putting your music out for no one to hear can be so discouraging at times. i'm using instagram promotions to get my beats out there cause I can't work with rappers directly cause of corona and I also don't have money for studio time. made my own studio in my garage but its not the same as what all these young rappers want/expect.

We should just talk about experiences in this thread and try to help each other out with tips for gaining a following, particularly how we can adapt to quarantine

For the love of all that is holy stop paying for ads. Put that money into learning how to engineer that's the side of music which is about getting good quality recording that's what local artists will give a f*** about.

Ads before your work is high quality is not a good idea because your presenting yourself and your work in a professional format they expect an itunes or spotify quality song for an ad.

yeah i get that, only spent 10 bucks on ads cause I just want to test and see what it does, sometimes I just wanna put the music out there though cause as an artist/producer it feels kinda ridiculous to be working for years and have nothing released to show for it, even if it isn't perfect/ professional i just wanna put music out to get feedback and grow better

appreciate your criticism and it's exactly why I post my music

go to the club bro, music is as much about relationships and making people believe in your vision as it is about the art when you first start.

Now's a great time(at least where I am) as people are just starting to go out again. Go to music clubs, studios, anywhere with music and bring your best s***.

More often then not no-one will give a s*** but every now and again you'll meet someone who can help. honestly this part is half the fun of music for me cause sometimes you'll meet exactly who you needed to, other times you'll crash and burn.

just gotta put yourself in the right environment, imma do it. keep ya updated

The idea of just "putting your work out there" and having people stumble upon it is dumb, and spamming people to check ur music doesn't work.

What works is colabs and connections and experience. Find some s***ty streamer or youtuber and make music or an intro or sound affects for them, do this for a while, build up a portfolio and tool set, then upgrade yourself and start looking for bigger gigs. Reach out to indie game developers and offer your compositional services, find someone who actually f***ing needs music and will pay for it, even if it's not the best s*** they've ever heard.

Get paid for it, get in the room with other musicians working the same gig, befriend them, colab with them, make music with them, feature in their songs, if you do well their fans will like you and come check your s*** out. Do work, work for people, thats how you get into the industry. Be useful to artists who already make money and have a following, they will share what they have if you help them maintain it.

Also im curious, what dont you have that the rappers want in a studio?

Spent $40 on Instagram promotion, got 300 followers (many of whom have been active and sharing to their stories/bios), around 1600 plays between my different formats (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube). My other tracks also got bumps in plays off of it.

If you figure out how to engineer and you start making music that sounds professional, you still have to promote it somehow. How do you suggest promoting it?

Take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't got any mainstream success but the biggest part is creating fans.

So people that hear your music and it's so good they tell other people, you would've done this with a bunch of artists as a kid, you goal is to be so good people want to show you to their friends. Other then that type of marketing/media you'll always be reliant on some form of channel, industry, relationship , marketing place etc.

Yeah, that’s how you’d hope it works. But you’ve gotta get it in front of the people who share music. You can rely on people stumbling on it and loving it, and them sharing it and then their friends sharing it and so on. But paying for marketing gets it in front of more people who do that for you. I couldn’t really tell you if it’s entirely worth it- I got plays, followers, and meaningful shares out of it but was it worth $40? Idk

I'd say it would be worth it if a few people kept coming back and listening/ became fans.

I’ve gained some fans that consistently come back and like posts and share. The trick (and downside) is that the best bang for your buck is targeting Russia. Russians are a lot more active in sharing, but you’re not gonna turn that into ticket sales unless you’re traveling to Russia lmao

You've tried submithub? I've been on the platform and the help with blog posts and soundcloud reposts.

Yeah, I’ve only ever gotten like 1 or 2 reposts out of it though, and the sites that’s shared weren’t notable. I use a site now called daily playlists. You get 25 credits every 5 days and I’ve had a lot more luck with that. It’s for Spotify playlists specifically though

Looking into this right now.

Any YouTube promotion ideas? I promoted the YouTube video on Instagram but there’s gotta be some slick way to promote through YouTube specifically