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Magdalena Bay is one of the most unique groups in music within a landscape saturated with cookie-cutter marketing approaches. Hailing from Miami, one of the most homogenized cities where so many people look the same, they draw a striking contrast to this by creating content that is immediately identifiable as their own. While they are often compared to icons like Kate Bush or Caroline Polachek’s former group Chairlift, they are distinctly in their own lane, as any act compared to those groups is clearly on their own path. Their content also evokes an otherworld-y vibe with the most distinct and otherworldly content filtered through a Pee Wee’s Playhouse meets Fantastic Planet kaleidoscope. Their recent glow-up with their second album, Imaginal Disk, offers a wealth of lessons for artists looking to build a devoted fanbase and navigate the complex world of music marketing.

Let's dissect Magdalena Bay's approach, examining how they've leveraged various platforms and strategies to create a cohesive brand and grow their audience.

Consistent Sustained Release Strategy

Magdalena Bay's release strategy is a masterclass in maintaining momentum. Since 2016, they've stuck to a metronomic minimum of at least 6 songs per year in line with the consistent sustained promotion strategy we see commonly with the artists who break through. 

• 2016: 2 singles

• 2017: 6 singles (roughly every 6-8 weeks)

• 2018: 4 singles

• 2019-2022: 5-6 singles per year, maintaining the 6-8 week cadence

• 2024: 4 singles leading up to Imaginal Disk’s release

This isn't just about keeping fans fed. The band’s release agenda serves as a great example of persistence and getting better at what they do as we travel along the journey with them. 

Platform-Specific Content Strategies

Their platform strategy is a simple setup we commonly see: They push to get discovered on Tiktok, and then people go to follow their Instagram to stay in touch. 

Their TikTok bio “Synthpop straight from the simulation” is dead on if you get to know them. They create this other world with all their content. It’s important to note, because having that snappy line to yourself converts people over to liking you and getting to know you. When artists have a concise description of themselves, it helps the conversation around their music spread as the listener has a reference to describe them to a friend and convert them to a fan.

Artists Playlists

The group’s artist playlists are some of the best I’ve seen. They nod to their genre tropes, like “CVS core” or playlists of all their songs, their favorite tracks, songs that inspired the new album, or emotion-driven playlists like “Time to Cry!” which includes many artists similar to them to help bond their connections algorithmically being shuffled amongst the playlist. So many artists neglect how these playlists not only build deeper bonds with fans but give you further algorithmic ties so that your music is played next to the exact songs you want so that they’re recommended to the listeners that rinse those songs.

There’s a strategic placement to placing yourself on these playlists with other artists. A lot of these songs are ones they can get algorithmically bonded to. Attempting to connect yourself algorithmically to huge artists is likely not going to do much, but the genre lovers and similar smaller artists will be recognized in the same subgenre of your music.

Visual Branding and Aesthetic Cohesion

This is clearly a group who really, really loves making visual content and have heavily leaned into it. They treat everything from their playlist covers to their shortform as an art project and recognize the format they can paint within and do it so that it always is in a unique world they have created that stops you from scrolling once you recognize it and can say “That’s Mag World!”

Instagram Aesthetic

Their profile grid maintains a consistent color scheme and aesthetic over years of content. As often discussed in my members only artist dissections in order to appeal to young people, your Instagram should have an aesthetic and color theme that works well. And my god, they’ve done such a great a job at this. You can scroll through years of their content and it all blends so well on the grid. 

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