Have you either just released a single, EP, or Album or already released music, and now wanting to get more streams, without breaking the budget?
We’ll answer for you. Y E S!!!!
Well you’ve come to the right place then!
We understand that you have probably already tried every traditional method for getting more streams, for cheap (or free), and rather than re-explain that, we’re simply going to list it below…
BUT THEN, we are going to provide you some outside of the box thinking, that will be sure to provide you more streams!
In other words, this blueprint will provide you everything you need to do / know to obtain more streams, without digging deep into your pockets (aka, for CHEAP!)
Before we share our tips though, as promised, here are the traditional ways (in no particular order):
TRADITIONAL (and boring ways):
1 - Get on playlists
2 - Promote your song(s) weeks (and sometimes even months) before the release
3 - Funnel traffic on your social pages to your song
4 - Get blog features, go on podcasts, do interviews and promote it
5 - Run ads to it
6 - Tell your friends, family, and followers about it
7 - Professionally market it / have a release plan (and post-release plan)
8 - Reach out to influencers to use your song in their content
9 - Send the announcement to your email list
10 - Get pre-saves
11 - Update (or claim) your artist profiles
12 - Share your song links (politely - don’t spam)
13 - Incentivize people to stream / share it
14 - Collaborate with artists BORING… we know!
Yes, those ways can (and do) work, but you already knew that. Now it’s time for us to rock your world, and change your perspective, to help you get more streams… a lot more, at least that’s the goal!
And so, without further adieu, here is your blueprint to get more streams!
1 - Create / Brand Your Song For Others
In order to get more streams, with little to no budget, you need one of many things:
1) Great marketing, but let’s face it…that’s too much work. 2) A large following… but you might not have that yet
3) Or supportive songs… BINGO!
So what are “supportive songs?” Something we completely made up… That’s right, but hey, we didn’t call it outside of the box thinking for nothing.
We define “supportive songs" as songs that others can either get behind, feel apart of, or feel proud of. In essence, something that makes someone support it!
When this happens, the amount of streams and shares you get will be rolling in so fast, your only problem will be finding the time to thank everyone!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, how do you create “supportive songs,” or brand your already released songs as “supportive songs.”
It’s simple, and you have multiple options, that really boil down to “write” or “re-brand,” let’s explain!
WRITE
When we say “write,” we are suggesting that you write a song for someone or something with a large following.
This can be:
An establishment
A business / brand
A city / event
A sports team
Literally anything else!
Why them?
Let’s take a step back first. Forget who you write a song for. If someone wrote a song for you, the first thing you would do (at least the first thing we would do), is share it, with like EVERYONE!
This is because music is special. Music brings out the best in us, and as a result, when someone takes the time to write a song about us, we want to show our appreciation by sharing it!
There also may be some selfish reason to sharing it, but you get the point.
So why write a song for what we suggested, rather than a good friend of yours? Well, this blog is all about increasing streams, and we’re going to make the assumption that our suggestions have a bigger following / viewership / marketing budget than your friend.
So while the song may connect more with your friend, than it would a company, the company has the resources (and following) to help it get a massive amount of streams!
But would the company share it? Well you can approach them before hand and quite simply ask, “hey, if I wrote a song for you, about _____, would it be possible for you to share it?” In all honesty though, who wouldn’t share a song about them? For example, we (Musician Guidance) get sent songs everyday. We listen to them all (at least try to), but share only a small number. If you (hint, hint), wrote a song about Musician Guidance, we would accept that as our own. Use it in our advertising attempts, on our social pages, share it with our mentors, members, fans, connections, and just about everyone else!
Now that you know the importance of doing this however, you need to know what to include in the song / how to create it, so that it actually encapsulates the emotions and support of the brand / city/ event, etc that it was written for. We actually have a separate blog, which will walk you through it here.
RE-BRAND
When we say “re-brand,” we are suggesting that you write one song (or use a song you already have released) and rebrand it, (usually through a music video) to once again make it about an establishment, business / brand, city / event, sports team, or practically anything else.
This could be considered a lot “easier,” because rather than having to create one song for every business / brand, etc. you could create one “general-ish” song, and just change one component of it so that it connects with an establishment.
This one component could be the chorus, or even the music video (which is of the case in an example we will share from pop superstar, Justin Bieber).
That’s right! This is something Justin Bieber did, and yet despite the mega-superstar doing it, it still doesn’t seem to be quite popular, which is actually good news for yourself, as you can take advantage of it. So what exactly did Justin Bieber do, and how can you do it too?
Well, ever heard of “Hold On” by Justin Bieber?
If not, take a quick look at the music video here.
What would you think it is about? Toronto (city in Canada), or sports? Or more specifically the Toronto Maple leafs (professional hockey team)?
No! Definitely not, because well… he robs a bank in the video. Nothing to do with sports, or Toronto, yet what did Justin Bieber do with this song?
As a lifelong Toronto Maple Leafs fan, he “re-branded” the song to create a version of it for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey organization.
If this is new to you, please see this music video (uploaded to Justin’s official YouTube channel).
What did this result in? A LOT! The Toronto Maple Leafs social pages shared it, (which aren’t small pages by the way. They have millions of followers).
It was also talked about and shown/streamed live on broadcast, (while a Leafs game was on).
Furthermore, many Maple Leaf players shared about it, (which have sizeable followings of their own), and not like Justin Bieber needed it, but you can assume he was invited down to a game.
The exposure, streams and clout it provided him was small given his already massive brand, but for others, the potential it has cannot be overlooked.
Imagine if that was you, (which we hope it will be after you implement this tip of “re-branding” or “writing” a song for an establishment), what would that have done for your career?
You have the potential and ability to do it, and when you do it successfully, not only will your streams will skyrocket, but also your recognition!
2 - Create Your Own Playlists
As explained above in the “traditional methods” to get more streams, there is no doubt that playlists do provide some great ways to increase your streams, however getting your music on playlists, (and especially popular playlists), which will actually provide you a decent amount of streams is no easy task.
Moreover, when you do finally get your song on a playlist, it may only be on there for a few weeks, and before you know it you’re back to fighting to get back on another. Does that sound relatable?
The solution is simply to create your own playlists, and feature your own songs, in addition to feature artists artists that have a similar style of music to yours and decent following.
The similar style of music is important to ensure there is consistency on the playlist, and the following size is important as the traffic driven to it, will actually be from the artists you feature sharing it, rather from yourself, or from paid marketing attempts.
We actually have a full blog on this, that you can read here. The blog will explain to you how you can get 100x streams by simply creating your own playlists.
3 - Shoot Your Shot
The next thing you can do to get more streams is by ALWAYS shooting your shot, so to speak (in a respectful way).
What exactly do we mean by that? Well, have you heard of the age old saying, ask and you shall receive? Basically if you do not ask, you will not receive, but if you ask, there is a chance you get what you are seeking.
So what can you do?
Whenever you provide someone with value, or something they’re wanting, shoot your shot for what you want, which is a stream, or share, but again, (and we cannot stress this enough), be polite and respectful in the way you ask.
You do not even have to be direct with how you ask.
Let’s give you a few examples (some strange ones, that have nothing to do with music, but it will help explain the process). Have you ever looked closely on a chocolate bar packaging? What do you see? Sure you see the brand, the nutritional facts, the ingredients, but what else do you see?
Many include the social media handles of the company. Now why would a chocolate bar company put their social media (usually Facebook & Instagram) on the packaging of their chocolate bar?
Well, they’re shooting their shot! Do they expect the majority of customers will follow them (or even see it)? NOPE!
But even if 0.001% look them up on social media, for a company with millions of customers, that’s 1,000 people every million sales that visit their social pages. Not a large amount, but regardless, those 1,000 people may see that the company is launching a new chocolate bar, or has a special promotion in which 10 bars now have 1,000 dollar codes in them, and could result in extra revenue for the company!
Let’s give another example, which may bring back the kid in yourself. Have you ever opened a Kinder Surprise?
If so, you will see the chocolate and the toy (as promised, and as advertised), but what else will you see? A little piece of paper not only explaining the toy (how to assemble or use it), but also telling you to download an app to see the toy virtually on your phone (or some variation of that).
Again, Kinder’s main goal was to sell you a Kinder Surprise, and now that they have achieved that (and providing you what you expected), they are “shooting their shot” for something they want (to get you to download their app).
On average it costs about $5 to get someone to download an app through paid advertising, and so again, even if Kinder only gets 1,000 out of one million people to download their app, they have not only saved $5,000, but potentially earned more in data, and potentially ad revenue too.
Okay, back to you, and getting streams…
Do you post content on your social pages that are not of your music? For example, quotes, pictures of yourself, what you’re eating, etc. Or do you sell merchandise, CDs or tickets to your concert / livestream? Do you have a link to your song in your email signature?
Those are ALL opportunities to “shoot your shot.”
As an example, if you sell a t-shirt, slip in a thank you note in it, that has a QR code to your new song. Or if you post a picture of yourself, rather than having no caption, or a caption that does not “shoot your shot,” you could say something like “just resting today after releasing my song. Chill days are nice sometimes. Sit back, kick your feet, up, stream my new song and relax. Or, if the post really has nothing to do with your music, you can simply put a link to it lower down in the caption, as long as that you provide it somewhere!
The more routes you have to your song, the more people will stream it, it’s that simple!
4 - Leverage Social Media’s Library (Especially Instagram)
Social media used to have major limitations for artists, (and while it still does), at least now many platforms finally pay artists when their song is used, even if it is per use (rather than total stream counts), there is still a benefit, because streams provide social proof. If for example you can only listen to one song, a song with 100,000 streams, or a song with 1,000 streams, it would be assumed that you would be more likely to listen to the song with 100,000 streams as there is a belief that it must be a good (or better) song.
So what can you do to leverage social media (and especially Instagram)? Well, Instagram makes it extremely easy to add music to stories or reels. In just two clicks, you can professionally ad music to your content and share it with others.
And not only can you do that, anyone on the platform can. So whether you “shoot your shot” and ask others to add it to their story, or get them to do it some other way, it has the potential to earn you a great number of streams, which will be explained more in the next tip.
5 - Allow & Leverage User Generated Content (UGC)
UGC is a marketing strategy that can very quickly outperform paid campaigns, because it’s coming from a real person (that generally does not have something to gain from it), and as a result, has the ability to spread like wildfire (if it begins trending).
To really analyze and understand this, it is important to acknowledge K-pop, which is one of the fastest growing genres of music worldwide.
One (of many) things the industry does (and especially BTS), is encourage their fans to make content around the artist (UGC).
While the western music scene is very strict about copyright, and has no issue taking down videos that infringe upon an artists copyright, the k-pop industry is a little more “relaxed” when it comes to that.
Furthermore, as things change and evolve, such as being able to tag songs on TikTok, Instagram and other social platforms, there is less copyright infringements, and so it becomes even more beneficial to the artist as they gets streams (in addition to just exposure).
Anyway, to really help you achieve the true potential of UGC, we’re going to dive into k-pop music, because they do it the best!
So what do k-pop artists do?
They release A LOT of content, and not just variations of songs, but also reaction videos, QnAs, live chats, and even appear on gameshows, but why?
Because they have built a community of fans that create their own content “in reply” to what the k-pop artist does.
But, you may not be a k-pop artist or have experience in this, so what can you do get fans creating content around you, to increase your streams?
One idea is to release a raw video of yourself singing a song of yours, and then ask others to do a duet to it with you, (while tagging you song).
Or you could do a dance on TikTok, to your song, and get others to match it (again while tagging your song)! Whatever you decide to do, whenever a fan of yours creates their own content using your song, you’re getting streams and exposure!
You may be thinking though it’s easier said than done to get someone to create a video in reply to something you have done, but have you actually tried it yet? Maybe you have, and still haven’t had luck, so what you can do (and what k-pop artists do), is to then react to the UGC. In other words, you release content, a fan creates content with it, and then you react to it. This way, fans will see that you not only appreciate it, but also interact with it. Slowly but surely, more and more people will start doing it, and it will continue to spread long after you stop “promoting” it, bringing you continual streams.
There you go! That’s our blueprint for everything you need to do to get more streams! It included traditional methods, and some outside the box thinking that can help you skyrocket your streams!
Now it is your turn to put these tips into good use. When you do, message us, because we look forward to hearing all about how it worked for you!