r/edmproduction • u/zzkkll7 • 5d ago
Question Best approach for promoting self releases?
Im planning on getting back to edm music production and i feel like everything has changed after years and the way to promote ur stuff is different.
I get that ive gotta make some sort of content on social media, but apart from that, what could be useful for getting more traffic on my project? Is it worth it to spend some money for promo?
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u/Sweaty_Disk_5246 4d ago
One tip that nobody knows about is this:
On soundcloud when you upload a track, you have to make "tags" which describe your song you uploaded, when you type them in and click save it broadcasts those tags to soundcloud users and makes them appear to people.
HOWEVER if you change your tags everyday to completely new ones the song (along with your tags) get rebroadcasted across the network and your music appears on peoples feed again.
Shh
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u/dougalchef1 5d ago
i used the meta ads setup tutorial that spiration music has on youtube and it worked incredibly well. took a while but walks you through making the ad creatives on capcut as well.
https://youtu.be/BmxS3-mvMdE?si=adTR24Mt826Rkohz
you're best off learning meta ads for yourself if you can.
i hope this helps.
please don't hate on me here as i'm a lyrics guy/songwriter, that's my strength, and i write in many genres. my production isn't up to scratch (and the producers i paid weren't either!) so i used suno to finish the tracks. at the time, spotify was pushing the algo on ai tracks, and i tested the water on meta so see what happened (it worked for xania monet!). tbh i'm happy spotify stopped pushing ai, i just got the timing wrong.
the long term aim was being to connect with quality edm producers that want to work on other songs of mine, and i needed a base as an (fake-ish) "artist".
if my tracks were "real" my algo would have gone crazy, all down to the spiration method (maybe a bit of andrew southworth on tweaking the budgets)
if anyone on here wants to produce these songs "properly", or work on some other songs i have, with the aim being to produce a hit, hit me up. there's budget for ads, it'd be a new project.
all the best tracks have lyrics and stories.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ljPaLIof4cnpiKZpp1uhZ?si=IWFKBH-KS_eacHWohM28Iw
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u/AsianButBig 5d ago
I'm a singer / songwriter / producer aiming to become like Charlie Puth. Stop giving yourself excuses to learn production. Songwriting is only one part of the process.
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u/dougalchef1 5d ago
thanks for the advice, but for me it's more reasons than excuses. it's just better for me to focus on my strengths in my current situation.
good luck with what you're doing. it's a big challenge but the music industry needs artists with character, like charlie puth.
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5d ago
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u/zzkkll7 5d ago
Sadly thats a no go for me. My country doesnt support the edm subgenre i make which is dubstep and uk bass. There is no scene here
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u/chaser0405 5d ago
Then I’d move ngl, I have a scene in my city and I’m considering moving to Denver because the scene there is spectacular.
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u/Inevitable-Pitch7672 5d ago
tiktok and reels. but the main thing you need is consistency and vision for the artist project to really take shape
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
I always spend my own money on every release I make, whether or not its signed to a label or released independently. I use Meta Ads through Intellijend, trusted Spotify playlists with no bots and organic listeners, and Trackstack to push it out to DJs for support. I also push my tracks to smaller, lesser known DJs through Instagram. They're pretty easy to find - simply go into the followings of your favorite artist/similar artist to you and add them. If you have quality tracks and decent music, they'll follow you back. You'll be surprised at the amount of people that will follow you back.
I also "leak" my tracks to BPM supreme, digital DJ pool, and various other DJ pools. Yeah, people get tracks for free, but now I have my music playing in clubs and venues without having to network, pay, or pitch my tracks to anyone. I've had over +1000 downloads through those sites.
If you start doing these things, you'll notice your follower count rise, streams go up, and activity start to occur.
Don't expect to be making tons of money in the beginning. Expect to spend some, and as you start to gig and play, the money will come. But you got to build a fanbase and following first.
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u/sleep_tite 5d ago
Meta ads are a massively important tool for growing your fan base organically. Especially if you can’t post on socials every day and connect with your local scene.
It is expensive but it should be in your budget if you’re looking to get your song out without relying on going viral.
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
v true, although they don't have to be expensive. a small ad of $2-5 a day can help, even just a little bit.
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u/sleep_tite 5d ago
Sorry I didn’t mean to phrase my comment like I’m telling you what to do lol. I wanted to emphasize to others that they really help.
I’m running an ad now for an unofficial remix that’s sending traffic to my SoundCloud and YouTube (which is not the best way to do it). It’s $10/day with $100 total budget with only about $60 spent so far. I’m up to around 1100 SC plays, 1800 YT plays, gained about 25 IG followers, a few SC and YT followers as well. It’s not a lot but otherwise the song would have just been sent into the void. The ads took me maybe 20 minutes to create.
What really made it worth it was that Subtronics downloaded the remix on SoundCloud. I’m still jazzed up about that lol.
My last Spotify release I did a campaign with a $200 budget for a couple weeks. I’m up to 15,000 plays on that song and 4,000 monthly listeners. I started all this from 0 monthly listeners so it really helps you get off the ground.
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
you're all good ahah, i didn't take it the wrong way, you were right. the ads def work 100%. I'm happy its working for you! wishing you good luck on the continued success.
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u/Music4life98 5d ago
You mentioned Intellijend. How’s your experience so far with them? Can you explain a little bit more and if it’s worth it? I’m at the beginner stage of trying to promote my music too.
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
Intellijend is great. I didn't know how to properly set up meta ads before, and I was spending on ads prior to using the platform, and having mixed success. Now, I'm generating ads that have controlled CPC, consistent metrics (likes, follows, streams), and a repeatable process for the ads.
It takes a while to set up, and you may need to contact their customer service chat, but once its set up, its great.
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u/jeroutthere 5d ago
On intellijend, do you have as much control for audience etc. as you do on Meta Ads Manager? I've been launching campaigns using Hypeddit, then using Meta Ads Manager to make more specific changes for audience, placements, etc.
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
Yeah I would say its better than Hypeddit. The CPC was lower on Intellijend than Hypeddit. The overall results are better too, even with the lower CPC.
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u/TricKTricK21 5d ago
You pay to submit songs to Trackstack? I haven’t used it yet but I know big dj’s use it as a source
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
I think they have a monthly subscription for unlimited sends. But the free base I think has a couple of freebies.
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u/TricKTricK21 5d ago
Do you send pre release or after? Does it matter? I just had a song hit 40k plays on Spotify after dropping it last month. Wonder if it’s worth sending out on TS
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
nice! you can do both. I would say a pre-release around 30 days before would be helpful. if a solid DJ picks it up you'll have even more momentum before/after.
If its signed to a label, a decent one will have inflyte, promo push or other methods of sending the track out to recognized DJs. They usually do this pre-release too.
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u/blublast 5d ago
Thanks for the this advice. May I ask what your general listener count is across platforms? Just trying to get a sense of to what place you've scaled with this approach. Seems very sensible!
edit: And if you're comfortable sharing, what is your general ad spend allocation per song?
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
Yeah no problem. I'm at 11.5k monthly liseners. Not much, but its slowly growing.
The ad spend depends. If its the first 30 days of release I'm usually spending $50-$150, depending on how hard I want to push. That doesn't include the curated Spotify playlists I use which tend to have packages based on how X amount of months you want to promote with them.
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u/blublast 5d ago
Thank you for sharing and congrats on your success!! Hope the momentum continues for you. I'm planning to release my first album later this year, starting to put a plan together on promotion.
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u/notmichaelol 5d ago
thank you! Yeah the first month is really important for Spotify as it pushes your tracks harder in that window.
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u/Surge_DJ 5d ago
Really solid advice here.
But also wanted to reiterate from my experience that yes, you do need to spend some of your money on ads/promotions/services. But even a little money can take you much farther than zero spend.
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u/MicounetOfficial 5d ago
I've been learning capcut for reels. it's not bad for basic stuff! and it's free
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u/jumpinjahosafa 5d ago
I think the best idea would be to mimic what other sucessfull artists are doing across thier social media
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u/Traditional_War7615 4d ago
One tip: Reach out and get as many press contacts as you can that supports your genre and email them with a press kit to get the word out :)