While the world is on pause, there’s no need to stop putting your music out there on to the digital market. In a time where human interaction is rare, stay more connected with your fans than ever online.

This is a difficult time for bands, artists and producers across the world as gigs get cancelled, studios close, physical collaborations are postponed and financial instability hits. Keeping your mind occupied and staying productive can help your mental health. What’s more, if you can share your work with fans, it may help a broader group too.

Recently we’ve given out a little advice for performing artists during this difficult time, as well as advice for UK musicians and also compiled a list of free software to keep you entertained and creative.

With so much low cost, consumer grade equipment and social media, there’s no need to halt production or marketing campaigns. Even if you’re one piece of a larger band, we hope we can provide some fun and creative ways to stay entertained during this pandemic.

New music

Keep writing. Get any new ideas recorded. Even if all you’ve got is your phone’s microphone, keep a log of it and open it when the studios reopen. If you’ve got a bit of money, why not build your own home studio?

Spark some new life in to your old music. Remix some older tunes. Re-release a still successful album of yours as a deluxe edition with a couple of bonus tracks.

Get creative! Experiment with new genres and styles. You might find you have a talent for some obscure sub-genre. Doesn’t fit with the rest of your catalogue? Build a new alias. The worst that can happen is you don’t like it and hit delete before anyone gets to hear it.

Not feeling the whole ‘creating something new from scratch’ thing? Record a cover song. Covers can break an artist into the mainstream by bringing in fans of another artist. Put your own spin on it. We can even help you distribute to certain stores and territories. Give listeners some background behind why the original matters to you and why you decided to cover it.

Isolation doesn’t mean no more collaborations. Send out your beats or vocal demos to mates, or venture outside of your circle and hit up new artists.

Performances

Instagram seems to have a never ending stream of high profile artists live streaming concerts to fans. With nothing but a smartphone, you can jump on the bandwagon and get performing too.

For separated bands in isolation, get together on a video call for practicing or live performance. Or experiment all performing to a click track and arrange in post.

Releasing

If you haven’t already, now’s the time to get into digital distribution in a big way. Once you’ve got something solid produced, drop us the tracks and we’ll get them on to stores and streaming services. We’re still working hard through this time, but may be slightly delayed.

Even if you’ve just got some demos of your older songs laying around, get these posted. Fans love to hear some rough around-the-edges earlier versions of tracks they know. Maybe give a little behind the scenes of the progression of a track from voice note to final master. If you want to leave your streaming platforms clean, share them on SoundCloud, YouTube and Instagram.

Marketing

More people than ever are looking to be entertained online. This means streaming music is growing now more than ever. Before pushing out any new music this is your opportunity to ensure everything online is looking and sounding its best.

Take control of your artist pages on streaming platforms. Spotify & Apple Music for artists both offer many features that are specifically tuned to give you opportunities to tidy your profile and show off. Familiarise yourself with all aspect these services have to offer. Utilise every feature on all platforms.

Don’t ignore any social or streaming platforms. Make sure fans are following across the board so they don’t miss a beat. Fan links are a great way to appeal to everyone’s favourite stores and social site.

Get on playlists! The ‘At Home’ section is top of Spotify’s ‘Genre & Moods’ playlists. Find some relevant playlists that suit your music or even create music specifically for the playlists. Try and match the vibe or write lyrics listeners can relate to today. Click here to submit your music to Spotify’s top playlists. Click here to submit your music to the top third-party curators.

At Home - Spotify

Once you’ve submitted your music to every playlist, create your own. Show your fans what inspired you as a producer, or maybe just put together some absolute fire tunes (and sneak in a couple of your own). Put together a compilation album and help you and collaborators generate some extra revenue.

Get posting everywhere. Here are some tips on creating engaging content that fans will want to see. Not everything you post has to be music related, show off your other talents and integrate your music with them. Want to learn all the ways Instagram can help promo, click here for a run down?

Dive into TikTok and keep an eye on what’s trending. Get in on the action. This gives you a good reason to get lost in TikTok for ‘research’.

Monitor your stats across platforms. See what works on what sites and build off that.

Don’t think socials are a waste of time because of the free content you’re giving away. We can help you generate royalties from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud and TikTok.

Feeling productive yet? Use this time efficiently and stay inspired.