My Updated 60-Day Music Promotion Plan (What's Changed in 2026)

In partnership with

The Daily Newsletter for Intellectually Curious Readers

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

Join for free today!

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

My 60-day plan for promoting your music has become a staple for so many artists looking to blow up their songs. Our comments are littered with people it has worked for. Since knowing what to post each day can be perplexing and frankly a lot changed in the 13 months since I last updated you, we need to get your plan up to date. The video above has tons more details so I advise watching it, but if you want a short version to read along with read on.

Get Prepared: The Most Important Part

Before we ever start promoting, you need A LOT of content produced in advance for 2-3 songs—about six months of promotion. For everyone who thinks this is unrealistic, this article is exactly for you.

Consistent, sustained promotion is one of the main keys to promoting your music. The way the consistent part usually fails is that you don't have a ton of content already made so you're ahead when things go wrong. When you have a bad week because that baddie who puts up fit pics of all the clothes they return to Amazon the next day starts leaving you on read, you're still ahead of your promotions when you're crying your eyes out.

Have the following ready:

• Your next 2 songs are mastered

• 2 minimum viable videos (MVVs)

• Lyric videos and music videos made

• A bunch of art, photos, behind-the-scenes footage, and other photos to tell stories around

If you have all this, you're ready to promote your song.

Release Day Strategy

Release your song on a Tuesday. Your favorite artists flood Fridays, and fewer people are on the internet during weekends. Tuesday gives you the most weekdays to engage fans before the weekend hits. Each day, early in your promotions is crucial.

Release day and music video release day are the only two days I advise flooding social media. All other days are just steady reminders and storytelling. This lets your audience not be overwhelmed and gives you time to work on building community. Remember: you cut through the algorithm with effective posts, not just a ton of boring posts.

Pre-Release Strategy (Two Weeks Before)

For the two weeks before you release, make Drops in Tribly, a free service that lets you trade emails, texts, or pre-saves for a preview of your song. If you have money and momentum, Laylo can do more advanced features.

If we can get emails and texts from fans who like you most, we can alert them at midnight when your song drops. These fans are most likely to rinse your song and drive up your popularity score, helping you get in the algorithm and on editorial playlists.

Critical: Send out an email and text to your entire list at midnight that your song is out. Get it waiting in your fans' mailboxes whenever they see it.

The Minimum Viable Video Era

Going into 2026, minimum viable videos are becoming more popular and effective. Many of you are ditching full music videos for MVVs since they're getting crazy views with little investment.

If you only plan on doing an MVV, make one with very little motion—just 5 pictures rotating or a looped slice with some motion. This way, when you're promoting with short-form videos, you have a video from day 1 with motion that keeps the broken brains from scrolling TikTok, Reels, and Shorts all day engaged. Look at Tommy Richman's MVV for "Million Dollar Baby." I also made a video on how Ninajirachi did this for her breakout 2025 record.

Platform Strategy

No one can accurately predict what content will do better on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts. I work with the smartest people who do this every day, and we see this consistently. Post on all three formats at first, assuming they will all be your biggest ones. As time goes on and you see which platform you find your people, devote more energy there.

The Biggest Change: Artist Development Over Trends

The biggest change in music marketing is that artist development went from very important to being THE thing that makes the biggest difference on short form video apps. What makes thumbs stop and someone watch a video is when they see an artist in their genre that seems unique and worth knowing.

Come up with things that help define you as an artist and make videos where you create trends around who people know you as an artist and the emotions of your songs, rather than just participating in trends and following what everyone else is doing. This gets fans excited as you're a leader, not a follower.

Before doing a trend, ask yourself whether you would make the video if it wasn't going viral and you saw no views on it. Doing it just because it's trending is gonna get you nowhere.

What's In vs. Out for 2026:

IN:

• Videos About Your Song's Emotion

• Videos That Show Who You Are As An Artist

• Videos That Show How You're Different

• Creating Trends

OUT:

• "You Just Found A Pop Punk Band..."

• POV

• "Did I Just Write The Song Of The Summer?"

• Following Trends

Incorporating Old Songs

From 2024 into 2025, it became increasingly common for older songs to blow up on TikTok. Artists kept making videos about them every week or three till they finally hit. Sometimes it's not the right vibe, time of year, or you find a new part of the algorithm, and the song finds its audience. Bring in your back catalog of songs you believe in or have seen the audience like, and pepper those into your promotion plan.

Content Types Formula (30 Videos)

The best strategy I see is artists alternating between around 4 different types of themed videos, cycling through and improving each time.

5-10 Lip Synch or Performance Videos - Get these out in the first two weeks. They're doing really well right now, and anyone can make them in minutes.

5 POV Videos - Play the hook and say "POV you're listening to my song at [specific location] and it's the most unhinged thing you've ever heard." Zone in on specific emotions and scenarios.

5-10 Concept Videos - Come up with potential videos that could turn your song into a trend. Take your lyrics and make relatable scenarios where others will make videos.

5 BTS Videos - Fun behind the scenes of your life. Give people your personality so they see why they'd want to follow.

Other ideas: Slideshow posts like Julia Wolf's "In My Room," lyric trend videos, reacting to user-generated content, lip synch, and dance videos. Find how to embody the emotion of your song—Gigi Perez blew up playing a depressing song while lying in bed depressed.

On day one, make a video where you introduce yourself since the first video of a sound is always pinned to the top on TikTok. Drive people to Spotify when promoting the song—the first two weeks are super determinative for the Spotify algorithm.

Make carousel posts on Instagram with 3-9 images with a description that says something vulnerable or gives the audience something they'd share.

Key Days Breakdown

Day 2: Tell a story about the song on Instagram. Avoid oversharing fan stories—only reward the best few. Send audio messages in DMs to personally thank others. Post another SFV, preferably audience-finding. Post stories to Twitter/X, Threads, and Bluesky.

Day 4 (Friday): Update your Spotify artist playlist with new releases from your genre. These playlists help you get algorithmic connections to other artists. Some people even put ads on these playlists. Add your MVV to your YouTube singles playlist.

Days 5-6 (Weekend): Keep promo light. Show personality posts. Give an emotional call to action rather than just "out now." Show people how they could be feeling if your track were playing. Music is a mood-altering drug.

Day 8: Tell people something vulnerable they can latch onto and tie it back to the song.

Day 14: Push your Tribly to trade a cover, alternate version, or unreleased song for texts and emails. Capitalize on enthusiasm and get Spotify follows for Release Radar playlists.

Day 15 (Lyric Video Release): Release your lyric video or visualizer. Inflection point: If your song is performing badly, consider cycling in old songs that performed better. Decide if you want to release your next song after 6 weeks or take it the full 8.

Day 18 (Friday): Update your second playlist—maybe your local scene or a themed playlist.

Day 21: Do an Instagram Live with everyone who worked on the song to get their audiences to discover you.

Day 28: Preview the music video with a striking image. Review your SFVs and see what's done best—make better versions of what's working.

Day 29 (Music Video Release): Go wild like it's release day. Turn your music video into SFVs to repeat the hook. Inflection point: If doing really well, consider an alternate version. If performing badly, cycle through old songs. Decide on your next song's release schedule.

Day 31: Instagram said they'll push you in the algorithm if you make 10 reels a month. Musicians who post 3 times a week see results.

Day 32: Update playlists. Review UGC and your SFVs—find patterns and improve. Clip your music video, share BTS, and balance with trends.

Day 36: Instagram Live with everyone in the video. Consider launching an open verse challenge where you play the hook, then an instrumental, allowing duets on TikTok or Reels.

Days 43-60 (Final Push): Final inflection point: Either start over or release an alternate version. Sometimes things fizzle, and you add old songs. Sometimes it's going so well you push back your next release to do remixes, collabs, or alternate versions. The best promotion forthe back catalog is a new song, but sometimes taking your foot off the gas stops growth. Make a decision and don't look back.

If you're not doing an alternate version, pick from the 45 days of promotion ideas and keep pushing until you release the next one. In the earworm era, sustained pushing really is everything.

There's nothing wrong with promoting good user-generated content from the first song during other songs' time. You don't need hard lines of eras—just keep reminding people to grow their relationship with your music.

Thanks for reading.