{"id":178,"date":"2016-10-06T11:30:30","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T15:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/waltcollins.com\/music\/?p=178"},"modified":"2016-10-23T07:02:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T11:02:01","slug":"music-promotion-in-the-age-of-obscurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waltcollins.com\/music\/music-promotion-in-the-age-of-obscurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Promotion In The Age of Obscurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have entered The Age of Obscurity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Wow, there’s an absolutely inconceivable amount of music out there.<\/p>\n

The barriers to entry have never been lower. Every audio editor or DAW production tool these days tries to make it one-click-simple to upload your latest masterpiece to your favorite streaming\/sharing site for immediate consumption by literally billions of potential listeners.<\/p>\n

Millions of\u00a0artists are producing and relatively instantly publishing their new tracks on sharing sites like SoundCloud.com<\/a>, Bandcamp.com<\/a>, iTunes<\/a>, Amazon<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, etc., etc. This helps to continuously\u00a0evolve the internet into the largest repository of human creativity in history. \u00a0And it gets\u00a0even-yet-larger every moment.<\/p>\n

My little corner of the internet here is but a small drop in the\u00a0vast ocean. We have truly entered the Age of Obscurity.\u00a0How, then, can I connect my music with some of those billions of listeners and turn them into fans? The answer is music promotion services.<\/p>\n

Short Attention Span<\/h2>\n

From the listener’s point of view, it can be difficult to find enjoyable music content among the\u00a0nearly infinite choices vying for their time. This has effectively trained music\u00a0consumers<\/strong> (i.e. all of us<\/em>) to have shorter attention spans. I consider it a symptom of this Age of Obscurity\u00a0with similarities to\u00a0Attention Deficit Disorder. \u00a0But it’s no longer considered a disorder. \u00a0It’s the new expected normal!<\/p>\n

But\u00a0on the flip side, I’m also a music producer<\/strong>.\u00a0I need to convince potential consumers of my music\u00a0that they will enjoy my song as quickly as possible. \u00a0Often this means in under 20 seconds<\/em>. This has far reaching implications impacting song arrangement and musical style, as well as which songs to select for promotion efforts. To appeal to the short attention span of a typical music consumer, I need my music to “get to the point” almost immediately.<\/p>\n

Electronic downtempo and ambient music (i.e. much of what I produce) makes this more of a challenge. \u00a0These kinds of song arrangements often evolve and build slowly over time. The typical listener might not ever hear the song’s climax, or maybe even the primary rhythm or hook. This means that my music needs to find atypical listeners, somehow.<\/p>\n

In order to get my music heard by these atypical listeners, I need to promote it, to make it rise above the noise, and hopefully find its way to those listeners who will love it as much as I do.<\/p>\n

Music Promotion Services<\/h2>\n

This Age of Obscurity has inevitably led us to a time when music promotion services are no longer really optional. Just getting your song up on iTunes isn’t going to make you a gazillionaire\u00a0if nobody knows it’s out there, or cares. Music producers need promotion services to help their songs reach the right ears.<\/p>\n

There are many of these services available to music producers. I’m not an expert on how they all work, but I’ve finally begun testing the waters a bit. Thus far I’ve created accounts with RadioAirplay<\/a>, feature.fm<\/a>, and\u00a0SubmitHub<\/a>, and have spent a nominal amount of money setting up promotion campaigns to see how things go. \u00a0Wish me luck!<\/p>\n

I also wanted to give a shout out to Brian Hazard and his\u00a0Passive Promotion<\/a> music blog. Brian seems to have done quite a bit of testing and analysis of\u00a0music promotion services for us indie producers. He’s also shared some useful discount codes in several of his blog posts, so if you’re in the market it’s probably worthwhile to give his blog a read. I’ve found his posts insightful and time saving. Thanks Brian!<\/p>\n