Free Game Friday: How Independent Artists Should Promote a Music Release
It’s Free Game Friday - and as always, we want to give you free game on a specific topic that we think you need to know as a musician - especially when it comes to releasing music. Releasing music should not start and end with the music releasing on DSPs, your promotion should extend well over 10+ days, implementing everything from ads, play listing, interviews, live performances, content or anything else that your budget allows.
Six to seven years ago, the reason for all of this would be simply to get more visibility so your followers can gain a deeper relationship with you. Fast-forward today, this still remains the truth. Where many artists opt-in for announcing that the song is out and cross their fingers that something hits - many successful artists know that every release is an opportunity to garner one new follower, one new fan and eventually one actual consumer.
Because let’s be honest, you can be a fan of someone, but still not a consumer.
A consumer is what you want your fans to convert to. A consumer is what keeps you paid. A consumer is gained by a solid release strategy repeated over and over again over time.
You know how we know this to be true?
Look at the examples around you - Beyoncé, Kanye West, Gunna, 21 Savage, Larry June, Curren$y, Rihanna and all the most famous celebrities we know, are all successful because their fans are consumers.
Fans who turn to consumers buy your tickets, they purchase your merchandise, they like and comment when you release music, they support all that you do.
So the idea should not be “I want more fans”, the idea should be “I want more consumers.”
Here are a few things you should always do when you’re releasing new music:
1. Build a relationship with your audience
Post content
Post images
Post Reels
Post memes
Stay consistent
Talk to your audience in your captions and Stories
Give them a reason to care about the person behind the music
Your audience should know more than the fact that you have a song dropping. They should understand the story, they should see your face, they should be seeing you on Instagram consistently before dropping.
2. Start promoting before the song drops
Do not wait until midnight on release day to tell people you have a new song.
Give your audience time to become familiar with the record before it is available. Play snippets. Show studio footage. Post the artwork. Talk about why you made it. Create a pre-save campaign. Let people hear the hook enough that when the song finally drops, it already feels familiar.
3. Stop treating release day like the finish line
Release day is really where the campaign begins.
The song being available on DSPs does not mean your job is done. Continue pushing it for the next 10, 20 or even 30+ days depending on the record.
A song can become:
Performance clips
Lyric videos
Behind-the-scenes content
Reels
Interviews
Photos
Reaction videos
Live performances
Ads
Playlist pitches
Media coverage
Creator content
Acoustic or alternate versions
One record should give you way more than one post.
4. Put money behind your music
Your budget may be $50 or it may be $5,000. Either way, you should have some type of budget around your release.
Maybe this month your money goes toward ads. Maybe it goes toward photography, a video, playlist pitching, media coverage or a live performance.
The point is to stop expecting your music to grow strictly from organic posting.
If you say you want a career from music, you have to consistently invest in the career.
5. Get outside of your current audience
One of the biggest mistakes artists make is promoting their music to the exact same people over and over again.
Your followers already know you.
Your goal should be figuring out how to get the record in front of people who have never heard of you.
That may come through:
Media
Collaborations
Playlists
Live events
Ads
Interviews
Creators
Features
Networking
Other artists’ audiences
Every release should introduce you to somebody new.
6. Give people somewhere to go after they discover you
If someone sees a Reel today and likes your music, what happens next?
Is your Instagram updated?
Is your link in bio working?
Can they easily find your music?
Do you have merchandise?
Do you have an email list?
Do you have a website?
Do you have anything they can actually purchase?
Visibility is great, but visibility with no infrastructure behind it leaves money on the table. Lead them somewhere.
7. Pay attention to what actually works
Every release should teach you something.
Which Reel performed best?
Which ad brought the most clicks?
Which song got the most saves?
Which piece of content brought new followers?
Which interview sent people to your page?
Stop guessing.
Look at your analytics and use what worked on the last release to make the next one better. Double down on what works - that’s how you learn what strategy works as you continue to release music.
The goal is not just streams.
Streams matter.
Followers matter.
Views matter.
But none of those things by themselves automatically create a sustainable career.
The real goal is building an audience that eventually trusts you enough to spend money with you.
And it takes repeatedly giving people a reason to care every time you release something.
Stop dropping music and hoping people find it. Build a campaign around it.
That’s the free game. 🦅
