Barnhart, B. (2018). The Complete Guide to Social Media for Musicians. [online] Sprout Social. Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-for-musicians/.

Coleman, T. (2023). ‘TikTok brain’ may be coming for your kid’s attention span. [online] The Week. Available at: https://theweek.com/health-and-wellness/1025836/tiktok-brain-and-attention-spans.

Das, R. (2023). How Many Hashtags Should I Use On Instagram [Answered] | Statusbrew. [online] Statusbrew Insights. Available at: https://statusbrew.com/insights/how-many-hashtags-should-i-use-on-instagram/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Instagram%20%40creators [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].

G, E. (2023). The Power of Music and Authentic Vulnerability: Celebrating Wins and Building Connections. [online] www.linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-music-authentic-vulnerability-celebrating-wins-emma-g- [Accessed 22 Apr. 2024].

Groover Team (2024) Releasing Music in 2024: 6 Promotion Strategies That Work Right Now. LANDR Blog. [Online} Available at: https://blog.landr.com/releasing-music-2022/

Ingham (2022) NEARLY 80% OF ARTISTS ON SPOTIFY HAVE FEWER THAN 50 MONTHLY LISTENERS. Music Business Worldwide. [online] Available at: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/over-75-of-artists-on-spotify-have-fewer-than-50-monthly-listeners/

Leblanc.M (2024) WATERFALL STRATEGY: HOW TO RELEASE SINGLES USING THE WATERFALL STRATEGY. [online] Available at: https://blog.groover.co/en/tips/waterfall-strategy-release-singles/

MGmastering (2024) Ditto vs Distrokid. Music Guy Mastering. [online] Available at: https://www.musicguymastering.com/ditto-vs-distrokid/

Musicians Union (2010). Home. [online] Musiciansunion.org.uk. Available at: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/.

Musiciansunion.org.uk. (2024). Music Royalties, VAT & Recording Royalties. [online] Available at: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/recording-and-broadcasting/musician-royalties-from-recordings.

Mylrea, H. (2022). Caity Baser: honest, personality-fuelled pop hellbent on having fun. [online] NME. Available at: https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/caity-baser-interview-tiktok-average-student-radar-3331018.

Robinson, T. (2024). We Speak to Caity Baser Ahead of Her Debut at Rock City - Leftlion - Nottingham Culture. [online] leftlion.co.uk. Available at: https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2024/03/we-speak-to-caity-baser-ahead-of-her-debut-at-rock-city/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Rogers, K. (2022). Kat Penkin releases an intimate and emotional new video for ‘Checkmate’. [online] Clout. Available at: https://cloutcloutclout.com/new-music/kat-penkin-checkmate/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2024].

Santora, J. (2020). 15 Instagram Reels Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind. [online] Influencer Marketing Hub. Available at: https://influencermarketinghub.com/instagram-reels-stats/.

Tomlinson, C. (2022). BN1 Chats with: Kat Penkin. [online] BN1 Magazine. Available at: https://www.bn1magazine.co.uk/bn1-chats-with-kat-penkin/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2024].

Walsh, S. (2023). The Top 10 Social Media Sites & Platforms. [online] Search Engine Journal. Available at: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media/social-media-platforms/.

Wanjau, M. (2023). Is the Music Industry Too Oversaturated Nowadays? [online] Medium. Available at: https://aninjusticemag.com/is-the-music-industry-too-oversaturated-nowadays-8e919d2fb131.

White, J. (2022). Introducing: Caity Baser. [online] EUPHORIA. Available at: https://www.euphoriazine.com/blog/2022/05/introducing-caity-baser/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2024].

www.madeinkent.co.uk. (2023). Kat Penkin. [online] Available at: https://www.madeinkent.co.uk/kat-penkin [Accessed 20 Apr. 2024].

Zaveri, J. (2023). TikTok and the Death of the Attention Span. [online] The Oxford Blue. Available at: https://theoxfordblue.co.uk/tiktok-and-the-death-of-the-attention-span/.

https://www.viralystmarketing.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAhc-sBhCEARIsAOVwHuSGaF99IGZ2QbMsDnpG1MI1uevnpei9CH1PMFozDoDcYhJs6AlQGJ4aAky1EALw_wcB

https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/social-media-marketing-for-musicians/

https://www.lastminutemusicians.com/how_to_get_gigs/crowd-funding-for-musicians/#:~:text=Select%20a%20platform,expect%20to%20pay%20a%20commission.

I will be reaching out to local and national radio stations, sending them my music in hopes that one of my songs will be picked up and played.

Many local Brighton and Hove radio stations offer a chance to send your music in to their curators and show planners for a chance to have your song feature on their show (this article on the WaterBear website was a helpful resource: https://waterbear.org.uk/radio-stations-that-want-to-hear-your-music/. There are also certain stations that offer, if not to play your song, but to respond with feedback about the music and why they have / not decided to play it, and how likely you are to be played on the radio in general and why.

Another opportunity i can use to promote myself and my music is the university sponsored gigs, held by Waterbear at the Waterbear Venue, and featuring Waterbear student / alumni acts.

I can audition for end of term / end of year gigs and events , and can hire the venue for ~£100 for my own event.

Once/when my music gains some traction, I then have a chance to get myself featured on promoted playlists made by Spotify, to feature new and trending artists and songs. The playlists I would benefit from most would be "New Music Friday" and the Spotify Wrapped playlist.

Another opportunity available to me for promoting my music would be through the benefits of a good distributor. Distrokid offers their musician sync services as well as getting your music onto platforms.

Ditto offers a similar benefit by giving their musicians a constant platform as they don't ake your music down unless requested, whereas Distrokid will pull your music if you miss an annual payment (MGmastering, 2024)

• ditto / distrokid benefits

website subscription - monthly

equipment and maintainence - £1000 a year

advertisment -

travel

distribution

one time costs:

website deign

purchase equipment

advertisment consultant

permit / company incorporation

manufacture merch

One way i have thought to generate a wider audience is to offer low-price incentives to an audience that don yet know me well. i can make physical copies of my music and sell as CD's, Vinyls and Cassettes/mixtapes for a small price.

Uploading to a distributor to release onto streaming platforms will potentially expand my reach.

In regards to my use of social media, professionally or personally, I am lacking in knowledge and consistency. I haven't often used it before starting University and experimenting for the sake of assessments, and I am still learning the basics of how to algorithms work for each independent app, and weighing out my options of which platform is best top set up a "home-base" and generate the biggest interaction from an audience.

I am writing new material to have some follow up releases. I have a second song called Baggage intended for my follow up single. This helps to build traction, creating a backlog or work to follow up pre and post release for each single. This feels supported, as research sows the Waterfall release strategy is the most meaningful way to build traction and an audience in the early days with staggered content and track releases (Leblanc, 2022).

i felt the benefits of having an artist name separate from mine personally is that is shows a creative and artistic vision, and represents my style in a unique way without trying too hard to change my physical appearance or create an alternative personality that takes away from my authentic self.

i spent a while of time working on different names and wondering what i could make sound "good" or "cool", and had a thought to mash my first and middle name together (though I use my middle name significantly more than my legal surname which helps the consistency/familiarity of my artist name choice)

She found her love for music through the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Blondie, feeling inspired by the powerful women breaking norms, abandoning "dainty and feminine" stereotypes for rock and roll legend status.

Her first professional recording was at age 13, working with Jake based in Brighton, which was a cover of The Only Exception by Paramore, reaching over 2000 streams on Soundcloud in it's first 2 weeks.

HAE first started writing original songs when she was 19, a trade which quickly grew on her and she has since written a full album and a Rock-Country E.P now at 22 years old.

Having performed at venues in the past such as Komedia, latest music bar and the concord 2 in Brighton, Hannah is looking to expand her fanbase and her area of influence and reach out to a. bigger audience .

I will use multiple different platforms to upload my music for streaming. The main services I plan to use will be Spotify, Deezer, Amazon music and Apple music.

To upload my music to these services I will need to sign up to a distributor. Services like imusician are a good opportunity to find a distributer within my budget that can also help me with the process of my song along the way. I was

they also act as radio pluggers if they like your music. However, this services is for a fee, like most services.

You buy tokens and can submit your music. This is similar to submit Hub, another company that offers similar service - you purchase tokens, find aligned curators and submit. however, the success rate is less than 25%.

Arguably, this is still a chance for exposure, but not guaranteed and the credibility of some curators is not transparent.

After her quickly growing success, she released a debut mixtape called “Lil CB”, featuring the similarly named song which initially kicked off her career.

After her debut mixtape kicked off, she continued to stay dedicated to the craft, and she continued to post videos on social media, when eventually she posted a clip of her song “Friendly Sex” which was only half finished at the time, and it achieved 4 million views in only a few days; she felt inspired by the public response and quickly finished writing the song. She then went into the studio the next day and it was released within a week (White, 2022).

Now, approximately 3 or 4 years after her first hit, Caity Baser has taken the UK by storm and is rapidly emerging into one of the biggest pop stars in the charts. Her unapologetic way of describing her life events, whether it’s through her brutally honest and sassy lyricism (Robinson, 2024) or telling an all to familiar story over a video on social media, she has a way of drawing in her audience with embarrassing stories and life lessons that most would never admit to, she has a way of gaining the trust of her listeners an truly making it feel like we’re going through the experience together, and that is exactly the influence I would like to take from her and implement into my own music. Caity Baser proves that a can-do attitude, a bit of luck and lots of hard work can pay off and get you exactly where you want to be in your career. 

Her song “Checkmate”, also the title of the E.P featuring the song, is a vulnerable and true story of a suffocating and controlling relationship where neither person knows how to leave (Rogers, 2022), it is a soulful and slow song and the lyrics are candid and relatable. Vulnerable and relatable music has always been popular, and still is, since it’s a way for the listener to acknowledge their journeys and challenges and life lessons through melodies, and the lyrics are a cathartic way of self-expression (G, Emma, 2023) 

The research below is a brief analysis of how best to manage my social media accounts to ensure I’m doing my best efforts to maintain my career and encourage other people to check out my music. 

When it comes to building a career in public performance and drawing the public's attention in an already crowded industry where over 100,000 songs are being uploaded to a streaming service every single day (Wanjau, 2023), it appears to be important for myself as a musician that I establish my presence online, this includes choosing a brand / aesthetic that fits my chosen platforms and looking at social media strategies to support the algorithms I’d like to fall into. 

Branding is a thumbprint, getting this right and coherent feels important to my emerging career and debut release intention.

I have decided to utilize the social media platforms Instagram, YouTube (shorts and long-form), and TikTok for my promotional efforts. These platforms were selected due to their current popularity in the social media landscape (Walsh, 2023). While I am focusing on these platforms initially, I am open to expanding my online presence beyond them in the future to enhance my visibility for my music.

Creating and releasing high quality content is one of the most important things I can do for my career. Good quality videos don’t just refer to the visual quality of the videos, but also the quality of the content I choose to post.

In today’s day, I will need to account for the average interaction on viral videos, which is an average of 20 seconds per 15-90 second video or reel, which means people jump off the videos earlier than they end. I would like my engagement to be as high as possible so to do that, on instagram, TikTok and Youtube shorts I will be creating roughly 30 second long or less videos to accommodate the (kindly coined term) “TikTok Brain” (Coleman, 2023), which is an average attention span of +/- 20 seconds due to the current form of entertainment being short form videos and reels, which started with 6-second vine videos in 2013 (Zaveri, 2023).

I will be using Youtube shorts and Instagram mostly for reels(or short videos), since the average interaction on instagram is 30.81% and around 17.6 million hours of reels are watched by users daily (Santora, 2020). 

Engaging with my audience is arguably the most important thing I can do for my social media presence and following, and in tunis important for my career overall.

I plan to be engaging with my audience as much as possible, since I’d like to be able to create a genuine relationship with the people who consume and appreciate the art I have to offer. Firstly, acknowledging my gratitude for my audience is a great way to engage them more often and leave people feeling appreciated. By responding to kind comments and feedback about my content, not only am I increasing the chance of making a loyal follower/fan but it also usually makes the person receiving the gratitude happier, and hopefully want to engage more with me. 

Networking and interacting with other influencers or musicians who are active online is another great way to build a following, since I may find like-minded people who find me through interactions and collaborations with other artists. It’s a way of introducing my music to a new audience. 

One of the other best ways I can grow my fan base and find (or happen upon) more followers is by posting hashtags with my videos and pictures when I post. Hashtags are usually associated with Instagram, but nowadays they are used on almost all platforms available. Instagram still uses hashtags, but alongside them now is also TikTok and Youtube shorts. By tagging my videos with relevant subjects I achieve a wider reach throughout the platforms I post on, since like-minded people, either musicians themselves or users looking to find new music will be using them and will come across my content.

The “unwritten rule” for using hashtags is not to overdo it, but also not to lack on using them. Too many hashtags doesn’t necessarily do anything for my reach, but will look unprofessional and may be assumed to be spam content(Das, 2023) which will not only dissuade people from checking out my profile and my music, but may also oversaturate the content which is just unappealing.

Keeping up with social media trends is another crucial way of staying up to date and making sure I reach an audience. With every new trend that comes out, it’s important to keep up with them and use them when and where I can, since they provide a potential for reaching a brand new demographic that I hadn’t before. 

Once I start promoting my song and trying to reach an audience, I will need to keep in mind that too much campaigning isn’t going to do me any favours. If I consistently post too much content about the same song, it will become irritating for the people who receive the content and they won’t be interested in hearing it once it’s officially released because it’ll have worn out.

I will be sharing a reasonable amount of teasers, a few verses and a few chorus teasers closer to the release date. I will also be sharing behind the scene clips about the creation process, and tagging the people included (which, in turn, will hopefully gain me mutual followers from those people) and posing about the songwriting process for my song. Depending on how well my track is received online , I may possibly make a music video for it. If I did do this, I would market the song well as a video, showing teasers of clips and scenes from the video, the story that’s told through the video and maybe a commentary from the cast/crew involved in making it.

As part of my development and preparation for my upcoming release, I have done a small amount of research into 2 different artists based in the Brighton or general UK area. I have put together a short case study for each of these artists. These 2 artists represent a vast range of artists and points of success, as well as a diverse selection of musical genres. My case studies range from to a (until recently) unsigned artist with a larger following(10k +), and an artist who started out independent but has since been signed on to a label.

This research will prove to be beneficial to my project as it will model an example for myself in my journey as an emerging artist, shining a light onto key aspects to consider. By analysing these artists I have made myself aware of more to consider when building a fan base and consistent listeners, such as my geographical fan base, attracting particular algorithms on social media, consistency and engagement with social media and fan interactions, as well as consistently keeping up with trends in the music industry. 

Overall, these case studies have provided me with valuable lessons on how to build a successful career online and effectively promote myself and my music as I continue to grow as an artist and songwriter. It has provided me with a structure that I can build from and interpret into my own career.

They offer chances to explore networking and to submit to playlists. This service is for free so worth a go for wider exposure. However, they do ask for mutual shares of playlists and follows on socials etc.

1. A developed artist Logo (still a WIP)

2. A collection of videos of my creative process over the last 10 weeks

3. Full recording and lyric sheet with chords to my first demo track (this will be used to develop into a single for the FMP)

4. I am in progress of writing to have a backlog of tracks and prepare for release as a potential EP.

   
   

I'd like to use this and Destinations to practice and explore techniques to develop a sound / aesthetic, one track release ready with supportive assets,

As well as some research into my estimated costs and my estimated timeline from beginning to release of my E.P.

Singer Songwriter, HAE - Mouthy, queer with a big dynamic voice and stories to share!

Sad Girl songs with an edge!

A cathartic writer, healing through the power of music - if you resonate - come join me!

Whilst this statement appears to be true, research shows that nearly 80% (78.4%) of artists on Spotify today – around 6.3 million of them – have a monthly audience on the platform smaller than 50 people (Ingham, 2022). This suggests that with quality, an informed understanding of my audience, strategies to connect and a high quality recording and performance can help you stand out from the crowd and perhaps get into the top 20 %. Although, we can argue that Spotify is not the underpinning of an artists career, but can be a great platform to be discovered and grouped with similar artists of a higher level.

Release Strategies 2024

Promote before release day - Research suggests I should approach the launch of my musical project as a significant event.

One effective method is to develop a release timeline to manage your essential tasks.

Bing sure to have consistent posts on my social media platforms leading up to my release date. A singular post may not provide enough notice for all of my followers to remember the release.

Instead, posting consistently before the launch is crucial to ensure that my audience is actively engaged with my new content on the day of release.https://blog.landr.com/releasing-music-2022/

One thing suggested to me the most was crowdfunding. i can use websites such as bandzoogle, kickstarter and indiegogo (Fellowes, 2018)