Visibility as an Artist: How to Keep Your Release From Getting Lost
A huge number of new songs arrive in the stores every day, and most of them barely get heard. That is rarely down to the music. It is because listeners only find a song when it shows up where they happen to be searching or scrolling. Visibility as an artist therefore depends less on one well-planned release day and more on what you build up across several releases. Here are the places where you can actually do something about it.
Where listeners find new music
New listeners roughly reach you in four ways: they search for your name, they come across a playlist, the app recommends your song, or they hear it in a clip on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. You only have indirect influence over app recommendations. Over the other routes you have a lot more.
For planning, that means each route needs something different. Search needs a tidy profile, playlists need a pitch, and clips need material. If you build all of that from scratch for every release, you burn out quickly. So it is worth setting up things that keep working beyond a single song.
Your profile: where everything comes together
Set up Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists by the time your first release comes out at the latest. Upload a profile picture, write a short bio and link your social channels. Anyone looking you up after a clip lands right there, and an empty profile looks like nobody is home.
A consistent artist name matters just as much. Spell it exactly the same on every release, with the same capitalization and the same special characters. Otherwise a new song may end up on a second profile, and your listeners find your releases scattered instead of in one place.
Spotify for Artists also lets you set an Artist Pick, a song or playlist highlighted at the top of your profile. Put your latest release there and add a short line. Anyone opening your profile for the first time then sees what you want to show right now, not some older track.
Release regularly instead of once in a big way
A single release is a single opportunity. If you put out something new every few weeks, listeners keep getting a reason to come back to your profile, and every new song can draw attention to the older ones. You do not need an album for that. Singles are enough.
At OGRECORDS™ a release has no fee of its own and there is no subscription. We keep 10% of your earnings. More releases therefore do not mean higher fixed costs. The release date has to be at least five business days after upload, and our pitching needs 21 days of lead time. It is best to plan the next song while the current one is coming out.
Short clips and YouTube
Many people hear a song for the first time as a snippet in a video. We also deliver your release to TikTok and YouTube Music, so the song is available there and others can use it in their own videos. You can use short clips yourself to show how the song came about, or put its strongest moment into a small scene.
On YouTube, Content ID helps. The system detects videos that use your music so that the usage is matched to your song. YouTube Content ID is included at OGRECORDS™. Put your smart link in every video description, so viewers can find the full song with one click.
Targeted help
For playlists, you can book our playlist pitching at OGRECORDS™: €50 per track, a deadline of 21 days before release, no guarantee of success, and a report on the Monday after release. On top of that, pitch the song yourself to Spotify's editors through Spotify for Artists, at least seven days before release.
With Spotify Discovery Mode you open songs up for more recommendations in radio and autoplay. You receive 30% less on the streams that come through it, while all other streams stay untouched. If your music suits film, advertising or games, you can offer it through our sync service, with a 15% commission when a deal closes. The foundation for all of this is a clean upload through our music distribution to 38 stores.
Start with your profile and a steady release rhythm, and put out your next song with OGRECORDS™.