As a musician, sharing your work with as many people as possible is one of the keys to gaining success. With the development of a global community through internet platforms, disseminating your music has become more accessible than ever.
A few decades ago, sharing music with large audiences required quite a bit of travel time and meet-and-greets. With the help of the internet, today’s artists can now share their music with listeners all over the globe in a few simple steps.
Let’s take a look at the top five places to publish your music on the internet.
YouTube
Posting videos is an excellent way to share your talent with viewers around the world. Currently, YouTube has over a billion users, so you can be sure that your music will reach quite a few ears when you publish on this platform. Many popular artists have been discovered on YouTube, including Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth, and the members of Pentatonix. Regardless of whether or not you’re a fan of these artists, their success in the music industry is undeniable.
The amount of views you receive will vary, but the current average is about 9,816 views per entertainment video. If you’re looking to increase the amount of traffic to your channel, try posting a video of yourself singing a cover of a popular song. Popular songs are more likely to be searched, and if a viewer likes your sound then they’ll be more likely to check out the rest of your videos.
SoundCloud
Soundcloud first made its appearance in 2007 and has grown to attract as many as 175 million visitors per month. SoundCloud’s streaming is free, which means you’ll be able to access a platform of 175 million people who will receive access to your music for no cost at all. The amount of plays you’ll see will vary depending on the type of music you produce, but you can usually expect 300 plays a month if you post links to your music through other platforms, such as Twitter.
You can also comment on other SoundCloud tracks to increase traffic to your own page. Additionally, you’ll be more likely to receive extra exposure when using SoundCloud because there are no copyright issues that will prevent blogs from including SoundCloud links in their posts. If you’re planning on completing an interview with a blogger about your music, make sure you have tracks available on SoundCloud before publishing. Readers will then be able to access your music quickly and easily from the interview post.
Audiomack
With over 6 million users, Audiomack is similar to SoundCloud but won’t limit you on the amount of music you’re able to upload for free. SoundCloud will allow you to share your music for free as long as the total is less than three hours in duration.
After that, you’ll need to purchase a Pro Account for 6 USD per month, or the Pro Unlimited Account for 16 USD per month. If you’re not interested in signing up for a paid account, try creating an Audiomack account. Since Audiomack is still growing, you might not see as many plays as on SoundCloud. Your monthly number will probably be 100 plays or less.
However, this platform has been praised for its user-friendliness and is the best option for artists who want full visibility. Keep in mind that Audiomack pages will have more ads, since they aren’t receiving revenue from user accounts. If ads on your page don’t bother you and you have quite a bit of material you want to post, Audiomack might be the way to go.
iTunes/ Apple Music
iTunes is one of the most well-known music dissemination platforms in the world. This is a great platform to take advantage of if you’re looking to provide quick and easy ways to sell your music to listeners. Not only can you sell your music through Apple, the birth of Apple Music has now provided a streaming option. This will allow users to access all of the songs in the Apple Music catalogue for as long as their subscription remains active.
With over 20 million active subscribers, it doesn’t seem like Apple Music will lose popularity any time soon. This platform also offers Apple Music Connect, which will give you the opportunity to communicate with your listeners on a personal level, sharing ideas, videos, photos, and more.
Since streaming music is more popular than purchasing it right now, you’ll likely have about 175 plays a month using Apple Music, and less activity on iTunes. To publish your music on Apple Music, you’ll need to go through one of their approved aggregators, which you can read more about here.
Spotify
Unlike iTunes, Spotify is focused on streaming music, rather than selling tracks to be added to a library. Spotify has over 100 million subscribers, with 25 million of them paying for subscriptions. Spotify is a massive streaming site that shares music with twenty-five countries, the number of which will likely continue to grow as their popularity increases. This is the platform that will likely give you the most publicity because of its huge number of users.
The Spotify team themselves have said that they process nearly one billion streams every day, so you can expect to have about 400 plays per month just from publishing your music on their platform. Since you’ll receive royalties based on how many times your track is streamed, you’ll only be able to post music you’ve written. This means the cover songs that will work well to increase your YouTube views won’t transfer to platforms such as Spotify. Streaming is the new trend in music listening, so make sure you’re strategic about where you publish your work. You’ll be sure to see some progress in no time.
TuneCore
Say hello to the latest growing platform for music distribution. This platform helps music artists, labels, agents and more sell music through streaming services such as Amazon Music, YouTube, TikTok and more. The company boasts on their platform that users retain 100% of their sales revenue and right for a low annual fee.
The TuneCore platform also offers a variety of services to help musicians promote their craft, connect with fans and most importantly, get their music heard. Elicit Magazine has teamed up with TuneCore to offer musicians 20% off their first album or single they distribute with TuneCore. Sign up here.