic Sense” (or “motion”) which is your sense of relation to the world around. Both of these additional senses create a clearer idea as to how you actually feel about something and makes a simple description much deeper and meaningful.

- I will use this technique of incorporating senses into my writing by working through quick brainstorming sessions before I write a song. Using the “Who? What? Where? How? Why? When?” framework to establish a clear subject and meaning for a song will then allow me to explore my subject in detail using the 7 senses explained above. If I’m able to write more vivid songs that listener’s are able to connect with on a deeper personal level, it will make me more relatable as a songwriter/artist which will increase my commercial value.

Creating Metaphors & Combining Language Techniques

- Using metaphors helps convey a greater sense of detail in a description by allowing emotions to be expressed through an inanimate subject.

- Putting adjectives and nouns together creates an almost instant association with mood. E.g. “lonely midnight” and “smooth autumn” both provoke specific emotions compared to using a noun in isolation.

- Exploring similes is another option to express a deeper connection to a subject if you want a more direct comparison.

- I plan to make better use of metaphor in my own songwriting by using them to express my emotions in relation to my surroundings and subject matter. As a songwriter I try to not overcomplicate metaphors and tend to use more direct language to get my point across, however I want to explore how I can make my lyrics more immersive to the listener by using metaphors they can relate to their own experiences and emotions. Combining this technique with the previous sensory-use techniques should allow me to create metaphors through my sense-associations.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Distributing My First Release

Once I had all of my creative assets in place I could release my first single knowing I wouldn't have to create any more content for the release/promotion cycle. Although I have never released music under my own name before, I am familiar with the distribution process as I’ve released music as part of a band. Because of the insight I had from my previous experiences distributing music as a commercial product, I knew that it would likely take several weeks for the release to be reviewed and approved before it was distributed to digital platforms and therefore I made sure I factored in a two week buffer in my release schedule to allow for the distribution process timings.

Choosing a distributor to work with/through is a big decision as it has a direct impact on an artist’s music being released on schedule and to the necessary platforms. I have previously distributed through EmuBands (https://www.emubands.com) and found them incredibly quick and easy, however as I am planning to release a lot of music in a short space of time felt that their pricing strategy of paying per release would have ended up costing too much (over £100 for 3 singles and an EP). I consulted Ari Herstand’s detailed analysis of various distribution companies before making a final decision (https://aristake.com/digital-distribution-comparison) and narrowed my options down to Amuse (https://www.amuse.io) and DistroKid (https://distrokid.com) as they seemed the best value for money due to the £20 yearly fee to release an unlimited number of singles/EPs/albums which will obviously prove financially beneficial in the long-term. Both of these distributors also distribute to TikTok and Instagram stories - two platforms that have become huge tastemakers for emerging music over the last year - and they both offer automatic royalty collection and payment splitting, meaning all money I make from streaming services will be collected and made available to me (payment splitting means that any collaborators will earn their royalty payments automatically by the distributor sharing royalties automatically). I know artists who have used DistroKid in the past and have vouched for its quality, however I decided to distribute through Amuse as they offer label services deals such as advances and pre-release payments to any artists who distribute through them and go on to generate traction with a good sized commercial audience. Although my short-term plan is simply to release music and market my brand in an attempt to gain an audience of any size for my music, Amuse felt like it presented better opportunities if I were to experience any long-term success. Other long-term distribution opportunities could be AWAL (https://www.awal.com) as they offer label services deals and publishing deals to talented independent artists and songwriters.

Once I’d chosen my distributor I simply had to choose which single I wanted to release first. I decided to release ‘part of it’ for two reasons: (1) I felt it was the most sonically polished song in terms of strong vocal and a clean mix; (2) it’s the shortest single I’ll release which means an audience listening to my music for the first time won’t need to be engaged for as long to decide if they like the song or not. It’s an important aspect of launching my project into commercial spaces and releasing my most engaging song first should give me the best chance of generating an audience that will be interested in following me long-term and engaging with all future releases.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Creating Content - Social Media Ads

Rather than simply posting generic music announcements on social media every time I release a song, I wanted to create more engaging content that audiences would be able to interact with. I wanted videos that were both visually and sonically stimulating in order to catch the attention of potential audiences and then show my music once they clicked on to the ad.

The first advert I made is designed to act as the announcement video which I will post 1 week before each release. This is meant to be a simple video that pique’s interest in my announcement without revealing too much of the song. The visuals are very simple by just showing the single artwork flickering in and out of colour, while the music I used is the intro of the song with all vocals removed. I tried to keep the video to around 10 seconds in length to act as a short preview of the track rather than have a video that drags out. I have made a similar video for every single release so that my branding remains cohesive throughout the entire campaign.

(Insert FB link to video)

The second video I made will be uploaded to social media on the day of the release and gives a fuller introduction to the song by playing through some of the pre-chorus and chorus sections. Visually it’s very similar to the announcement/preview videos, again so that I can keep a cohesive branding aesthetic. I will attach a link to the video on social media that takes people through to the song on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. so that my music can be found seamlessly directly from the marketing material.

(Insert FB link to video)

As a whole I’m happy with the way the videos turned out and think they’ll be able to serve their purpose well. Visual content creation is something I’ve never attempted before and so hopefully I’m able to become more comfortable with that aspect of content creation as the project goes on.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Launching My YouTube Channel

Having created my first two songwriting videos the next step was to create a channel and upload my first video.

I decided to name my channel ‘Songwriting Simplified’ as it explains the channel’s purpose well and seemed like a likely search term for people actively looking for songwriting tutorials - therefore increasing the likelihood of achieving organic traffic to my channel.

The first video I uploaded was ‘Lyric Writing - Basics’ as lyrics are the focal point of all modern pop songs and therefore are a natural starting point.

The video can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdHi1VW79EQ&t=14s

Once I have uploaded my ‘Arrangement & Structure - Basics’ video, I will then start creating content that dives deeper into specific aspects of songwriting to gradually introduce more detail to each video - similarly to how a module would be run in an educational setting.

YouTube is a platform I’ve never used before as a creator and so I’m keen to introduce an experimental edge to the marketing aspect of the project. I will upload new content every two weeks, always on a Wednesday, to create a consistent upload pattern as this will be easier to stay on track with for both myself and anyone using the videos. However, for the first 2-3 videos my plan is to see how many views I am able to hit with no external marketing, i.e. letting YouTube search engines and algorithms control my video in order to find out whether it’s possible to amass views with no input. This will be supplemented by research into how marketing strategies can be implemented for YouTube, so that when I have uploaded more videos and have a bigger content range to market, I am able to push my project into a marketing/promotion phase to compare the views between these approaches.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Creating Content - Photoshoot

One of the aspects of managing a creative project that I have always underestimated in the past is the importance of organising creative assets aside from the main product, which in a musician’s case is the music (obviously). I’ve always prioritised the music in any content creation phases I’ve previously undergone and once the music was ready it would get released. What I failed to acknowledge was the importance of all the other creative content - photos, promo videos, music videos, etc. - that would be necessary for promoting the music itself. Due to this oversight, my band and I would always approach the visual content on an “as and when” we need it basis; resulting in rushed photoshoots and unprofessional looking videos that we would then upload to social media or send out to press.

As a major part of my CMP final project is to successfully manage the launching of a brand new artist project, I felt it was vital to: (1) create all the content I would need before releasing anything; (2) make sure all the content looked as professional as it possibly could. The desire for a professional edge to my project stems from the belief that it is easier for potential audiences to engage with something for the first time if it looks clean, polished and professional, rather than going for the DIY aesthetic.

In order to achieve the professional aesthetic I wanted, I contacted one of the undergraduate photography students who had worked with some of my friends on their projects previously. We were both keen to do the shoot as soon as possible and so met the following week - resulting in me having a range of photos sent back to me within 10 days of my initial enquiry, allowing me to keep moving forward with my project and not lose momentum on the creative development.

I wanted to focus on an urban aesthetic as opposed to studio (music or photo) settings as I felt it would better resonate with my target audience and as the photos are primarily for social media use (particularly Instagram), I felt that slightly more candid shots would serve better for that platform. I also took a variety of clothes so that I could change between each location - allowing us to do a shoot in one day that looked as though it was 5/6 different shoots.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Creating My First YouTube Videos

As a way to break up my creative schedule and give my songwriter/producer brain a bit of a break, I set aside a couple of days to create two digital songwriting workshops that I could upload to YouTube. As they were the first videos of this kind I had created, I wanted to approach it with an experimental mindset of simply trying different things and seeing what worked.

The first stage of my process was to decide what my first videos would focus on. It felt natural to focus on the two most important aspects of commercial songwriting - lyric writing, and arrangement & structure.

Next, I had to plan the actual content for each video. Based on my market research (detailed in a previous post) it was clear that YouTube is a platform without strict creative restraints when it comes to video content and duration. Unlike commercial pop music where every song sits between the 2:30-4:00 range, some YouTube videos are 2 minutes long and others are 2 hours long. As long as there is no unnecessary information in a video (e.g. waffling about something completely irrelevant for half the video) then a video can be as long as needed to fit the information. I decided for my first videos to try to condense as much key information as possible into as short a video as possible in an attempt to deliver key thinking points that could be expanded on in later videos. Therefore, rather than discussing certain techniques in detail, I chose to give an overview of the lyric writing and arrangement processes. The lyric writing video discusses topics such as common lyrical themes, storytelling and structure, rhyme scheme, and melody. The arrangement & structure video essentially talks through a basic song structure, i.e. verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus - and gives advice on how to use arrangement to add to the sense of audience excitement and anticipation within that structure.

Once I had my content planned out, I had to decide on the visual aesthetics of my videos. Most YouTube videos feature the person talking in the middle of the frame and doesn't really vary from that, however when I attempted this I came across a bit uncomfortable in front of the camera and wasn't keen on the aesthetic in general. As my videos are created as an educational tool as opposed to a vlog, I felt as though utilising a presentation & voice-over aesthetic would be the easiest way of delivering the information as I could put notes on the screen for viewers to follow along with and write down. I created a presentation in PowerPoint and recorded the script in logic, then edited them together in iMovie. Finally, I decided to add some subtle background music into the videos as the spoken voice sounded a little bit bland by itself and needed some form of added ambience.

The actual creation of each video was fairly straightforward and although I break away from the typical YouTube visual aesthetic conventions, this is a project I want to take an experimental approach with and find out whether working how I want to will result in a successful commercial project or whether it's necessary to conform to those conventions.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Designing Single Artwork

One of the most important aspects of releasing a single or album is the artwork, especially when the focus lies solely on the digital commercial value of the song. With this in mind, I wanted to create artwork that whilst being very simplistic in design would still stand out on social media and streaming platforms. As I am a brand new artist with no following prior to launching this project, the artwork of each release offers an opportunity to attract audiences to my music who wouldn't otherwise engage with my content.

As my the rationale behind my artwork was to create something immediately eye-catching, I decided I needed bright colours and text that would serve as the focal point of the artwork. The bright colours should standout against more mundane settings (especially on Spotify which has a black background), and the bold text makes it easy to read the song title even if someone is just scrolling past it.

The artwork for each single is added below. As this run of singles all comes under one project, I felt it was important to incorporate a similar design for all the artwork to create a better sense of branding cohesion. I was able to create the artwork myself using an online design tool - this was a decision I made with project budget in mind, as any money I would have to spend on a graphic designer would be less money I could spend on promoting my content. In this stage in my project I felt it was necessary to prioritise promotional expenditure over creative expenditure as there's no point creating expensive content if no one is going to see it.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Content Release Strategy

Overview

As a brand-new artist attempting to captivate and grow an audience completely from scratch, the strategies in place regarding the creation and release of content will determine the success of the project. I dedicated a month with which I would focus solely on content creation, resulting in me now having all of the music, photos, videos, biographies, press releases, etc. required to upload regular content once my project is officially launched. My content creation strategy means that I can now focus solely on releasing and marketing that content, without the added pressure of having to create content as I go through my release strategy timeline. As content release phases are far less time consuming than content creation phases, I should be in a position to be able to execute my second content creation phase parallel to delivering my first content release phase. This cycle of being one phase ahead when it comes to content creation means that I will rarely have to create content to be released immediately as most of my content is being created months in advance of release, thus removing any creative pressure from the content release phase.

Shifting focus onto my content release strategy, I plan to maintain an active social media presence in order to stay top-of-mind with any potential audiences and to generate momentum when it comes to growing a following. I will use Facebook as my primary platform for uploading the “main” pieces of content (release announcements, videos, sharing reviews, etc.) as, aside from the strange world of meme culture, Facebook audiences tend not to interact with still images and much prefer visually stimulating content in the form of videos. This may mean that I am only able to post content to Facebook once or twice a week. Therefore, I will prioritise Instagram for actually building a connection with my audience – posting photos 3-4 times per week on a consistent cycle, as Instagram audiences tend to prefer the immediately digestible media presented in still images, as well as it being a platform that favours human-interaction, e.g. photos/videos where the focus is on a person rather than text or backgrounds. The desired Instagram content will mean that when I want to upload key pieces of content, e.g. promo/announcement videos, I will have to upload a photo with the option to swipe across to watch the video as this will be more likely to engage an Instagram audience than just posting a video. Instagram also offers a platform with which I’m able to make two-way connections with audiences, as I can follow and interact with their content as well as them being able to do the same with mine, whereas Facebook allows audiences to interact with content creators but not vice-versa.

Release Cycle Timeline

This is my proposed content release cycle for my initial run of single releases. The plan is to release a new cycle every fortnight, resulting in a two-week content release cycle that will be repeated per single release. I will initially release all of my social media content between 5-6pm, as this tends to be the height of audience traffic on platforms as a whole, however after a couple of weeks I will be able to analyse my audience statistics to find the peak times for my own audiences to be active on social media.

Week 1

Monday

·      Instagram - photo

Wednesday

·      Instagram - photo

Friday

·      Single release (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.)

·      Facebook - Social media ad promoting release (sponsored ad targeting key audience demographics) + imbedded link to the song on streaming platforms

·      Instagram - Photo + social media ad promoting release (sponsored ad targeting key audience demographics)

Week 2

Monday

·      Instagram - photo

Wednesday

·      Facebook – acoustic / performance video of previously released single

·      Instagram - acoustic / performance video of previously released single (uploaded to Instagram TV with a short teaser uploaded to main feed)

Friday

·      Facebook – release announcement video for next single

·      Instagram – photo (caption announcing next single) + swipe across option for single artwork and announcement video

Ongoing

I will maintain a regular upload schedule for Instagram and Facebook stories as this will allow me to post small pieces of easily digestible content showing me working on music, posting reviews / audience content shares, throwbacks to previous content, etc. to help stay present in my follower’s feeds.

Any additional pieces of one-off content can be slotted into my release schedule either in place of scheduled content or on a day when there is no content scheduled for release.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Market Testing my Music

Having spent a week finalising my writing, recording and mixing processes for the singles I plan to release I was left with three mostly completed tracks that I felt confident in releasing once they’d had a few minor tweaks.

I wanted to get some external opinions on the tracks I had created to see how other people’s feedback compared to my own thoughts on each song. By market testing my music before I release it, I will be able to refine each track to a suitable commercial standard so that when each song is released it will sound as professional / polished as possible. I selected a very small group of market testers as I didn't want to end up with too much feedback and get to the point where all my feedback was counter-productive and cancelling each other out, e.g. one person saying the vocals need more reverb, one saying they need less, one saying they’re perfect, etc... and so by keeping my testing pool to a minimum I was able to gather valuable feedback without it becoming complicated.

There were two types of feedback I wanted to gather from my market research: (1) the quality of the songs from a purely commercial viewpoint based on the songwriting; (2) the standard of the production used and how each song could be refined from a technical viewpoint. In order to gather both types of feedback, I showed my songs to both non-musicians and musicians as they would be able to offer different perspectives on the songs and in varying levels of detail.

Feedback I received for criteria 1 was entirely positive. Everyone I showed the songs to agreed that the songwriting was of a very high standard and that they were definitely commercially viable songs within the electronic/indie-pop genre. This was extremely useful as it gave me confidence that there should actually be an audience for my music once I release the songs, and ensured me that I didn't need to spend more time writing/recording additional parts for any of the songs. Essentially, from a songwriting perspective I was done and should be happy with what I’d created.

Feedback for the second criteria was also extremely helpful. It was universally agreed that the track as a whole was well mixed and balanced with the exception of the vocals. Mixing vocals has always been something I’ve struggled with and so I knew I would have to refine them further before releasing anything commercially, however it was positive knowing I wouldn't have to spend any more time mixing the synths, bass or drums and that moving forward my production techniques are viable. As I was aware beforehand that my vocals weren’t perfect I was anticipating some “negative” feedback on that aspect of the mix, however all the feedback was in fact extremely constructive and will undoubtedly speed up the refinement process. Rather than simply pointing out the flaws, my market testers actually offered advice on how they would go about improving the vocal production. The main points of feedback I received were:

- there were some slight pitch issues in places throughout all three tracks, although nothing major. Simply using autotune software like melodyne will help in snapping the “off” notes onto whole notes and will clean up the production.

- a lot of vocals in my genre tend to sound more airy than mine were. Using slightly harder compression, pushing the top end of the EQ further, and adding a longer reverb with more top-end push, will all help polish the vocals more and give my songs a more well-rounded feel.

[tombentlecmpsongwriterproject]

Spotify Case Study – ‘Should Spotify Be the Main Focus for Independent Artists in 2020?’

Intro

From my own experiences of releasing music independently and being someone whose social media is constantly flooded with other independent artists promoting their music, I’ve noticed somewhat of a trend in the way music is shared. Spotify. Artists are constantly sending their audiences to their Spotify accounts with direct links and post captions of “out now on Spotify”. Of course, there are also links to Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc. etc… but Spotify still feels like the be-all-and-end-all of the current streaming platforms. My main question is why is this the case? But I also wonder whether independent artists are right to prioritise promoting their music on Spotify to the detriment of other platforms.

For the purpose of this case study I am focusing solely on streaming platforms and mostly ignoring the parallel media streams of radio, blogs, magazines, etc. as it’s a fair assumption that most artists will be pushing their music into these channels regardless of which streaming platforms they prefer.

My case study analysis will break down the advantages and disadvantages of Spotify as a streaming platform for independent artists, followed by a concluding notion as to whether artists are right to be prioritising Spotify promotion.

Monthly Users

According to the most recent statistics published by Spotify, it is claimed that the platform has 286million monthly users (https://musically.com/2020/02/19/spotify-apple-how-many-users-big-music-streaming-services/). Compare that figure with the estimated 80million monthly Apple Music users and 55million monthly users for Amazon Music, and it’s clear that Spotify has the biggest market share by far in terms of consumer outreach. As an artist it’s important to be putting your music into the content feeds people are occupying in the biggest numbers, therefore making Spotify’s huge audience an appealing prospect for artists.

Contextualise these statistics in the trend of focusing social media promotion on Spotify and it makes perfect sense. Assuming that all of an artist’s followers use either Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, (services such as Deezer and Tidal have tiny user numbers in comparison and therefore feel slightly pointless in debating), then by focusing the marketing on Spotify you’re appealing to roughly 70% of your total audience. However, an interesting promotional tactic that is becoming increasingly popular is the use of features like SmartURL (https://manage.smarturl.it) which allow links from various sites to be shared simultaneously, thus removing the need for Spotify bias.

Other interesting comparisons to make as far as monthly users go are the 175million reported by SoundCloud and the estimated 1billion by YouTube. The downside to SoundCloud is the app makes discovering new artists extremely difficult and so providing direct links to an audience is the only way of assuring your music will be heard – there have been some cases of artists rising to prominence by establishing a dedicated SoundCloud audience, most notably Post Malone, however for the vast majority of artists SoundCloud seems to offer a very niche, genre-specific audience that arguably lacks the level of perceived authenticity that Spotify has in terms of hosting the music of “real artists”. YouTube on the other hand can offer a very popular alternative to the typical streaming platforms such as Spotify, however it’s not a service dedicated solely to music and so artists are having to compete for views against not only other musicians but also vloggers, gamers, makeup artists, chefs, dancers, etc. and are therefore competing within a much more saturated market. YouTube is the obvious first choice when releasing visual content, however for audio content it seems far more lucrative to push into Spotify-type platforms.

Economic Factors

One of the downfalls of most streaming platforms is the necessity for a third-party distributor to put music onto the platforms on the artists’ behalf. There was a brief Spotify-beta programme that allowed independent artists to upload music directly to Spotify however this was deemed a failure and was quickly abandoned (https://artists.spotify.com/blog/we%27re-closing-the-upload-beta-program).

For an independent artist to have their music distributed to Spotify, Apple Music, etc. they would need to opt with one of many distribution services. With every service offering slightly different costing strategies it can be difficult to draw direct comparisons, however they can range from under £10 for releasing one single up to around £50 for a yearly subscription to release unlimited amounts of music. The major downside with some distribution companies are that they require continual subscription fees to be paid otherwise an artist’s music will be removed from streaming platforms. (https://aristake.com/cd-baby-tunecore-ditto-mondotunes-zimbalam-or).

It is evidently an expensive practice for independent artists to be paying these distribution fees if they don’t have a big enough audience to guarantee profit from these transactions. If you remove the “my music will seem more legit if it’s on Spotify” notion from the argument, then financially it makes very little sense as an artist would need around 2,500 streams on a single to make back a £10 distribution charge. Consider the cost of marketing required to hit those figures and it appears relatively insurmountable. Expensive distribution is made worse by the extremely low royalty rates paid by Spotify at £0.004/stream and Apple Music at £0.008/stream (https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians) – the reason for needing such high audience figures to make any money back.

An important question to consider is: what are the alternatives? YouTube and SoundCloud are free to upload content to however an artist is likely to make literally no money unless they start hitting the 100,000s of streams.

Bandcamp offers the best solution in terms of guaranteeing artists profit from any music or merchandise they sell through the platform, however it doesn’t provide anywhere near the commercial exposure to vast audiences when compared to Spotify, and feels more like a digital version of the hipster vinyl collecting trend as opposed to a viable alternative.

In-App Features

Where Spotify truly starts standing out as the most beneficial platform for independent artists is the vast framework for music discovery. It’s a platform literally designed to push new music into the ears of users who are most likely to enjoy it. With mind-blowingly complicated algorithms based on the unique listening history of every user, Spotify curates individual discovery playlists for every user featuring songs that are similar to the music they listen to most. There is the caveat that the more streams an artist is able to generate organically then the more discovery playlists they will be featured on, thus favouring the artists that have already been “discovered” to a greater extent – although this is a feature that goes largely unexplored by Apple Music and Amazon Music, and is pretty much non-existent on SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

Spotify also enables artists to fill their artist homepage with links to their merchandise and upcoming live shows as a way of tempting audiences to invest in artists directly, and so there are some features artists can exploit to counter-act the low royalty payments they’ll receive.

Conclusion

There are clear advantages and disadvantages for an independent artist prioritising Spotify as their primary content platform that make it difficult to a determine a clear-cut yes or no answer to the question of whether it should be an artist’s focus. It must be acknowledged that it will be largely down to the wants and/or needs of an individual artist as to whether Spotify is able to provide them with sufficient opportunity to push their music.

With advantages such as a huge user-base and a platform designed to push the process of music discovery it’s clear that Spotify is able to break new artists in a crowded commercial market. The disadvantages being focused on the cost just to distribute music to the platform and then the lack of income will be a sore point for artists (although this will be the same issue facing artists on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, etc.) that may see them favour the Bandcamp model – however this will come at a cost of sacrificing 100s of millions of users who could potentially be discovering that artist’s music on Spotify.

The question that should perhaps be asked is not whether artists should be using Spotify, but rather how artists should be using Spotify. It’s clearly a popular platform for commercial music consumption and so from the perspective of giving your audience immediate access to your music, streaming platforms come second-to-none. Even if financially it isn’t the ideal business model, Spotify’s discovery services could provide sufficient growth in audiences to see revenues increase through merchandise sales and live event attendances.

As a final conclusion, if an independent artist is aiming to push their music out to commercial audiences on a mass scale then Spotify feels like the only platform capable of providing the user numbers that would merit a reasonable opportunity for enhanced discovery. Obviously, it’s down to the artist to promote their music on social media to a sufficient enough level to attract audiences to their Spotify pages in the first place but that would be the same whether they used Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud or Bandcamp.