I have been creating electronic music since 2010 under the name Kabbalistic Village. I have used and still use many online resources and tools to spread my music all over the world, build a small following and make some passive income from my music. Everyone knows you can upload your song to Youtube but what’s that going to do for you? Or people always ask how do I get my music on Spotify? In this post I’m going to explain which things to use for your music and some tips to get some exposure. I’m going to assume that you already have a few finished songs under your belt that you can upload somewhere.
Youtube
If you are just starting out, uploading your chill beat to Youtube isn’t going to do anything for you. Nobody will find it over the other billions of videos out there and you probably won’t have any subscribers. So how do you get some people to start listening and subscribing? There’s a few ways. One way you can start getting people to your channel is by making tutorials on producing music. Even if it’s just a small trick in your DAW or a short video on how to set up a simple beat. People are always searching. Youtube Shorts is a great way to make quick little instructional videos. Once people watch your tutorial they may check out that random song you uploaded to your channel as well. People like to learn from producers who sound like they know what they are doing. In 2011 when I was strictly producing Psytrance, I made some tutorials in Fl Studio that got thousands of views and people started listening to some of my music. Somebody actually left a comment the other day on a video from back then. Give it a try!
Another thing I did was offer some of my songs for free for Youtubers to use in their videos. Youtubers love free sounds, videos, animations, etc. I put up some videos of some of my earliest stuff back in the day with a link to download it on my Soundcloud and I still get listens and fans today. Offering a free track is a great way to build an audience. Don’t worry you will be making better songs later on in the game. Ask people to leave credit when they use your song and then more people will come.
The last way to promote yourself on Youtube is make a video of your songs that people can study, workout or sleep to (depending on the style of music you make). Like a long mix. People love putting those on in the background. You shouldn’t title it with your producer name and/or song name. It should be like 30 minute chill beat mix to listen to while studying or something like that.
Distrokid
If you want to get your music on Spotify, Apple Music and other popular streaming services you will need to use a music distribution service like Distrokid, Tunecore and others. I use Distrokid because it’s super convenient and pretty cheap. You can upload unlimited songs and albums and you can make a few bucks as well. The basic plan on Distrokid is 23 dollars for the year which is great. You will need some artwork to go along with your songs and today you can create amazing album artwork with all the different AI Image Generators that are out there (I like Leonardo but you can use whatever you like). Distrokid usually gets my song into online stores and Spotiy in a matter of days after uploading and they even have an app now where you can track your stats. Distrokid also has some really cool features like Promo cards for your songs that you can easily upload to your Stories, Youtube content ID (make money when people use your music!), keeping your songs in stores forever for a one time fee and a lot more. You can use my affiliate link to sign up for Distrokid and save 7% – https://distrokid.com/vip/seven/576401
Reddit is a great place to waste hours of your day but it’s also a really good place to learn about music production, marketing and more. There are communities (or Subreddits) there for pretty much every genre of music and to discuss marketing your music and how to get better at production. There are subreddits to share your music so that other people can listen and find new sounds. You can drop a track in the Game Developers subreddit and maybe a developer will want to work with you to create some music for a game. Videographers on there are always looking for new sounds. It’s a whole word to explore so go check it out.
Youtube Content ID / Monetize your music
If you are an independent artist and have a bunch of songs, you may want to look into registering your music with a Content ID system. This will help protect your music and you can also make some money from it. Content ID is basically making sure people who upload videos are not using copyrighted songs or other materials. It’s a system that Youtube developed to scan videos. Did you ever get a flag on your video because you uploaded it with a popular song playing in the background? That’s the system working. So how does it work for bedroom producers like ourselves? Well there are companies that you can register your music with and they work with Youtube directly for Content ID purposes. I use a company called Identifyy.
Most of the music I make gets licensed out on a stock music marketplace called Audiojungle. Maybe I’ll write about that one day as well. Buyers who license my songs receive a special file upon purchasing that they can show Youtube that they have rights to use my music in the videos they upload. When they upload a video using one my songs, it automatically gets flagged and then they can either email me to clear the song or use Identifyy’s system. The main point of all this is really for the people who steal my music. Obviously my songs are uploaded to many places so I can market my tracks. And some people will inevitably steal one of these tracks to use in their videos because they don’t want to pay. But because my music is registered with Identifyy, their video gets flagged and the best part of it all is that I get their Youtube ad money.
You can learn more about it here – https://www.identifyy.com/
Remix a song
My last idea for now is to remix a song. It doesn’t have to be the most popular song but it should be a song that some people know. People are always looking for remixes or different version of their favorite tracks and if you pick the right song you could definitely get some listens and fans. I did a few remixes of popular video game theme songs and some pop tracks. I got some views and some fans.
