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The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Famous Artist in 2020

This is my thread on how to become a famous artist given the current climate. Almost everything in this thread is achievable with a laptop, phone and internet connection. But it will take time and it will take effort to find success. Also, for those reading this thread, I haven’t put images in here because it’s long as s*** and they’re pretty unnecessary. This is just info info info. I’ve linked a couple of sites throughout, but I’ve compiled a decent list of resources at the bottom to help you with each section. I’m also keeping this largely specifc – you guys don’t wanna hear me say “just keep trying”, “use new technology properly” or any generalized s*** like that. The stuff here is actionable and tangible.

The Set Up

I. Music
This one’s kind of a given so I’ll keep it short. The music has to be good. This is the single most important part. Have you ever noticed how rare it is to find artists who are unpopular and are making fantastic music? The better your music, the higher your chances of stardom. You don’t have to be making Kanye West MBDTF quality music to get attention, but it needs to be good. Importantly it needs to be done professionally. You need professional looking cover art, a quality artist name, you need solid mixing and mastering, good vocal quality and etc. Ideally your music is going to fit with a trend or sub-genre that’s popular right now. This guide is going to focus on artists who are attempting to make music that will be somewhat mainstream and popular. Artists making left-field, experimental music likely have an entirely different path to success. How can you achieve this? Practice your music, buy a nice mic, learn to mix music or pay someone to mix it for you, commission a cover art from a site like Fiverr or even from a KTT user whose art you like. Ask for feedback constantly. Specifically ask everyone who listens to your music for constructive criticism on the music, on your name, on your branding etc. Take it into account – these people are your target audience.
Key Point: Your music needs to be good, catchy, well-mixed and mastered and well-branded. Achieve this by taking time to learn how to mix, by asking for feedback and by getting professionally designed cover art.

II. Platforms
This is pretty simple. Your music needs to be everywhere you can get it. At minimum, you should have your music easily available on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube, iTunes, Bandcamp and Soundcloud. I would recommend putting in the extra effort to get it on the other services like Deezer, Amazon Music, Pandora etc. In order to this, the services to use are Distrokid, Tunecore or Amuse. You keep 100% of revenue and either pay a fairly minimal yearly fee or a one-time cost per release depending on the service. It is also important that you get your Metadata right. This is the track information like Genre, Title, Album etc. This matters hugely in terms of search placement.
Key Point: Your music won’t blow up if people can’t listen to it. Use Distrokid or Tunecore to get your music in as many places as possible.

III. Social Media
Once you have your music platforms done the most important next step is your social media presence. At minimum you need to have an Instagram, a Facebook page, a Twitter and a TikTok. If you’re that worried about China stealing your data then you have to decide how much you actually want this because a TikTok is one of your most important tools. Make sure these are all set up. Other accounts you can and should use – KTT2 (you have a platform of dedicated music fans right here), Reddit, Snapchat, Triller and Byte (TikTok clones that still have users and may be easier to gain attention on).
Key Point: Social Media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. You are not Frank Ocean yet. Make an Instagram.

IV. Branding
The final step of set up is to take a look at your branding. Look at what label artists are doing here. On your social media you need to have uniformity. That means you have the same @username on each platform and that @username is very closely linked to your artist name. If I see your TikTok account and like the song, I need to be able to find it on streaming from your username alone. Don’t pick a username like @artist_name2881948. Profile pictures need to look good, they need to be professionally shot or as close as you can get – portrait mode is a good way to do this easily. They should be uniform across all your social medias. Fill out whatever info you need on social media – make sure you set up a business contact email address and have it in your bio of every social media. On Apple Music and Spotify, make sure you fill out every piece of info you can. You need to have an artist picture, if you can write a description do it and do it well etc. This is vital. You should also make a website. Again, the URL here should be as close as you can get to artistname.com. On the website you should have links to your music, links to your social media and methods of contacting you. Tour dates, links to press features, a bio (use this on Spotify and Apple Music as well), promo photos and the like are also useful to have on your site. Don’t use artistname.wordpress.com or something – make sure you have a domain. Use a site like Squarespace or Wix to build a website quickly and easily.
Key Point: Create a uniform professional brand across social medias and streaming platforms. Make a website.

V. Final Prep
Now imagine that you just rocketed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 next week. Take a look at your music, take a look at your social media, take a look at your personal social media and info. Look at what pops up when you google your artist name. This is your final check of how well set-up you are for success. Make any changes necessary. You don’t want to get famous and it be discovered that you were in racial chatrooms showing feet.
Key Point: Make sure that if sudden success happens, that your internet presence is prepared for it.

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Aug 12, 2020

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Blowing Up

I. Playlisting
So, you’re all set up, your music is great and available and you’re ready for success. Let’s get started with ways to find that success. The easiest path to success is getting on Spotify playlists. Go and set up a Spotify for Artists profile. You can only submit upcoming scheduled releases for playlist consideration. It is vital that every single time you have a release you submit it for playlisting and you do a good application. Now it doesn’t end here. A lot of Spotify’s big playlists have curators other than Spotify. Go to this site here and make an account. Click the Playlists tab up the top and go and make sure you’re on the Spotify Playlist list. Click the filter box for “Exclude Spotify or major label brands”. You now have an initial list of 50 playlists to look through. Any of these playlists that your music fits – reach out to the curator in some way and suggest your song. You’ll get a lot of no’s and a lot of no replies. But even one placement on a playlist like these is massive for you. Click the curators tab and do the same thing. Reach out to as many as possible and suggest your music. Do the same as much as possible for other services like Apple Music but Spotify is the most important platform for this.
Key Point: Playlists are massive. Find ways to get on them. Even playlists with a few thousand followers is useful for you as you grow.

II. Social Media Following
You need to build up a social media following. First make sure your profiles are quality as mentioned above. Now there’s a lot of ways to build a following. I would start by building a network. Any artists who you work with currently or are friends with – follow and get followed back. Post their music on your story in exchange for them posting yours. Engage with fans of your music. You could run Facebook or Instagram ads. Post studio footage. Make sure you have a good content stream on your socials and work from there. Direct people who hear your music to follow you on Instagram and the like – it’s not that hard to get a follow and people aren’t that likely to unfollow. Make sure you tag venues you play at, use hashtags but sparingly, tag other artists in your photos and etc. Comment on major artists or magazines posts – but not spamming your music. Find ways to make them click your profile. For example, if you make a funny comment on Drake’s post and it gets top comment then you will have thousands of people viewing your profile. All of this drives users to your profile and the better your profile and its content looks, the more likely they will be to engage.
Key Point: Find ways to drive users onto your profile. Make sure your profile is set up to make people engage with your content.

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III. TikTok
TikTok warrants a separate section due to its power. TikTok is the easiest possible way to promote your music and to blow up as an artist quickly. First you need to get the app and use it. Do not make a first TikTok until you know what you’re doing with the app. As an artist you have a few options. Personally, I recommend starting to use the app. Investigate popular trends and do them. Look at how other artists are making their music – some create narratives about their lives and ask people to stream, some try to create trends to their music etc. An example narrative might be “I got kicked out because my parents wanted me to go to college instead of make music. Stream my song/Follow me on Spotify so I can prove that I can make a career from this.” Think about your target audience and what will appeal to them. You can get your music onto TikTok and use it in your own videos. Pick 15 seconds of your music that would be the catchiest and use that. Duet popular people, do trends, use your music and you can grow very quickly. Make a lot of content and just delete videos that haven’t done too well after a few days. Your very first video is important to get right. You should create the best piece of content possible for your first video and probably use a trend because TikTok’s algorithm promotes your first video specifically. Learn how TikTok’s algorithm works and think about ways to exploit that. One example is that shares and comments make your video appear more often on the For You Page. Find ways to get users to comment or share. People duetting a video also means more people see it. Again find a way to encourage these actions to promote your videos. Make sure you have your music linked to Spotify and Apple Music, make sure your Instagram profile is linked and etc.
Key Point: Its incredibly easy to get popular on TikTok. Use it.

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IV. Release Radar & User Playlists
Apple Music and Spotify both look at the music a user likes and have methods for making the consumer aware of when new music releases. Apple looks at artists who’s music is added to your library and promotes that via the New Music Mix and via New Releases. Spotify has a playlist called Release Radar. To get on these you need to do different things. For Spotify you need to get users to follow you as an artist on Spotify. This is another vital one. When people on KTT for example, listen to your music, ask them to follow you on Spotify. Constantly constantly constantly get people to follow you on Spotify. This is massively more important than them just streaming your music once. It means that every time you release music there’s a good chance it appears in the release radar. This is massive for you as an artist. It reinforces constant listens. Follows are essential. For Apple Music you should be aiming to get people to add your music to their library. Again this is more important than them just streaming it once. Make sure they add the album/single. Spotify’s Discover Weekly algorithm is based on playlists. For example if I make a playlist with Drake’s Toosie Slide and my own song, the algorithm will note a connection between those songs. So the more often that you’re in users playlists with other popular songs, the more often you will be in users Discover Weekly. Another way to do this is to create your own playlists. Make playlists for certain themes and google ways to grow Spotify playlists. If you can create playlists with a lot of followers, you can put your own music into these playlists.
Key Point: Streams are great. But getting users to follow you on Spotify and add your music to their library benefits you in the long-term.

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V. Getting Verified
You should be aiming to get verified on Social Media and Spotify as soon as you can.
Here’s a brief outline of the process for verification for these places:
For all social media you need to make sure your profile is as complete as possible. Phone number, email, linked accounts, website etc. All of this needs to be in there. For every service the more professional your branding is, the more likely you’ll be accepted.
Twitter – complete your profile and fill out the verification form. You can apply every 30 days. I recommend applying when you have a decent following and regular engagement with your tweets.
Instagram – Instagram takes a lot to be verified. Again complete your profile and apply within the app in settings. You can apply every 30 days like Twitter but Instagram are looking for people who are commonly searched for and are in multiple news sources.
Facebook – Make sure you have a facebook page rather than a profile. Again make sure you have a good content stream and complete profile. Go to settings and general and you can apply for verification. A blue check is the verification you want but you can instantly verify with a grey checkmark via phone. Blue checkmark requires tax forms and the like. That being said Facebook verification is one of the easiest.
TikTok – this is one of the hardest. Realistically you need 1m+ followers and you need to know someone at TikTok. It’s completely sporadic. By the time this is gonna matter you’re already famousish.
Key Point: Social media verification is difficult but makes a huge impact in terms of influence and legitimacy.

VI. Live Shows
Do live shows. Do as many live shows as you can. Do them for free if you have to. Play at bars or restaurants, offer to open for other acts, etc. Hustle to find opportunities. At every show you play hand out cards with scannable QR codes to your website or music. Your goal at every show you play is to find ways to get as many people as possible to follow you on Spotify or Social Media.
Key Point: There are lots of opportunities for live shows and they are valuable to you. Make sure every show you play is converting audience members into fans.

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VII. Press
Blogs aren’t as popular as they used to be but they’re still a thing. Reach out to blogs, reach out to magazines, reach out to Youtube channels and promote your music. This is a must-read on how you should be doing this. Get your music onto these sites, onto these social media pages etc. Not only will it drive fans to you especially if your social media and music profiles are linked properly, it gives you far more legitimacy when you’re doing other things in this guide like applying for playlisting. Don’t expect Pitchfork to report on you but there are tons of smaller sites promoting artists and these sites find most of their songs through pitches. Reach out. Local TV shows are constantly looking for people to come in. Local newspapers are looking for people to interview or give a spotlight to. Reach out and pitch yourself to these places. Don’t think of yourself as above anything – any press you can get is good for you.
Key Point: you want to get as much press as you can. It gives you legitimacy and promotes your music.

VIII. Videos
You need to have music videos. This is essential. You can find great talent for videos at low rates especially if you have friends in that space. Alternatively learn to direct films yourself. A newer iPhone is a great tool for recording yourself and with some video editing you can make compelling videos. Music videos are a major part of blowing up though – YouTube is still a major player and you need to have a presence on the platform.
Key Point: make music videos. Do them well and make them professional.

IX. Connections
There are music scenes everywhere. Find people who are also making music and engage with them. Make songs with them, give and receive feedback, play shows together and promote each other. Almost always you will see artists who organically blow up coming from music scenes and having songs with a variety of people. Make sure your partnerships are mutually beneficial – you need to be able to offer something and gain something. This can help you to get better at making music, build connections, increase social media following and develop a signature sound.
Key Point: Lots of other people are doing this too. Make the most of it.

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X. Influencers
Reach out to influencers (popular social media users). You should aim to get placements on stuff like IG Stories, or TikTok posts. They already have sizeable followings so you can really benefit from them reposting your music. This might come at a cost – negotiate with them. Unless you already know them, they’re unlikely to help you for free so you need to find what you can offer them be it money, exposure or otherwise. You can pay TikTok influencers to do videos to your sound and to promote them. Look for TikTokers with good engagement (views and likes per video relative to follow count) and large followings. Aim for influencers who are currently not signed to a talent management firm.
Key Point: influencers have followers who listen to what they say. Make sure your name and music is what they’re saying.

XI. Forums
Have I heard your music yet? Do I know you make music? Do I follow you on Spotify and/or have your music in my playlists? I use this site regularly as do you. If I don’t know you make music, you are not doing anywhere near enough. If I’ve listened to your music that’s a start. If I’ve given you constructive criticism or told you what I like about your music that’s starting to get to where you should be. If I’m following your social media or Spotify, then you’re doing what you need to be doing. You have thousands of people that you can put onto your music right here on this site. Do it. Don’t spam but make sure people know you make music and make sure they’re going beyond just listening once. You also have a platform of creatives. People who can design your website, your cover art, people who can sing on your tracks, people who can produce, people who can mix, people who can write, people who have connections. Use them! Not to mention artists like The Weeknd, Jai Paul, Kenny Beats, Drake etc. who browse this site. Sites like reddit are also useful. Look at smaller subreddits that represent your target audience. Cover or remix songs for artist subreddits that you’re inspired by. Take time to not spam so that your post is successful and doesn’t get removed from the site. These are very specific audiences and they will make up a core fanbase if you utilize forums correctly.
Key Point: you already waste your time here. Make it slightly less wasteful by using this platform to its full capability.

XII. Mailing List
Super simple. You should have a website. Make sure you have a mailing list that pops up. Get people on your mailing list. This is another way you can get your music to people and build a core fanbase.
Key Point: mailing list!

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XIII. Content
You need to make people want to follow your social media platforms. Upload behind the scenes footage, engage and talk to fans, post music you like, record cover songs and live performances and offer exclusive content. When I go on your Instagram I want to see song releases but I also want to see recordings of studio footage, live covers and snippets. Make people want to follow you.
Key Point: social media following is vital and lasting. Give people a reason to follow you.

XIV. Paid Methods
Gonna keep this really short and let you guys explore these avenues.
Advertising – pay for Facebook, Instagram or YouTube ads to promote your music or social media profiles
Buy Features – you can buy features from established artists. Costly but it gives you credibility and attention especially if you then market the song to blogs and forums.

After Blowing Up

I. Labels
Labels are not the be all or end all of your career. Take time to think about what a label can offer you in your current career stage. There is nothing wrong with taking meetings at labels. You are not committing to anything by taking a meeting. Find out what they have to offer and take time to understand what it all means. Definitely get legal advice before signing anything. Do not sign a 360 contract. Keep ownership of your masters. Decide if you can get more popular first to make label negotiations more heavily in your favor. Definitely consider indie labels like XL Recordings, Dirty Hit, Rhymesayers and the like.
Key Point: Don’t rush into things. You got this far already, take your time and figure out what is best for you.

II. Management
Whether you sign with a label or not you probably need a manager. If your music is doing remotely well, you will likely have people reaching out to you. Again take your time. Learn what a manager does, investigate different managers and their histories, talk to their current or previous clients and think about what they can offer you. Again consider legal advice before signing anything. Managers will make navigating the label process much easier.
Key Point: once you get to a certain point, you need help from people who have the networks and experience in the industry in order to succeed. Find a manager who you trust and who is mutually beneficial.

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III. Staying Relevant
If you are smart with how you promote your music you will have a core fanbase. This core fanbase will follow your social media, they’ll recommend you to their friends, they’ll engage with you and your content and they will follow you on Spotify and have your music in their playlists. Make sure you get it right so you have this fanbase and then make sure you don’t f*** it up. You want to expand this fanbase at every opportunity. When you get attention or virality, make the most of it. Turn as much of it as you can into long-term fans through social media follows and the like. Milk headlines. Once you have a strong base, don’t oversaturate the market.
Key Point: don’t alienate your core fanbase. Turn any 15 minutes of fame into longer stretches by driving people to your profiles

IV. Out with the Old
Consider deleting your old music. It can take a long time to get attention and your early music likely serves little purpose now that you have a bit of attention. If anything it is the weakest of your music and you should remove it from your online platforms for image purposes.
Key Point: you’re making money and getting attention now. Make sure your online presence reflects your stature as an artist.

Wrap-Up

This is my guide to getting attention. At the end of the day, short of blowing up out of the blue, you’ll get out what you put in. Some artists take years to reach fame and then do so in a matter of days. If you treat making music and most importantly promoting that music as outlined here, as a full-time job you will find success. The more time you put into learning this stuff and utilizing these platforms to their potential, the quicker you’ll get attention. The internet has made success inevitable if you’re willing to put the time and effort in. I hope this helps as you as artists. Obviously its long but I wanted to include as much as I could here – especially in the initial sections. Enjoy!