Music distribution is the way that your music is made available for people to buy or listen to. The most popular form of distribution in recent years has been streaming, but there are other options out there as well. In this article, we’re going to take a look at 4 things you should know about music distribution if you’re a musician.
Music distribution is the process of getting your music to listeners
The most popular form of distribution in recent years has been streaming, but there are other options out there as well.
The very first thing that you need to do when looking into music distribution is to decide what type of platform your listeners would like best. If they would rather stream your songs rather than buy them, that’s great. If they would prefer to purchase your music as a download, you can set it up so that they can do this after streaming has been exhausted. The important thing is to understand what the potential customer wants and provide for them accordingly.
Secondly, you need to understand where all of your listeners are located. This can be a challenge as some countries have different laws than others and this could affect the way that they receive their music or even if they can legally access it at all.
Don’t forget this one! The last thing that we’ll look at is how often you should upload new content to these platforms, whether it’s indiefy.net, Spotify, iTunes, or anything else. You don’t want people getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over again so make sure to put out interesting updates with fresh material on a regular basis.
Building audience
First, you need to build an audience. You can’t expect your music distribution company to do all the work for you and reach out to people who might like your songs or album right off the bat as if they already know about it, so make sure before signing up with a distributor that you have at least some fans on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Think of this like building a house: without any structure, there’s no way anyone will come and visit!
The more followers and friends you have in these places (and elsewhere), the better. When people see how many loyal supporters you have behind them they will want to check out what kind of stuff is going on over there too which means more potential fans for you.
Secondly, make sure to promote your music everywhere and anywhere!
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms out there (for now), so it would be wise to utilize that as much as possible in order to get yourself known on the Internet.
Know your audience
Once you have a better understanding of how to get yourself out there and build an audience, it’s time to start thinking about who these people are. Yes, they’re the ones following you on Facebook or Twitter but what kind of people do they actually resemble? What kinds of musical tastes will be found among them?
Are they mostly men or women? How old are most of your followers (or fans)? Knowing this information is important because when choosing where exactly to distribute your music – such as iTunes for example – you need to make sure that place caters towards the right crowd.
Forget the middleman
This is where music distribution services come in! A lot of people tend to think that it’s necessary to have a record company or some other kind of “middleman” do all the work for them when it comes to reaching out and getting their songs into stores, but this isn’t always true. Nowadays with events such as YouTube becoming really popular these kinds of companies are quickly losing ground because if you make your own website you can be 100% sure everyone will know about it which means no more waiting around wondering who might listen to your tracks someday…
Middlemen can be helpful. Of course, not all of these distributors are bad – at least some of them will serve you well and provide a good service. If they have massive amounts of listeners just like YouTube does for example there is no reason why your songs shouldn’t be up in this place with millions or billions of other people’s music too. You just need to find the right one!
The process of getting your music to listeners is a difficult one, but these four things should be at the top of any musician’s list when they’re trying to distribute their work. Music distribution can seem daunting for musicians, but if you keep in mind that it’s both about building an audience and knowing who your audience is, you may find success much easier.