5 reasons your music isn’t getting more streams
Image credit: Tanner Boriack
Here’s why your music might not be getting more streams and how to rectify it.
We wish that it was as simple as making great music to finding success. There’s more to it than just recording your hit track and then releasing it worldwide through RouteNote.
If you’re not finding the audience you deserve then it’s time to look beyond the music to start growing your career. But where to begin?
Don’t worry. We’ve got the top tips to help boost your music career to the next stage. Follow this guide and you’re guaranteed to start moving up the streaming charts.
Fix your artwork
One of the most common mistakes we see coming from smaller artists is low quality or uninteresting artwork. This is a massive shame because a good artwork can be so integral to a release.
Think about it like this, visuals are a key tool in marketing. Brands spend sometimes millions on designing their packaging so that they’re attractive and iconic when seen in shops or so that their adverts draw appeal from the billboards/TV screen.
If your artwork looks shoddy, listeners won’t want to click on it.
Now, there is a difference between bad design and an aesthetic choice. The line can be quite thin between these two distinctions as well. But here are some key points:
- Use high quality images
- Don’t use common fonts – a handwritten style looks way better if you can apply it
- Think about symmetry and composition – get an artist friend to help here if possible
- Think about your use of colour and contrast – what emotions do you want to elicit with them?
- Does it look like a professional artist’s artwork, or an amateur artwork? If you can’t answer yes then work out why
If in doubt, it might be worth spending a bit of money asking a professional to work on your artwork. If it’s the difference between getting clicked or being ignored, then it’s worth it.
Get social
In the digital, online age we are blessed with social media. No no, let me finish. We are blessed because, these platforms are some of the most powerful marketing tools ever created – and they’re free.
You need to be on social media and engaging with your audience in this day and age. They are free platforms that you give a worldwide potential audience of billions.
Here are the keys to having a strong social media presence:
- Strong image – make your profile pictures consistent and instantly recognisable as you
- Relevant name – make sure your social handles are relevant to your artist name and image so fans can find you
- Post regularly – keep people interested, engaged, and most importantly remembering who you are and what you’ve got to give
- Stand out – this one’s hard but crucial, you want to release content that people can recognise you for and that sets you apart from the crowd
Have a wide social media presence across many platforms to reach the widest possible audience. You can easily share all of your social media links in one place using Smart Links from PUSH.fm.
Consolidate your streaming presence
Similar to socials, you want your artist image and brand to be powerful across streaming services. It’s important that when someone discovers or searches for you and they click through to your artist profile, they see something powerful, unique, and that assures them they’ve found the right person.
Just like with artwork, if your page looks shoddy then why should a listener stick around?
Having a consistent artist image and cover across all streaming platforms will give you a consolidated look that sticks in people’s eyes. So make it memorable and unique so that they remember you.
Here are some tips to a great artist image:
- Make it unique – the White Stripes are memorable for colour choices, Alan Walker is memorable for his iconic mask, and so on. Craft your own personal look to stand out.
- Make it consistent – use the same images across services and, when updating your image, try to use something that feels familiar to your old look (unless you’re going for a brand refresh)
- Make it high quality – no-one wants to see a blurry picture of you, unless it’s done intentionally and tastefully
- Make it personal – People connect with people, so try to make sure you and any potential bandmates are in the picture. Even the illustrated band Gorillaz use faces and personalities to connect with!
Many music platforms now provide artist biographies, so its time to nail yours. Write something that succinctly describes you and your music, and be sure to infuse your personality into it. Here are some tips from Spotify for writing your bio.
We have a guide to customising your artist profiles across all the major services once your music has been uploaded through RouteNote, so solidify your artist image here:
Promote your releases
This should seem obvious, but you’d be surprised just how many people aren’t promoting their releases yet wondering why their music isn’t being listened to. Even if you are promoting your release, there’s probably more you can do.
Of course, the first and most important thing you can do is be active on your socials letting your followers know all about your upcoming release, when to expect, and teasing it to build up the hype.
There’s so much potential in promotion and one of the keys is to be creative with it, from your own ideas. What we’re going to talk about here is a massively powerful platform for artists to take your promo immediately to the next level with its powerful and easy-to-use tools.
Our friends at PUSH.fm offer amazing free tools to artists to take digital promotion and audience engagement to the next level.
PUSH.fm offers tools like Competitions, which make it super simple to build your audience around something exciting and offer something special in return. They have Reward Links that allow you to give your fans a treat of your choice in return for something of your choice, a follow on Spotify for example.
Most of their tools are free to use so you can get started immediately and only pay if you feel like it to move on to the next stage of promotion.
Head to PUSH.fm to get started now or check out our article below for way more information on how to make the most of this amazing platform.
Play your music live
Concerts cannot be underappreciated. They have massive potential for your music on so many fronts. They are an income stream, they are exposure, they’re a chance to connect with fans, and a chance for online content too.
Why will they get you more streams? Because gigs are a great chance to discover new fans, who might even ignore your music if they hear it through the speakers but are sold when they experience the energy of the crowd around you as you give it your all.
Especially if you gig with other artists – which is highly recommended when getting started and building your audience – you are exposing yourself to an entirely new group of people in a way that you can only pray (or pay) for with streaming.
Any opportunity to be heard by new listeners increases your chances of gaining a fan and growing your streams. Gigs also strengthen your bond with existing fans, who will stream your music to get hyped before the concert and then will be playing you for longer afterwards in memory of the great time they had.
Making a career in music isn’t easy and you have to accept that you won’t always have the success you hoped for, certainly not immediately. However, put in the effort and understand how you can reach people and empower your presence and you have the best chance at growing and maybe even blowing up one day.
For more tips and tricks to get your music career growing, keep your eyes to our blog and our social media pages – and remember, use RouteNote for the best solution to music distribution.