creative ideas how to grow music project
anyone have creative ideas for how to grow a music project? started music project in June put out 14 songs so far + got a higher production quality 4 song metalcore EP in the works. stuck at around 200-300 monthly listeners on Spotify - not bad, considering 80% of artists have less than 50 monthly listeners. lol.
ideas I have tried so far:
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tweeting out my music 1300 times to people looking for song recommendations (kind of works but not effective enough to scale project beyond a couple hundred monthly listeners)
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handing out 200 business cards to people IRL (same as above but not as efficient, kind of cool to just have business cards though. lol.)
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TikTok have like 750 followers at this point after month or two maybe? (idk not really that effective for translating from app to my music on streaming but could be cool I guess if I had like 75k? lol.)
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DM'ing micro influencers on Twitter offering to give them 5% of the future royalties for one of my songs in perpetuity in exchange for tweeting out about the music once a month (I think all of my DM's are hitting the spam folder so this isn't working - this is kind of a cringe idea but I think I have to try it - not sure that the offer is that compelling cause 5% of a single hit song still isn't that compelling)
anyone have ideas that I could implement to win in this mafia scam job music industry while going at it alone like david vs goliath?
the more I think about it everything is a mafia scam job. happy to elaborate if anyone would like.
Curious - elaborate please
do you remember MonacoMonkey? lot of my thinking aligns with the sorts of things that he was stating many years back on these forums, not exactly, but a little bit, I even had one person ask me if I was MonacoMonkey one time. lol. anyways these thoughts are going to be unstructured but okay here I go:
most people look at crypto and realize that it was a scam because there was no value-add to anything that was going on. these people looking at this and thinking that crypto is a scam are so close to (but too stupid to be) realizing that everything in society follows the same mafia scam job monopoly principles, just to a lesser degree than crypto did.
crypto was basically vaporware where nothing of value was being provided but everything in society is also vaporware on some level - using principles like FOMO/hype, status, irrational price gouging, addiction, fear tactics, identity association, nepotism, etc. not all of these principles apply to every industry but most of them apply to one industry.
it's just hilarious to see dudes who work in real estate or VC/startups to be like 'man crypto was such a scam' when they are working in a scam industry like real estate/startups. have to clarify that it seems like basically every industry is a scam industry on some level so not trying to single out VC/startups or real estate.
the realities of business mean that if an industry was not extracting more value than it was adding then that industry would not exist. that's why it's hilarious to see people in something like real estate, but really any industry, talk about how much value they are adding to society or something by building a project or whatever the fuck they are doing, dude you aren't adding value to society, you are extracting value from society, so stop fucking patting yourself on the back you jackass
if you think that an industry must 'add value' in order to exist look at the smokescreen vaporware tobacco industry - propped up by identity association (cool factor) and addictiveness, this industry exists but adds no value. okay that's not that 'outsider' thinking of me to say. I have to explain like this so I don't sound like a socialist lunatic when saying that real estate doesn't add value to society. one step down the line is something like social media - addictive products that you think are entertaining - they are obviously sucking more value from you then you derive from them otherwise they wouldn't exist. remember that. lol. okay now we get further down the line back to something like real estate, 'dude it's crazy for you to be like saying that real estate doesn't add value to society obviously it does', yes we all need somewhere to live that doesn't mean that the real estate industry isn't a mafia scam job monopoly, the industry is inherently sucking more value from society than it adds to society - look at how education prices have like 1000x over the past however many years, obviously that kind of growth rate isn't sustainable but every industry is sucking more value from society than it adds and I fear (not afraid lol, who fucking cares about the future beyond my own lifetime) that society will not be able to sustain itself due to these principles that are at play, or things will get much worse than they are now, etc., not exactly what the conclusion is here, up to you to decide lol.
proof or gtfo
Try a garage song about WSO
Here is the garage style I'm talking about.
I think the 5% of royalties is too much bro. Have you tried playing local shows?
local shows won't help me succeed. where I live, basically no local bands figure out how to be successful on a larger scale. bleak. but yeah. if you DM me I will send you my music. I think one of the better ideas for growing is collabs but it's hard to find other artists who are interested in collabing at my level and since I'm not successful yet no one is reaching out to try and collab with me.
So the last option is actually the worst idea you could do considering that you have zero way to measure any meaningful conversion from those tweets to your music and why the fuck would you give away the little money you might make off of this to dumbass influencers? Not smart.
I think tiktok virality is your best bet. Metal core should translate to of course that niche on tiktok but also with gymbros who often post content to similar sounds. Beyond just plugging your shit you have to offer something else, maybe some day in the life stuff or something so it's not just a pub page - something your core base of 200 can find to further connect with you on.
That's my idea of the quickest way to get eyeballs on your work, if you want to make this a business for yourself you can't just make music and distribute it, you need to become a content hub on your choice of platform (twitch,tiktok,YouTube,IG etc.) or team up with some A&R which is an entirely different strategy.
well if the influencers were smart and actually had influence vs just being bullshit 'influencers' then it could be worthwhile. like I've been DM'ing people on Twitter from let's say 3k - 20k followers offering 5% of one of my songs, like more legit business person types. I have 14 songs out. based on the existing splits I can offer out 112 5% stakes and still retain 20% ownership of all of the songs. if I had 112 people tweeting out once a month and the avg person had 10k followers then that's 1.1 MM eyeballs a month and I can get more people involved later once I have more songs. I honestly think that the offer is not that compelling for the other people who I am reaching out to though, it is slightly compelling in that these people might just find it interesting (everyone I'm reaching out to already is successful money wise on some level), fake bullshit influencer types wouldn't even go for this type of arrangement they want guaranteed payment up front for doing stuff lol.
in terms of teaming up with an A&R it's kind of bullshit but basically what I've heard is that they aren't gonna be interested in working with you these days unless you already have something, they can't take nothing and turn it into something but they can take something and turn it into something bigger, so basically I need to figure out how to succeed on a small scale by myself before a music industry person will be interested in helping me succeed on a big scale.
ouch man really hurts for you to say that. lol jk I don't care. listen man sometimes you can make something of yourself even when all of the odds are stacked against you (not being a 'good' singer, having no connections, etc., even though it is like david vs goliath, on the note of it being bad - dude I think my own shit, the stuff I've put out on streaming, is more interesting than most of the shit I hear out there, I've literally listened listened to my own songs hundreds of times), at least I am trying to do something here lol.
list of famous singers with shitty voices: trent reznor, billy corgan, etc., having a shitty voice doesn't matter lol.
There’s a YouTube channel called Black Metal promotion, which regularly publish lit bands. Try to find one of these too and advertise about it. Else some article in a magazine, just some small interview or online add you can share and spread
emailed 30 'influencers'. no response. cool man. probably going to have to email 300 to get 3 responses. lol.
just make epic music bro - tried that man - made some of the most beautiful music that ever existed GUESS WHAT HAPPENED - NOTHING
NOT GONNA GIVE UP - GOTTA PUSH THROUGH - JUST GOTTA OFFER THE INFLUENCERS SOMETHING EVEN MORE LUCRATIVE
I work heavily in the music industry, check some of my posts and comments. I even tried to make a WSO Record Label at one point but no one took it seriously plus i've said cringe things here before I would not want people to know who I was on this website.
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/off-topic/very-serious-does-anyon…
Currently FT at a bank but have a decent following and even got verified on instagram. I would call myself semi pro simply because i still have a job in banking but based on my earnings alone, I think most people would call me a professional musician no doubt.
To your question, 300 monthly listeners is actually great and while I don't know about metal, if you want to grow even more you need to start to attach yourself to more popular musicians and be seen and associated with them. This is how I got my break which led me to my current record label.
What I mean is the increase you'll see from grass roots marketing like the ones you discussed will barely yield any results. Why spend $2k on promo when you can bribe a bands manager $500 to let you open for them and have them post you on their socials or a popular blogger in your genre on youtube to interview you. Your image matters no matter what genre you're in and being featured on the "up and coming artists" page on Kerrang will be great but being seeing on MGKs instagram or opening for him constantly will do you even better even if people think he's garbage.
In my genre (pop/hip hop) this is where collabs come into play, things like paying another artist to feature on your song, taking pics with them in the club and making them post it and tagging you, also comedic videos using your song could work but it has to go super viral.
LMK if you have any more questions
thanks for the reply here. curious how you got anyone to start taking you seriously in the first place when you were first starting out? I know you mentioned trying to associate with more popular musicians I already tried reaching out to the label/manager for some more popular metal musicians to try and buy an instrumental feature from them where I could say it would be my project featuring their project but none of the music industry people even responded to my email and the only band that responded basically told me that they would love to do it but their label wouldn't let them do a feature like that where their name was on it (they didn't actually ask the label they just didn't want to or think they would be able to I guess). this might be stupid but I found some guys from the UK who can produce stuff that is much higher production quality than most of the other stuff that I have out right now so I am paying them to do that 4 song higher production quality metalcore EP that I mentioned in the initial message, to basically come up with instrumentals that fit already recorded vocal tracks that I have, I had to pay them yeah but the first of the 4 is already done and it's pretty sick so maybe it's worth it but not really that sustainable to do that if it's not directly going to translate to more listeners and stuff and it's gonna take a lot of streams to breakeven on that way more streams than I'm getting right now. it's so hard to find people who want to work on stuff with me, probably partly cause I am just starting out but idk man. I like metal but some of my stuff is more rock or electronic based instrumentals and I wouldn't mind doing other types of stuff like pop based stuff or whatever long as I think it sounds cool.
one music person who I reached out to (actual musician, not music business person) told me that labels and music business entities can basically take something and turn it into something bigger but they can't take nothing and turn it into something, would you agree or disagree with this statement? this was kind of frustrating to hear because the whole reason why I'd be trying to work with music business entities is because I can't figure out how to grow the project myself although I am trying pretty hard obviously.
do you think there is just no way that the micro influencer strategy that I outlined could work? like if I could get Twitter accounts with combined reach of like 500k - 1 MM followers to start to tweet out a cryptic message linking to my music on the first day of the month every month and I didn't have to give up too much of the royalties to get them to do it then maybe it would be worth it or no? what I'm getting at is even though this kind of grass roots marketing stuff might not work 'that' well maybe it could push me into the thousands of monthly listeners and then people would take me more seriously like music business people? idk.
No successful artist is fully digital. You need to be playing IRL gigs and building an audience through there. In terms of booking gigs though, a lot of venues look at social media following.
Music audiences are communities first. Focus on building a community with your music and you'll be much more effective.
It wouldn't hurt to ask aspirational peers in the industry what they do to build a following. Two friends of mine have been full-time musicians for 1.5 years now and when they were starting they hired one of their friends as a social media intern. You can't do it all alone.
update emailed 107 influencers 3k - 300k follower range none of them responded. was expecting at least one response by now. going to keep trying some more still maybe. obviously my offer is not that compelling if nobody is responding but anything I could do to tweak the offer? I didn't outline any $ or anything in the emails that I'm sending I just said for example to the 300k followers guy I'll give you 30 5% shares (basically owning the streaming royalties for 1.5 of my songs) if you tweet out about the project at the beginning of the month every month.
owning streaming royalties for 30 shares (1.5 songs) outright if the song got 10 MM plays is like $60k - let's assume that the guy has to tweet out at the beginning of the month every month for the next 10 years (maybe it will only take 5 years and so he won't have to do as much, idk) - that's 120 tweets - assume it takes 5 mins to send out each tweet - that's 10 hours of tweeting for $60k if it works out - like I said I didn't outline any $ numbers but maybe $6000 an hour or $60k total return if it works out isn't worth it? obviously there is the risk that it doesn't work out but worst case is the guy just wastes some time sending some tweets? idk man the offer seems compelling to me but I feel like I need to tweak it maybe?
maybe the offer really isn't that compelling even though the guy doesn't have to risk any $ if he already has like millions or something then who cares about $60k
Most social media ad deals don't have long timelines. Try formulating a shorter-term contract with a larger upfront payment while preserving some upside for the influencer. Also, your valuation shouldn't be based on the work required for the influencer. An influencer has a hard limit on the amount of ad content they could put on their feed before it negatively impacts their following (only ~10-25% of feed content should be ads, or else quality goes down and followers churn). A methodology more appropriate would be to look at CPM (cost per mille AKA cost per 1000 views) for the content niche as well as content platform (https://strydomwebdevelopment.co.za/youtube-cpm-rates-by-niche/).
Also: why Twitter? TikTok and to some extent YouTube are way better for audio
You need to find help I think.
what kind of help?
My friend got big in music on iTunes. When he was just getting started he was selling 100,000 songs per year. He blew up after that and then went on a world tour. He's from the US, but for some reason Australia really was into his music.
wow that's crazy. good for him.
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