This is probably the most asked question I get. How to get listeners without following as a music producer?
As a new producer, artist or brand, it can be very hard to stand out.
At this point you have probably tried bunch of things to get listeners. You have uploaded your tracks on YouTube & Spotify, advertised your music on social media, but still no one finds you. So what now?
It is very discouraging and frustrating to get no results. However, it is possible for anyone to get their music heard and get listeners.
Mindset
Before we diving deeper into the subject, you need to have a right mindset to succeed. If this sounds some bullshit to you, you are probably going to need this more than others.
Getting the right mindset can be a game changer. You need to believe in yourself that you can succeed. Only you can make the change.
Don’t listen to people who lets you down or don’t support your music. This is your music career and you decide what you are going to do with it.
Many people may say to you that you should get a real job instead of producing music. Surrounding yourself with toxic minded people can be dangerous. It is also very discouraging, if your close ones don’t support you.
If you want to succeed, you need to commit yourself and do whatever it takes to get to where you want to be.
When you look at other thriving and popular artists, you only see the success and not the work they had to go through before becoming famous. It takes time so this is not for people who want to become millionaire in one night.
Make new content constantly
The most important thing to do is to start and make new content. As a new producer you should be making new tracks, covers, remixes or beats all the time.
No one knows you yet, so you need to make more music and develop your own style and sound. You need to make something new to show to the people and improve yourself constantly.
The start is always slow and it may take months or even years before people really starts to notice you and your music. When I started making music, it took years before I sold my first track.
Online presence
Be present on social media. It is not enough just to make an account on social media sites and expect people to find you. You need to be active and engage them.
However, you don’t need to register on every social media sites. In fact, you should only register to the sites, you know you are going to actively use.
If you create an account on every site and you are not active on them, you will lose followers and trust.
People follow you, because they want to see new content. That’s why you should only register to the social media sites, you know you are going to use.
But which social media sites are the best for you? Well that depends on you and your own taste. The most important thing is to pick one or more sites and stick with them.
However, some sites are more popular than others. Currently the best site for musicians is Instagram. That’s because you can still get a pretty big organic reach with Instagram.
Couple of years ago Facebook was the king, but because of their algorithm changes, it can be hard to grow your audience there nowadays.
Twitter is great for quick and short messages, but it has never been that great for musicians. That’s because twitter relays heavily on text based content and pictures, while musicians are more focused on audio visual content.
That’s why I would go with Instagram, because you can grow your audience there pretty quickly and reach wide audience. Because of the recent algorithm changes, Instagram is not as good as it used to be, but it’s still the best social media for producers and musicians.
Be consistent
Consistency is probably the best thing to you can do to get more followers. The more content you make, the bigger is the chance that one or two of your posts will blow and get thousands of views.
You shouldn’t post anything though. Your content needs to be good and stand out from the crowd. Because everyone are scrolling through their social media feeds all the time, you have only few seconds to got their attention.
Studies have shown that nowadays you have average of 7 seconds to get people attention, while they are scrolling through their social media.
If you are active on Instagram for example, you should post new content at least once a day. This applies to all social media. On Instagram videos tends to get more views than pictures.
A good idea is to post:
- music production videos
- behind the scenes videos
- music previews
- sneak peaks
- music memes
- inspirational phrases
- home studio pictures
- home studio tour videos
- self pictures
As you can see the possibilities are limitless when it comes to new content ideas. The main thing is to be original, show your personality and be consistent!
Remixes and covers
Making remixes or covers is great way to gain new listeners. Have you noticed that when a big artist releases a new track, dozens of cover and remixes appears shortly after on YouTube?
Have you also noticed that those artists who makes the remixes and covers, usually doesn’t have a big following? This means that you can get bunch of views and new listeners, if you make remixes or covers.
If you decide to make a remix, make sure to be quick! When a new hit song is released, you need to be one of first artists to get the cover or remix out, so that you get most of the views.
Especially on YouTube, if you don’t move fast, your track will get knocked out by bigger artists’s remixes.
To avoid this, you can also make a totally different version. This way you can stand out better and keep your track on the top of the search.
Music quality
At the end, your music must sound good, if you want to gain a lot of listeners. However, music is a very subjective matter. What I mean is that you don’t and shouldn’t sound like other producer.
You need to find your own sound & style and develop that. You should experiment with new sounds and create your own thing.
Of course there are guide lines which makes music sound good, but you are allowed to break or at least bend them.
It will take some time to develop your own sound and improve you music quality, but if you keep going you will succeed. I took me over 3 years, before I sold my first track on iTunes.
Remember that success can be just around the corner.
Check out this article, if you want to learn how to optimize your YouTube channel to get more listeners.