How to Get 500k Plays through Blogs and Youtube
Have you ever wondered why your songs don't get featured on as many blogs or channels as the bigger producers?
This was my music group’s situation a few years ago. We spent so much time on making songs that we thought were amazing. We had no idea why we weren't getting on any channels or blogs.
Then we tried one big tactic that changed everything. It helped us get over 500k plays in under 6 months and got us on tons of channels and blogs with thousands of subscribers.
That tactic was creating and utilizing an Email List. I'm about to show you a highly effective method for getting on tons of music channels and blogs across the web.
Let me go ahead and warn you up front...
Building a Blog Email list is not easy. To get the best results you have to put in your A game effort. It may seem like a lot of work at first but once you see a flood of channels and blogs post your songs you will definitely be grateful that you spent the time to do it.
The key to this tactic is building a massive database of contacts. The bigger your contact list is the more chances you'll have to get featured. Your list will have music blogs, youtube channels, and social media channels all organized and ready to go when you're ready to release your next banger.
Originally we built our email list on Mac Notes and let me go ahead and save you some time... DON'T DO IT!
I suggest using Google Docs because you'll have access to it wherever you go. Two of the better perks is that you can easily share the document with a friend and both of you could add to it and edit in real time without messing up or saving over each others edits.
Create a new Google Sheets page add 4 column titles to the top. Website, Email, Contact Page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube.
Keeping every your contacts organized is going to be a crucial part of maintaining a quality List. Keeping an organized list will help you understand your contacts better because you’ll be able to see their web presence across all their channels.
This is all the organization you're going to need for your spreadsheet. You can use color if you want it to look a little more organized.
For those of you that don’t know, Hypem or Hype Machine is a site that keeps track of over 800 different music blogs. They have a built in voting based ranking system for best songs posted by blogs.
The more “hearts” a song gets the more exposure your song gets.
Hype Machine is kind of like Reddit mixed with Google for music blogs.
I’m going to show you how you can use this site to gather high quality contacts and get your songs tons of exposure!
The place to start is the blog directory. This is where they keep all 806 handpicked blogs they have in their network.
You can sort them by country or genre. Once you have picked a genre or tag open up one of the blogs and click their link
Get 5 different blogs opened up on different tabs so you can move quickly from one to another. Collect all their different url’s then move on to the next blog.
Usually you can find the email on the contact or about page. Social links are typically on the side bar, header, or footer.
Collecting emails all day isn’t very excited… I know!
Just make it a habit to collect 25-50 everyday so when it's time to release your next track you already have a 1,000 blog contacts ready to submit too.
I honestly don't think there are too many people out there who don’t use Youtube to listen to music these days.
There are far more music sharing channels on YouTube than any other platform on the web. If you can just get on 1% of them, you’ll be doing pretty good :)
The best thing about YouTube is that there is more opportunities to spread your music than just music sharing channels. Tons of you-tubers are putting out all kinds of content and would love some free music to use for their channel.
If you could get your song on T.V. for free exposure would you?...So why not do it on YouTube.
A simple YouTube search of “Electronic Music Channel” can find you over hundreds of different channels on YouTube. All these channels are always look for great new music to share, the secret is just getting their attention.
After you find a channel you want to be featured on you need to get their contact information. You usually can find an email on the “About” tab.
Sometimes the channel will leave their email out off of their channel. The second best bet is looking for their website. If they don’t have a website, checking their social media is the next best bet.
Even if they don’t have a contact email, because you now have their YouTube, website, and social media links, you have literally 10 different ways to contact them
Get creative!
Use Channels to Find More Channels
Finding one YouTube channel is all you need to find a million.
Simply use the related channels section on YouTube to find even more channels to get your music featured on.
Every genre of music has its own little web of channels on YouTube, go find as many as you can!
The good thing about music channels is that they are a great way to get your music out there.
The bad thing about them is that they get thousands of submissions every day, especially the bigger channels.
Don’t worry, music channels is not all Youtube has to offer.
Some of the best exposure is getting on random Youtube Channels that have nothing to do with music. Everyone needs music to make video’s more interesting. Plus they get far less music submissions if any at all.
(Hint: Make a new category on your spreadsheet for these non-music channels.)
As a music producer you should be taking advantage of this fact.
A small example of channel types that you could get exposure one is…
Don’t limit your thinking. Do what other music producers won’t. Go get your music places they will not.
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are amazing chances for you to connect with different bloggers and music channels.
BUT…
It’s also a perfect opportunity to give yourself a bad name, especially in the music world.
One of the biggest mistakes producers make is that they find a bloggers, influencers or even other artist and the first thing they ask is for them is to check out their song.
This is like trying to hook up with a girl before even taking her on a date. Hell, before even talking to her.
Everybody has their own thing going on and they love to talk about it.
One of the best strategies using social media is simply creating conversation. Leave comments on the blogs and songs that these channels share. Hop into conversation with them through twitter about whatever it is that THEY are talking about. Leave them comments about the cool photos on their Instagram.
The secret to this concept is that you are becoming friends with these people. When you ask a friend for a favor, its no big deal. When you ask a stranger for a favor, they probably are not going to do it.
If the blog or YouTube channel does not have any other ways to submit and you have to go through a facebook message or Instagram, there's nothing wrong with it. The only thing you have to understand is that the odds of them featuring you goes up 10x when have built a relationship with them.
The single best way to get on any channel or blog is to find a way to give them value. This doesn't always mean give them your awesome song for them to share.
Something we did for a couple of music channels in the past was make them new cover photos for their brand. We already knew Photoshop and could see that they didn't have the highest quality photos. So why not help them out. After we made them those graphics they posted every single one of our tracks on their channels.
A couple of other ideas you could do are...
Giving value is easily one of the best ways to build a relationship with anyone.
Okay, so you have built up your list to over 1,000 different blogs. (This should be a minimum)
You've already connected with them through social media.
Time for the right hook!
The perfect submission message should be personal. It shouldn't just say "song submission" with a link attached to it.
Remember there is a real person on the other side of that email and for you to stick out from the countless other emails they get, you are going to have to spark some sort of emotional connection with them.
Here is a perfect example email that works. I've already used it. Feel free to use these as a starting point to create your own.
Don't you hate it when people don't respond to your emails?
Well there's an awesome tool called Sidekick that I use that helps me solve this problem. Sidekick is an app for chrome that allows you to see when the other person opens your email. It also tells you if they clicked any of the links inside the email. This app is amazing.
This pretty much lets me know one of two things.
1. I didn't get a response because they didn't like the song
OR
2. I didn't get a response because they didn't even get the email
Option 1: If they did get the email and didn't want to post it it's not a big deal. They may be saving it for another date, they might have liked it but not enough for their channel, or they might have just forgotten to respond back to you.
Either way do not resend a submission to them!
No reason to annoy them and burn the bridge. Only because they didn't feature this release doesn't mean they wouldn't feature a different one.
Option 2: If they never even opened the email, this is the perfect time to reference your spread sheet. See what other options you have to contact them and go for it.
Okay so let's say you have over 3,000 emails on your list. (This is about how many I had on my old list)
It's really hard to send out that many personal emails. There's a second option.
Mailchimp is a site that lets you add large amounts of emails to a mailing list. You can then email them all at once. Even though this isn't as good as sending personalized emails to each person, using Mailchimp can help you reach the masses.
The beauty of using Mailchimp is that you get to see your open rates at scale.
What does this mean?
Well lets say you send that gets a 15% open rate on your last email campaign. This isn't very good so you decide to mix it up and change the subject line of the next email campaign. All the sudden you see spike in open rates to 23%.
This means you should write more subject lines like email campaign number 2.
Mailchimp is a very powerful email marketing tool. It can be just as powerful as sending personal emails. It all depends on how you use it. Experiment and find out what works best for you.
The reason creating a huge list of contacts is so powerful is because you can reach so many different channels.
Most artist are under the impression that their favorite giant channel is sure to post their next song. They think that after this happens they are sure to go viral. This kind of thinking is ludicrous.
The list building strategy is a way to blanket the internet with your music and build long lasting relationships. This is super valuable in the short term and long term.
(Hint: Show gratitude for the channels that featured your music. Do whatever you can to make them happy. The last thing you want is for them to think you didn't appreciate the shout out.)
Building a blog list is easily one of the most important things you should have ready when releasing a song, especially if you don't have a big audience. Using this strategy we have connected with so many different people including an A&R for Warner Music!
Doing this helped us get over 500k plays in under 5 months. Our music wasn't even the best. We just were able to reach so many different pockets of the internet that the total number of plays just added up.
Now that you've read this, please start your list. Work on it everyday for at least 10 mins a day and I know for a fact your releases will be way more effective!
This was my music group’s situation a few years ago. We spent so much time on making songs that we thought were amazing. We had no idea why we weren't getting on any channels or blogs.
Then we tried one big tactic that changed everything. It helped us get over 500k plays in under 6 months and got us on tons of channels and blogs with thousands of subscribers.
That tactic was creating and utilizing an Email List. I'm about to show you a highly effective method for getting on tons of music channels and blogs across the web.
Let me go ahead and warn you up front...
Building a Blog Email list is not easy. To get the best results you have to put in your A game effort. It may seem like a lot of work at first but once you see a flood of channels and blogs post your songs you will definitely be grateful that you spent the time to do it.
Step 1. The List is Everything
The key to this tactic is building a massive database of contacts. The bigger your contact list is the more chances you'll have to get featured. Your list will have music blogs, youtube channels, and social media channels all organized and ready to go when you're ready to release your next banger.
Start with Google Docs or Excel Sheet
Originally we built our email list on Mac Notes and let me go ahead and save you some time... DON'T DO IT!
I suggest using Google Docs because you'll have access to it wherever you go. Two of the better perks is that you can easily share the document with a friend and both of you could add to it and edit in real time without messing up or saving over each others edits.
Create a new Google Sheets page add 4 column titles to the top. Website, Email, Contact Page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube.
Keeping every your contacts organized is going to be a crucial part of maintaining a quality List. Keeping an organized list will help you understand your contacts better because you’ll be able to see their web presence across all their channels.
This is all the organization you're going to need for your spreadsheet. You can use color if you want it to look a little more organized.
Hypem
For those of you that don’t know, Hypem or Hype Machine is a site that keeps track of over 800 different music blogs. They have a built in voting based ranking system for best songs posted by blogs.
The more “hearts” a song gets the more exposure your song gets.
Hype Machine is kind of like Reddit mixed with Google for music blogs.
I’m going to show you how you can use this site to gather high quality contacts and get your songs tons of exposure!
Collect like your life depends on it!
The place to start is the blog directory. This is where they keep all 806 handpicked blogs they have in their network.
You can sort them by country or genre. Once you have picked a genre or tag open up one of the blogs and click their link
Get 5 different blogs opened up on different tabs so you can move quickly from one to another. Collect all their different url’s then move on to the next blog.
Usually you can find the email on the contact or about page. Social links are typically on the side bar, header, or footer.
Collecting emails all day isn’t very excited… I know!
Just make it a habit to collect 25-50 everyday so when it's time to release your next track you already have a 1,000 blog contacts ready to submit too.
Youtube
I honestly don't think there are too many people out there who don’t use Youtube to listen to music these days.
There are far more music sharing channels on YouTube than any other platform on the web. If you can just get on 1% of them, you’ll be doing pretty good :)
The best thing about YouTube is that there is more opportunities to spread your music than just music sharing channels. Tons of you-tubers are putting out all kinds of content and would love some free music to use for their channel.
If you could get your song on T.V. for free exposure would you?...So why not do it on YouTube.
Find the channels
A simple YouTube search of “Electronic Music Channel” can find you over hundreds of different channels on YouTube. All these channels are always look for great new music to share, the secret is just getting their attention.
After you find a channel you want to be featured on you need to get their contact information. You usually can find an email on the “About” tab.
Sometimes the channel will leave their email out off of their channel. The second best bet is looking for their website. If they don’t have a website, checking their social media is the next best bet.
Even if they don’t have a contact email, because you now have their YouTube, website, and social media links, you have literally 10 different ways to contact them
Get creative!
Use Channels to Find More Channels
Finding one YouTube channel is all you need to find a million.
Simply use the related channels section on YouTube to find even more channels to get your music featured on.
Every genre of music has its own little web of channels on YouTube, go find as many as you can!
Don't just think Music Channels
The good thing about music channels is that they are a great way to get your music out there.
The bad thing about them is that they get thousands of submissions every day, especially the bigger channels.
Don’t worry, music channels is not all Youtube has to offer.
Some of the best exposure is getting on random Youtube Channels that have nothing to do with music. Everyone needs music to make video’s more interesting. Plus they get far less music submissions if any at all.
(Hint: Make a new category on your spreadsheet for these non-music channels.)
As a music producer you should be taking advantage of this fact.
A small example of channel types that you could get exposure one is…
- Tutorial Channels
- Video Game Channels
- How To Channels
- Sports
- Compilation
- Gopro Channels
Don’t limit your thinking. Do what other music producers won’t. Go get your music places they will not.
Step 2. Use Social Media
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are amazing chances for you to connect with different bloggers and music channels.
BUT…
It’s also a perfect opportunity to give yourself a bad name, especially in the music world.
One of the biggest mistakes producers make is that they find a bloggers, influencers or even other artist and the first thing they ask is for them is to check out their song.
This is like trying to hook up with a girl before even taking her on a date. Hell, before even talking to her.
Build Relationships First
Everybody has their own thing going on and they love to talk about it.
One of the best strategies using social media is simply creating conversation. Leave comments on the blogs and songs that these channels share. Hop into conversation with them through twitter about whatever it is that THEY are talking about. Leave them comments about the cool photos on their Instagram.
Show Genuine Interest!
The secret to this concept is that you are becoming friends with these people. When you ask a friend for a favor, its no big deal. When you ask a stranger for a favor, they probably are not going to do it.
If the blog or YouTube channel does not have any other ways to submit and you have to go through a facebook message or Instagram, there's nothing wrong with it. The only thing you have to understand is that the odds of them featuring you goes up 10x when have built a relationship with them.
Add Value
The single best way to get on any channel or blog is to find a way to give them value. This doesn't always mean give them your awesome song for them to share.
Something we did for a couple of music channels in the past was make them new cover photos for their brand. We already knew Photoshop and could see that they didn't have the highest quality photos. So why not help them out. After we made them those graphics they posted every single one of our tracks on their channels.
A couple of other ideas you could do are...
- Make them Videos
- Guest Blog for them
- Help them with some marketing
- See if you could score an interview with one of their favorite artist for their site.
- Make a custom mix for them to share with their bloggers.
Giving value is easily one of the best ways to build a relationship with anyone.
Step 3. The Perfect Submission
Okay, so you have built up your list to over 1,000 different blogs. (This should be a minimum)
You've already connected with them through social media.
Time for the right hook!
The perfect submission message should be personal. It shouldn't just say "song submission" with a link attached to it.
Remember there is a real person on the other side of that email and for you to stick out from the countless other emails they get, you are going to have to spark some sort of emotional connection with them.
Here is a perfect example email that works. I've already used it. Feel free to use these as a starting point to create your own.
Use Sidekick
Don't you hate it when people don't respond to your emails?
Well there's an awesome tool called Sidekick that I use that helps me solve this problem. Sidekick is an app for chrome that allows you to see when the other person opens your email. It also tells you if they clicked any of the links inside the email. This app is amazing.
This pretty much lets me know one of two things.
1. I didn't get a response because they didn't like the song
OR
2. I didn't get a response because they didn't even get the email
Option 1: If they did get the email and didn't want to post it it's not a big deal. They may be saving it for another date, they might have liked it but not enough for their channel, or they might have just forgotten to respond back to you.
Either way do not resend a submission to them!
No reason to annoy them and burn the bridge. Only because they didn't feature this release doesn't mean they wouldn't feature a different one.
Option 2: If they never even opened the email, this is the perfect time to reference your spread sheet. See what other options you have to contact them and go for it.
Mailchimp
Okay so let's say you have over 3,000 emails on your list. (This is about how many I had on my old list)
It's really hard to send out that many personal emails. There's a second option.
Mailchimp is a site that lets you add large amounts of emails to a mailing list. You can then email them all at once. Even though this isn't as good as sending personalized emails to each person, using Mailchimp can help you reach the masses.
The beauty of using Mailchimp is that you get to see your open rates at scale.
What does this mean?
Well lets say you send that gets a 15% open rate on your last email campaign. This isn't very good so you decide to mix it up and change the subject line of the next email campaign. All the sudden you see spike in open rates to 23%.
This means you should write more subject lines like email campaign number 2.
Mailchimp is a very powerful email marketing tool. It can be just as powerful as sending personal emails. It all depends on how you use it. Experiment and find out what works best for you.
It's A Numbers Game
The reason creating a huge list of contacts is so powerful is because you can reach so many different channels.
Most artist are under the impression that their favorite giant channel is sure to post their next song. They think that after this happens they are sure to go viral. This kind of thinking is ludicrous.
The list building strategy is a way to blanket the internet with your music and build long lasting relationships. This is super valuable in the short term and long term.
(Hint: Show gratitude for the channels that featured your music. Do whatever you can to make them happy. The last thing you want is for them to think you didn't appreciate the shout out.)
Conclusion
Building a blog list is easily one of the most important things you should have ready when releasing a song, especially if you don't have a big audience. Using this strategy we have connected with so many different people including an A&R for Warner Music!
Doing this helped us get over 500k plays in under 5 months. Our music wasn't even the best. We just were able to reach so many different pockets of the internet that the total number of plays just added up.
Now that you've read this, please start your list. Work on it everyday for at least 10 mins a day and I know for a fact your releases will be way more effective!