Article written by Olivia Bloore
Independent artists are under increasing pressure in the music industry to create a unique artist brand to find their target audience. Here are some top tips and tools to start building and engaging with your fan base.
Why is a target audience important for your music career?
Growing your audience and brand is crucial as an independent artist to build a strong fan base. This can be done in person at live events, on social media platforms, and using promotion services suitable for independent, unsigned artists. Once you have found your fan base, you have a solid foundation to secure further live performances, which may lead to meeting industry professionals and other opportunities to network in the music industry. And most importantly, it is fulfilling to see listeners appreciating and enjoying your hard work!
Finding your audience is not only about promotion; it is also about engagement, and building relationships with fans. If you are starting off with your fanbase being just your friends and family coming along to your shows, do still make sure you are engaging with them. This can include getting them to spread the word to others, posting on their social media, and, of course, thanking them for their attendance!
Social media platforms and newsletters
Posting regularly and consistently across all social media sites is important to access new audiences in different formats. Do not overlook platforms such as YouTube shorts, Snapchat stories or even WhatsApp to contact fans and promote your live shows, album releases and current music making.
Some artists including British BRIT award winner Griff have formatted their newsletters to be accessed via WhatsApp – this unconventional way of keeping up to date with fans is engaging, and unique compared to the vast majority of artists who use email services. Getting people to sign up to a newsletter is the most effective way you can guarantee that a definite number of listeners are constantly up to date with your music career and journey as an artist.
Posting consistently on social media is important to build a unique aesthetic that will soon become familiar with your audience. Make sure that your content has a coherent visual theme; this could be a colour scheme, video format or an unusual and engaging hook that draws people in during the first few seconds. Furthermore, study the analytics on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to see which posts are the most effective at drawing in the most likes, profile views, and new followers. Again, try to engage with each comment and message from listeners, so they feel connected to you as an artist and will continue to follow your progress. This may seem small compared to big marketing strategies, but every loyal listener builds to larger audiences.
Building relationships with other artists
Supporting other musicians is hugely important for your career as an artist; the music business is all about collaboration. By working with fellow artists you could improve your musicianship skills, attend industry events together, support each others marketing campaigns and even collaborate and perform at live events together. This collaboration and support is vital for a successful career, not to mention you can continue to build industry contacts, and of course befriend many talented artists. To form these connections you can join music communities online, attend live performances or contact artists directly asking to collaborate.
Top 5 promotion companies to use as an independent artist to grow your audience further
If you want to expand your outreach further, you can use some of the following promotion companies as an independent artist to allow your music to reach a larger audience. Again, once you gain traction from these platforms, remember to continue to engage personally with fans on social media and through newsletters to build lasting relationships with your followers.
1) One Submit:
With One Submit indie artists can mass submit music to curators across different platforms, from streaming services playlists to TikTok influencers, music blogs, radio stations, record labels and many more. One great thing about One Submit is that they guarantee a review from every curator, or you get your money back. One Submit also carefully selects which curators to pitch your music to according to your genre – saving you hours of time, and growing your following to match your genre and artist brand.
The platform hosts TikTok music promotion to influencers with up to 4.8 million subscribers, Spotify playlists promotion with up to 500K followers and YouTube channels with up to 1.5 million followers, so independent musicians and independent record labels have many options to submit their music.
Like any other platform on this list, you’ll need to release music using music distribution service in order for the music to get to Spotify, and to be able to promote it on Spotify playlists.
2. Musosoup
Musosoup is another site that you can use to submit your music to playlists, podcasts, influencers and radio stations. Unlike SubmitHub, you pay one time and your music is submitted to all the relevant curators, rather than being able to hand select who you send your music to. On Musosoup, You don’t pay for a campaign until your music has been endorsed and your music is sent to over 200 playlisters. You may be informed when a curator favours your music. Campaigns run through 45 days.
3) Indie Music Academy
Indie Music Acedemy is an online music training school, founded by Ryan Waczek. IMA offers modules to educate you on your marketing strategies. It also focuses on getting your music to playlists that are relevant to the genre of your music.The service offers Spotify playlist promotion and label promotion.
4) Playlist Push
Playlist Push focuses on building Spotify streams, working with independent playlisters to bring your music to a larger audience.
These promotion sites are useful to gain further streams, attention to your social media platforms and ultimately to grow your target audience. Again, remember to engage with listeners, create music videos, audience members at your gigs and anyone who shows an interest in your music. Promotion is not just about marketing your brand, it is about building relationships with the people who support you.
5) SubmitHub
With SubmitHub you can pay for credits to submit your track to blogs, playlists and radio stations, and gain feedback on your tracks. You get to individually select which curators to send your music to in order to best match your genre. The platform was founded in 2017 and it is familiar to every indie artist, It’s hard to get approved by playlisters but the platform is good for networking and get to know the music industry.
