Why Not Start All Over Again Single Version by the Counts

How to program your next single release: promotion and distribution tips for a standalone track.

It all starts with a song.

You write a song, or you find a song; the song moves you and yous want it to movement the world. So you record and distribute that song as a single to platforms similar Spotify, Apple tree Music, and YouTube.

Once the song is bachelor, anything could happen. The music could change the earth, information technology could wow a few people, or information technology could go completely ignored. Of course run a risk always plays a part, simply the outcome is partially in your own hands.

The benefits and challenges of releasing singles

The good news: We're living in an age of singles, and there are tons of ways to put one song to work.

The bad news: Every other creative person has a new single to promote as well, and so you lot tin't just drop a song into the world and expect it to reach people without some effort and accelerate planning.

All this to say, there's a lot more to releasing a single than just throwing information technology up on SoundCloud or Bandcamp. In that location's a lot more to it than distributing your unmarried worldwide via CD Baby also.

You need to first consider the strategy behind the release of your unmarried

You'll want to tackle each of these questions – and probably some more – when you lot're formulating your release strategy.

• How are you going to attract listeners, encourage streams, and drive downloads?
• How is the launch of this single going to enhance your relationship with your audience?
• How will this vocal help you get to the adjacent level in your music career?
• How does a single help you tell a piddling bit more of your artist story?
• How do you position your single to capitalize on streaming tools and algorithmic traction?

Y'all should likewise weigh the pros and cons of releasing standalone songs.

As artists, we're dealing in "attention economics." Gone are the days when you could disappear for three years to brand your side by side anthology and wait fans to stay loyal. In our earth of short attention spans, releasing music more than frequently tin play a meaning cistron in your success.

Platforms like Spotify and YouTube fifty-fifty advantage artists who put out songs and videos on a regular basis . Obviously y'all can't (and shouldn't) bang out a full album every two or three months, so instead: singles!

The upsides of releasing a digital single:

• It costs less to produce one song (compared to a whole anthology)
• You lot can release music more frequently, which drives algorithmic streaming activity
• You don't have to industry CDs or vinyl
• Mod listeners oft favor singles/playlists
• Concentrating on one song at a time helps yous focus your marketing, video production, etc., and then yo u take the opportunity to turn each single into an result
• Information technology'southward a moment to reconnect with or abound your audition
• It's a depression-risk take a chance to experiment with promotion strategies and acquire what works (and doesn't)
• And best of all, putting out singles is fun

Only in that location's still more PR power in releasing albums. So singles practice have their drawbacks.

The downsides of releasing a digital single:

• It'southward harder to become press and industry attention with a single
• Albums show the world you're serious; singles don't
• Albums can convey more well-nigh your story and brand; singles say less
• Your fans can abound numb to "new unmarried" announcements if you release music too often
• Information technology's harder to merchandise a digital single

So permit's dig into the all-time-practices for releasing singles. I'thousand non sure if they all count as "strategies," but they're certainly all important considerations.

one. You MUST release a single Showtime

In most cases, I'd give this communication: You should absolutely release a unmarried Offset if yous've never put out music under your current artist name! Why?

Near streaming services don't let you lot claim your artist profile or use their various promotional tools until you actually have music on their platforms. Since those tools can be pretty powerful, yous don't desire to MISS the take a chance to use them for your priority releases (like an EP or LP).

So put out a single first. Plant your flag. Claim your accounts. And be fix to go full-force on the follow-up release.

Go Hither to find out how Spotify and Apple Music define what a single even is, based on rails count and duration.

2. Social media videos are all the rage, and so the RIGHT vocal might just mean the right xv seconds

None of your plans will thing if the song sucks. Obvs. So don't release singles purely to feed an algorithm. The music yet needs to be compelling! That can hateful information technology's a catchy hit unmarried to please new fans or a demanding artistic odyssey to please your diehards. Merely SOMEONE needs to be pleased.

Notwithstanding, just as a song tin can stand up apart from an album, a musical MOMENT can stand up apart from the vocal.

What does that mean? Well, we're living in a short-class video age.

There'southward no such thing as too much content, and with the huge popularity of TikTok, IG Stories, IGTV, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, and other platforms where users are hungry for quick videos, you don't have to make all your videos the length of the whole track.

Not every music video needs to be a fully produced music video.

Find the BEST moment in your song, then ask:

1. 1. • How can this moment inspire listeners to make videos of their ain (such every bit TikTok challenges, dance contests, caption contests, duets, response videos, and other hashtag-driven community date)?
      • Can I shoot a short original video to this 15 seconds of music?
      • Tin can I observe good royalty-gratis or pubic domain footage to add to this xv seconds of music?
      • Can I post a bunch of DIFFERENT video content for the same 15 seconds, reenforcing the claw?
      • What will get people on Instagram Stories to answer questions or engage with a poll?

Once y'all dig into this, yous might realize there'due south a deviation betwixt the song that'southward perfect for your existing fans, and a moment that'southward perfect for viral attention. In either example, the single shouldn't suck. Only non every song needs to be a fully-produced masterpiece either. We'll talk more well-nigh this below.

3. Time your singles strategically earlier and after EP and LP releases

Unless you're an EDM or pop artist, I still recommend y'all focus on making EPs or LPs (for the reasons mentioned to a higher place); and so release your singles strategically before and afterward the bigger release.

The atomic number 82-up singles create fan excitement and algorithmic energy for the album, and then the follow-up singles, or the songs that come up out between larger projects, go along you from falling into "out of sight, out of mind" territory with fans.

four. Stockpile various kinds of recordings for later on use, in improver to releasing traditional "singles" from an upcoming album

At that place are a number of different kinds of tracks you can release equally singles:

• • • The atomic number 82 single — This is the first song y'all release from an upcoming EP or LP. Information technology sets the phase for what's to come up and prompts your fans to expect more than in the coming months.
    • The deeper dive — This follow-up single comes out between the lead single and the album, and it provides further context for your new music.
    • The B-side — One time your album has been out for a few months, you can put out singles from the same recording session that didn't go far onto the album.
    • The bonus content — After the big album splash, y'all desire to maintain momentum on streaming platforms. In the year post-obit your album release, it's good to put out several "bonus" tracks, such equally remixes, alternate mixes, demos, or acoustic takes. Remixes in particular let you breathe new life into a song that's waning in popularity, and give you a chance to collaborate with artists who might work in different genres. Both of you benefit from all the cross-promotion that ensues.
    • The collaboration — This is a single that is credited to ii or more artist names. Like to remixes, an original collaboration gives y'all a great mode to take creative chances and accomplish beyond your existing audition (because the aforementioned rail volition reach the other artists' fans also).
    • The featured artist rails — You could exercise a invitee advent on someone else's rails, or they could appear on i of your songs. Either style, it helps y'all get some extra attention.
    • The building-blocks single(south) — Ane practise that'southward get more common is for an artist to set a release schedule (for instance: putting out one new song a month for a year) and so let fans vote on which ten tunes will comprise the adjacent album. Obviously you don't need to brand your fine art a commonwealth, and then you lot could just choice which songs yous want to compile into an album yourself. Billie Eilish dropped a number of singles before her huge debut LP came out, then clearly the strategy tin can work.
    • The alive cut — Not every song you lot release has to be a studio-quality jewel. Got a live recording with a adept vibe? Put it out!
    • The encompass vocal — Covering existing songs has always been a smart way to attract new listeners. You accept a proven song and add your own spin to it.
    • The "Didn't this song already come out?" single — You might've noticed artists like Taylor Swift releasing "singles" of songs that accept already appeared on albums. It's a trick to get more than attention for a particular vocal, and hey, nothing wrong with tricks! We all desire attending, correct?

5. Brand your music more playlist-friendly

The manufacture is focused on playlists these days, and that'due south fine; playlists tin generate a ton of streaming activity.

Non all playlist activity leads to real fan appointment though, so instead of artists jumping through a agglomeration of hoops to game the playlist system du jour,  I'd still advise you — in a higher place all — to make the music YOU WANT to make and endeavor to accomplish fans the usual ways (playing shows, making cool videos, running social ads, etc.).

That being said, the dominant format of the day has always shaped music, and streaming is changing the sound of pop music. I f you practice want to make your singles more likely to get playlisted, you should be aware of these music trends:

• • • • No long intros and outros

        People are impatient and tin skip songs very easily. Don't tempt them. Get to the goods.

      • Consider putting your hook correct at the beginning

        Speaking of getting to the goods, you could lead with the claw or chorus. The Beatles did it half a century agone, and Bruno Mars is doing it today.

      • Keep your songs under 4 minutes

        Unless y'all're making ambience, classical, jazz, or something, it's best to keep your songs between ii-iv minutes long. Under 3 minutes would be the goal for maximum playlist-power.

      • Watch the expletives

        Explicit language doesn't necessarily doom your song, but it certainly tin can limit the kinds of playlists you could appear on.

half dozen. Choose the right distributor

When y'all sign up your single for distribution to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and other digital music platforms, you lot should know that skillful distribution is almost much more than than pushing digital files from one place to another.

CD Baby has been paying artists weekly for more than 20 years. We don't charge annual fees, so you never have to worry about a growing annual nib simply to continue your music available online. And we offering a number of OTHER monetization solutions for you lot music too.

• • With CD Baby, your single tin earn money through:

    • Streaming
    • Downloads
    • Global music publishing acquirement
    • Content ID on YouTube
    • Social video monetization on Facebook, Instagram, and Oculus
    • Sync Licensing
    • And more

    Distribute Music Today

7. Create a Spotify pre-save

• • No bespeak in talking well-nigh your new music if no i tin can Practise anything with it, right? Set a release date at least a month in accelerate and use that time to generate energy for your song!You lot can practice this FOR Gratuitous via Show.co, CD Babe's marketing platform.Here's how to create a Spotify pre-save campaign.
    

8. Get your guaranteed Release Radar playlist placements!

Submit the song for Spotify playlist consideration.

As long as yous follow the guidelines every bit they're listed in the article linked above, your single will Also get guaranteed placement in ALL your Spotify followers' Release Radar playlists.

9. PROMOTE your single, ahead of time AND after information technology'southward released

Okay. Now for promotion. There'southward a lot to discuss here.

The primal to promoting your newest single

Fix a timeline and exist patient

Yes, part of the do good of singles is that they're depression pressure and you tin can drop them apace. Merely don't exist in Likewise much of a rush. Plan ahead. Do it right. You lot won't exist able to launch this vocal again.

Depending on the scope of your campaign, you might even need 1-3 months of preparation.

Here are merely some of the things yous could do to promote your single, if y'all have plenty fourth dimension:

• Global distribution
• Spotify pre-saves
• Music video and lyric video product
• Vocal premiere
• Video premieres
• Press
• Embrace artwork
• Communicating with reps from your distributor, licensing agency, etc.
• A Show.co page to characteristic your video
• Playlist and radio promotion

Don't promote until your fans can take action

There's no point in sharing a picture of your embrace artwork a month earlier the single is bachelor if no one can click to access, save, buy, or share the tune. Before you go crazy trying to create anticipation, gear up up your pre-saves or pre-orders! Get the link, so share that link when you post updates about the release ahead of its drib date.

Find the hook and make everything swirl effectually it

Information technology takes a lot to get u.s.a. to pay attention online, so repeated messaging is crucial. And as yous're blasting us with news nigh your latest single, your message will be amplified when in that location's a hook across just "new vocal coming before long."

What'due south the story? The hook? The affair that makes people say "I GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT!?" If you have that, the rest of your promotion will fall into place.

For my vocal "Irretrievable Beauty" (which was released a few years ago, but the point still holds) there was a loose connection between the lyrics and Climate Modify. I found a Public Domain image of an iceberg that intrigued me, and I decided that image would stand at the core of all my marketing for the song.

Information technology would become the comprehend artwork, the background of my lyric video, and an important element in more than than a dozen Instagram posts. The prototype was one of the first instances of supernatural photography, purporting to capture an iceberg in 1905 where a crystalline Virgin Mary rose from the water.

The mystery of that image and how information technology was doctored to propel a hoax all seemed to speak to the vocal title "Irretrievable Dazzler," every bit did the very nature of both icebergs and photography. So,… there was the kernel of my marketing. From there information technology was simply a thing of expressing it in soundbites.

Find different means to echo the message

You've got your claw; now how are you going to cast information technology into the same waters over and again without the fish getting bored of that aforementioned bobbing lure?

Switch the tone. Y'all tin communicate through:

• hints and teases
• direct requests ("Please listen on Spotify")
• images
• videos
• facts and backstory about the vocal
• and more

The first thing I did was ready my Spotify pre-save campaign . In one case I had the link, I started to slowly tease the cover artwork by splitting information technology up into nine smaller images for Instagram . When a viewer looked at my profile at the end of the week, all nine of the smaller images formed a grid revealing the total artwork. Every time I posted I would share the pre-save link.

I and then shifted to a more than directly approach for the pre-salvage campaign, but with a focus on an emotional entreatment…

One time the song was released I put out a lyric video (on YouTube and Facebook) with tons of cached text — posing as a letter from the 22nd-Century — referring dorsum to the origins of the photograph:

I then placed information technology inside a Prove.co video feature page to drive conversions outside of YouTube:

I also repeated that picayune hook "In 1905, the people saw something and so mysterious you might say that information technology almost wasn't in that location…" in a number of ways throughout the entrada: emails, tweets, etc.

Then I did the obvious things, like adding a Spotify player to my website announcement bar about the song.

The next matter I did was to have a bunch of phrases from the alphabetic character portion of the lyric video and place them over the embrace art for more Instagram posts.

Lastly, I posted the complete text of the letter on Facebook.

In addition to changing upward the tone of the bulletin, it's of import to remember that you have many channels through which to communicate: social, website, email, live shows, etc.

In that location's also print and online music media, blog premieres for your song or video, reviews, playlist placements, and more than out-of-the-box options such equally publicizing your music to any relevant corporations, non-turn a profit organizations, or hobby groups that might resonate with your music or the topic of the song.

Get all your ducks in a row earlier the release

Again, in that location's a lot of options for creatively communicating the message that yous have a new song out. But information technology e'er amazes me how long it takes to compose an email newsletter or write a Facebook postal service. I retrieve, oh, that's just a couple minutes, and so suddenly an hour has gone by. For that reason, you'll want to prepare all assets well alee of the launch date so y'all can focus on promotion once the song is out (not worrying about video editing, Photoshop, copy-writing, etc.).

And every bit I mentioned in a higher place, exist sure to notify your distributor, publicist, any industry contacts, licensing experts, so forth, way in advance.

This likewise means you'll need to have an easy way to share a private link to your single: SoundCloud, Bandcamp, etc.

Consider some other angle to entice beyond the primary claw

The song might exist enough. The story and hook might be enough. But in that location could exist some casual fans who won't brand the leap and check out your song unless there's some additional benefit (like a prize, a free t-shirt, etc.).

When I ran my Spotify pre-save campaign, I made it a competition too. I would choose two winners at random from the list of people who pre-saved the song and send them a t-shirt. In improver to sending this out through the usual means, I also ran a Facebook ad to a targeted group of people who similar similar artists as me.

Think of what extras might brand someone push button the save, buy, or play button.

Be prepare to do the grunt work

We dream of easy solutions — the service that will handle everything for y'all, the dream manager who volition do all the work, the industry contact who holds the keys to your success — but there's oft no substitute for digging in, doing inquiry, writing a trillion emails, bracing for rejection, and building upon the small relative per centum of wins we get.

This applies when you're doing your ain PR, radio promotion, or launching singles. Information technology's work. Staying up until 3am to promote a single might not be why y'all got into music, simply it's work that will atomic number 82 some listeners TO your music — which IS the reason you lot got into this crazy game in the kickoff place.

Should you release the track or the video starting time?

This is a common question about promoting singles, and I don't recollect there's a correct respond. But I lean towards saying y'all should put the song out offset, and And so put out the video afterwards.

If someone watches the video, they've consumed the visuals AND the music at once. There's less of a demand to get and stream or download the track.

But if the song comes out offset, they'll listen, and still be interested to come across the video when information technology'southward launched.

And remember, with CD Infant, your unmarried volition be available equally an art track on YouTube.

Video, of course, is i of the virtually sharable forms of online content, so if both the song and video are smashing, information technology might make sense to release them both simultaneously IF you can go a notable weblog to premiere the video for y'all (meaning you give them a limited-time exclusive to debut the video on their site), though premieres accept gotten harder to come by every bit the number of relevant blogs shrinks every year.

Be certain to upload the video directly to Facebook too (once the sectional blog premiere is over), since Facebook favors video that is native to the platform. You tin can run that video equally an ad on Facebook to generate involvement in your music.

Should you worry virtually radio promotion?

Effective radio promotion tin exist pretty expensive, and your average DJ is going to be more than interested in an ALBUM release, simply if the vocal is right and the promoter has a tape of success, information technology might be worth the toll.

When you release a radio single (call up "striking song" usually between two.5 — iv minutes long), the idea is to create sustained exposure over a brusk period of time. That's what information technology takes to get a critical mass of people to take observe: repeated listens in multiple markets. Fifty-fifty if it'southward a great song, it'due south not gonna go anywhere if information technology doesn't get sustained plays.

Don't take the upkeep for a radio promoter? Y'all tin can even so brand a dent going the DIY route to customs and college radio, as well as locally focused shows on big stations.

Is the radio route however feeling like a piping dream? If so, concentrate on getting your single added to as many Spotify playlists equally possible . The biggest indicator of a song's success on Spotify is the number of times information technology's been added to playlists on the platform. In some cases, a song placement on a prominent Spotify playlist can net you more listeners than a whole radio promotion campaign.

10. Use singles in CONJUNCTION with an album release

Here are three means to use a single DURING the procedure of releasing an album:

Release your single as the pre-add on Apple Music

Did yous know you tin can run a pre-addfor a month before your album comes out? And then retrieve about what song will be most enticing. The playlist-friendly single? A deeper cut?

Release a bonus track with your full anthology

Whether yous offer bonus tracks digitally, or exclusively on CD and vinyl, this gives you lot a dandy gamble to characteristic some extra content and drive sales and streaming action. Alive rail? Alternate mix? Demo? An unreleased track? Acoustic version of a favorite song from your previous album? The bonus track volition appeal to fans who desire to collect the whole catalog.

Release a new song on a compilation

If the song simply comes out on a compilation , I suppose it's not technically a single — Only it might be a smart manner to put a new track to work for you. You'll do good from the song being featured aslope tunes by a bunch of other artists, and you lot can always use it once again later on your ain anthology.

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That'south a lot of info about planning, releasing, and promoting singles. But there's plenty more to try! If y'all've had luck promoting a unmarried in an interesting manner, I'd love to hear about it. Please comment below.

Distribute a single worldwide

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Source: https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/music-promotion/10-strategies-for-releasing-a-single/

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