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Common Mistakes in Music Marketing

Musicians often make mistakes in marketing their music. But most of the time, it's not a mistake as much as being unaware of the ways to grow that work effectively, and they are often simple and hiding in plain sight.

You need a way to slowly grow your fans, which is low effort but takes a little time. Take each listener who shows you enthusiasm and slowly make them a bigger and more engaged fan, all while stimulating the algorithms of Spotify and YouTube.

As you move your casual fans through this journey, they will listen to your song, stimulate those algorithms, and grow your fanbase in a circle that keeps feeding itself and growing you.

You'll establish a free, low-effort path for people who do things as simple as commenting on your Instagram and turn them into fans who stimulate the algorithm, buy from you, and come out to shows.

Leveraging Instagram to Engage Fans

Okay, so we all know Instagram is most often where fans go to follow along with the musicians they’re interested in. This can be from a friend telling them about you, having heard you on a Reel, or having liked some of your songs on Spotify or YouTube. They may have even seen you live—this is where they want to hear from you, so keep them posted on your next move.

But it's also where they are engaging with artists that they want the attention of, and using that attention they crave as a tactic to grow the relationship can be a powerful psychology to build a fanbase, since if you give them a little attention, they often will give you a bunch back. Let me show you:

So let's say you post a carousel (since we know you should never post a single photo and only carousels on grid, right?…. right?) and a fan comments a bunch of nice things on it, now obviously you should interact with them in a way that generates the algorithm so the post spreads.

Using the “Close Friends” Feature Strategically

But next, I want you to add them as “close friends” on Instagram.

Now, some of you may have a personality type like mine, where this feels gross since that isn't your close friend, but instead, I want you to imagine what this really means is a person who wants to hear from you more often.

Let’s remember that the titles we put on buttons or people's names really mean nothing, like when you call the barista “boss”, hoping they remember to fill your black coffee to the brim and not leave room for milk. They’re not your boss. Or when we call the CEO of Live Nation “CEO” instead of “scum of the earth”. Titles are sometimes not what they seem.

Anyway. Add them and everyone else who interacts with you to the close friends list. 

The Incentive

Now, some of you are wondering why we would do this? Well, some of you who can’t help but do one of the most time-wasting activities will look at your story views multiple times a day. And for those of you who do, you’ll know that a small portion of your followers will see your stories.

Anyway, if you're really savvy, you'll know that when you post a picture that's a thirst trap or really funny, you may get more than just your followers seeing it if it gets shared. But if you put a link to a YouTube, Spotify, or your email list, it will get even fewer views than usual. So, how do we get around that? Well... that's where this whole “close friends” thing comes in. And I should say putting a fan on close friends doesn't mean you are ’re guaranteed to get to the front of their stories. 

But let's talk about showing up in the feed of close friends. When someone starts looking at stories, you’ll come up with that green bubble at the top of their feed. But that's not necessarily what happens; what seems to matter is that if you have interacted with them in the comments, that’s where it does work. This means that after someone comments and you reply to that grid feed post, you’ll likely show up there for a little while. 

So when we hear of Billie Eilish adding every single person that follows her to close friends, well, that's not going to be what really changes who sees, but if you have interacted with this fan in the comments, well, this will help it go to the top of their stories. Since, as you know, when you sign on Instagram, you often see those close friends' stories right at the top of them, especially if you recently interacted. 

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

Creating Exclusive Content for Fans

Next, I want you to go to your calendar and I want you to do what I did here and on every Wednesday you are going to remind yourself to take the funnest picture in your phon: it can be a crazy picture of you or your group, a meme, a picture from your video whatever—and you're gonna make a close friends post, and that’s what the reminder should say.

Now, I want you to set up another calendar reminder that on Fridays, you'll post a thought or a picture you wouldn't usually share on the grid, something behind the scenes, even just your laptop screen with a song and a 4-bar loop. It can be that simple. The key is were gonna regularly give these fans on close friends a peak that others don't get so they feel special. This leads them to be more likely to tell friends about you, interact with you, and keep seeing close friends’ posts, so we can convert them into super fans. 

And that's the key here: since Instagram is where fans go to build relationships, we are trying to make those who want to connect with you feel important. Much like when you start dating someone, you want to show a little enthusiasm. So, when you first start interacting, you add them to your close friends list and then share some special content, like behind-the-scenes shots, a more vulnerable thought, the funniest thing you’ve heard, or let’s be real, a picture of you that gets them horned up. Whatever works. This makes the fan feel valued in the interaction. That’s when we give them an opportunity to really receive something special from you if they just up the relationship.

The Offering and Trade

So, for that first calendar invite I mentioned, where you create a post, we want to generate a post that can go on platforms like Tribly or Laylo. Tribly lets you exchange tracks for emails or texts, meaning a fan will receive a free track download from you in exchange for their email or text. Laylo offers similar features to many others. It can also exchange a song for an email. There’s also a way to achieve this with ManyChat, which I have a video on in my members' feed YouTube Channel. 

But the smarter ones among you are probably curious about what’s included in this track download that makes it so special. You’re now going to post an alternate version of your song; maybe you sang it an octave lower, recorded it acoustically, added an alternate verse, or something else that will make your most engaged fans feel special for having it. Or let's say you cover a song that you’ve put a new, interesting twist on—especially one that you keep exclusive only to this. Covers of songs that aren’t in your genre but are familiar to people tend to do really well. It could also be a remix if you're in a genre where that's exciting. Just keep in mind that if you're a punk band, doing a techno remix might not excite your core, most engaged fans, and what we want is something that will.

And you can flip this another way. Doja Cat recently gave away downloads the day before her song was released to her most passionate fans, capitalizing on those fans who couldn’t wait to hear it and those who take pride in telling others they got it first.

Doing this before each song is released for those of you with engaged fans can generate a lot of emails and texts. Ultimately, they receive what's most powerful: any song they desire.

For those of you who have fans eager for more material, there’s a growth tool you can leverage to speed this up. Record an alternate version of one of your popular songs; I dunno, add strings to it, enlist another artist you’re friends with to sing on the second verse, or perform it acoustically. You’re the artist, so figure it out.

Then, make that version exclusive to your email list and share it on your short-form text apps and Instagram stories monthly, saying that this song is available and that you can consistently grow your email list. If you link it to your Beacons link in the bio, it's even easier to Tribly or Laylo. If you want to get Beacons' best deal, they are my favorite link in bio with a free tier, and there’s a link to get their best upgrade deal here.

Stimulating Algorithms for Growth

Now what do we do now that we have emails and texts? We release your song to fans at midnight when it's available, which encourages the people most likely to stream it to start streaming it faster than usual and signals to the algorithm that it should prioritize your song for more exposure.

Think of it this way: what this does is that we now have access to the emails or text messages of your most excited fans, who are the ones most likely to listen to your songs repeatedly. They are now going to get an email or a text each time you put out a song or a music video. We all know how often we miss these announcements regularly from even some of our favorite artists, and this ensures they don't miss it.

But most of all, what it does is get the people most likely to listen to your new song repeatedly to do so, which tells the algorithm to push you to listeners similar to them. You know that's how the Spotify algorithm works.

And if people are repeatedly listening to your song, it'll start to get in Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and other algorithmic playlists, and that’s how you get new fans. And if you follow my 60-day release plan, and you have a song and video for it coming out every 30-60 days, this is two email and/or text blasts per song telling people to listen. The YouTube algorithm will love you and put you on the browse page for fans who are similar to the ones who have been repeatedly listening to you.

The Result…

Then guess what happens? If those fans who get converted by the first ones who like you, they often come to instagram and follow you and interact with you and you can put them in this same cycle and as that continues to grow instead of 10-20 people growing you it slowly becomes 40, 60, then hundreds to thousands—and yeah adding more people to close friends gets annoying but it also feels like growth and that motivates you and I have seen this motivating a lot of musicians as they see their progress. Over time, this becomes a sustainable growth funnel. And yes I just said “funnel”… a word I hate since most music marketers overuse it—and lets be real: for them, a “funnels” dictionary definition is wrapping paper for a turd, and frankly thats what a lot of the funnels they describe are.

And one of the things so many of you neglect is that Spotify and YouTube’s algorithms, along with most of the apps, get stimulated when you link people and they click and listen. We often see songs that have no traction suddenly gain traction once people click in and listen. And these people who have shown enthusiasm are the people who are most likely to listen to your song repeatedly and stimulate the algorithm.

The Self-Feeding Cycle

So if you are getting those excited fans to first listen on Spotify, then blast them to your music video on YouTube, you are building listener models for both platforms to test you on, and if people are liking what they hear, this will slowly grow you. Then those fans who want you on Spotify and YouTube often go to Instagram. You can continue this cycle and grow everything in a self-feeding cycle where Instagram grows Spotify and YouTube. As those platforms put you in the algorithm, more people will hear you and then come and follow you on Instagram. You can capture their emails and continue getting them excited about growing a relationship with you on Instagram and getting your music to get bigger and bigger by slowly growing the number of people the algorithms are modeling after the listeners who are enthused about you. That's how this works: getting ten people on Spotify or YouTube to like you, then suggest it to similar listeners, and hopefully, they like what they hear, then follow you. We continuously grow this.