How to make it as a new artist in the music industry

Lets say youve recorded an awesome sounding song and your ready for the life of your dreams… well then how do you make it big? This is a million dollar question
and If the path to success were already known, well maybe the wealth of the planet would not be concentrated in the 1 percent of the population.

The road to success is a mysterious one, in all fields Gurus will make speeches about how they Made it and will always say “you need to keep going, never give up, etc”.

Giving advice is fine and dandy when you have an over flooded bank account and no worries about bills to take care of, but as a new artist , many other things and worries are also in your mind and being a star seems like a dream a million miles away, or a million marketing dollars away…

But don’t despair. We are born in an era where information and the access to internet and social media can be the leverage to build your path to success .

As a new artist in the music industry you will have to consider that you are competing with millions of other acts around the world, so one of the key factors or questions you want to ask is “How do I stand out above the crowd?”

Todays problem is the overflow of people offering their products, but at the same time, the outreach a product can get with social media alone is a phenomenon never seen before. A hit song can now reach billions of viewers, something that would have been extremely expensive or impossible to achieve in the past.

People are determining what they consume on a daily basis, we can go on Netflix or amazon and pick what we want to watch, or go to youtube and make a playlist of what we want to listen to.

This is so important because to understand how to make it as a new artist in the music industry its important to know that times have changed. Before record labels would say who is a “good act”, in today’s era, labels do not say who is the act they will sign, people do, labels sit around and wait to see who POPS UP and stands out from the crowd on social media platforms or any media, and then they decide to offer a contract or not.

I have sat down with AR (artist and repertoire) executives and in most cases they do not even want to listen to your music, the only 4 questions they constantly ask are:

1. How many Facebook, Instagram, twitter, snapchat and google+ followers do you have and what is your posts engagement?

2. How Many youtube views do your videos have and how many people have subscribed to your channel ?

3. How many people are coming to your live shows?

4. Are you playing on any radio stations ?

Label executives want these 4 questions answered before even pressing the play button to listen to your work so working on these 4 elements is definitely a key factor in how to make it as a new artist in the music industry so I will discuss each point briefly

1. How many Facebook, Instagram, twitter, snapchat and google+ followers do you have?

The social media marketing game is a work in progress specialty that is not yet mastered because it is relatively new, but one thing is for sure, to gain new followers on any social media platform you have to post valuable content consistently, I mean at least once a day on each platform, if you change the times and the content even better

And remember VALUABLE CONTENT so if you are an artist make sure your showing every new follower why its worth their valuable time to listen to your music.

Hashtags are also a big element in todays posting, using your band name on hashtags and at least 20 relevant hashtags per post can go a long way.

Make sure ro engage with the people who follow you, making your posts with powerful call to action is always a plus

Follow people who follow artists in your genre of music, the response is that some of these followers will follow back in return

If you have a video, try investing a little bit of your hard earned cash in boosting your posts on Facebook and Instagram, this can go a long way if the post is engaging

The most important part of this point is to think out of the box, get creative, what can you do thats so cool that you would like to have or share?

2. How many youtube views does your video have?

Getting youtube views is a hard task when you are starting out, after your first 1K views from friends dry out, where do I go? there are many companies I recommend like HIP video promo that can do a good video marketing campaign at a reasonable price

There are also services like virool or Facebook ads where you can drive viewers to your song, but yes its probable you will have to invest a little marketing budget.

Asking your existing fans to share never hurts although a quality song will have a powerful word of mouth effect that people will want to share, hence the importance of making great music

3. How many people are coming to your shows?

Start small, think big, each time you perform and make a quality performance, more people will be talking about your act and in combination with a good social media presence, (always direct your listeners to follow you on Instagram, twitter and Facebook) you will slowly build an audience that wants to come hear you play

4. Are you playing on the radio?

This is the hardest or most expensive element in todays time, getting played on the radio is a very costly thing, and finding the right music promoter is a hard part also.

A song campaign can go for 10K to 300K with no guarantees so before you put the muscle into radio I would suggest to start with points 1 through 3

In summary, there is a lot of hard work that goes into succeeding as an artist, but always remember to keep your love and passion for the creative process your fuel to help you keep going through the rough times.

I hope you enjoyed this article and do not hesitate to leave a comment

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