In 2020, the industry, artists and fans alike were forced to adjust as Instagram lives became the new concert pit. It wasn’t all bad--many artists ditched their traditional rollouts for TikTok challenges, digital meet and greets and gave their fans what they’d been craving in a pandemic world--music and connection. If the pandemic showed us anything, it’s that there is no one “right” or “ideal” way to release music. Check out five of our favorite strategies from artists who had a wildly successful year of releasing music in 2020.

Organizing an effective, creative and eye-catching social plan is just one of the many things you will need to juggle when planning an album, single or video release. It’s understandable that you may not see the value in taking the time to craft individual strategies for every different social platform when each new content release can sometimes feel as involved as launching a mini-business. The bad news first: promoting a release on social media isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it situation. If you don’t take the time to cater your strategy to the best practices, algorithm and general voice of a network - your engagement will suffer and that time you spent building your social media plan will be time wasted. Want the good news? It’s easier than you think. And we’re here to help. 

As a digital marketing agency, a lot of the work we do involves paid media - often social advertising with carefully curated targeting. A recurring request we see from our clients, often before we even get started, is asking that we distribute their digital ad budget so that it only targets the U.S. market. From a logical perspective, it makes complete sense to only target ads towards audiences in markets where you know you want to build a fan base of real people who you can re-engage for show promotion when the time comes. But, from an ad-buying perspective, there’s a little more nuance. Beneath the surface, there’s an advantage to targeting your ads to international audiences with cheaper cost-per-results and even potentially a Spotify algorithm “hack”. This may seem counterintuitive, but by targeting internationally, you can actually build your presence in your own country. Here’s how it works.

Here’s a hard truth: as an artist, there really isn’t much you can control when it comes to the momentum that drives your career. Success in the music industry is unpredictable. It’s important to control what you can and with that - to always be intentional with how you invest your limited time and resources. 

Now more than ever, effective music marketing requires a consistent content release strategy. But as an artist, this is one thing you can control that will drive forward progress in every aspect of your career. It’s worth organizing and investing in your approach.

When it comes to social media marketing, there are many platforms out there in an ever-growing landscape. It’s important to diversify advertising in your marketing mix, but also understanding each of the platforms can help you allocate to those that are best suited for your needs. Here we breakdown the major platforms for marketing your music and where to best implement your social media ads.

Social media can be exhausting and overwhelming to many people, especially musicians. When you are spending most of your time writing songs, working in the studio, and trying to stay sane with a social life, updating your Instagram profile can easily be put on the back burner. But here’s the reality: social media isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, the value of having an attractive social media presence will only continue to grow as a key piece in any entertainer’s career. 

Sure, getting into a consistent routine of gathering content and staying active on social media can seem extremely time consuming, but it doesn’t actually have to be as hard as it looks. The most important thing to remember as an artist is that your audience wants to learn more about you - not your manager or marketing team.

As an independent artist, it can sound like a dream to have a team of people working on your behalf. And when it’s the right fit - it can be. But getting the right artist managers, booking agents, publishers, publicists, and others in place can be a long process -- often one that has to be tweaked as you go. It's important to keep your expectations in check, to trust your team and empower them to do their jobs. At the same time - only you can set the right expectations for your team - you can't rely on your manager, label, or anyone else to do it for you. If you’ve got your team in place and you’re feeling like something’s just not quite right, it might be time to re-evaluate.

Storytelling is a vital part of building a brand, especially when it comes to bands and musicians. Sure, the product you’re selling - music, merch, tickets, etc. - are important, but you’re not going to build a loyal and dedicated fanbase with products alone. We crave stories - and neuroscience proves as much. People can remember stories up to 22 times more than facts alone. If you want to break through the noise and stick in someone’s mind, you need to have a great story to tell.

It’s time to stop paying for playlist pitching.

To clarify, if you’re an artist, it’s in your best interest to never pay for a company to pitch your music to third party Spotify Playlists again.

Simply put, there is no longer a viable path for success when hiring these services. It can only either damage your data or your pocket book.

Venture Music has a deep history when it comes to playlisting that has led us to this conclusion. A conclusion we’ve been whispering into as many ears as possible. Well, we’re tired of whispering.

With life as we know it coming to a screeching halt this year - livestream concerts have turned out to be one of only a few ways the music industry has maintained some semblance of normalcy in 2020. It’s exciting to see light at the end of the tunnel with COVID vaccines already in production. It has also been fun to see innovative new limited capacity live show concepts.

For now though - anyone that performs for a living needs to remember: it’s unrealistic to think 2021 will be a return to business as usual. The good news is that we’ve seen from experience this year - livestreams have the potential to create up to 5 different layers of value for artists. Like with anything else it just takes some experimentation, hard work, and patience to figure out the formula for success.