Today, Spotify announced our third quarter 2022 financial performance. Click here to review the full earnings release, and take a look at the highlights below:
Interested in hearing more? You can listen to the webcast Q&A on our Investor Relations site here.
Click below to check out a sizzle reel of audio trailers from a few of our recent original and exclusive podcasts.
Report your Live Performances here. This is required to reduce chances of loosing important royalties when performing live.
AR Evaluation
Our AR Team will send you a detailed report outlining strengths and weaknesses of your project along with tips and advice.
Please make sure you released at least 2 singles before submitting your request.
Verification Request
How do I get a verified profile on Social Media?
The verified badge appears next to a Facebook (IG, Tiktok) Page or account’s name in search and on the profile. It means Facebook has confirmed that an account is the authentic presence of the public figure, celebrity, or global brand it represents.
What are the requirements to apply for a verified badge?
We look at a number of factors when evaluating Facebook accounts to determine if they’re in the public interest and meet the verification criteria.
In addition to following Facebook’s terms of service, your account also needs to be:
Authentic: Your account must represent a real person, registered business or entity.
Unique: Your account must be the unique presence of the person or business it represents. Only one account per person or business may be verified, with exceptions for language-specific accounts. We don’t verify general interest accounts (example: Puppy Memes).
Complete: Your account must be public and have a bio, profile photo and at least one post. Your profile can’t contain “add me” links to other social media services.
Notable: Your account must represent a well-known, often searched person, brand or entity. We review accounts that are featured in multiple news sources, and we don’t consider paid or promotional content as sources for review.
Keep in mind that if you provide false or misleading information during the verification process, we will remove your verified badge and may take additional action to delete your account.
If your account doesn’t meet the criteria for a verified badge, there are other ways to let people know it’s authentic. For example, you can link to it from an official website, Instagram profile or Twitter account.
You can find your Pre-Save Links in your email account, they’ll automatically switch to SmartLink once your release is out.
Tip: if you can’t find it, search for emails with “You Pre-Save link for: SONG-TITLE” subject, having support@artists.sonomusic.co as sender.
The links are created automatically after you send us your music, so please be sure to check your email max 2/3 days after your Upload Music Form submission.
NOTE: Be sure to promote Pre-Save and SmartLinks as much as you can to gain more traction on your upcoming release.
Pre-Save and listen to your colleagues’ songs as well! This will help you reach Algorithmic and Editorial playlists, as well as helping us creating an audience that already interacted with your music.
Here you can submit your products for sale, adding them to the SONO Shop.
Create Merchandising
Fill in this form to start creating your own merchandising.
Sell Merchandising
Request Report & Invoice
Payout Requested.
Make sure you are eligible for payment and you requested Analytics Report too.
Invite SONO
Hello! Welcome on board.
We are now ready to start a journey together. Here few steps to follow to get the ball rolling.
1. Spotify
Invite SONO Music Group to Spotify for Artists
– If you have Admin access to a profile in Spotify for Artists, you can invite as many team members as you like.
– Log in to the Spotify for Artists web page.
– Open the side menu by clicking the three dots in the top-left.
– Click Manage team.
– Click INVITE in the top-right.
– To invite 1 team member, add their name (SONO) and surname (Music Group), business email address (ar@sonomusic.co), role (label), company (SONO Music Group), and choose their access level (administrator)
– Click SEND INVITE.
Note: It’s not possible to add team members on the Spotify for Artists mobile app.
– To ensure you claim the correctartistpage, copy and paste your iTunes Store artist page link to search. If you do not have a link to your artist page, you can also search for your artist page by artist name in the search field.
– Select one of your albums to verify you are claiming the correctpage.
– Choose your Role.
– Fill out the requested application fields. For faster verification, sign in to your social media, distributor, or Shazam for Artists accounts. The more information you are able to provide, the easierit will be to verify your relationship to the artist you are claiming.
– Once you’re in click on the 3 dots in the red circle on the right of your Artist name
– Click Invite and enter the email address ar@sonomusic.co you’d like to invite.
– Click Access and select the role you’d like to assign to this person.
– Select Role: Manager
– Click Save.
YouTube Tools
YouTube Video Release
To release your Videoclip through SONO, with the chance to be pitched into various DSPs Video Playlists, please Fill in the Upload Video Form on Forms Page. The services included are:
Amazon
Apple Music/ iTunes
Facebook (and IG) Video
Tidal
VEVO
YouTube
Fizy
Hungama
Mood Media
Nightlife Music
Tencent Music Entertainment
United Media Agency
Xite
If you’re releasing by yourself, please read the following guidelines:
The videoclip might be released at least 1 week after the audio release, in order not to spread your fans onto too many different platforms and to focus attention on your songs first.
Below the caption to add to your music video/lyric video when you upload it on YouTube. Add the missing info with yours.
Listen to “TITLE”, out now: SMARTURLS LINK (SONO will provide it)
If you’re willing to promote your video with Google ADS, upload your video 3/4 days before release and set up your promo on Google ADS, in order to prevent the Google bot to block your promotion before it would even started, compromising the first interactions and therefore a possible higher ranking on YouTube trends.
Sync
Click&Clear License Agreement
Have you ever thought to be paid for your music to be used as the soundtrack for Performance Sports worldwide?
Well, with SONO you can. Compile the form and we’ll be able to deliver your music to this service.
Social Media Made Easier: Content Planning for Musicians
You’ve decided how you want to brand yourself online. You’ve created your band’s social media pages. You’re posting regularly, and still, you’re not seeing results. The solution: content planning.
By putting all of your energy into posting new content without thinking about the big picture, you’re only getting half the job done. Instead, set marketing goals, create content in bulk, and utilize the (often free) social media management tools available online.
You’ll save yourself time, produce more effective marketing, and see the results you want to see for your band.
Before you hit share on one more video of your amazing new song, ask yourself: how is this post helping me achieve my goals?
The first step of social media content planning is determining what your goals are and what your measurements of success will be. Some goals you might have in mind include:
Building an audience: Modern music lovers cite social media platforms like Youtube, Twitter, and Tumblr as their primary sources for new songs. So the goal here would be to try to access broad, new audiences with your material appearing on various platforms.
Promoting concerts and events: Building your e-mail list is a tried and true tactic for event and tour promotion, and with a free membership on sites like Mailchimp, you can easily create and track campaigns.
Choose a primary goal or two, keeping in mind that building and connecting with your audience should always be a priority. Take a look at what’s coming up on your calendar and start content planning with the big picture in mind.
You’re not a social media marketing robot, so not every post has to be “on brand” or “results-driven,” and it’s really better if they’re not. Knowing your goals is an important overarching strategy, but don’t let it stand between you and making a real connection with your fans. Keep a fresh mix of goal-oriented content with personal posts and live updates.
Social media pros don’t capture organic, super-shareable moments. They create them. Not only does content planning result in better posts, it saves you the trouble of having to wait for the Instagram muse to strike.
Rather than creating content as it comes to you, use your time efficiently by:
Maximizing Video & Photoshoots: Next time you shoot a video for Youtube, shoot three. Schedule a day for your bandmates to take as many promotional pictures a possible. Bring changes of clothes and a variety of gear, and go shoot against a few different backdrops. Turn everyday practice into a photoshoot by asking a friend or bandmate to capture “behind the scenes” rehearsal shots. Stage a corner of your songwriting space for a moody Instagram photoshoot.
Writing Multiple Captions: For each photo, video, or link you want to share, write two or three captions. Even if you’re only adjusting your wording slightly, you’ll extend the use of your content. You can also compare the engagement across posts to see which copy was more successful with your audience.
Recycling Content: Don’t be afraid to reuse, it’s why the hive mind gave us #ICUMI. Keep in mind that some platforms, like Twitter and Pinterest, are better suited for re-posts than others.
There are plenty of social media planning tools, post schedulers, and content management sites, but the best free resources, in my opinion, are Hootsuite,Buffer and Later
With Hootsuite,you can schedule content for major platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and most recently, Instagram. There are also free analytics tools to track how your content is performing.
Buffer’s browser extension allows you to share and schedule what you come across while surfing. Buffer will schedule content for Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others.
You can’t plan everything, so be sure to read and respond to comments daily, share content with your followers and go off book every now and then. If you’re stuck, check out “Proven Content Ideas for the Musician’s Social Media Calendar” to help spark some inspiration!
Artist Branding
When it comes to building a memorable brand, it’s all about consistency.
When you’re shopping for your favorite cereal or coffee at the grocery store, you want to be able to spot it from a mile away.
The best brands stick in our brains because their presence is defined by the repetition of the same logo, fonts, colors, and images.
Once we see them enough, they become instantly recognizable, bringing us a clear sense of reliability and security.
Developing a consistent brand starts with creating a brand style guide. These branding rule books help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, community managers, and even product packaging departments all stay on the same page, and present a unified vision of the brand to the public.
We’ve compiled a list of some awesome brand style guides to use as inspiration for your next branding project or website redesign. Check them out below.
What are brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines, also known as a brand style guide, govern the composition, design, and general look-and-feel of a company’s branding. Brand guidelines can dictate the content of a logo, blog, website, advertisement, and similar marketing collateral.
Picture the most recognizable brands you can think of. Chances are, you’ve learned to recognize them because of the consistency across the messaging — written or visual — these brands broadcast. The same brand colors are reflected across them. The language sounds familiar. It’s all very organized and, while not rigid, it’s cohesive.
Here are a few types of guidelines you’d find in a brand style guide and which parts of a brand they can influence.
How to Create a Brand Style Guide
Mission Statement
By reputation, you might think a mission statement is in its own category of importance to a business. And it is. But your business’s mission statement is also compass for your brand style guide. A mission statement ensures every piece of content you create for your brand is working toward the same goal — and, ideally, strives to solve the same problem for your customer.
Your mission statement can guide your:
Blog content.
Paid/sponsored content
Ad copy.
Visual media.
Slogan or tagline.
Buyer Persona
By definition, a buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. It can include details related to your customer’s age, gender, job title, and professional challenges. For this reason, your buyer persona should also appear in your brand style guide. Your buyer persona is your target audience, and therefore stipulates for whom your brand publishes content.
Your buyer persona can guide your:
Blog content.
Ad copy.
Visual media.
Color Palette
A color palette is a group of colors a company uses to design its brand, and it guides every piece of visual content the brand creates. Your color palette can be as simple or as elaborate as you want, so long as your brand doesn’t deviate from the colors you choose to include.
Color palettes that feature multiple colors often dedicate specific colors to specific types of marketing content. While the first two colors of your color palette might govern your logo, for example, the next two colors might support your website and blog design. Another two or three colors might be the basis for all your printed branding material.
No matter what colors you use for your color palette, make sure you identify their HEX or RGB color codes. These codes consist of numbers and letters to help you recall the exact shade, brightness, contrast, and hue you want associated with your brand, so your colors don’t gradually drift in appearance as you create new content. You can find color codes using most photo-editing or design software that comes standard on your computer. Learn more about finding and committing to color codes in this blog post.
Your color palette can guide your:
Logo.
Website design.
Printed advertisings.
Event collateral.
Editorial Style Guide
Nowadays, an editorial style guide is the bread and butter of an authoritative brand. This component of your brand style guide can have strong implications for your PR team, as well as the people who write articles, scripts, blog posts, and website copy for your company.
An editorial style guide’s main job is to commit to an editorial stylebook (such as Associated Press or Chicago), how to phrase certain products, topics the brand can and cannot write about, and even other companies the brand can and cannot mention. However, a brand’s editorial style guide can also go into much deeper detail about your buyer persona: what they like to read about, where they read it, their general reading level, etc.
Your editorial style guide can guide your:
Blog content.
Video scripts.
Website copy.
Landing page copy.
Public relations talking points.
A knowledge base supported by your customer service team.
Paid/sponsored content.
Typography
Typography is another visual element of your brand style guide, but it isn’t just the font you use in your company logo. Typographic guidelines can support your blog design — which font you publish articles in — the links and copy on your website, and even a tagline to go with your company logo.
As you can see, the purpose of the brand style guide is to form and maintain all of the various elements of a company that, when combined, spell out the entire brand as it’s recognized.
Intrigued? Check out 21 of the best ones we could find.
Style Guide Examples
Medium
Wolf Circus Jewelry
Ollo
Skype
Barre & Soul
Spotify
Jamie Oliver
Herban Kitchen
Urban Outfitters
Love to Ride
Barbican
I Love New York
Cisco
University of the Arts Helsinki
NJORD
Espacio Cultural
Alienware
Netflix
Scrimshaw Coffee
NASA
New York City Transit Authority
1. Medium
Medium emphasizes both typography and color in its brand style guide. Its guide also include details related to the company’s “Purpose” and “Product Principles.”
Wolf Circus Jewelry’s product is all about appearance. Naturally, the company’s style guide is too. The brand’s style guide includes the company’s mission statement, product details, typeface, logo variations, a color palette, and a separate set of guidelines just for advertisements.
Ollo is so into color and typography, it turned its style guide into a game. Click the link below to see how much you can manipulate the brand. It’s the perfect way to show content creators how creative they can get but also still adhere to Ollo’s specific typeface and color codes.
Everyone’s favorite video chat platform also has a squeaky-clean style guide for its brand. Skype, now owned by Microsoft, focuses primarily on its product phrasing and logo placement.
Spotify’s style guide might appear simple and green, but there’s more to the brand than just a lime green circle. Spotify’s color palette includes three color codes, while the rest of the company’s branding guidelines focus heavily on logo variation and album artwork. The style guide even allows you to download an icon version of its logo, making it easier to represent the company without manually recreating it.
Jamie Oliver has an extremely thorough brand style guide, covering logo placement across all of its kitchenware products. The company also includes a large color palette with each color sorted by the product it should be shown on.
Herban Kitchen has both a color and texture palette in its style guide. These guidelines help to show not just how the brand’s logo will appear, but how the company’s various storefronts will look from the outside to potential customers.
Photography, color, and even tone of voice appear in Urban Outfitters’ California-inspired brand guidelines. However, the company isn’t shy to include information about its ideal consumer and what the brand believes in, as well.
Love to Ride, a cycling company, is all about color variety in its visually pleasing style guide. The company’s brand guidelines include nine color codes and tons of detail about its secondary logos and imagery.
Barbican, an art and learning center in the United Kingdom, sports a loud yet simple style guide focusing heavily on its logo and supporting typefaces.
Despite its famously simple t-shirts, I Love New York has a brand style guide. The company begins its guidelines with a thorough explanation of its mission, vision, story, target audience, and tone of voice. Only then does the style guide delve into its logo positioning on various merchandise.
Cisco’s style guide isn’t just a guide — it’s an interactive brand book. The company takes website visitors page by page through its brand’s vision, mission, strategy, and even its promise before showing users their logo and allowing them to actually type using their proprietary typeface, “CiscoSans.” Where’s Cisco’s color palette, you ask? The business has a separate webpage for just that.
The style guide of the University of the Arts Helsinki is more of a creative branding album than a traditional marketing guide. It shows you dozens of contexts in which you’d see this school’s provocative logo, including animations.
This cultural center in Argentina has a color palette that’s as elaborate as the artistic workshops it hosts. Nonetheless, the brand does a fantastic job of breaking down every last color code and logo placement you can find — from the building itself to the advertisements promoting it.
Video gamers know Alienware from its game-friendly computers, but the rest of the world knows it by the brand’s sleek aesthetic. The company organizes its brand style guide into four basic parts: voice, design, photography, and partner. The latter describes (and shows) how the brand interacts with partner brands, such as Star Wars.
As far as its public brand assets are concerned, Netflix is focused primarily on the treatment of its logo. The company offers a simple set of rules governing the size, spacing, and placement of its famous capitalized typeface, as well as a single color code for its classic red logo.
Featuring a five-code color palette, this “laid back,” “friendly,” and “modern” brand has a number of secondary logos it embraces in various situations.
NASA’s “Graphics Standards Manual” is as official and complex as you think it is. At 220 pages, the guide describes countless logo placements, color uses, and supporting designs. And yes, NASA’s space shuttles have their own branding rules.
Like NASA, the NYCTA has its own Graphics Standards Manual, and it includes some fascinating typography rules for the numbers, arrows, and public transit symbols the average commuter takes for granted every day.
Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place.
The new product launch is available in 20 countries:
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Hungary
India
Italy
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Check Your Eligibility
To check your Page’s eligibility for monetisation, go to creator studio > monetization > policy issues. Facebook will also not be taking a cut of your livestream earnings for at least the next year.
To set up paid online events, your Page and content will need to be in compliance with:
Creator Studio brings together all the tools you need to effectively post, monetise, track performance, interact with fans, and take actions across multiple Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts in one single place – simplifying the process of building and managing your video business.
Creator Studio also notifies you when you become eligible for new features and monetisation opportunities.
Create & manage video playlists across your Facebook pages and bulk upload videos to a single Facebook page.
Track Video & Monetisation Performance
Onboard eligible pages to new monetisation products, review monetisation insights, see your monetised videos, manage block lists and view payment-related statements.
Easily access your monetisation eligibility status and best practices.
View video performance insights and estimated earnings metrics aggregated for all of your pages.
Track your total followers, understand your returning viewers, see how long people are watching your videos and get distribution metrics for your content.
Simplify Engagement in One Place
Inbox makes it easy to manage correspondence in Messenger as well as comments and direct messages in Facebook & Instagram.
Manage Facebook Page Content On The Go
With the Creator Studio app, you can edit and delete Facebook posts, publish drafts, get actionable insights, respond to messages and comments and see important notifications.
Instagram Tips
Creating AR Effects
AR Effects on Instagram and Facebook are an increasingly important part of your artists’ marketing campaigns. To make the submission and approval process as smooth as possible for you, we’ve created a ‘Cheat Sheet’ for you to follow as you build these Effects.
Before You Submit Your Effect
Does Your Effect Have a Name and an Icon?
Does It Meet Spark AR Guidelines & Policies?
Did You Choose A Category For Your Effect?
Do you have a preview video of your Effect?
Does the Effect meet the frame rate guidelines and file size limits?
If your Effect is a mask, does it obscure facial expressions? (It shouldn’t!)
Did You Do A Final Check of Best Practices to Make Sure Your Effect Is Approved?
The Approval Process For Spark AR Effects
Effects submitted to both Facebook and Instagram are reviewed to make sure they follow:
Spark AR Review Policies
Spark AR and Frame Studio Terms
Facebook Community Standards (if submitting for FB)
Instagram Community Guidelines (if submitting for IG)
If your effect is approved, you will be notified on Facebook and in the Spark AR Hub.
If your effect is rejected, you will be notified and given the reason in the Spark AR Hub. You can edit your effect and submit again.
AR Effect Do’s & Don’ts
Submission
DON’T: Submit your Effect one day before you need it live, and then email your Facebook/Instagram contact requesting an expedited review.
DO: Want your effect to be ready by a certain date? Be sure to submit it for review at least TEN (10) Days prior to your desired date.
Text
If your Effect includes text:
DON’T: Place static text in the screen that does not respond to movements or sound
DO: Make sure your text either responds to movements through the use of face tracking OR is integrated and integral to the design of the Effect; e.g. it’s a timestamp on a camcorder simulation.
Logos
Want to put a Logo in your Effect?
DON’T: Make it static so that it does not respond to movements or sound
DO: Make sure the logo either responds to movements through the use of face tracking OR is integrated and integral to the design of the Effect
Availability
Want your Effect to go live on a specific date and time?
DON’T: Skip the “Location & Schedule” section of the upload process in Spark AR Hub
DO: Control the publication date and time of your effect and the length of time it’s available by adding scheduling details during the upload process.
Masks
Does your Effect include a face mask?
DON’T: Recreate a human face as the mask.
DO: Create an animated face or a caricature of a face as your Effect.
Video Tips
Premium Music Video
Introduction
Facebook uniquely enables people to connect with each other and engage with music videos in the same place that they watch them.
Fans will be notified when artists they follow release a new music video. People will also be able to discover videos based on what their friends are watching and by browsing our new music video destination on Facebook Watch.
Music videos provide a new way for fans to interact with their favourite artists on Facebook, see more of their content, and foster a deeper connection both with artists and likeminded fans. People can now watch and engage with music videos without ever leaving the Facebook platform.
PLEASE NOTE: You’ll need to submit your video on Upload Video form in Forms
Actions required of Artist’s Teams
Identify who on your team has admin access
Anyone with an Admin role on an artist’s Page can edit posts/PMVs, create ads, and view insights for that Page. Only the Admin Page role will give you the full functionality needed to manage PMVs.
A current Admin on the artist’s Page will need to grant you access and assign you a Page role via your personal Facebook account. Here are the steps they should follow:
Navigate to the artist Page and click Page Settings in the bottom-left corner.
Click Page Roles in the left-hand column.
Type a name or email address in the text box and select the correct profile.
Click Editor to select the “Admin” role from the dropdown menu.
Click Add and enter your password to confirm.
Opt in to PMVs on your roster’s Pages
Facebook will need approval to publish PMVs to an artist’s Page. Once approved, the artist’s full music video catalog will be published to the Music Videos section within the Videos tab on their Page. You must be a Page Admin to grant approval. If you or anyone else on your team has an Admin role on an artist’s Page, you’ll have the ability to edit PMV post text as well as other metadata.
Catalog videos will not be published to the artist’s Page timeline, but new posts will be automatically generated on their Page timeline for new releases.
Once an artist’s videos have been delivered to Facebook, anyone with an Admin role on the artist’s Page will be prompted to opt in to publishing PMVs on their Page. Page Admins will receive an email, a banner on the artist’s Page (visible only to you), and a profile notification that will all direct you to the PMV opt-in flow in Page Settings.
If you and/or your artist(s) take no action, their PMVs will live on a separate official music Page titled “[Artist Name] Official Music,” which will be created by Facebook. However these will not achieve the same level of reach to your audience as they aren’t distributed to your Page’s followers.
How To Opt In
If you’re an Admin on an artist’s Page, once the artist’s videos have been delivered via the supply chain or via manual upload (when available), you’ll receive the following communication from Facebook prompting you to opt in:
An email sent to the email address associated with your Facebook account
A pop-up banner on the artist’s Page
A profile notification
Click on any of the prompts to be directed to the Music Videos section of the artist’s Page Settings. You can also navigate to this section directly.
Once you land on the Music Videos section of the artist’s Page Settings, simply click the blue button titled “Add Music Videos to My Page” to opt in.
After clicking the “Add Music Videos to My Page” button, make sure you tick the box next to the “Automatically share all new music videos to your Page’s timeline” setting.
GIPHY
Apply For An Artist Channel
In order to have your personalised GIF Sticker to add to your Instagram stories please follow GIPHY guidelines below.
If you are a musician or recording artist, please apply for a brand channel here.
GIPHY Artist accounts are intended for artists who would like to create and distribute visual artwork via GIPHY. Once you’ve connected your GIPHY account, you’ll be able to see our application form! Here’s what you need to know before submitting your application. Please read carefully, applications are limited to one per GIPHY account.
Elevate Your GIF Game With GIPHY and Spotify’s New Music Feature
After searching GIPHY, an online database that contains billions of GIFs, stickers, and more, you’ve found it. You’ve spotted the perfect GIF. Now, it’s time to share it in your group chat so your friends can get a feel for your reaction—no words necessary.
No matter how you pronounce it, GIFs are the ultimate visual metaphor. And now, thanks to a partnership with Spotify and GIPHY, music can be part of the equation. We’re teaming up with GIPHY to enable new Spotify-linked artist GIFs. When users click the GIF on the verified GIPHY artists’ pages, they’ll be taken directly to the featured artist’s Spotify page for a listening session.
Users around the globe can find the feature on verified GIPHY artist pages and they can be experienced through both GIPHY’s web and mobile platform. Here’s how it works:
Search for artists’ GIFs on their official GIPHY channel via GIPHY.com or GIPHY’s mobile apps
Once on the artist’s official GIPHY channel, click on the GIF you’d like to use
Tap the “Listen on Spotify” button on any participating GIF
Users will be taken directly to the artist’s Spotify page, where they can listen and discover even more music from artists they love
If you need graphics for your social media, Spotify, Youtube covers you can purchase them here or make them yourself.
Plan your social media design strategy
The first step in social media design is to create your strategy (or review your existing one). Design should act as an enhancement to your content, facilitating the messages you want to get across, so it’s essential to first create a solid messaging strategy in order to perform well.
Evaluate the audiences for your current channels. You may already have already conducted target audience research for your overall brand strategy, but the audience for each social media channel will represent a specific segment or cross-section of your larger audience. In order to create the most effective social media design, understand who is currently following your content and what they are looking for. Make sure this is backed by target market research—conduct interviews, surveys, use the platform’s analytics to find demographic information, notate the feedback or comments your followers leave. Next, create user personas for your existing audiences in addition to new audiences you want to reach. Personas are important because it’s much easier to design content for a person than for facts and figures.
Choose the best platforms to reach your audiences. Social media is necessary for businesses, but that doesn’t mean every social media platform is necessary for every business. For example, recipes perform notoriously well on Pinterest, so while it makes sense for a food brand to invest heavily in that platform, it won’t be as important for, say, a home security brand. Research your many options for social media platforms, and decide on a few based on what is popular within your industry and with your audience. Assuming that you should only use the most popular platforms may lead you to miss out on social media apps with niche audiences that might be perfect for your brand.
Evaluate the types of content that perform best on those platforms. Narrowing the scope of your audience and social media channels will allow you to focus on the kinds of content to create and eventually how that content should be designed. Some of the types of content you can create will be set by the platform (Instagram favors imagery and video, Twitter favors short messages and clips). Each platform should have a how-it-works page that will explain the media constraints. Other types of content will be based on common user trends: although people have the ability to create videos and written messages on Facebook, many users use the platform to share article links. Spend some time reviewing user activity, paying close attention to your competitors, to get an idea of how to best use each channel.
List, brief and schedule your design assets
Make sure you catalogue all of the design assets you need for every platform and screen size.
Now that you have a better idea of your audience and the channels you’ll be using, you can start mapping out a design pipeline with a series of briefs. This, along with a content calendar, will help keep you organized through the design process. Make sure to document the following:
Upcoming content plans
The goal of the content
Intended audience
Competitor content examples
Design medium (photograph, video, illustration, animated gif)
Caption or text copy
Design references
Keep a reference of the content sizes and dimensions for each social media platform
A reference of social media content sizes and dimensions is must-have for any designer. This allows you to quickly size your canvases and to adapt designs across different platforms. Social media sizes tend to change now and again, so be sure to update this list regularly.
Develop Your Logo’s Layout on a Free Design Platform
Pick Versatile Color Options
Choose a Font
Ensure Scalability
How to Design a Business, Company, or Personal Logo
Designing a logo that embodies your brand can help you grow better, but doing it right is just as important. Here’s how to design the perfect logo, step-by-step.
1. Start With Your Story
Companies are created to make money — it’s not the most poetic statement, but it’s the one you need to start with. And in order to make a profitable business, you need to be able to sell yourself just as well as your product. Marketers today tend to agree that buyers connect much more strongly to stories than they do to the basic facts of your product. What does this mean to you? There needs to be some story in your logo.
Before you even think about what this logo will look like, take some time asking yourself what the story behind your company is. When we look at Coca-Cola, we don’t see a brown, carbonated beverage — we see polar bears and thick, white script letters.
Step outside of what your company does and convey why you do it. That “why” is the root of your story, and it should come through in the color, shape, and typeface of your logo. If your logo were the title of a movie, what would it look like?
2. Brainstorm Words That Describe Your Brand
Now that you have your story, it’s time to take your logo draft from story to setting. Open Thesaurus.com and enter a term that best describes your product into the search bar.
For example, if you’re in the clothing industry, you might simply type in “clothing.” You’d be surprised by how descriptive the synonyms are that appear. You can even click these results to start new searches and dig deeper as you zero in on the words that best capture your brand.
Find five to 10 words that describe not only what you do, but the why from the previous step. Each of these words can fit like pieces in a puzzle and help guide you to refining a concept.
3. Sketch Ideas Based on These Words
Armed with your why and a few keywords for direction, grab a pencil and paper and start sketching every idea that comes into your head. Allow each new concept to evolve on its own. Don’t get frustrated if the first few aren’t right — keep refining, using previous sketches to influence the outcome of new ones. You might focus these sketches on a shape, the name of your brand, or both.
As you’re sketching the concepts for your logo, keep these tips in mind:
Keep the shape simple. If you can sketch the most symbolic components in seven seconds or less, you’re in good shape. You should absolutely avoid any popular clip-art artwork or generic symbols like a globe, star, or similar icons that people too easily identify from other places. These are easily forgotten at first glance. The more creative you are at this stage, the better your final logo. Your logo is what your consumers will remember the most. Be honest in this artwork.
Colors can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. You need to include color with your logo, but be selective on which colors you use. Be mindful of current color trends already being used today and in your target market. As a general rule, don’t choose more than three colors. Choose a color or group of colors that will make you stand out from your competition. But please, for the love of marketing, don’t use the whole rainbow!
4. Test Your Top Sketches With Your Buyer Persona
Once you’ve got a handful of different sketches on paper, take a step back and pick the top three concepts. Don’t think too hard about this — consider the designs your eyes keep going back to, and select them to show to others.
Share these drafts with your friends, family members, and a colleague you trust. If possible, bring these sketches to someone who best fits your buyer persona — or your ideal customer profile. This gives you the most productive opinion on your artwork because it can indicate how customers will receive your brand — not just the people close to you.
Be prepared for honest feedback and don’t take any negative comments personally. These criticisms will only make your final logo better. Use their feedback to select one final concept to develop into a design.
5. Refine Your Chosen Sketch
Congratulations, you’re well on your way to having an awesome logo! Once you’ve identified a sketch to run with, it’s time to refine it and perfect the story you started with in Step 1.
To begin refining your logo, look back at the terms you identified when you first used Thesaurus.com in Step 2. Now look at your chosen sketch and ask yourself: Which terms does this sketch not yet capture? Use them to develop your sketch further, and add back the traits you liked best about the designs you didn’t end up choosing for refinement.
6. Develop Your Logo’s Layout on a Free Design Platform
Now, it’s time to get technical and turn your paper drawing into a usable digital format. To bring this design to life, you have many free design platforms available to recreate your sketch in digital format. Here are a few free solutions:
The platforms above can help you put your sketched logo in digital format, but bringing your concept to life for a business audience requires a bit of technical direction. One of the most important things to get right is the layout. Make sure all of your text and shapes are perfectly spaced and the logo itself is aligned with its surroundings.
Your logo doesn’t have to be symmetrical, but it should be aligned in different contexts. Chances are, you will encounter situations when your logo sits against different vertical and horizontal borders, and it should appear even with these surroundings no matter how you might repurpose your logo and where you might publish it.
7. Pick Versatile Color Options
Your logo’s color scheme might look great against the color of the canvas on which you designed it, but eventually, your logo will be placed on backgrounds whose colors you didn’t start with.
Let’s revisit our Coca-Cola example from Step 1. As you can see below, the company’s logo can work across any colored can it sells.
Always be sure to have logo color variations for both dark and light backgrounds. That might mean only having to change the color of your font. Or, in some cases, you might have to change the color of your entire logo.
Create one of each option to make sure you’re prepared when ordering promotional products that will display your logo. T-shirts, stickers, notepads, and coffee mugs are just a few of the many items for which you’ll have different color variations of your logo.
8. Choose a Font
This is the time to combine text with imagery. If you’re chosen sketch is primarily a shape or symbol, rather than text, begin to factor in the written name of your company. Consider the typeface this text will carry if your company name ever stands on its own without the symbol.
Believe it or not, your font choice can say a lot about your business. You can choose a font that’s either serif (with stems on each letter) or sans serif (no stems) — also known as classic or modern, respectively.
Stay away from generic fonts that come standard on every word processor. Some examples of generic fonts are Times New Roman, Lucida Handwriting, and Comic Sans. These fonts will only work against you and your company by making you less memorable.
9. Ensure Scalability
Logos are meant to represent your company on multiple platforms — in print, on your website, on each of your social media business pages, and across the internet as your business grows. You want a logo that can be blown up super large for a billboard, but also scaled down for screening onto the side of a pen.
Every part of your logo should be legible, regardless of the logo’s size.
Whew — still with us? We know this might seem a little overwhelming, but take it slow and don’t rush yourself. It’s better to follow the process through to completion and end with a remarkable brand than to start over a few months later due to a design error or change of heart.
Hang on… There’s still one more important step! And it’s just as creative as the rest of your workflow: Your song, album or mixtape cover art.
It makes sense—you spend enough time honing your music and probably don’t have time to become a Photoshop wiz too.
We put together this quick guide on how to create your album/song cover online for free — including where to find free photos, album cover templates and how to use online photo editors to make it your own.
1. Start with free images
The first step is finding royalty free images to work with. Just like audio samples, your album artwork has to be copyright cleared to use.
Many free image resources provide royalty free photos that you can download, edit, remix, chop up and mix to make album artwork that’s all your own.
Here’s some royalty free image resources:
Canva
Canva goes way beyond a simple stock photo resource (but it’s that too). It’s also a full featured editing suite to edit your images, add text, change fonts and basically do all the stuff you need to do before you release.
Their free online album cover maker will get you started on the right foot when it comes to adding visuals to your release.
Use any of the photos or layout templates for free, anytime. Just signup with your email for access (more than worth it for what they offer).
Free Images
Just like the URL says, Free Images is a giant site of over 600,000 (you guessed it) free images.
Browse by collection or keywords to find the perfect image.
Note: Some of the images included are from the paid service iStock, but a lot of the search results are free to use and cleared to go without paying any fees.
Free Photos
Free Photos bundles photos from several other free photo resources all in one place to make browsing and finding the right image quick and simple.
Like every other resource on this list, the images on Free Photos are 100% royalty-free for personal or commercial use.
Take the time to find the right visual and tweak it to make it your own.
Stocksnap
Stocksnap provides another extensive database of high-quality images all covered under the CC0 license.
Which means they’re all good to go for your album art.
Find all kinds of album art inspiration via search, tags, or categories, edit them to fit your vision and you’re ready to go.
Pxhere
Pxhere is another CC0 stock photo gallery great for finding starting points for your album art.
Search by tag or keyword, or if you’re really stuck use the helpful random tool to generate some ideas to get you started.
2. Edit your image to make it your own
Your album art is the visual representation of your music on all streaming platforms and stores, so you need to take time to make it unique.
Your album art needs to represent you and your music. Don’t just settle for the first raw image you find.
Every image from each of these resources isn’t just free to download, they’re free to edit too… So edit them!
Submit your VEVO video via the Upload Video Form in FORMS (at least 2 weeks prior to release date).
You need at least 3 songs released with SONO in order to be eligible for a VEVO channel.
HD video spec:
Compression Type: H.264
File Format: .mov or .mp4
Dimensions: 1920×1080. Note: 16:9 and 4:3 are preferred aspect ratios. Providing alternate aspect ratios risks letterboxing, scaling and stretching of content to fit target aspect rations.
Frame Rate: Minimum 29.97 fps (preferred) or higher.
Bit Rate: We recommend that you restrict your video bitrate to a minimum of 24mb/s. This will help you cut down on file size, lengthy encoding, exporting and file transfer times. Bit Rate should not exceed 50mb/s.
File must be de-Interlaced (Please, no interlacing)
Multi-pass encoding is recommended, but not required.
Please export all encodes using Compressor or Quicktime. We cannot support editing program artifacts such as “edit lists” or “zero offsets” embedded in the files.
Do not send anamorphic content. All content display and pixel aspect ratios should be the same.
Do not include front or end slates (displaying metadata), title or end cards, bars and tones, etc.
Audio
Format: AAC
Channels: Stereo (L R)
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
Bit Rate: 320 kbps CBR
4K video spec:
Compression Type: H.264
File Format: .mov or .mp4
Dimensions: 3840×2160. Note: 16:9 and 4:3 are preferred aspect ratios. Providing alternate aspect ratios risks letterboxing, scaling and stretching of content to fit target aspect rations.
Frame Rate: Minimum 29.97 fps (preferred) or higher.
Bit Rate: We recommend that you restrict your video bitrate to a minimum of 24mb/s. This will help you cut down on file size, lengthy encoding, exporting and file transfer times. Bit Rate should not exceed 50mb/s.
File must be de-Interlaced (Please, No Interlacing)
Multi-pass encoding is recommended, but not required.
Please export all encodes using Compressor or Quicktime. We cannot support editing program artifacts such as “edit lists” or “zero offsets” embedded in the files.
Do not send anamorphic content. All content display and pixel aspect ratios should be the same.
Do not include front or end slates (displaying metadata), title or end cards, bars and tones, etc.
Audio
Format: AAC
Channels: Stereo (L R)
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz or 48 kHz
Bit Rate: 320 kbps CBR
Press
How to write a music press release
MAKE IT EASY FOR THE RECIPIENT
This overshadows just about every other point I’m going to make.
It’s important to understand that music bloggers could receive hundreds (or more) emails and press releases in a single day. So get to the point quickly, make sure all the essential info is easy to read, recognise and reach with one or two clicks.
If they’re interested in your news, some busy music bloggers may simply copy and paste chunks of your press release into a new post without even contacting you, so keep this in mind too when you come to write it.
GRAB THEIR ATTENTION WITH THE SUBJECT LINE
An exciting, interesting, irresistible subject line can be the difference between your email getting opened or ignored.
Generally, Awesome Band Releases New Single is not a compelling subject line. But you can make it interesting by adapting your pitch.
Are you heading out on tour? Supporting a well-known band? Does your track tackle a thought-provoking issue? Do you have an interesting music video? Have you collaborated with any well-known artists or producers? Make your subject line memorable enough to grab the receiver’s attention and compel them to read it.
Make sure your email stands out in a crowded inbox.
DON’T SEND ATTACHMENTS
Downloading attachments from someone you don’t know is risky, so in many cases, your email might simply be deleted if any files are attached.
Rather than attaching it, copy your press release into the body of the email and include links to your tracks on a well-known streaming platform (Soundcloud, YouTube, Spotify).
If your music isn’t officially out yet, don’t attach an MP3 file. Instead, create a private Soundcloud link or unlisted YouTube video so you can share it with a select number of people in advance of your release date.
You can create a private Soundcloud link by selecting ‘private’ on the Basic Info tab of the platform’s track uploader. The orange padlock indicates that the track is private.
Alternatively, it’s easy to set up an unlisted YouTube video. Just select ‘unlisted’ when uploading your vid.
INCLUDE LINKS TO YOUR WEBSITE, PRESS SHOTS & SOCIALS
Remember, it’s all about making it easy for the person receiving your press release. Did I mention that?
So, make sure to include direct links to your social media pages, website and a folder of press shots. That way, bloggers don’t need to spend their time searching for you online to tag you in posts or find a decent picture of you for their featured image. It’s worth setting up a Dropbox or Google Drive link with all of your essential assets – pictures, logos and a longer artist bio.
ADD A PERSONAL TOUCH
This isn’t a universal rule, but sometimes adding a brief, personal message to the email above your press release is a nice way to engage and build a potential relationship with the recipient. It doesn’t need to be an essay, just a quick hello, perhaps including their name and the title of their blog to show you’re genuinely aware of who you’re emailing.
MUSIC PRESS RELEASE TEMPLATE
Personal touch (Optional)
Hi [Blogger Name], I think this/my band would fit great on [Site Name]. Hope you get chance to check them/us out.
Heading, Image & Music
Awesome Band announces Cool Band support slot and debut release.
**Main Press Shot**
Listen here // Watch here // Get tickets
Paragraph 1 – The pitch
This is where you should get the main point across, elaborate on your heading and let the reader know the specifics.
Paragraph 2 – Important info
Here’s your chance to add a little more colour and show why your music should be featured. Explain your new release, tour or other news in more detail and let the reader know why this is worth their time.
Paragraph 3 – Artist bio
Let the reader know a little more about you with a brief bio and overview of your music, history, influences, style etc.
Paragraph 4 – Endorsements / quotes
“This is the best band ever” Joe Blogs, Music Mag
“I really love this band, honest” Jane Journo, Another Music Mag
You could also include a direct quote from yourself or the artist here about the music, upcoming tour or any other focus of the press release.
Sign off – Contact details / Website, press kit & social links
Please contact awesomeband@gmail.com for interviews, guest list and further info.
For campaigns where you are looking to grow your audience via TikTok, the first recommendation is to set-up a profile for the artist and start posting video content to the platform on a regular basis.
Establish Yourself
Create your profile with a recognisable handle and image and link your account to Twitter & YouTube.
Define Your Strategy
Engage with the platform as a user and embed yourself within the community. Find your main creative focus before you start engaging with influencers.
Create A Regular Schedule
Stay at the top of the feed with regular videos.
Use the correct hashtags and take part in as many challenges as you can to grow your following.
Engage With Your Audience
Watch, react and engage with users’ content to build a deeper connection & get your profile in front of more people.
Collaborate with other creators/users using the duet feature.
Switch to a PRO Account
What is a PRO account?
Pro accounts are accessible to all users and can be enabled directly on each profile via the TikTok App. Enabling this provides access to analytics for all of your posts via the settings page.
Similar to Instagram Creator accounts, the TikTok analytics dashboard can show you insights into your overall audience and performance of your content.
In order to convert your TikTok profile to a Pro account, follow these steps.
1. Open App, go to “Me”
2. Click the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner (this brings you to settings).
3. Click “Manage My Account”
4. Navigate to the bottom of the screen and select “Switch to Pro Account.”
5. Follow all the prompts to complete the process…
Useful Information
The analytics will start recording the data after you’ve switched to a PRO account and won’t display any historic data
You’ll need to wait up to 7 days for your account to generate enough data to start displaying insights
Tip: publish as much TikTok content as possible during this period so you can get deeper insights
3 main categories of analytics
Profile overview
shows how well your profile is performing overall
includes total video views, profile views & follower count
Tip: use the profile overview data to interpret a funnel of users, starting with people who begin to consume your content through to those who become engaged followers. This allows you to estimate your conversion rate from your total videos views to users who visit your profile and the conversion rate of those who actually followed your profile. This will help you prepare an effective content strategy.
Content insights
total views of each video from the past 7 days
reveals which of your videos have been trending on the For You page and total number of views those videos have accrued throughout the process
Tap on the post thumbnail to open it’s unique dashboard for analytics per post for total likes/comments/shares, play time, video views, average watch time, traffic source types and audience territories.
Tip: compare the territory engagement for individual posts to your overall audience territories in the followers tab. If different forms of content resonate with new audiences from different locations, double down on creating similar content in those territories.
Follower insights
A top-line view of your audience demographics
gender split and % breakdown of your audience by location
Best practices corner
The Basics
Consistent username across all platforms
Short and relevant description. Make sure it’s obvious to users that you’re an artist
Connect to your Instagram & YouTube channel
Get a Pro Account
The ideal runtime for a video is 10-17 seconds.
What’s Important
Consistency
Authenticity
Community integration
Personality, people don’t want a sales pitch
Content Strategy
Native content
Not overly-produced (but good lighting is a must!)
Grow your artists profile with a combination of influencer collabs, ads and your consistent & creative content strategy
Use your music and the songs you love to create engaging and original videos. Think about all the aspects of your work, from shooting behind the scenes to events, shows and recording sessions.
Users love authentic and personal videos so share a moment of your life and what you’re passionate about.
Your personality and creativity is what keeps users coming back to your content. A sense of humour can help showcase your unique perspective. Tiktok has an incredible, diverse community that
reinterpret and embrace trends and challenges. Give users the flexibility to repackage your content through their own unique lens.
Every video has an opportunity to go viral on TikTok, without having to worry about posting schedules or cadences. One amazing video per day beats multiple average attempts.
You never know which types of content will resonate with your audience, so be sure to experiment. We encourage a mix of original concepts, trends, challenges, and incorporating popular sounds.
True success comes from actively using the platform and understanding the community. Be sure to use the app as an individual, and build from there.
Participate in trending and upcoming hashtags and campaigns. Find them on the Discover page, in newsletters for TikTok Creators and official TikTok accounts: @tiktok, @tiktok_UK, @tiktok_(your country)
Encourage viewers to watch more. Mention that you’re on TikTok on other platforms (IG, YT etc). Share your TikTok videos on other
platforms. React to and engage with comments from followers.
Collaborate and Co-create. Follow and collaborate with other popular creators and artists and expand your network.
Vertical & Mobile First. All videos should be shot or edited for vertical viewing on mobile to embrace the full-screen and authentic experience.
Organic Before Paid. Establish your profile and content strategy before reaching out to us to organise a TikTok influencer campaign.
Amazon Music for Artists is available on both web and mobile.
Once the app is open, you will be directed to sign-in using an Amazon retail account.
If you do not have an Amazon retail account, you will need to create one in order to continue going through the sign-up and artist claim flow.
To claim an artist:
– Search and select any artist
– Press Claim This Artist
– Fill out the requested application fields. Amazon also provide the option for anyone to connect with their artist’s social media accounts for faster verification
– The more information you are able to provide, the easier it will be to verify your relationship to the artist you are claiming
Adding a team-member:
– Anyone with either Owner or Admin access can add another person to their team by navigating to Settings in the upper right hand of the app from any artist page
– From there, select “Manage Team Members” and click on “Add Team Member”
– You’ll be promoted to enter the invitee’s information including name, email, and assign level of app access (Admin or Viewer)
If accessing Amazon Music for Artists on iOS/Android:
– Select the artist you want to manage
– Tap the Profile icon in the bottom right hand corner
– Under Profile & Tools, customize both your Profile Photo and Background Image using their respective edit buttons
– Choose image
– Resize your image to look your best
– Tap Save
If accessing Amazon Music for Artists via web browser:
– Select the artist you want to manage
– Click Profile & Tools under Artist Tools in the left side bar
– Under Profile Details, customize both your Profile Photo and Background Image using the editing tools
– Choose Image
– Resize your image to look your best
– Click Save
To link your Twitch channel, login to Amazon Music for Artists followed by:
– Click on Profile & Tools within your artist account
– Select Connect your Twitch Channel
– Sign-in using your Twitch credentials to authorize Twitch livestreams in the Amazon Music streaming app
– If you do not have a Twitch account, click About and Get Started with Twitch
– Please note it may take up to 3 hours to connect your channel.
Amazon Music's Service Tiers
Amazon Music’s service is broken down into several tiers. These are broken down below:
1. Amazon Music Unlimited
– A paid service similar to Apple Music or Spotify Premium. Amazon Music Unlimited offers on-demand access to 70 million songs, ad-free. This premium service includes offline listening with unlimited skips, popular new releases, and an even wider variety of hand-curated playlists and stations. Eligible Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers may upgrade to Amazon Music HD for no extra cost.
2. Amazon Music HD
– Amazon Music HD offers 70 million lossless, uncompressed CD-quality tracks and over 7 million Ultra HD tracks.
– HD tracks have a bit depth of 16-bits and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. HD tracks support bitrates up to double that of MP3 (48kbps to 320kbps), meaning HD includes music that are “CD Quality”.
– Ultra HD (or UHD) tracks have a bit depth of 24 bits and a sample rate of 44.1 or higher, up to 192 kHz. UHD represents the highest quality sound available, and supports bitrates that can go more than ten times higher than MP3 files.
– This service is currently available in US, UK, DE, JP, CA, ES, FR, AT.
3. Prime Music
– More than 2 million songs (curated by Amazon Music’s editorial team) are available as part of a Prime membership at no additional cost, including thousands of stations and top playlists.
4. Amazon Music Free
– Amazon Music also offers an ad-supported tier of 2 million songs, providing free streaming to anyone using the Amazon Music app on iOS, Android, Fire TV and Amazon Music on the web in the US, UK, and Germany.
– This is effectively the same catalog that comes with Prime, only it includes advertising and doesn’t require a membership.
Update Artist Image, Banner, Image Gallery
Images you are able to edit:
Avatar image: Your image in search results and the Spotify mobile app.
Header image: The cover image at the top of your profile in the Spotify desktop app.
Image gallery: Images in the About section of your profile.
For best results Spotify recommends:
– .jpeg or .png Image format
– A minimum of 2660px x 1140px size
– File size below 20MB
– Artist’s face in the middle of the image for circle cropping
– No text, branding or advertising.
– No promoting your social media links or releases.
Avatar Image:
– Go to Profile
– Click the pencil icon in the top-right
– Under Avatar image, click UPDATE
Note: Search images normally take 24 – 72 hours to update.
Header Image:
– Log in to artists.spotify.com
– Go to Profile
– Click the pencil icon in the top-right
– Under Header image, click UPDATE
Image Gallery:
Add, remove, or reorder images in your image gallery. You can add up to 125 images.
Web browser
– Go to Profile
– Click ABOUT
– Click the pencil icon next to Image gallery
App
– Tap the profile icon in the bottom-right
– Scroll down to About
– Tap EDIT next to About
Access: Spotify for Artists
Start here: artists.spotify.com
Spotify for Artists lets you:
– See your audience stats
– Promote your music
– Manage your artist profile
When an artist profile is claimed, a blue verification check mark will appear next to the artist name on Spotify.
Claiming before your first release goes live?
Ask your SONO contact for your artist link or URI. It’ll start spotify.com/artist or spotify:artist.
When you claim your artist profile, paste your artist link or URI in the “What profile are you claiming?” page.
Artist Pick
Artist Pick lives at the top of your artist profile.
Use Artist Pick to showcase:
– Any song, album, or playlist
– Your concerts
– Podcast shows or individual episodes
You can personalize your Pick with an image and short message.
Note: You can’t add a podcast as your Artist Pick in the Spotify for Artists mobile app.
Tip: When possible, your Artist Pick shouldn’t be your artist’s latest release, instead try posting an Artist Playlist featuring the latest release at the top of the playlist
Remember:
– An Artist Pick shows for up to 14 days
– After 14 days, your Pick disappears (but you can update it any time)
– If Artist Pick shows a tour, it displays until the day after the last show
Step by step:
– Log in to Spotify for Artists
– Go to Profile
– Select + under Artist Pick
Tip: If you can’t find what you’re looking for, paste a link from the Spotify app.
Artist Playlists
Artist Playlists are a great way to showcase your artist’s personality and tastes during any given campaign. It’s also a great way to feature a latest release (see Artist Pick section).
You can feature any playlist on an artist profile including an official Spotify playlist your music’s been added to.
Step by step:
– Make the playlist in your personal account using the Spotify app
– Add playlists to your profile
Add playlists to your profile:
Web browser:
– Go to Profile
– Click the pencil icon next to Artist Playlists
– Search for the playlist or paste a Spotify link
App:
– Tap the profile icon in the bottom-right
– Next to Artist Playlists tap EDIT
– Tap + Add Playlist
– Search for the playlist or paste a Spotify link
Note: Spotify currently does not verify (see: blue check mark) user accounts
Note: The playlist will show your personal account and link to it. You can add a display name on your account to match your artist name.
Release Radar
Release Radar is a playlist of new releases that updates every Friday. It’s an excellent source for early streams, especially if the Artist has a significant Follower count.
Listeners get new music from:
– Artists they follow
– Artists they listen to
– Other artists dictated by Spotify’s algorithm
Your followers get songs from your new release in their Release Radar.
Please note:
– Spotify will not include a song in a listener’s Release Radar if they’ve already listened to it (but another song from the release may get included)
– Only songs where you’re a main or featured artist (not remixer) are included
– Song’s by Various Artists are not eligible for Release Radar
– Re-releases of songs already on Spotify are not included
– Each listener only gets one song per artist per week
– Spotify will include a song for up to 4 weeks if a listener hasn’t heard it
Merch
When it comes to showing merch on an artist profile, Spotify has partnered with Merchbar to facilitate this.
To show merch on your artist profile, you need to list it on Merchbar.
If your team or merch company already has a partnership with Merchbar, ask them to make your merchandise available.
You can list up to 3 products from Merchbar on a Spotify artist page. If you have more than 3 products on Merchbar, your artist profile shows the top 3 products based on fan interactions, purchases, and product availability.
Add an Artist Fundraising Pick to your profile to raise funds from fans on Spotify. Fundraise for yourself, your crew and team, or causes and organizations you support.
Note: Spotify does not take a cut from any money raised.
Adding a Fundraising Pick:
– Log in to artists.spotify.com
– Go to Profile
– Under Artist Fundraising Pick, click + Get support directly from fans
– Fill in the Fundraising Pick submission form and click AGREE AND SUBMIT
Editing or removing a Fundraising Pick:
– Log in to artists.spotify.com
– Go to Profile
– Click the pencil icon next to Artist Fundraising Pick
To show your concerts on Spotify, they need to be listed on one of Spotify’s ticketing partner sites:
– Ticketmaster
– Songkick
– Resident Advisor
– Eventbrite
– AXS
– StageIt
– NoCap
– Mandolin
– nugs.net
– Eplus (Japan only)
Note: use the Artist Pick function to create visibility gigs and tours!
For Virtual Events: only virtual events listed on Ticketmaster, Songkick, StageIt, NoCap, Mandolin, and nugs.net.
All concert listings need to include:
– At least 1 artist name
– Start time
– Venue name
– Event name
Spotify will also list festivals. Make sure your artist is linked to the festival on the ticketing partner site. Events with fewer than 6 artists show the artist names as the event title instead of the festival name. Multi-day festivals show the first day as the event date (e.g. a festival running Friday to Sunday shows as a Friday event).
Artists can claim their Apple Music for Artist profile page to upload and change the profile photos associated with the artist page for Apple Music and iTunes as well as gained access to a variety of stats across Apple Music and Shazam.
How to claim an artist page in the iOS app:
– Sign in to the Apple Music for Artists app with your Apple ID
– Download the Apple Music for Artists app, or create an Apple ID if you have not already
– Tap Request Artist Access, and copy and paste your iTunes Store artist page link to search. To find the link to your artist page, input your artist name in the search field
– Select one of your albums to ensure you are claiming the correct page
– Choose your role, then fill out the requested application fields
– For faster verification, sign in to your social media accounts. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to verify your relationship to the artist
How to claim your artist page on the web:
– Sign up for Apple Music for Artists and create an Apple ID if you have not already
– Click Request Artist Access, and copy and paste your iTunes Store artist page link to search. To find the link to your artist page, input your artist name in the search field
– Select one of your albums to ensure you are claiming the correct page
– Choose your role, then, fill out the requested application fields.
– For faster verification, sign in to your social media accounts. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to verify your relationship to the artist
How to check your application:
– When your artist claim is in review, you will see the status ”Pending” in Apple Music for Artists. You will receive updates regarding your application via email.
Next steps:
Manage access to your page
– It’s up to the Artist’s team to review all additional access requests for your label reps, management, and others who might work on projects with you. Artists and artist managers with Administrator access are responsible for reviewing additional access requests.
If you are a label representative looking to join an artist’s Apple Music for Artists profile, work directly with your artist to review your request. Requests will expire after 30 days if artists or artist managers take no action.
Shazam
Shazam data is incorporating into Apple Music for Artists.
By seeing how listeners discover your music in all parts of the world, you can plan social media activity, promotions, and even live shows to connect with your growing audience.
How to see your Shazam data:
– If you have a song that’s been Shazamed, Apple Music for Artists will incorporate that data throughout your artist profile.
– In the Overview section, you can view key metrics such as Shazam Insights and Top Shazams.
– Trends show detailed demographics about your Shazam listeners. In contrast, Places show which countries or regions Shazam you the most.
Charting on Shazam:
– A Shazam chart will appear in your artist profile when you have a top Shazam track in a country, region, or city. The chart data updates every 24 hours and will display your track’s position and movement on the chart in a given country, region, or city in the last seven days.
– Select a specific song to see every country, region, or city chart that the track appears. To see the Top Charts for your Top Songs, click See All in the Charting on Shazam section of Overview of Your Music.
Trending on Shazam:
– When your music is trending on Shazam, we’ll send you a weekly Trending on Shazam email with your highlights. For more detailed information about this email, review how to control your communications.
When does a Shazam count toward my songs?
– Whenever someone Shazams your songs, you will see it counted as a Shazam in your Apple Music for Artists profile.
Because Shazam listens to a piece of audio from a song to recognize it, there may be times when that piece of audio happens to be identical to one from a different version of the same song. For example, an original version of a song and a remix version of that same song, often include audio pieces that are the same. In these cases, the Shazam will count toward the version of your song that is determined to be the best match, which is why you may see variations in the number of Shazams across different versions of the same tracks.
Apple will process the Shazam data shown in Apple Music for Artists and the Shazam app on different systems and schedules. For this reason, you may see a difference in the Shazams shown on the Apple Music for Artists dashboard when compared to the Shazam app.
Update Artist Image
If you have access to your Artist’s Apple Music for Artists profile, you can update the profile image following the steps and criteria below.
If you do not have access to Apple Music for Artists, please contact your FUGA rep who can assist you.
Step by step:
– Open Apple Music for Artists and navigate to the Manage tab
– In the section labeled Artist Image, you can upload a new image
– Once the image is uploaded, you can adjust, crop, and select how it will appear on the service
– When finished, select Submit
Note: Your image won’t appear changed because there is a manual approval process for new changes in place. Changes typically take a few days to process. Once you see “Submitted for Review”, you know the process is underway.
For best results Apple Music recommends:
– .jpeg or .png Image format
– A minimum of 2400px x 2400px
– Aspect Ratio of 1:1
– RGB color space
– 72dpi
– File size below 20MB
– Keeping Artist’s face in the middle of the image for circle cropping
– No text, branding or advertising
– Not promoting social media links or releases
Note: Don’t scale up your artwork if it’s smaller than the required size, this will only distort the image quality.
Note: “Artist Banners” are a feature reserved for “featured artists” only at this time.
Pre-Adds
If you are scheduling an album campaign in the immediate future, please consider a Pre-Add on Apple Music.
Available with just a tap, Apple Music pre-adds allows fans and listeners to add music from an upcoming release to their library or playlists without missing a beat. Pre-adders are notified the moment your album is available, allowing them to stream and share your music immediately.
If you need assistance setting up a Pre-Add, contact SONO support who can work with you to ensure your songs meet the pre-add specifications for Apple Music.
Access: Deezer Creators
Start here: creators.deezer.com
Deezer Creators lets you:
– See your audience & catalogue stats
– Manage your artist profiles
Create your profile by following the steps using the attached guide.
New artist / first release profile update?
You can request an initial first change using the Artist Profile Update form under the Forms section.
If you cannot locate your artist profile on the request use the artist ID number displayed in your Deezer URL (example: https://www.deezer.com/en/artist/1234567)
Note: remember to use “support@fuga.com” as your distributor email.
Update Artist Profile
For best results Deezer recommends:
– .jpeg or .png image format
– 1200x1200px minimum
– File size below 9MB
– Artist’s face in the middle of the image for circle cropping
– No text, branding or advertising
– No promoting your social media links or releases
Your Profile Picture is the image that will appear in search results as well as the Deezer mobile app.
To update Profile Image:
– Search for the Artist Profile
– Select “Change Profile Picture”
Status:
Share a “status” directly from your artist page to present a short news update or anecdote. 64 characters maximum, emojis allowed!
Note: Status is displayed on top of Artist profile only on web & desktop app
Bio:
Add your artist bio in more than 30 languages (2000 characters max)
Socials:
Deezer allows you to display your Facebook + Twitter accounts
Update the links using the fields available in the Social section
Artist Playlist
Artist Playlists are a great way to showcase your artist’s personality and tastes during any given campaign. It’s also a great way to feature a recent release
You can feature any playlist on an artist profile including an official Deezer playlist your music has been added to
Step by step:
– Make the playlist in your personal account using Deezer
– Add playlists to your profile
Add playlists to your profile:
Web browser:
– Go to Deezer Creators
– Go to the artist profile
– Click the cross icon next to Highlights
– Search for the playlist name or paste the ID using the numbers at the end of the URL
– Select territory visibility & live date
– Click Create
Note: new releases, during their first 30 days, will be prioritized over any highlighted piece of content
Note: The playlist will show your personal account and link to it. You can add a display name on your account to match your artist name.
Feed-Delivering Content
This is the preferred means of distributing your content on SoundCloud, done in the same way that you would to other DSPs, and ensures that your content is monetized upon delivery and will go live at store turn. This is the simplest & most seamless option.
Important notes about delivering:
Any tracks delivered via SONO will be automatically set to monetize and go live at store turn. SoundCloud also supports timed releases, which can be set-up in SONO Music Upload form
When setting up releases, we recommend adding your artists’ SoundCloud profiles in the Artist IDs section to help map content to the proper profile.
If the content still seems to have not mapped to your artists profile & created a new profile instead (for example, the release is not visible in your artists’ backend tracklist 2-3 days after delivery), a profile merge request can easily be made to transfer the content to the correct profile and fix any mapping issues going forward.
Common Misconceptions:
It is often misunderstood that distributing content via the feed means it will only be available as a 30-second snippet in territories where SoundCloud’s ad-supported tier has not been launched. However, that is only true if the profile is associated with a rightsholder who has restrictive policies in place in those territories. If SONO is the only rightsholder linked to the artist profile, the track will be available in full globally, generating ad-supported revenue.
Editorial Opportunities
To have your content submitted for editorial consideration at DSPs, including SoundCloud, please be sure to submit the Music Upload form within the Forms section.
In addition to its existing network of global playlists, SoundCloud has begun to expand its editorial offerings to include more locally-focused genre playlisting, starting in the UK with plans to add other major markets in the coming months. This is in addition to localized Fresh Pressed (new music) playlists available for US, UK, DE, FR, CA.
Please keep in mind, to be considered for these features, your content must be monetizing using the methods we have laid out in within this resource guide.
Overview
Beatport is an American electronic music-oriented online music store owned by LiveStyle. The company is based in Denver, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Beatport is oriented primarily towards DJs, selling full songs as well as resources that can be used for remixes.
Beatport is a specialized DSP for dance & electronic music ONLY. No other content should be delivered to Beatport.
Best Practices
1. BP EXCLUSIVES
What are the benefits?
→ BP reserve the majority of the most prominent marketing
space on its store for exclusive releases. Including positions
in playlists, such as “Weekend Picks” or “Best of.. “.
→ Exclusive releases are highlighted with a tag and have a
higher price point than non-exclusives.
→ Being the only store to offer a release means it often charts
considerably higher than non-exclusive releases, which may
have sales split across multiple stores. High chart positions
mean prolonged exposure and revenue for your release.
→ Being that Beaport’s main customer base are DJs, sales on
Beatport should be seen as additional promotion alongside
the value of the sale. Chances are, a sale on Beatport means your track making its way into a DJ set or livestream.
→ On average, revenue for exclusive tracks is 5 times higher
than non-exclusives.
How do I set up exclusivity?
→ Exclusivity can be set up via SONO when
delivering your release.
→ Beatport offers the chance for SONO to give us their
releases exclusively, for either 2, 4, 8 weeks. Or lifetime.
→ During that period, the store asks that they are the only
download store with the release. Streaming platforms are ok.
2. PRE-ORDERS
What are the benefits?
→ Pre-orders are a great promotional tool, they can be
shared prior to release and added to smart link URLs.
In addition, be sure to include pre-order links in any
promotional posts in the lead-up to your release. Eg, track
premiers, YouTube, editorial features, etc.
→ They are a great way to give your track or release an extra
boost in the charts, all sales generated within the 28 days
prior to release date will be spread out across the first
week of charting.
→ Top Tip: Pre-orders can also be included in DJ charts (one
of our biggest sales boosters).
→ Top Tip: Including a pre-order link under SoundCloud
snippets is a great way to boost early sales.
How do I set up a Pre-order?
→ Pre-orders can currently be set up to 4 weeks in advance
of the release date.
→ Pre-orders can be arranged by your distributor.
→ A pre-order start date indicates the date at which
customers may begin previewing and pre-purchasing your
tracks; they will be able to download them only after the
release date.
→ Please note, there is currently no way to suppress audio
previews on our pre-orders.
Promote your music
1. ARTIST CHARTS / PLAYLISTS
What are the benefits?
→ Artist charts are a great way to give your new release a boost
on the store, and increase your plays on Beatport LINK: https://link.beatport.com/
→ BP recommends having artists make one for each release
(be sure to include your new release/pre-order in the chart).
→ 10% of monthly track sales come via artist charts.
→ Charts are a great way to extend visibility on the store and
on Beatport LINK, beyond our weekly feature updates. They
can be submitted for featuring on the store via this form: https://btprt.dj/ChartSubmission
How do I make an Artist chart?
→ Artist charts must be made via a customer account
(DJ profile), which can then be linked to your artist profile
by BP’s team.
→ Make sure to also share them out across social platforms.
→ Please note, artist charts must use an artist picture to be
considered for featuring. Charts using release artwork will
not be featured.
→ You can find a guide to making artist / DJ charts here: https://welcome.beatport.com/dj-charts
2. SOCIALS
General Tips
→ Regularly engaging with your fans is key to driving traffic
(e.g, answering comments, re-sharing stories or posts etc.)
→ Do not be afraid to share personal stories and background
information about your releases/label with your followers.
→ Including buy links and/or pre-order links on possible platforms like SoundCloud, YouTube, Instagram etc.
→ Content can be shared across multiple platforms, not
limited to one.
→ If making a new account, choose a simple name. Good practice: Drumcode could be DrumcodeRecs,
DrumcodeRecords or DrumcodeOfficial.
Facebook
→ Post on artist/label page weekly.
→ Share features.
→ Tag @Beatport as well as any other artists or labels involved.
→ Quotes/fun facts about release to raise engagement.
→ Facebook ads – Get familiar with their most up to date business tools, which can be useful for engagement.
→ Top Tip: Avoid words like “Buy” as Facebook reduces the reach of posts with explicit calls to action.
Twitter
→ Tweet regularly about your releases.
→ Tweet any features you receive.
→ Be sure to tag @Beatport as well as any other artists or labels involved.
→ Retweet other labels/artists content, especially when they mention you.
→ Top Tip: Tweetdeck is a great tool for tracking (and pre-scheduling) your tweets, retweets, mentions etc.
Instagram
→ Use release artwork and make a call to action to encourage followers to listen to your release on Beatport.
→ Always tag @Beatport, as well as any other artists or labels involved.
→ Preview tracks with a 15-second teaser video.
→ Always include the link in your bio and be sure to send followers there with something along the lines of “link in bio’”.
→ Use swipe-up posts for new releases, editorial features, etc (if possible).
→ Top Tip: If using stories, organize them into highlights on your homepage.
→ Top Tip: Include relevant hashtags! Check other labels / artists in your genre and find the hashtags they are using, e.g, #electronicmusic, #housemusicallnightlong, etc. (sites like best-hastags.com can search this for you).
Two social media features recommended by Beatport:
→ The best way to pitch for features is by keeping SONO up to date with your upcoming releases, we have a dedicated label manager at Beatport with whom we can discuss feature options.
Here are a few tips on what kind of information to include in your pitch:
GOOD:
*3-5 big name DJs supporting your track (please see below in bad for what we do NOT consider good feedback in this regards)
*Links to big name DJs playing your track.
*Magazine and blog premiers.
*Radio coverage.
*A precise marketing plan explaining when and what will be posted where, and any money to be spent is very important.
*If you’re going to post on socials, then social media reach.
BAD:
*DJ feedback that says “downloaded for…..” this for us is not good feedback. For us it means the person listening and downloading the music for said DJs downloaded it, and not that the actual DJ liked the track. For example, Richie Hawtin has a Twitter feed and is showing what tracks that he actually played, this would be good feedback.
*Social media and marketing campaigns listed “as usual”….we need more info than this.
*Sending the full promo campaign sheets, this is too time-consuming for us to read these, we need the good bits from
the promo sheets.
Again, all this will help your feature requests be stronger, but will not guarantee a feature. These are ultimately up to the genre manager.
Curated Feed
Audiomack is a curated service, which means that:
Audiomack will not ingest and make live all products delivered
Audiomack won’t ingest back-catalog unless it’s requested by the DSP or there’s a high demand for the content on the platform
Please do not send any bulk deliveries to the DSP
Audiomack will not accept public domain content
Ingestion Process: Priority Deliveries
In order to get your releases live on Audiomack, SONO will be sharing a weekly priority list with Audiomack each Monday for the release coming up within the next 7 days.
This list will be an essential guide for Audiomack to determine what to ingest.
After the ingestion, SONO will receive a live link from Audiomack. We will be sharing the link with you after receiving them.
The weekly priority list is managed by SONO Marketing Services team. The list will only contain releases that match the following criteria:
Your product will be released within the next 7 days
Your product has been delivered to Audiomack via SONO at least 10 days before the release date
Your product has been submitted to the Marketing Services team at least 10 days before the release date
In general, please submit your priority releases to be promoted to multiple DSPs (Please submit at least 4 weeks before the release date, in order to meet all DSP-editorial deadlines)
Access: Audiomack Artist Accounts
Artists may claim auto-generated Audiomack profiles, allowing them access to the Creator Dashboard, where artists can:
Update their profile, including imagery, bio, social links, etc.
View notifications for playlist adds, milestones, & any content which may be trending on-platform
Respond to fan comments on your music
If there is a profile you would like to claim, please send an email to support@artists.sonomusic.co with the following:
The Audiomack URL of the profile you wish to claim
A valid and unique email address (i.e. a singular email may not be attached to multiple accounts) that the artist would like to use to log into the account
A claim code will then be sent by Audiomack to the email address provided.
Creating AR Effects
AR Effects on Instagram and Facebook are an increasingly important part of your artists’ marketing campaigns. To make the submission and approval process as smooth as possible for you, we’ve created a ‘Cheat Sheet’ for you to follow as you build these Effects.
Before You Submit Your Effect
Does Your Effect Have a Name and an Icon?
Does It Meet Spark AR Guidelines & Policies?
Did You Choose A Category For Your Effect?
Do you have a preview video of your Effect?
Does the Effect meet the frame rate guidelines and file size limits?
If your Effect is a mask, does it obscure facial expressions? (It shouldn’t!)
Did You Do A Final Check of Best Practices to Make Sure Your Effect Is Approved?
The Approval Process For Spark AR Effects
Effects submitted to both Facebook and Instagram are reviewed to make sure they follow:
Spark AR Review Policies
Spark AR and Frame Studio Terms
Facebook Community Standards (if submitting for FB)
Instagram Community Guidelines (if submitting for IG)
If your effect is approved, you will be notified on Facebook and in the Spark AR Hub.
If your effect is rejected, you will be notified and given the reason in the Spark AR Hub. You can edit your effect and submit again.
AR Effect Do’s & Don’ts
Submission
DON’T: Submit your Effect one day before you need it live, and then email your Facebook/Instagram contact requesting an expedited review.
DO: Want your effect to be ready by a certain date? Be sure to submit it for review at least TEN (10) Days prior to your desired date.
Text
If your Effect includes text:
DON’T: Place static text in the screen that does not respond to movements or sound
DO: Make sure your text either responds to movements through the use of face tracking OR is integrated and integral to the design of the Effect; e.g. it’s a timestamp on a camcorder simulation.
Logos
Want to put a Logo in your Effect?
DON’T: Make it static so that it does not respond to movements or sound
DO: Make sure the logo either responds to movements through the use of face tracking OR is integrated and integral to the design of the Effect
Availability
Want your Effect to go live on a specific date and time?
DON’T: Skip the “Location & Schedule” section of the upload process in Spark AR Hub
DO: Control the publication date and time of your effect and the length of time it’s available by adding scheduling details during the upload process.
Masks
Does your Effect include a face mask?
DON’T: Recreate a human face as the mask.
DO: Create an animated face or a caricature of a face as your Effect.
IG Shopping
You must have your products uploaded on the SONO Shop to set up your Instagram Shopping.
IG has a new Drop display that will showcase collections of exclusive product launches, which users can browse and shop in-app. Shoppers can save items to their wishlists and sign up for launch reminders and stock notifications about specific products. IG will curate a select number of collections to appear in Drops each week by choosing from those that are already using the new tool. Labels and artists can also go live to promote a Drop and can include an on-screen countdown sticker and confetti animation when the product launches.
Drop is currently available for users in the US with both android and iOS devices.
Music in Stories
What is music in IG Stories?
Now your fans can add your music to their photos & videos to create a soundtrack to their story
How does it work?
Take a photo or video in the stories camera or upload from gallery then tap on the sticker icon at the top right corner and select the music icon
search for a specific song or browse by mood, genre or what’s popular
Use the scrubber tool to choose the part of the song that best captures the moment you’re sharing
When your fans watch your story, they’ll hear your clip playing over the photo or video and see a sticker with the song title & artist name
IG Stickers
Link Sticker
You can now add a link to your story using a link sticker instead of the previous Swipe Up option.
How it works:
take or upload a photo or video to add to your story
navigate to the sticker section
tape the link sticker and add your link
place the link sticker on your story and tap it to see other creative options
after you select an option, share your story
You can also now receive reactions and replies to your link shares from your audience.
Add Yours Sticker
Add Yours creates public threads in Stories.
The sticker prompts users to upload to the public Story and find new people to follow; tapping on the sticker brings up an interface showing everyone who has contributed to the thread, and you can view their Stories.
Chat Sticker
Enables you to create Group chats in Direct, and to answer fans’ questions or simply make your fans’ day by chatting with them.
You can start or end a chat with fans at any time, and also maintain control of your inbox.
How it works:
Add a chat sticker to your story by selecting it from the sticker tray after taking a photo or video.
Name your chat. Move, resize and rotate the chat sticker and share to your story.
You can find people who have requested to join your chat in your story’s viewers list. Accept requests and start chatting. More requests to join will be available in Direct and in your story’s viewers list.
Once you start your chat, everyone who you’ve approved to join the chat will be added to a thread in Direct. From there, start chatting!
Quiz Sticker
Enables you to ask your fans multiple-choice questions
Easy way to engage with fans, express your creativity, and see how well your followers know you.
It’s also a great way to engage with your fans so they can get to know you better.
How it works:
Add a quiz sticker to your story from the sticker section after taking a photo or video
Type your prompt and add up to four possible answers and select the correct answer
Share it to your story
You can find your fans’ answers in your story viewers list
Countdown Sticker
This sticker allows you to set a countdown for a special announcement or event so your fans can follow along and be notified when the time comes.
How it works:
Open the stories camera and tap on the sticker section
Select the countdown sticker and customize the name e.g. what you’re counting down to and the date/time of the event.
You can also change the colour of the sticker
Once added to your story, ask fans to click on the sticker to save the day/time of the countdown
Donation Sticker
Enables eligible nonprofits and their supporters to raise money for charities directly.
Make sure to convert your Instagram account to a business account.
How it works:
Open the camera in Instagram and take or upload a photo that best represents your cause.
Tap the sticker icon.
Select the donation sticker in the box.
Find a non-profit and select it. If you don’t see your organization on the list, it means you’re not yet eligible to use this feature.
Tap ”Send to”. Next, next to Your story, tap Share.
Q&A Sticker
Artists can now interact with their fans
How does it work?
Post content capture, go to the stickers button and select ‘questions’
you will be prompted to create a question or ask for song recommendations
If you ask for music recommendations, followers will see the music library once they go to respond
By clicking on the eyeball icon, you’ll be able to see all follower responses to your story
Choose which response and part of the song you’d like to include while sharing
Share and make your followers day!
Example: asking what tracks your fans want to see during a live stream or gig
Poll Sticker
Enables you to engage with your followers by asking questions and receiving answers from them.
How does it work?
Open the stories camera and tap on the sticker section
Select the “poll” sticker icon.
Fill in the question for your poll and edit your answer options.
Tap “Your Story” or “Send To” to share your poll on your stories.
To view the results of your poll, simply view your own story and tap the “Seen by” button in the lower-left corner.
There’s also a “Share Results” button so you can easily share the results of your poll onto your Instagram stories.
Live Rooms
What is IG Live Rooms?
Previously, you could only go live with one additional guest on your Instagram and now you have the ability to go live with up to three additional guests. Artists & creators can now see data on accounts they reach, saves and shares plus the number of peak concurrent viewers for lives i.e. the highest number of people watching at one instance.
Live Insights
In Account Insights, navigate to ‘Content You Shared,’ then tap an individual live to view insights
Accounts Reached, Views, Peak Concurrent Viewers, Comments, and Shares are available for your individual lives
Live Insights will also be included in all Account Insights pages: Accounts Reached, Content Interactions, Top Content, Media Library
Note: Available for all Live videos on or after May 24
How does it work:
First, open the Instagram Camera (swipe left from anywhere) then go live
Tap the new “Rooms” icon (the one that looks like a camcorder), now to the side of your stream
You’ll see people who have requested to go live with you at the top of your screen and can also search for a guest to add
Tap your guest(s) handle(s) to invite them to your Live Room
You can add all 3 guests at once or in a staggered way (for example, you could start with two guests, and add the third later); you can also swap guests at any time.
Some additional features to remember:
Donations: You can still raise money for causes you care about while live.
Shopping and badges: If you’re eligible for these tools, they’ll be available to use during your live.
Notifications: Your followers and the followers of those that join the Live Room will be notified that you are Live, which creates a great opportunity for new eyes on your content.
Improvements to your Live experience:
Comments: Live Comments will default to “On” and appear in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. You can always turn off comments by clicking the “…” and selecting “Turn Off Commenting.”
New Title Display: If you title your live, that title will now be displayed at the top of your broadcast. If a viewer taps the title, they’ll be able to see your username and your guests’ usernames.
Overall “look and feel” changes: You’ll notice that Live has a new look and feel in general –the Camera tool icons have moved, incl: adding a guest, flipping camera, filters, etc. from the bottom of the Live viewer to the sidebar.
Helpful Tips:
Attached HERE is a step by step guide for this feature.
Remember, you can control who can join and comment on your live in Privacy Settings (via Comments & Blocked Accounts). You can always disable comments after your live starts by tapping ‘…’ in the comments field. Comment warnings have been introduced to help keep your live experience safe and positive.
Music Insights
Here is an overview of MIX Insights, located inside Creator Studio. It’s your one-stop shop to see how your music is performing across Facebook’s Family of Apps.
On the left navigation panel in Creator Studio, you’ll see an option for Insights.
Click on Performance under Music. This will take you to Music Insights.
You can then see aggregate metrics and a ranked chart of your tracks, based off of consumption and production data.
Consumption:
The “Unique AL Plays” represents the total Audio Library plays of your music, filtered to the last 7 days, as shown in the far-left dropdown menu. This would, for example, include an Instagram Story someone watched that had a music sticker containing your song.
The “Unique UGC Plays” represents the total User-Generated Content plays of your music which, for example, would include an Instagram Story where one of your songs is playing in the background.
Production:
Here you will see the amount of audio library and user-generated content created using ISRCs you own the rights to.
The “AL Creations” represent the total number of Audio Library posts/stories that incorporate your artists’ music across FB and IG.
The “UGC Audio Creations” represent the number of times your tracks were used in UGC i.e. Reels.
You can filter these metrics by track, date range, sources (aka Facebook products) or territories (aka countries).
Ranked Top Tracks Chart:
This is a list, at the bottom, of your most consumed or produced with songs for both Audio Library and UGC. What is measured as a single consumption is a minimum 3-second play.
Advanced Mode:
To the far-right of the dropdown filters, you’ll see a toggle for Advanced mode. When in Advanced mode, you’ll be able to apply custom date ranges and select multiple sources or select multiple territories to filter the data by. The top tracks list is not currently available in Advanced mode but Facebook’s product teams are working on adding this functionality.
Search Tab
And finally, if you want to look at a particular track, you can use the Search tab to find it.
Create & Optimise Your Artist Profile
For campaigns where you are looking to grow your audience via TikTok, the first recommendation is to set-up a profile for the artist and start posting video content to the platform on a regular basis.
Establish Yourself
Create your profile with a recognisable handle and image and link your account to Twitter & YouTube.
Define Your Strategy
Engage with the platform as a user and embed yourself within the community. Find your main creative focus before you start engaging with influencers.
Create A Regular Schedule
Stay at the top of the feed with regular videos.
Use the correct hashtags and take part in as many challenges as you can to grow your following.
Engage With Your Audience
Watch, react and engage with users’ content to build a deeper connection & get your profile in front of more people.
Collaborate with other creators/users using the duet feature
Switch to a PRO Account
What is a PRO account?
Pro accounts are accessible to all users and can be enabled directly on each profile via the TikTok App. Enabling this provides access to analytics for all of your posts via the settings page.
Similar to Instagram Creator accounts, the TikTok analytics dashboard can show you insights into your overall audience and performance of your content.
In order to convert your TikTok profile to a Pro account, follow these steps.
1. Open App, go to “Me”
2. Click the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner (this brings you to settings).
3. Click “Manage My Account”
4. Navigate to the bottom of the screen and select “Switch to Pro Account.”
5. Follow all the prompts to complete the process…
Useful Information
The analytics will start recording the data after you’ve switched to a PRO account and won’t display any historic data
You’ll need to wait up to 7 days for your account to generate enough data to start displaying insights
Tip: publish as much TikTok content as possible during this period so you can get deeper insights
3 main categories of analytics
Profile overview
shows how well your profile is performing overall
includes total video views, profile views & follower count
Tip: use the profile overview data to interpret a funnel of users, starting with people who begin to consume your content through to those who become engaged followers. This allows you to estimate your conversion rate from your total videos views to users who visit your profile and the conversion rate of those who actually followed your profile. This will help you prepare an effective content strategy.
Content insights
total views of each video from the past 7 days
reveals which of your videos have been trending on the For You page and total number of views those videos have accrued throughout the process
Tap on the post thumbnail to open it’s unique dashboard for analytics per post for total likes/comments/shares, play time, video views, average watch time, traffic source types and audience territories.
Tip: compare the territory engagement for individual posts to your overall audience territories in the followers tab. If different forms of content resonate with new audiences from different locations, double down on creating similar content in those territories.
Follower insights
A top-line view of your audience demographics
gender split and % breakdown of your audience by location
Market Your Music
Even if you aren’t able to create a viral hit on the platform, having a presence and engaging with users on TikTok with help raise the awareness of your artist with a crucial young audience. Capitalise on the advantages of early adoption with a large and highly engaged audience and relatively little competition.
Please note that the Playlists in the Sounds section of the TikTok App are currently not pitchable. However you should actively reach out to your SONO Marketing & Promotions contact if you have tracks that are already gaining traction on the platform, and have specific goals you would like to achieve via TikTok.
Best Practices Corner
Be consistent with posting to aid content discovery. Give your followers a bank of content to look through if they find you on the For You Page.
Mix original trend-led content and creator/fan reposts. Involve your fans with original content by encouraging them to react to it or recreate it.
Create short, digestible videos that hook the audience within the first couple of seconds. You need to show people why they should stop scrolling to watch your video over someone else’s.
Popular Sounds and hashtags can help you get on people’s For You Page. Stick to no more than five hashtags per post. This means you can reach relevant audiences without distracting from the video itself.
Go Live!
The Basics
Consistent username across all platforms
Short and relevant description. Make sure it’s obvious to users that you’re an artist
Connect to your Instagram & YouTube channel
Get a Pro Account
The ideal runtime for a video is 10-17 seconds.
What’s Important
Consistency
Authenticity
Community integration
Personality, people don’t want a sales pitch
Content Strategy
Native content
Not overly-produced (but good lighting is a must!)
Grow your artists profile with a combination of influencer collabs, ads and your consistent & creative content strategy
Use your music and the songs you love to create engaging and original videos. Think about all the aspects of your work, from shooting behind the scenes to events, shows and recording sessions.
Users love authentic and personal videos so share a moment of your life and what you’re passionate about.
Your personality and creativity is what keeps users coming back to your content. A sense of humour can help showcase your unique perspective. Tiktok has an incredible, diverse community that
reinterpret and embrace trends and challenges. Give users the flexibility to repackage your content through their own unique lens.
Every video has an opportunity to go viral on TikTok, without having to worry about posting schedules or cadences. One amazing video per day beats multiple average attempts.
You never know which types of content will resonate with your audience, so be sure to experiment. We encourage a mix of original concepts, trends, challenges, and incorporating popular sounds.
True success comes from actively using the platform and understanding the community. Be sure to use the app as an individual, and build from there.
Participate in trending and upcoming hashtags and campaigns. Find them on the Discover page, in newsletters for TikTok Creators and official TikTok accounts: @tiktok, @tiktok_UK, @tiktok_(your country)
Encourage viewers to watch more. Mention that you’re on TikTok on other platforms (IG, YT etc). Share your TikTok videos on other
platforms. React to and engage with comments from followers.
Collaborate and Co-create. Follow and collaborate with other popular creators and artists and expand your network.
Vertical & Mobile First. All videos should be shot or edited for vertical viewing on mobile to embrace the full-screen and authentic experience.
Organic Before Paid. Establish your profile and content strategy before reaching out to us to organise a TikTok influencer campaign.
Community Management
What is Community Management?
Community Management is the process of building your fan base through genuine and real communication on your social media platforms directly with your fans. It’s your artist interacting with their audience to create a network in which they can connect, share and grow. It’s vital that you connect with your fans and show them you care. Don’t just use social media to promote your music and tour schedule. If one of your goals is to increase engagement then community management should be a key driver of your content activities.
Work on your social interactions daily
As well as actively posting and sharing content, you should also try to respond to as many people as possible who like, comment and react to your profile.
This is not a wasted effort. Making actual one-to-one connections with your followers, visitors, and even casual passersby is important, because they could be your future super fans.
Your personal responses go a long way, not only to the fans who mention your music but also to others who see your responses.
When it comes to bots or spam-like comments, feel free to delete these.
Interact with fans by asking questions and getting involved in discussions happening in the comments. Take the time to write a good response and show your fans that you’re listening to them.
Don’t be afraid to ask followers to share or retweet your posts and return the favour. Share or retweet photos, music, shout outs, quotes etc. Encourage them to post photos from your shows or remixes of your songs and tag you. You could even make a regular theme like “Fan Feature Friday.”
Use a personal tone & show your personality
Developing a personal connection with your fans will help solidify the artist-fan relationship. How you communicate to your fans makes a huge difference.
It’s also essential that you show fans your real personality. When you start to show your true self, you’ll begin to see a big difference in the way your fans interact with you.
Write like you speak so that your content has a genuine personal tone. And don’t forget to give your posts a once-over for basic grammar and readability.
Personalize your message and don’t front a persona that doesn’t reflect who you really are.
Embrace your passion and don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Many artists fear rejection over-sharing polarizing content but allowing little quirks in your personality show is great.
Don’t be afraid to open up on social media. Let others into your world and share the good times as well as the struggles. Show your fans who you are, what your about, and where you’re going. Remember, your brand represents you, so don’t hesitate to hide that.
Involve yourself in the industry community
Show respect for other artists, musicians, DJ’s and other music industry peers.
Comment on other peoples’ Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Instagram stories, SoundCloud tracks, etc. This shows you’re engaged in the music community and that you’re not only about self-promotion.
It’s also an excellent way to network and gain new followers.
Social Media Competitions
Why should you run a social media competition?
Grow Your Following
When running a competition, ask someone to like or follow you as a way to enter themselves into the competition.
This can massively help to grow your following by increasing the percentage of people who might come across your content.
Generate Awareness
When fans like, comment or share your content the algorithm recognises this and gives your content more visibility on the platform.
Pairing yourself with another artist, platform or brand will also introduce you to each other’s follower base.
Increase Your Email List
A popular method of entering into a competition is to provide your email address.
As long as you’re mentioning what the fan is signing up for, you can add these addresses to your email list.
Jumpstart Your Engagement
Competitions are a great way to increase buzz around your profile and get your followers engaging with your content.
Almost any route to running a competition will increase your exposure
How to run a social media competition
Set up your goal
Decide whether you’re trying to increase your following, generate more leads or simply increase your artist or release awareness.
Each of these can lead to different types of competitions so you need to know which goal you’re trying to achieve before setting anything up.
Determine your competition type
If you want to increase your fanbase, ask that people follow your page in order to enter. This is especially popular on Instagram.
If you want to generate more leads and increase your email list, you should request people to sign up via email. This can be done via a landing page and linked from any platform or you can create a specific Facebook tab for your competition.
If you’re interested in increasing your artist/release awareness, you can partner with other artists, platforms or brands and both share the giveaway on your profiles. You can ask entrants to tag friends as another form of entry to help spread the word.
You can also organise a social media photo/video contest as a way of gathering UGC for future campaign use.
Budget & Prize
Once you’ve organised your budget, you can break it up between ads across different platforms to promote the competition.
Remember your prize needs to be something relevant and specific to your audience so you’re not attracting entrants that will never convert to fans.
Know Your Audience
You need to know who your audience is and where they spend their time on social media then you can decide which platform(s) you should be focussing on.
Knowing your audience can also help you decide what type of prize would make the most sense.
Test Different Platforms
Whenever you’re trying out a new strategy, always test it out
You should be testing different platforms to see which one generates the biggest response to your giveaway.
There are multiple options but there’s always a number one when it comes to your strategy performance.
You can also skip this step if you already know there’s a social media platform that outperforms all your other platforms.
Understand Competition Rules
Each platform has specific rules to adhere to so make sure you read, understand and follow the rules for each platform you’ve chosen.
As a general rule of thumb, you should always clearly state what the competition is and be sure to say that there’s no affiliation with the platform.
Cross-promote on other platforms, your email newsletter and your website
Announce the prize, set the length of your competition and of course, announce your winner.
Measure Your Results
How well did your competition perform?
Measure your results based on what your objectives were from the start
Business Manager
What is Business Manager?
Manage Pages, ad accounts, Instagram accounts & the people who work on them
Business Manager is a hub for businesses to integrate their Facebook marketing information in one place and effectively share access to assets across their team, with external partner agencies, and vendors.
Actions that require you to use Business Manager
Custom audience sharing. e.g. Target video viewers
Providing IG advertising access. e.g. allow and advertiser to boost an IG post.
Product Catalog & Shopping setup. e.g. sell merch.
Publisher block lists. e.g. choose where ads show up.
Running ads on social issues. e.g. authorize an account to run social issue ads.
Domain verification. e.g. set up a shop.
What are the benefits of Business Manager?
Control. Control and manage access and permissions for all your assets in one place as your team, agency partners, or vendors change over time
Privacy. Connect with people on Business Manager without sharing your Facebook profile—no one at work will see your info unless it’s set to public
Security. Identify risks and see recommended actions you can take to improve security
Time Savings. Manage multiple assets with batch actions. Track performance across multiple Pages and ad accounts
Business Manager can be directly accessed at business.facebook.com/settings
(Classic) Is my Page owned by a Business Manager?
The ‘Page Owner’ in your Page Roles tab is the owning Business Manager. Agencies are third-party Business Managers with access to your Page.
[NPE] Is my Page owned by a Business Manager?
If you’re not sure whether or not your Page is owned in a Business Manager, there two places you can look: 1. Via the Page’s Settings: A) Go to your Page’s Settings → Page Access → Business Account Access or – B) Go to your Page’s Settings, → ‘New Page Experience’, → ‘Page Management History’. Look for an indication that a Page Manager adjusted permissions and ownership.
[NPE & Classic] What if another Business Manager owns my Page?
If you know or have worked with people in the owning Business Manager.
Solution 1: The same, one, person is a BM Admin in the current and future BM, and a Page Admin of the Page you want to transfer:
1. Ensure you have an Admin role on the Page (not just the Business Manager)
2. Go to the settings for the Business Manager you want the Page to live in and navigate to the Pages tab
3. Click the blue ‘Add’ button and click ‘Add a Page’
4. Enter your Facebook Page name or URL information, click Add & everything should transition over.
Solution 2: You are not a BM Admin in the currently owning BM, but you are Admin in another BM that you want to own the Page 1. (If your FB & IG are linked) Temporarily disconnect your FB & IG a. Tip: you can connect your IG to another page so that you don’t have to transition it to a personal profile type and lose insights
2. You will need to ask a BM Admin in the owning Business to remove the Page from that BM
3. Once they’ve removed the Page, you will go into your BM that you want to own the Page and navigate to the ‘Pages’ tab
4. Click the blue ‘Add’ button & click ‘Add a Page’
5. Enter your Facebook Page name or URL information, click Add
6. Once the Page has been added, relink your FB & IG (ensure you’ve also added your IG in the Business Manager )
If you’re unfamiliar with the owning Business Manager nor anyone who might be associated
You’ll need to work with our support team and/or your contact at Facebook to go through a dispute process
File a request with our support team.
Note: this will require
1) a valid photo ID of the requestor
2) A signed statement with the request &
– description of requestor relationship to the Page and/or Business – explanation of the request / direct request statement – the past three invoices/billing statements on the ad account(s) that the business owns and the last 4 digits of the credit card(s) on the account(s)
– declaration under penalty of perjury that the information you’ve provided is true and accurate (statement must include this language)
[NPE + Classic] As a third party, how do I request access to a Page that is on the New Page Experience?
To request access to a Page from your own Business Manager: Via business.facebook.com/settings
1. Go to the Partners tab
2. Click ‘Add’
3. ‘Ask a partner to share their assets’
4. Add your contact information and follow prompts to submit the request
NEW PAGE EXPERIENCE + BUSINESS MANAGER MANAGEMENT
How do I add people to my Page?
Via Page
Via Business Manager
To add a person to your Page via your Page’s Settings:
1. Go to your Page Settings
2. Click or scroll to New Pages Experience
3. Click into ‘Page Access’
4. Click ‘Add New’ or the ‘…’ to change someone’s permissions
Facebook Access: You can grant someone Facebook Access or Facebook Access, Full Admin permissions via Page Settings
Task Acces: You can give trusted people limited (task -based) permissions to your page to help manage it. These people can’t access the Page on Facebook. However,, they can use other tools from Facebook (e.g. Creator Studio) to manage the features you give them access to
To add a person as a Full Admin to a Page via Business Manager
If you need to add a new person to the Page with Facebook Access, Full Admin capabilities,, you will need to do that via the Page’s Settings directly; this is not currently supported via Business Manager
a. Reminder: When a Page transitions to the new Pages experience, people with the ability to post on the Page may need to go through Page Publishing Authorization
To give a person Facebook Access or Task Access Permissions to your Page via Business Manager –
1. Go to the People tab
2. Add the person and give them access to the Business Manager as an Admin or Employee
3. In the next modal, select the Page within the new New Pages Experience you want to give permissions to
4. Toggle on the permissions for that person
5. Click ‘Assign’
Let’s talk Roles
Business Manager roles are different from Page roles
Being a Business Manager Admin does not mean you are also a Page Admin
How do I adjust a person’s permissions to a Page via Business Manager?
To change a person’s role/permissions on a Page:
1. Go to business.facebook.com/settings and click into the owning Business Manager
2. Navigate to the Pages tab (or People tab)
3. Select the Page (or person) you want to update permissions for
4. Click the ‘v’ next to the Page or name which will present a dropdown of relevant people + roles & permissions
5. Toggle to make changes
6. Press Save
NOTE: You must be a Business Manager Admin order to complete these actions
How do I give a third party (e.g. advertiser) access to my Page?
How do I give an advertiser or third party access to my Page?
Two ways to give an advertiser access to your Page:
Via Business Manager. add an advertiser as a ‘partner’ to your Business Manager (business/facebook.com/settings) and grant them advertising access to your Page and/or Instagram This is best practice when working with brands or agencies who typically have their own Business Managers Business Manager is the only ‘official’ way to give an advertiser access to Instagram without giving them a login
Individually on the Page. add another user to the Page and give limited / advertising access This works best if you’re not working with a large brand or agency and individuals on your own team
If your Page is owned in a Business Manager:
1. Go to business.facebook.com/settings and click into the owning Business Manager
2. Navigate to the Partner tab
3. Click the blue ‘Add’ button and ‘Give a partner access to your assets’
4. Input the third-party’s Business Manager ID (this is something they’d give you)
5. Select the Page you want to give access to and toggle on the role/permissions you want this third-party to have to the Page (e.g. ‘Ads’ for advertisers)
6. Finish through the prompts
If your (NPE) Page is not owned in a Business Manager:
1. You will need to create a Business Manager; follow the steps here
2. Once you’ve created one, you’ll need to add the Page within it; follow the steps here a. Continue to add people, your Instagram account, etc.
3. Follow the instructions for giving a third party access via the next slide
Where do I accept a third party’s request to my Page?
In order to accept a third party’s request to your (NPE) Page (e.g. to advertise), you must own the Page in a Business Manager.
Admins will receive an email notification to approve or reject the request.
Admins on the Page will also see the request via their Business Manager’s notifications tab
If you do not own the Page in a Business Manager then you will not see any third party requests
CLASSIC PAGES + BUSINESS MANAGER MANAGEMENT
How do I add people to my Page via Business Manager?
Give a person access to a Page via Business Manager –
If the person is not in your Business Manager
1. Go to the People tab
2. Add the person and give them access to the Business Manager as an Admin or Employee
3. Select the assets you want to give the person access to and press ‘Invite’
If the person is already in your Business Manager
1. Go to the Pages tab
2. Click on the Page you want to add the person to
3. Click ‘Add People’
4. Click on the name of the person you want to add
5. Toggle on the permissions for that person
6. Click ‘Assign’
How do I give a third party (e.g. advertiser) access to my Page?
Two ways to give an advertiser access to your Page:
Via Business Manager. add an advertiser as a ‘partner’ to your Business Manager (business/facebook.com/settings) and grant them advertising access to your Page and/or Instagram This is best practice when working with brands or agencies who typically have their own Business Managers Business Manager is the only ‘official’ way to give an advertiser access to Instagram without giving them a login
Individually by user on the Page. add another user(s), individually, to the Page and give limited / advertising access This works best if you’re not working with a large brand or agency and individuals on your own team
If your Page is owned in a Business Manager:
1. Go to business.facebook.com/settings and click into the owning Business Manager
2. Navigate to the Partners tab
3. Select ‘Give a partner access to…’
4. Input the third -party’s Business Manager ID (this is something they’d give you)
5. Select the assets (Pages, Instagram accounts, etc.) to share access with that third party
6. Click ‘Save Changes’
NOTE: You must be a Business Manager Admin order to complete these actions
Where do I accept a third party’s request to my Page?
A third party Business Manager can request access to your Page without your Page needing to be in a Business Manager. To accept or reject the request
Within your Page Settings go to Page Roles
2. Find the ‘Pending Requests’
3. Review the level of access the third party has requested; Approve or reject.
YouTube Premieres
Premieres create buzz around the launch of your next video.
YouTube Premieres lets you and your viewers watch and experience a new video together in real-time.
Create buzz for your Premiere by sharing the watch page so viewers can set reminders, chat, and leave comments.
An easy way to turn the launch of your video into a social event.
Videos that use Premieres usually reach a larger audience than those launched without the tool.
Create A Premiere
Viewers can watch the Premiere on any platform like a computer, iPhone, iPad, Android, and mobile web.
Select your video to upload and enter video details.
Note: 360/vr180 or an output greater than 1080p isn’t supported for Premieres
To immediately premiere the video, click Save or publish Public Set as instant Premiere. The video will premiere when the video finishes processing.
To schedule the premiere for later, click Schedule Enter a date and time Set as Premiere.
Click Done or Schedule.
Tip: You can also create a Premiere when uploading a video from the YouTube app. From the “Set visibility” page, choose Set as Premiere.
Before Your Premiere Starts
A public watch page is created for your video to eventually premiere on.
You can share the watch page URL since the watch page is public before the Premiere begins.
Premieres show up across YouTube just like regular uploads. You’ll find them on search, the homepage, and video recommendations.
Anyone can come to the watch page and set a reminder, leave a comment, or chat (also give Super Chats if turned on). If you’ve uploaded a trailer, it’ll play.
During Your Premiere
A countdown theme will start 2 minutes before your Premiere. When the countdown is over, viewers watch the video together in real-time.
Viewers can rewind the video, but cannot forward past what’s been shown live.
You and your viewers can continue to interact in the comments and live chat.
After Your Premiere Ends
After your video premieres, it stays on your channel as a regular upload. The countdown theme won’t be included in your video.
Chat replay is available for viewers who want to experience the Premiere chat after it has ended. You can turn off chat at any time.
From YouTube Studio, you can also use YouTube Analytics to see how your Premiere performed. The view count from the Premiere will transfer to the video afterwards.
Customize Your Premiere
Get your live audience excited about your upcoming video by showing a trailer of it on the Premiere page. Your trailer will play for viewers on the watch page before the Premiere starts.
Encourage your viewers to set a reminder by leaving a comment or chat message on your watch page. When someone sets a reminder, they’ll get a notification about 30 minutes before the Premiere and another when it starts.
Live Redirect
You can host a live stream before your Premiere and then once you end the live stream, your viewers will automatically move to your Premiere. Your viewers will see that your live stream has ended and then auto-play will move them to your Premiere page.
From the ‘Live Redirect’ page, choose a Premiere. Your audience will be sent there, after your live stream ends.
Keeps fans engaged right before a premiere
Transition from a live stream directly to a Premiere on the Premiere watch page
Live Redirect boosts initial views of and fan engagement with the video
Gives fans a personal moment with the artist
Tips
Set up your Premiere before setting up your live stream.
Remember to tell your audience that when the live stream ends, wait for approximately two seconds for their screens to reload to the Premiere.
Pin a live chat message on your Premiere watch page that directs viewers to your live stream.
Super Chat & Super Stickers With Premieres
Super Chat & Super Stickers work with YouTube Premieres. If you’ve enabled Super Chats & Super Stickers on your channel, they’re automatically turned on when you premiere a video. Follow these instructions to premiere a video with Super Chat or Super Stickers:
On a computer, sign in to YouTube with your Super Chat- or Super Sticker-enabled channel.
Note that selecting Public will cue the premiere to start immediately after the video is done uploading.
Unlisted videos can’t be premiered.
Click the video you’d like to upload from your computer.
On the next page, turn on Premiere.
Select the date and time of your premiere.
When the video is done processing, click Premiere in the top-right corner.
Track Comparison
Facebook launched their new Track vs Track comparison feature in their Music Insights Tool, where users can now compare the performance of tracks from the same or different artists.
Track Comparison View:
– Users can create a new Track comparison by opening a specific track and clicking on the “Compare” button.
– Users will be able to compare up to 5 of your label’s tracks at the same time.
– Each track has a set of predefined date ranges available for selection:
First 7 days of Release (default)
First 14 days of Release
First 28 days of Release
Last 7 days
Last 14 days
Last 28 days
– In addition, Users will be able to select custom sources and territories along with the above date ranges.
– Note that you may receive a notice like “Some tracks may show information from their first X days on Facebook if previous release information is unavailable” if we don’t have historical data for the track.
Live Streaming
Before
Enable live streaming for your channel
If this is your first live stream, you will need to wait for 24hrs for streaming access
Click the camera button on your mobile or desktop device and follow the steps to get your account activated for live streaming
Make sure your channel is verified and you haven’t had any live streaming restrictions in the last 90 days
If you still need your account to be verified: youtube.com/verify
Always promote the event ahead of time.
Create the public live stream event several days to a week in advance.
Before sharing the link, make sure the video settings reflect the actual device/source you’ll use.
Use video titles, thumbnails, hashtags to promote the event.
Feature it prominently on your channel.
Create a playlist like “Upcoming Live Streams”
Share the URL for the live stream on social and in Community
Ask fans to click on ‘set reminder’
If applicable, encourage affiliate artists to promote it on social.
Enable Super Chat
Take the duration of your live stream into account.
1-2hr streams have performed best
Any stream <12hrs can become a public video
During
Film in landscape mode
Fans prefer to watch videos on demand in this format, including on TV
Pin an important message or call to action for fans to the top of the chat
Use social media to invite fans to the live stream with a direct URL link
Use the live chat to chat directly with fans
Answer questions and get them excited about the event
Monitor live chat to detect any problems and flag them with our marketing team.
After
Your live stream will be available right away
Allow users to watch whenever they want
Update the tags, descriptions and relevant information
Promote the video on social media and in Community
Share any chart and playlist placements
Include cards or end screens to promote your other videos
Include the live streams on a channel playlist called ‘Live Stream Archives’
Share fan content in the Community tab
Read your analytics to improve future streams.
Focus on the view rate, drop-offs, number of comments and number of simultaneous views
Live Monetization
Promote official merch on a video or Premiere watch page
Create a merch shelf or pin merch to the top of your live stream chat
The merch feature also works on channel pages, end screens and cards.
Enable monetization on your live stream in YouTube studio under monetize
click monetize with ads
during your live stream click on play ad
If your channel is eligible and enabled for monetization, YouTube can serve ads on your content
Pre-rolls are shown before a live stream and can be viewed via mobile and desktop
Mid-rolls are shown during a live stream and rely on technical implementation via YouTube
Display and overlay ads are shown next to or over the content and they can be viewed on desktop.
Production
Three types of YouTube live stream:
Mobile
Webcam
Professional
Mobile
Easiest option to live stream quickly as doesn’t require additional equipment
You need to have at least 1k subscribers to live stream from a mobile device
Webcam
An easy way to stream from your laptop or desktop
A good way to live stream from home since no additional equipment needed
You have the option to use an external camera or audio equipment
Compatible with Chrome & Firefox
Professional
The best option for larger productions
Usually used for live music streams
In this format you’ll need to use an encoder that connects to YouTube. Options include:
Open Broadcaster Software
Stage Ten
Streamlabs OBS
XSplit Broadcaster
XSplit Gamecaster
Wirecast
Insights & Recommendations
YouTube live streams positively impact audio and video streams
Views and watch time per view are highest on the weekends
Live streams between 1-2hrs perform best
Live streaming is a new behaviour so be sure to promote your live events beforehand.
Promoting your streams is critical to driving traffic to them
Keeping live streams as VOD (video on demand) significantly increases views
Live Redirect premieres generate more views, chat messages and likes than comparable premieres.
Top-performing live stream categories include music releases, fans events/performances and supporting causes.
Afterparty
What are afterparties?
YouTube Premium afterparties are Premium-exclusive live streams with artists. They’re an opportunity for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium members to engage in real-time with artists who host a video feed and live chat.
Premium afterparties are available in all markets where YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium are launched, except for South Korea.
Live chat messages and comments on YouTube Premium afterparties are visible to all YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium members who access the live stream. This means live chat messages and comments on these live streams may be accessible to all current and future YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium members who can view the archived live streams.
You can still view your own live chat messages and have the option of deleting them by visiting your live chat history, even if you’re no longer a YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium member.
You can also view your own comments and can delete them by visiting your comment history, even if you no longer have YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium.
Best Practices
Engage consistently
Get fans to interact with your videos
Drive traffic by promoting your releases & playlists
Add trailers and teasers before a release
Interact with fans in comments and Community
Encourage Co-Watching
Boost the likelihood of your videos being recommended together
Create multiple videos for the same song
Use cards, end screens & playlists
Create a series
How YouTube Recommends Videos
YouTube’s content recommendation system is one of the main drivers of views and engagement on the platform.
YouTube says its goal is to show people more of what they like, based on both their own behaviours and that of similar users. Recommendations work in two places: the homepage and the ‘Up Next’ panel. They are based on four main factors:
clicks
watch time
sharing
likes and dislikes
survey responses.
It also downranks what it perceives as low-quality content.
What to take from this information:
Most recommendations on social platforms have traditionally worked in similar ways. That is, if a post performs highly, it will be recommended to others.
Now, platforms are paying attention to the topics and content as much as the numbers – though these still play an important role.
YouTube is a search engine, and the topics and content you list in your title must speak to the video contents accurately.
Engaging thumbnails, retention-building tactics like right books and midway points are also key ways to boost these key recommendation factors like clicks and watch time.
Video Optimization
Optimise your YouTube Video with:
Descriptive titles
31-40 video tags
Detailed description
End cards
High-res thumbnails
Sharing on socials
You’ve spent all this time making the music writing, shooting, editing your video. Make sure you set it up properly at the final step to maximise its potential for discoverability.
Create A Descriptive Title
Include the artist name and track title
Describe the asset in parentheses
Official Audio, Official Video
Lyric Video
Stick to consistency when naming your videos across your channel so everything is easy to find
Include 31-40 Video Tags
SEO Marketing broadly accepts that between 31-40 tags are advised for optimal discoverability
Tags tell YouTube what your video is about so they can recommend it to users watching similar content
Use a mixture of branded and unbranded keywords
Unbranded keywords should have a balance of medium/high search volume and low volume e.g. you want keywords that lots of people are searching for but not a lot of people are making videos like yours.
this can include similar, well-known artists, genres, media, brands, labels etc
Write A Detailed Description
The description box is one of the only areas you can control the messaging of your track on YouTube.
It’s a key touchpoint for fans alongside a space where you can push your promotional message
A good description includes:
Credits
Links to other platforms fans can find you e.g. socials, streaming, website, tickets etc
Quote from the artists about the song to encourage a deeper connection with the viewer
CTA to your current promotion e.g. ‘Stream the new track/album here’ or ‘Buy Tickets Here’
3-5 hashtags for discoverability
End Cards
End cards are a YouTube feature that appears in the last 15-20 seconds of the video where users can promote other videos or playlists.
You can promote up to 4 elements
Use end cards to encourage people to stay on your channel by watching another video, looking at a playlist or subscribing to your channel
Most artists don’t do this as you’ll need to add a few seconds onto your video but it’s a powerful way to extend watch time on the channel.
Great assets to include in your end card is:
Links to recognizable music videos e.g. your most popular songs to continue to snowball their views
Links to new videos to promote
Alternative ways to enjoy your music e.g. follow up with a live mix or an acoustic version etc
CTA to subscribe
Shorts
What are Shorts?
Shorts is a new way to express yourself in 15 seconds or less, and our team is focused on building its foundation across three main areas:
Create
Creation is at the core of short-form video, and YT wants to make it easy and fun to create Shorts. YT is starting to test just a few new tools for creators and artists with our early beta in India:
A multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together,
The option to record with music from a large library of songs that will continue to grow,
Speed controls that give you the flexibility to be creative in your performance,
And a timer and countdown to easily record, hands-free.
The Audio Library offers a new way to discover music. Tap ‘add music’ in the Shorts camera, search within the audio library and add/adjust the music into your Short.
Every month, 2 billion viewers come to YouTube to laugh, learn and connect. Creators have built entire businesses on YouTube, and they want to enable the next generation of mobile creators to also grow a community on YouTube with Shorts. YT encourages any mobile creator or artist to start uploading their existing short videos on YouTube today to start getting discovered.
Watch
You may have recently seen a row on the YouTube homepage especially for short videos, and they’ve introduced a new watch experience that lets you easily swipe vertically from one video to the next, plus discover other similar short videos.
Shorts offer a new way for:
users to discover music
artists to connect with fans
artists to promote their music
build Shorts into your release strategies to help keep fans engaged
Discovering Shorts Across YouTube
Discover shorts on your:
Channel page
YouTube homepage
From subscriptions
By searching
Sounds Page
The Sounds Page shows how fans are engaging with your music and the number of shorts created with your audio
Tap the bottom right of a Short to visit the Sounds Page
Artists can use the Sounds Page to see all fans’ Shorts creations
The Sounds Page also sends fans to your official music video
Ideas & Inspiration
Experiment with Debut Content
Try creating different types of Shorts content using your music from the Audio Library. If one of your songs isn’t available within the Shorts Audio library, touch base with support@fuga.com
Keep Fan Momentum Going
Connect with your fans after release day by posting new Shorts that encourage fans to use your music. Check out the Sound Page for your music to see the shorts that are being made. You can shout out your favourite fan creations, share on your community page and encourage more fans to create.
Show How It’s Made
Inspire your audience and other artists by posting how-to Shorts content. You can help fans learn more about your music, offer tips for playing difficult songs, or show how you put a track together.
Behind-the-scenes
Connect with fans by pulling back the curtain and showcasing behind-the-scenes moments on Shorts. Content from recording sessions, backstage, or on the road is a few ways to try this out.
Connect Fans To Your Music
Dance content can inspire creators and help audiences discover artists on Shorts. You can experiment with posting dances or interact with fans that are dancing to your music. Try not to create complicated moves, think of something that’s easy to replicate and follow along.
Challenge Fans To Join In
Challenges are a great way to promote new music and engage your audience. Try this out by encouraging fans to post Shorts around a specific #hashtag that’s unique to you, your new music, or a catalogue favourite.
Shorts & New Release Strategies
Keep it fresh
Shorts content moves quickly, meaning there’s always a new opportunity to play into trends and themes. Combining a trendy Shorts audio or joke with a popular game is a great way to engage with a broad audience.
Each Short is a unique opportunity to reach a new audience so don’t feel bound by one style of sub-genre. Just because you have success with one type of content doesn’t mean you can’t also with another.
Keep it fun
Don’t be afraid to bring your whole self to your content, try new things and get creative.
Keep it all-in-one
Some viewers will be unfamiliar with you and your content when they come across it; it’s a good idea to have a Short to tell a standalone story. Therefore try to avoid making videos in multiple parts
Use a hook, climax and resolution
Pre-Release
Use Shorts as a creative platform for your music and brand, not just a place to broadcast messages
Utilize the 1 min mobile (between 9:16 ratio and 1:1 ratio) format to creatively grab attention with storytelling content
Announce your upcoming release
Sharing a live performance of the unreleased song
Posting how-to Shorts content may help fans learn more about your music or show how you put a track together
Use relevant hashtags specific to you and your music
Connect to audiences with behind-the-scenes content
Try pulling back the curtain and showcase content from recording sessions, backstage, or on the road.
Post-Release
Encourage fans to make their own Shorts using your music
Check out the Sound Page to view all the Shorts using your release
View the most popular Shorts using your music
Thank fans who created Shorts in their comments
Use Short Analytics to measure the performance of your Shorts content and make informed decisions for future strategies
Click on the Analytics button to display performance stats for the Shorts you created such as views, likes, and average view duration.
Continue posting Shorts with your music and engaging with fans on your Shorts
Shorts Fund
YouTube is looking to support artists and creators who are using Shorts. The Shorts Fund is another opportunity for monetization on YouTube and if you’re creating unique content on Shorts, you can be eligible to receive up to $10,000 per month. Every month, YouTube reaches out to artists & creators who have uploaded at least one eligible short to award them with $. Currently, the fund is available in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, the UK & the US.
FAQs
If I upload a video under 1 minute is it automatically recognised as a Short?
The video needs to be both under 1 minute and uploaded in a 9:16 or 1:1 ratio to be classified as a Short
Why isn’t my song available in the Audio Library?
It could be due to various technical, territorial or rights related reasons but reach out to support@fuga.com if you’re having any issues.
Will my subscribers get a notification when I upload a Short?
YouTube only send personalised Shorts highlights notifications to “belled” subscribers that regularly watch Shorts content. “Belled” subscribers will still receive up to 3 notifications per day for non-shorts videos per channel and a maximum of 3 personalised Shorts highlight notifications across all the channels they’re subscribed to.
How can I enable my artist to get access to Shorts on mobile given the new Channel permissions?
If you’re using Channel Permissions, only the primary owner of the channel can upload Shorts. YouTube is working on adding more features to Channel Permissions soon.
How will I see Shorts in Analytics for Artists?
From your Shorts video, you can click on the Analytics button to bring up a new page that will display performance stats. You can also look at Shots as a traffic source by using YouTube Analytics.
Do tags and descriptions matter on Shorts?
Video tags (not to be confused with hashtags) are NOT a major factor in YT’s search and discovery systems. Rather than a cool way to trick the algorithm, tags are used to help recognise multiple or misspelt names.
While descriptions allow you to provide more detailed information about a piece of content, they’re far less likely to be consumed by a Shorts viewer compared to the video title and opening few seconds. With that in mind, we’d recommend putting most of your effort into these areas.
Paid Digital Goods (PDG)
What Are PDGs?
In late 2020, YouTube made paid digital goods (PDG), available for eligible channels. These features are an additional way for your channels to monetise their content. It is recommended that all eligible channels enable and utilise these features where relevant.
PDG features currently available:
Super Chat – a tool that allows live stream viewers to purchase a highlighted message in the chat stream.
Super Stickers – a tool that will allow fans to purchase animated stickers to share during live streams and Premieres.
Super Chat
Super Chat is like paying for a front-row seat in the digital age: it lets any fan watching a live stream stand out from the crowd and get a creator’s attention by purchasing chat messages that are highlighted in bright colours and stay pinned to the top of the chat window for up to five hours. Super Chat gives viewers a chance to add a little visual flair to their chats and gives creators a new way to keep connected to their fans while earning a little money on the side
Super Chats & Super Stickers show as coloured chat messages in your chat feed. When a viewer makes a purchase, their profile picture can stay on top of the chat feed. For how long it stays depends on their purchase amount. The more a viewer spends, the longer Super Chats or Super Stickers can stay at the top of the chat feed.
Channel Requirements
Your channel is monetized
You’re over 18
You’re in one of the available locations (Algeria, American Samoa, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, U.S. Virgin Islands, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay)
Super Chat isn’t available on age-restricted, unlisted or private videos and on videos where live chat is turned off.
How to enable Super Chat or Super Stickers on a channel:
In the Menu at the top of the main dash, click Supers.
Your latest purchases will be in the Your Super Chat and Super Sticker activity.
For all available purchase info, click See all.
Super Chat & Super Stickers With Premieres
Super Chat & Super Stickers work with YouTube Premieres. If you’ve enabled Super Chats & Super Stickers on your channel, they’re automatically turned on when you premiere a video. Follow these instructions to premiere a video with Super Chat or Super Stickers:
On a computer, sign in to YouTube with your Super Chat- or Super Sticker-enabled channel.
Note that selecting Public will cue the premiere to start immediately after the video is done uploading.
Unlisted videos can’t be premiered.
Click the video you’d like to upload from your computer.
On the next page, turn on Premiere.
Select the date and time of your premiere.
When the video is done processing, click Premiere in the top-right corner.
Merch Shelf
The merch shelf allows eligible creators to showcase their official branded merchandise on YouTube. The shelf appears on the video page of eligible channels, but may not show on all video pages.
YouTube offers a lot of ways for you to promote and sell official merch to fans. A Merch shelf will showcase your items below your videos; a Channel store tab displays items on your channel page; you can use Live chat pins to highlight merch in a live chat; and Merch end screens direct viewers to your products.
These all help fans browse without disturbing their video watching: Description links previews mean that fans can check out merch directly on YouTube, while your video continues to play.
Organise your merch shelf
The merch shelf will display up to 12 products to your viewers. Here’s what can change the order of merch your viewers see:
By default, your retailer selects the specific items and the order of display based on, among other things, product recency, sales performance, and availability.
If you want to change the retailer’s default order on your merch shelf, you can select up to 12 specific items to display on the shelf and order them yourself for your entire channel or video.
Click the Merchandise tab. You’ll only see this option if your channel is eligible.
Click Organize on the “status card.”
Drag and drop all items back to the inventory list or clear the selection.
Click Save.
Showcase merch beyond the Shelf
Store tab in the channel homepage
All channels live with the merch shelf and with at least 1 item eligible to be displayed on the shelf will automatically get a Store tab in their channel homepage. This tab will showcase all of your items currently displayed on the merch shelf. You can link out to the ‘Store’ tab from comments, description and Community posts by simply copy and pasting its URL.
Pin an item on your live steam
If you stream and you’re eligible for the merch shelf, you can promote one item at the top of your live feed.
Click the Merchandise tab below the live stream preview.
Click Unpin.
Description Links
If your channel is using the merch shelf, you can add a link to your official merch store in video descriptions and when users click on the link, they get a preview of your official merch items directly on YouTube. This way, viewers can browse your official merchandise without interrupting their watching experience and, once they are ready to buy, they can click again to go to your official store and complete their purchase.
Feature Merch on end screens
If you’re eligible for the merch shelf, you can add merch to your end screens. Follow these instructions:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
In the left menu, select Content.
Find the video where you want to add merch to an end screen click Editor.
To add merch:
If the video already includes an end screen, click on an empty slot click Merchandise.
If the video doesn’t have an end screen, click Add an end screen choose your template.
Place your merch end screen at your preferred time and place on screen.
Tips
Keep things nice and clear so fans can easily engage: space out merch drops and donations campaigns so they happen at different times. (If you have donations running on your videos, the Merch shelf will not appear.)
Fans react well to artists suggesting they check out the merch on offer: give fans a verbal call-to-action to go to your merch shelf! This works really well in livestream situations, too.
Your channel needs to fulfil some simple but important requirements to be eligible – for instance, musicians must have an Official Artist Channel.
FAQs
How do I get my merch items displayed on the shelf?
Once you create or modify your merch items with your official merchandise retailer and submit them to YouTube, the items will be reviewed for compliance with their policies. This review typically takes a few business days.
How do I know if my merch items are under review?
To find out the status of the product review for your merch items:
Your viewer is watching your video on a mobile browser, smart TV or game console
You have no approved, in-stock merch items
How to Create a Page on VK
Vkontakte is often referred to as the Russian version of Facebook.
Your VK page will allow you to promote your articles and reach an audience in Russia.
Create a Community Page on VK
Directly open Create VK Community Page.
Provide the page name, Page type and accept the terms. When done hit Create Page.
You need to provide further information to create a page. This detail includes Name, community link, category, website, description, Founding date and Export to Twitter settings.
You should ensure that the Community link can be changed at any time (it should be available). Once the details are provided, hit Save.
You can now move to upload a photo, share with friends, Add events, update with news and manage the page completely. After creating your VK business or blog or website page, you will find that the processor is quite similar to Facebook. The only difference is that the page on VK is linked to a personal account.
Verification
What is verification and why is it necessary?
Verification confirms that a profile or community belongs to a real person or organization. However, a checkmark doesn’t mean that the actions of this person or organization are automatically approved by the VK Administration. The verification mark helps you distinguish official communities and profiles with up-to-date information from among fan communities and thematic groups.
What are the advantages of verification?
A higher position in search results
More trust from users
Additional protection from clones and hackers
Who can be verified?
Artists, bloggers, athletes and others with a dedicated follower base, who are popular not only on a large scale but locally as well.
Communities that belong to businesses, cultural facilities, educational institutions and other organizations.
How do I get verified?
In your profile’s settings (vk.com/settings) or the community’s Manage section, there’s a special button to apply for verification. This is only possible on the desktop version of the website. When filling out the application form, it’s important that you tell about yourself and your accomplishments in detail, but keep in mind that performances, interviews, media publications, etc., should be under a year old.
Profiles and communities whose requests for verification have been approved receive a checkmark for one year. After this time, verification is lost. To get it back, you must request another review, during which we make sure that all documents are up-to-date, the quality of the profiles and communities is in order, the VK Terms of Service are not being violated and the verification criteria are being met.
Community Creation
Community Creation Best Practices
After creating a VK profile with your real name & photo, fill a community with at least 3 recent posts.
Upload audios, videos and photos to the community
Record and upload your welcome video for your fans on VK
Make announcements on your social accounts
Add your community link with the VK logo to your official website and add your other social accounts to the ‘links’ section
Avoid reposts and links to external sites
Update the community regularly
Content Development
Uploading videos to VK allows you to increase its reach
Live streaming via VK Live allows you to communicate with fans in real-time
Artist Overview
An artist overview is a page that contains all of an artist’s songs and albums. Here, users can find links to the artist’s official VK community (if they have one) or their profile.
Artist overviews are created automatically by the VK team. Artists cannot create their own overviews.
If you’d like to have an artist overview created, please reach out to support@artists.sonomusic.co with the following information:
Label & Artist Name
Full names of your releases
Unique UPCs of the releases
How do I add photos to my overview?
Contact support@artists.sonomusic.co and attach images that fit the following requirements.
Desktop version: 1510×344
Mobile app: 1440×730
Format: jpg, png
The artist’s name and the Play button are automatically placed over the photo. Make sure these elements fit the image well.
The photos for both the web and mobile versions should be the same. If your photos don’t meet the requirements you will be asked to change them.
The following cannot be used as artist overview covers:
Album/single covers
Drawn images. Exceptions: Virtual artists who have no photo (e.g. Gorillaz)
Scanned images
Small photos that have been upscaled
Poor quality, fuzzy or blurred images
Photos with logos (including the artist’s logos), text or ads
Photos with borders or any other types of decorative elements, collages; images that have been heavily edited or modified
Photos portraying nudity or obscene gestures
Photos portraying narcotics, alcohol, tobacco products or any allusions to them or effects related to their usage
Photos with weapons or portraying aggression
Photos containing profanity
I have an artist overview, but no “Go to Artist” button in my community. How do I enable it?
Reach out to support@artists.sonomusic.co and we can link your community and artist overview if the following requirements are met:
The community name matches the name of the band, artist or stage name.
The owner (creator) of the community is the artist themselves or their official representative.
We cannot link artist overviews to communities that belong to third parties. It is important that the community is run by the official representative of the artist.
Two Step Verification
Every community manager must enable 2-step verification.
Having additional verification steps enabled helps ensure the security of managers’ accounts and community content. You can read about how to enable it here: vk.com/page-777107_53677752.
Linking Communities & Artist Overviews
Communities and artist overviews can only be linked by VK Administration so reach out to support@artists.sonomusic.co and we’ll organise this for you.
Requirements
You should regularly update your community so users can keep up with all the latest news about their favourite artist.
You need to make sure to keep links, logos and other mentions of other social networks, messengers, and streaming services to an absolute minimum.
The community could be unlinked from the artist overview if the above requirements are not met.
What do I do if there are other artists’ albums in my overview or some releases missing?
Please contact support@artists.sonomusic.co and be sure to list the full names of all of the releases that are missing or should not be in your artist overview.
Can I manage my artist overview myself?
Adding and arranging releases in the artist overview happens automatically. You cannot directly manage your overview, but you can control what is added through SONO.
Where can I get the “Listen on VK” or “Listen on BOOM” badges?
Verify your artist profile to gain access to advances insights, roles and integrations.
A gold star indicates an official story account, which means these stories will surface on Snap’s Discover section.
Official accounts have access to enhanced analytics and insights to help you better understand your audiences and engagements to help you create great content.
Verified Artist Profile Setup
Add your public information and manage roles
Make it easier for your fans to find you and allow trusted users to help manage your public profile.
Open your user profile
Tap on your avatar on the left corner of the camera screen
Manage your public profile
Go to the new profile management section on your user profile and tap anywhere on the card to advance to the next screen
Edit your public profile
Tap edit in your profile management screen to add a profile photo, bio and other public information
Manage Roles (including collaborators)
Assign as many users you trust to roles so they can help manage your public profile. Be careful to add the right username.
tap the profile settings gear at the top right
manage roles > assign new roles > enter username > select the corresponding role
Account Roles
Profile Admin
Admins can manager a public profile, add/remove any Snaps from your public story, assign roles and view insights
Admins can’t remove your access to your own public profile
Profile Collaborator
Collaborators can view your account insights and add or remove any snaps fro your public story
Story Contributor
Story contributors can view all of your past snaps as well as add/remove and view insights on their own Snaps
Insights Viewer
Insight Viewers can only view the insights on your profile
Verified Artist Profile Insights
View Insights & Browse Activity
To understand how Snapchatters engage with you, go to the Insights tab.
You can choose between viewing metrics per Story or 7-day & 28-day aggregations across all your stories.
Recent stories & 28-day summary
In ‘Recent, each story tile shows the reach (unique viewers) and number of Snaps in that story.
Tap a story tile to see the views, reach, screenshots, swipe-ups and interactions per Snap
Take a look at the 28-day summary to see your latest trends
Note: Advanced stats are available only for new Snaps posted from this day forward and you can delete them at any time.
Story Insights
Tap ‘See More’ to drill down further. In Insights you can tap on any stat to see a graph with your engagement over 7 or 28 days. In stories, all your past Snaps are grouped based on a 24-hour time window.
You can filter by metric (reach, story view percentage, average time view) to compare your past stories
Audience
You can see how many subscribers you have
You can find the gender breakdown as well as top location and top interest of your story audience in the last 28-days
Activity
Use this tab to track the posting activity of any roles you’ve assigned to your public profile
Profile Highlights
What are Highlights?
Highlights let you showcase collections of your favourite public snaps, photos and videos right on your public profile – permanently.
They’re a key part of your re-designed, fullscreen public profile.
How to create a Highlight
Go to your Highlights tab
Tap on your avatar in the top-left corner of the camera screen. Tap on your profile under the profile management section. Go to your new highlights tab and create new a highlight
Select snaps, photos & videos
Tap the + button to add new content to your highlight. You can choose Public Snaps you’ve previously posted or photos and videos right from your camera roll. When you’re done, press import.
A Highlight can include up to 100 snaps or 5 mins of total content, whichever comes first.
Review and edit your highlight
Tap a snap, photo or video to preview the entire highlight and see how it will look to a fan. You can tap the edit button in the top-right corner to re-arrange or remove content from a Highlight
Select your title and cover photo
Enter a title for your Highlight. To choose a cover image, scroll through the photo picker to select a cover image from the content included in this highlight. A good title and cover photo will give your fans a hint at what’s in store. When you’re done, tap finish to publish your Highlight to your public profile.
FAQs
When will Snapchatters be able to see my new public profile and Highlights?
Your new public profile will become visible to Snapchatters after you publish your first Highlight. Several months fro now, your public profile will be able to be visible to Snapchatters even if you haven’t published a Highlight.
How long do Highlights last?
Your Highlight can stay on your public profile as long as you want. You can remove them at any time from your profile management page.
How many Highlights can I have on my Public Profile?
At the moment, you can have as many Highlights on your profile as you want.
How many Snaps can you include in a Highlight?
A Highlight can include up to 100 Snaps or 5 minutes of total content – whichever comes first.
Note: videos you upload from your camera roll will be divided into 10-second snaps
Can you edit a Highlight after it’s published?
Yes, you can edit Highlights at any time. Simply tap on the tile in your profile management screen and select the Highlight you want to edit.
What types of Snaps can I include in my Highlight?
How come I’m not able to add a certain Snap to my Highlight?
If you’re adding snaps directly from Snapchat, you’ll only be able to add Snaps that you’ve posted to your public story. You can find these on the stories page of your insights. If you’d like to add a snap that’s not in that tab, you can always save that snap to your camera roll and upload it to a Highlight from there.
Can I feature Lenses that I created on my Public Profile?
Yes! Your re-designed public profile will now offer a one-stop-shop for any lenses you’d like to showcase. Snapchatters can find these in the lenses tab on your profile. When someone subscribes to you, they’ll be able to see your public story in Discover and your lenses in Lens Explorer.
What else can I do to enhance my Public Profile?
In addition to creating Highlights, you can ensure your public profile is as robust as it can be by adding a profile photo, bio, email, category, location and website. Get started by selecting edit profile on your profile management screen.
Music on Snapchat
Snap Sounds
Add songs to snaps from the camera screen
Snap sounds allow users to easily embed licensed music into their messages.
Step 1
Tap on the music icon on the top right
Use Snap Sounds in Pre or Post Capture Snaps
Preview audio on the playlist then tap the song to continue
Step 2
Drag the audio to select the clip of the song you want to include
Preview by pressing the play button
Bonus Tip: Combine Snap Sounds with other creative tools like AR Lenses and stickers
Step 3
Send Snap to friends or post to your story
Your friends will be able to swipe up on your message to listen to the full song on their DSP of choice
Spotlight
A way for the Snapchat community to find the most entertaining snaps in one place.
It’s a product that provides a personalised, content-first, vertical playback experience that lives on the 5th tab of the app.
An additional website is available where desktop users can watch the videos on Spotlight.
Globally available
Best Practices
Be original.
If you want your posts to stand out, take the time to do something new. Make sure that everything you put up adds value—then do something creative with it.
Keep it short and simple.
Snapchat isn’t the platform for in-depth discussions so your stories should ideally be only a minute or two long.
Offer a variety of content.
Don’t get stuck doing the same thing all the time. Snapchat is a great place to offer promo codes or other information but you can also do product/release reveals, behind-the-scenes look at what your artist/label is doing or sharing an exclusive preview of an upcoming event.
Pay attention to the Snapchat style.
Snapchat is a fun platform that’s dominated by users in the under-35 range. If you want to catch their attention, you’ll need to do something fun and exciting. Take advantage of Snapchat’s great filters, make sure you understand the language and do something interesting that will grab your followers’ attention. Keep in mind that Snapchat isn’t intended for over-edited content. Snapchat is designed for raw footage that lets your users learn more about you.
Break out your storytelling skills.
Snapchat might limit you to a few brief seconds in a video but that doesn’t mean you can’t stretch your story out over multiple posts. Tell a story that will grab your users’ attention enough to have them coming back to see all of your posts. Explore something that’s likely to genuinely interest your fan base and they’ll come back and check out your story at a later time.
Story Replies & Quoting
Story Replies is a new feature that lets you engage with your cans and have meaningful conversations around the stories you post. It will also give you the controls you need to manage and filter replies based on what you want to see.
Viewing Story Replies
Tap on your public story
in the public profiles section, tap on the thumbnail for your public story or any of the individual snaps in the expanded list
Swipe up to view insights & replies
while you’re watching your own public story, swipe up to see the viewers and screenshots one each snap.
you will notice a new section with story replies from your subscribers, ordered by recency
each row contains the oldest unread reply from that Snapchatter
Tap to reply back
you can tap on the row to see the full message and reply back
if there’s a message you don’t like, tap the x on the right to report or block that snapchatter
you can always mute particular words or phrases you never want to see, from your public settings
Swipe or tap thumbnail to see other snaps
you can quickly look through all the snaps in your public story by swiping left and right or tapping on a specific thumbnail.
under each snap, you’ll see the insights and story replies
Swipe down to view the full snap
if you want to see the snap-in fullscreen view, you can either tap on the currently selected thumbnail or swipe down
Muting Words or Phrases
go to profile settings > tap on the gear icon at the top right corner of your public profile management page
You will see a list of all the words and phrases you have currently muted. Tap ‘add muted words’ to include more or ‘x’ to remove existing ones
Quoting is a fan engagement tool that makes it easier to share subscriber’s reply to your public story. Ask subscribers to send you questions and answer away! You can even mix things up and ask them questions. Fans will be notified when you quote them which can really make their day.
FAQs
Can I still get story replies if only Friends can contact me?
Yes, story replies are on by default. Replies from your subscribers will only appear on your story management screen. You can always choose to hide story replies by toggling the setting ‘show story replies’ off in profile management.
Can I still get story replies in my primary chat feed?
If your contact me setting is everyone, story replies will continue to appear in your primary chat feed in addition to the new story
Which Snapchatters can send me story replies?
All snapchatters that have subscribed to you will be able to swipe up while viewing your story and send you a reply. To keep the community safe, Snapchat automatically filters out spammy and abusive messages. They also hide non-text based messages from your story management.
How do I filter out words and phrases I don’t want to see?
Story replies include tools to filter out messages containing words/phrases you don’t want to see including emojis.
How are story replies ordered?
They’re ordered by recency with the newest replies on top.
Can I hide story replies?
Yes, if you don’t want to see your story replies, go to your profile settings and toggle off show story replies. You can also tap the ‘x’ on the right-hand side of each reply to block or report snapchatters that send you a message you don’t want to see.
Are story replies private?
Yes, only you can see them. Other roles that have insights access will continue to only see snap metrics and viewer lists.
How can I get more stories replies?
Your subscribers might not know that they can reply to your story yet. Try posting more interactive Snaps, asking your fans questions and prompting them to swipe up to reply.
When should I quote someone?
In addition to reposting your subscribers’ replies, quoting allows you to react with a snap. Quote fans to show your appreciations for them and let your subscribers know that you read their replies.
What happens when I quote someone?
When you successfully quote a reply, the sender is notified and receives a message letting them know that you have shared their reply to your public story. The sender is not tagged and viewers can only see their Bitmoji and first name.
Snap Products
Shazam
Your artists’ fans are on Snap already and they’re shazaming their music.
Send traffic to the streaming platforms directly from Snap.
Unlock artists profiles, filters, and lenses.
Shopify
The ‘Shop’ button on a verified artist profile opens the artist store featuring the entire catalogue of products published from the Shopify backend.
The attachment tool lets artists include a link in the stories they post on Snap
Community Lenses built-in Lens Studio can include a link to the artists’ store
Send your community lens deep-link to the FUGA Marketing Team to get the Shop button added.
Fans can also access artist stores via search on Snap.
Stickers
Incorporate your presence into the millions of sticker and filter creations per day – they’re some of Snap’s most popular products.
Design custom stickers for your artist to bolster their engagement on the platform.
Custom designed location filters can be geo-targeted for immersive audience experiences – great for special events and venues on tour.
Submit custom GIFs via GIPHY to automatically show up in Snap’s sticker search
Gifting
This is a tipping feature for fans to send tokens to their favourites artists and creators, who will earn money for every Gift they’re sent.
Snap Originals
Snap Me is a Q&A series where users submit questions directly through Snap and artists respond through Snaps in their own voice.
We can compile, edit and publish the Snaps as an episode on Discover screens
Snap Shows
Snap Originals are new premium original shows with interactive experiences you can step into and share.
Story Studio
A standalone app for editing short-form video content
In the app, you can see trending sounds, topics and Lenses
You can also trim and crop content and add captions & stickers.
Media Partnerships
On Platform
Labels and artists should create profiles on Reddit to develop their brands and engage with Reddit users and communities.
Partnership Opportunities
AMAs (Ask Me Anything)
Live Video (RPAN/Reddit Live)
Engagement Prompts
Unique Activations
Polls and Predictions
AMAs
AMAs are Reddit’s well-known Q&A post format. Artists & labels are expected to spend one hour answering questions from the Reddit audience.
AMA Ideas
Producers/Directors
Actors
Show creators
animators
behind-the-scenes
Live Video
RPAN/Reddit Live is their video live-streaming product. This works best for live Q&As or other unique activation ideas in targeted show or fan communities
Reddit Live Ideas
Audience easter egg hunt
Talkback with directors etc
Experimental formats (live readings)
Out-Of-Context (hang outs with artists)
Reddit Talk
What is Reddit Talk?
Live audio conversations in your favourite communities.
Invite up to 30 people to the stage to speak
100K+ listeners can tune in and react with emojis
Starting A Talk
Talks live within communities and only a community’s moderator will be able to start a talk
Joining A Talk
Once a talk is live, any Redditor can join the room to listen in and react with emojis.
Listeners can also raise their hand for the host to invite them to speak
Listeners can also change heir talk avatar
Moderating A Talk
Hosts can invite, mute and remove speakers during a talk. They can also remove unwanted users from the talk entirely and prevent them from rejoining.
Only moderators can start talks but they can invite trusted speakers to co-host a talk
Tap on the ‘raised hands’ lists or on a listeners profile > tap invite to speak > if the listener accepts, they’ll be brought to the stage to speak
tap on a speakers profile > tap ‘….’ button > tap mute, remove as a speaker or remove from the room
tap on speaker’s profile > tap invite to host
Tap the + button on iOS/Android > in the subreddit post screen, tap the audio button > add a talk title and tap Go Live
Ending Talks
Tap leave or end room for everyone
In the future, Reddit will show hosts a summary stats screen when the talk ends
Hosts can also customize talk room colours when they create the room
Discovering Talks
Redditors can discover talks from:
Home feed
Popular feed
Communities
Push notifications
Shared URL to the Talk Room
How to Participate as a Launch Partner
Before A Talk
We’ll help you match with a top community and coordinate with moderators on a date/time for the Talk
Moderators will create a text post promoting the upcoming Talk and you can share this post on social media
During a Talk
Moderators will start the Talk and share a link to invite speakers
We will promote the Talk on Home and subreddit feeds and via notifications
After a Talk
We will share stats from the Talk (e.g., unique and concurrent listeners)
FAQ
Q: How do I set up a Talk?
A: Reach out to the SONO marketing team with your Talk idea.
Q: Can I do a Talk in any subreddit?
A: Reddit Talk is available in a limited number of top subreddits during initial launch. Participating subreddits include those in finance, support, entertainment, health, and other categories.
Q: When is the best time to do a Talk?
A: Reddit is currently planning Talks for Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Q: Can I start my own Talk?
A: Only moderators can start talks. We will coordinate with mods in advance of your Talk to ensure a smooth flow.
Q: Do I need to moderate my own Talk?
A: No. Talks will take place in moderated spaces.
Q: Can I schedule Talks in advance?
A: Reddit are still working on a scheduling feature. In the meantime, we will work with mods to create a text post promoting the Talk that you can share on social media.
Best Practices
Best practices to adhere to when broadcasting on RPAN (Reddit Public Access Network):
Engage with users
The product is designed to encourage back and forth between users and the broadcaster.
Listening and responding to comments will drive stronger engagement.
Promote the broadcast to relevant audiences
Include your username (u/USERNAME) in the title.
Announce your plan to broadcast (include a date, time and link – if you’re currently live) to any communities you participate in.
As always, please be sure to abide by community rules.
Share a link to the broadcast on your key social channels.
Send permalinks to the SONO team for potential amplification.
Tailor your broadcast to your Reddit audience
Broadcasting simultaneously across multiple platforms often does not translate, so make sure content feels specific to the Reddit audience.
Keep it simple; don’t overthink the production.
No more than two people are needed:
Artist
Producer monitoring comments/conversation
Maintain a mindset of experimentation and have fun!
We cannot predict what will be popular.
Streams can be driven by the topic, the talent, and sometimes just the community.
A surprisingly potent, community-driven content example: r/takecareofmyplant.
Consider the unique value that you can bring as a media organization
Access to a special or unique talent.
On-the-ground journalism.
Twitter
Social media has had a significant influence on how we promote and market music, and it is not going away anytime soon. None of us can accommodate not being more acquainted with Twitter. As a result, there’s no harm in going over some fundamentals…
Brand Your Profile: Google Crawls it.
Social media allows musicians to market themselves and their music through a variety of internet touch points. It’s a wise decision to keep your social profiles consistent in terms of style and layout. The message should differ but try to tie them all together with a similar style or theme. Your bio, your tweets are all crawled by Google, make sure they represent you properly and speak about you highly.
Build Your Network
After you’ve built your Twitter profile, it’s time to locate your target audience. Begin by following friends, then expand to potential fans and relevant artists or profiles to broaden up your network. Following musicians that your followers are also listening to is a wise choice; it’s a basic method to initiate conversations. Follow a variety of music business professionals and outlets that you admire, and pay close attention to how they utilize their Twitter presence. Don’t be shy to retweet or like their tweets, appreciate them.
Engage With Your Followers
It’s vital to respond besides retweeting your followers and liking their tweets. To have your tweet interaction going, sponsor a contest, discuss issues, or strike up a conversation about a recent social event. Your followers are interested in you, and it is crucial that you show them that you are passionate about them as well. Jump into existing conversations that you can browse through trending and regular hashtags through via the Twitter search engine. There’s a lot going on, start engaging and networking and watch your profile reach and impressions spike!
Pre-Release Strategies
Twitter’s peak activity times are often in the afternoons, nights, and weekends, but don’t spam your followers with tweets and then disappear. You want to have a consistent tweeting pace and avoid spending too much time resting. Using hashtags on a regular basis can also help to brand your tweets and boost their ‘tweet reach’ aka visibility. Fans want new music all the time, try to hype new release, go on Twitter space, start a discussion, post a teaser, a banner, a short clip, host a Twitter event to announce the title, make a big deal of every step of your pre-release campaign!
Final Thoughts
As an artist, keeping your digital presence and social media identity is as important as maintaining your stage persona. It may take a lot of time and effort to establish oneself on social media, but don’t be upset if things don’t take off right away.
Maintain consistency in your efforts, and it will all be worth it.
Social media is a lengthy game and your daily dedication eventually transforms to virality!
Start telling your story to the world, enjoy tweeting and typing!
Artist Branding
Don’t Be Boring: A Musician’s Guide to Branding
Defining your “brand” as an artist is an important step in choosing a look, career path, and even sound. But what does that really mean? What constitutes a “brand,” anyway? The most compelling definition is “the story you choose to tell the world about what you’re doing. It’s how you communicate who you are in everything you do.”
Below, we laid out a few different methods of developing your brand as an artist. It’s important to note that these concepts stemmed from conversations with working musicians and how they, themselves, discovered and continue to nurture their own brands.
{Editor’s Note: Below is a version of a post originally showcased on Soundfly, an online music school dedicated to helping anyone, anywhere find their unique voice and express it musically.}
Approach 1: Starting with Why
One approach to building a successful brand comes from Simon Sinek. Sinek suggests that most companies only communicate what they do — i.e., “we make flying umbrellas” or “we’re Airbnb for squirrels” — but the most successful ones communicate why they’re doing it instead.
For instance, let’s say there’s a company called Truckster that makes toy trucks for adults. They could simply communicate by saying:
“HEY, WE MAKE TOY TRUCKS FOR ADULTS!”
But instead, Sinek suggests they’ll have more success by saying:
“WE BELIEVE THAT GROWN-UPS WILL BE BETTER ABLE TO ABSORB STRESS IF THEY HAVE DAILY OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPERIENCE THE SIMPLE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD [WHY]. WE INTEND TO DO THIS BY CREATING TOYS THAT BRING OUT THE INNER CHILD IN EVERYONE [HOW]. MORE SPECIFICALLY, WE MAKE TOY TRUCKS FOR ADULTS [WHAT].”
The presence of the why takes what sounds like a pretty useless idea, and suddenly makes it sound not quite so unreasonable.
Musicians can do this as well, and it’s actually a pretty fun exercise. It starts with answering these questions in this order:
What is it that compels you to publish sounds and share them with the world? (Why?)
How does the music you make reflect that drive? (How?)
More specifically, what type of music do you make? (What?)
When you have the answers, look for ways to communicate that why to fans, whether in your website, your social media platforms, your stage presence, or your album covers.
One example of an artist who I feel has a really clear why is Lady Gaga. Her brand is all about celebrating difference and personal liberation. She expresses that why through her songs and lyrics, but also through her performative outfits, her willingness to redefine herself constantly, and her support for causes built around individual empowerment. Her brand is tied together by her why.
Approach 2: Finding Your Hedgehog
There’s another interesting business book that’s had an influence on me called Good to Great by Jim Collins. In this book, Collins argues that some companies are able to make the leap from being marginally successful to being exceptionally successful in part by having a clear “hedgehog.”
The “hedgehog” lies at the intersection of three important questions:
What are you most passionate about?
What can you do best in the world?
What drives your economic engine (i.e., what will people pay for)?
The idea of a company’s “hedgehog” comes from the parable of the fox and the hedgehog and is used in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great.
I’ve also had some fun applying this approach to personal development, as well as art and music.
To start, try to figure out what parts of being a musician you’re most passionate about, whether it’s the writing, the stage-diving, or just learning new things. Then, allow yourself to shed your humility for a second and ask yourself what you think you could be best in the world at. (The corollary to this question is what will you definitely not be best in the world at because someone’s already doing it. For example, you probably won’t choose ethereal Icelandic vocal nymph because Björk’s already got that covered, but you could find a related niche that does feel unique to you.)
Finally, think about what parts of your music will be most likely to drive your growth. For musicians, this is most likely going to be your music, but the more specific you get, the better. Is it Patreon subscribers, elaborate national tours, or album sales? Collins specifically encourages you to think of this as “profit per X” where X could be anything, such as profit per track released or profit per show or profit per hour I spend on the Internet.
As you look at all your answers to the above questions, are there places where all three overlap? For instance, if you find that you’re passionate about connecting with people and performing, you think you can be best in the world at ukulele covers, and your best money maker is a small group of dedicated fans (profit per fan communication), then you might want to consider building a brand around YouTube covers for Patreon supporters.
This arguably gets more into strategy than simply branding, but the questions themselves are an interesting brand building exercise to help unearth some of the parts of your art that are unique to you.
Approach 3: A Step-by-Step Guide to Defining Your Brand
There are a few common threads that you might be noticing so far. First of all, the most successful brands are always authentic representations of the people creating them, especially when it comes to musicians and artists. Don’t be contrived.
Second, knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing is a great place to start. This is arguably critical in any career choice, but even more so in music in order to figure out a path that is most well-suited to you.
Finally, having a theory for what makes you unique is one of the most important elements of any brand-building exercise, since it will make sure that you’re doing something that has the chance to stand out. In other words, it will protect you from being too boring or conventional.
That said, it still might be a little vague how to actually turn this stuff into a coherent brand, so we’ve created a step-by-step list for you below.
Step 1: Find 3-5 other artists you admire and define their brands.
Cruise your music library and make a list of some of the artists who most inspire you. How would you define or describe their brand? How do they communicate that brand in the activities they do, whether their music, stage show, merch, website, etc.? Make a list.
Step 2: Define what makes you unique in no more than two sentences. This will be your core brand statement.
Use one of the approaches above to define what it is that makes you and your music unique to the world. It should undoubtedly contain elements of why you’re doing this and should feel authentic to you. A possible example might be: “Oklahoma! Octopalypse is a death metal band performing covers of 1950s musical theater songs in underwater-themed animal costumes. Our music marries a love of creative performance with an appreciation of our shared musical legacy.” You can think of this as your value proposition for what you’re offering the world that no one else is doing.
This core realization can be something that you revisit on occasion and that, together with your core values, you use as a litmus test to help you with important decisions. Should you take that gig you’ve just been offered? Turn to this statement and your values to see if it fits.
One thing to note: Don’t spend too much time on the exact language — this doesn’t need to be something you share externally. The intention is more to help guide you and your bandmates and make explicit the assumptions you’re already operating under.
Step 3: Define 3-5 core values that fit with your brand statement.
These are the things you as an artist care about most of all. In many ways, they should evolve right out of your two sentence statement around what makes you unique. For instance, in the example above, the artist might choose: “Commitment to unbridled creativity, over-the-top performance, genuine appreciation of musical theater, and disrupting expectations.”
Other values you might feel represent you are ideas such as pushing musical boundaries, creating personal connections with fans, experimentation, fun, etc. These are the things that are most important to who you are.
It’s okay if some of these feel a little generic at first, as long as they are authentic to you and who you want to be as an artist; you can get more creative in how you choose to implement them.
Step 4: Define your brand’s tone of voice with 3-6 keywords.
To round out your brand guidelines, take your brand statement and your values and choose a few words to describe the tone of voice that you will use to communicate them. I find that this is the part that evolves the most over time as we discover new ways to communicate who we are creatively, but it’s still worth writing them down.
Is your brand tone uplifting or dark? Is it ethereal or down to earth? Brainstorm a list of a bunch of words and then narrow it down to the ones you keep coming back to.Put these together with your statement of difference and your values to create a branding guide for you as an artist.
Our underwater death metal musical band might list: “wacky,” “light and dark contrasts,” “weird,” “disruptive,” and “loud” as their key brand tones. Ta-da! Now you have a set of branding guidelines that you can share with collaborators, label reps, or designers you work with to help them understand you better. As we’ll see in a minute, you can also use this to guide your own actions going forward.
Step 5: Make a list of all the key activities you do as an artist, and then how you can adjust each one to better reflect your brand.
Final step: Let’s operationalize this! To do that, one approach is simply to make a giant list of every activity you do as a band — your music, your merch, your stage show, your social media, your email list, etc. — and then brainstorm beneath each item how you might be able to incorporate your new branding guidelines into that activity. This is also another good moment to go back and revisit the artists you admire and see how they did this for ideas.
Let’s go back to our friends Oklahoma! Octopalypse for a second. They might list running a merch table as an activity of theirs. Given their values and their tones, they might choose to design their merch table to look like a fish tank (performative and wacky) but with a dismembered hand coming through the middle (disruptive and over-the-top).
Okay, it’s possible I’m going too far with this example, but hopefully you get the idea. Is one of your core values creating human connection? Then send everyone a personalized note of thanks who buys an album. Or mystery? Then wear a mask on stage.
This might sound like a ton of work — and it can be — but in my experience, it can also be incredibly valuable work in helping create a coherent story that you communicate throughout every touchpoint you have with your audience and fans, from the stage to the web and beyond. Not only will this exercise force you to confront tough questions, it will also push you to make sure you really know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And in the long run, we believe it will allow you to create a better connection with audiences and achieve your goals.
— from Soundfly
IG Reels
What Are Reels?
Reels is IG’s version of 15-second, creative videos that can be shared to a new, dedicated tab on your profile as well as your feed and explore pages.
Creative tools include:
Audio
Select any song from the Instagram music library or use original audio you find on Reels
Speed
Speed up or slow down your audio (not music). Change the speed of the whole video or for specific clips.
Effects
Use any AR effect on Instagram to help build your story and change the look and feel of your Reel
Timer
Record hands-free
Ghost Tool
Use ghost tool to line up your takes and create seamless transitions
Reels Insights
Navigate to an individual reel you’ve posted, tap ‘…’ then tap ‘View Insights’
Accounts Reached, Plays, Likes, Comments, Shares, and Saves are available for your individual reels
Reels Insights will also be included in all Account Insights pages: Accounts Reached, Content Interactions, Top Content, Media Library
Note: Available for all reels posted on or after May 14
How to create a IG Reel using your music
While established artists can let the fans come to them, up and coming musicians are advised to prompt their audience by creating videos featuring their music themselves.
Think of something that will grab people’s attention and be fun to share, such as a lip-sync or dance contest.
Open up your Instagram Camera and select Reels
If you want to shoot a video to an existing track, click the notes and choose your song (Can’t find your track? Double check you’ve delivered the product to Facebook in FUGA and if you have, reach out to support@fuga.com).
Slide to find the right 15 seconds.
The pink dot will show you the most popular snippet, but you can choose whichever audio segment you like.
If you’re verified with Musixmatch, your synced lyrics may also appear as a reference. Not Verified? Check out the section on Musixmatch to find out how.
Add a filter or AR effect if desired
Then shoot a video, either all at once or one clip at a time, until you reach 15 seconds (clip bars will display at the top of the screen).
Video can be shot in fast or slow motion by adjusting the speed before pressing record.
You can edit the length of every clip as you go to get the timing just right.
Use the Align tool (or the “ghost” tool) to frame your subject correctly from clip to clip
Add text or stickers to the whole video, or to certain sections. Write a caption that encourages your fans to make their own video in response, include some relevant hashtags, and then publish!
You can post your Instagram Reel to your profile feed, to your Stories, or both. Reels will also show up under the new Reels tab on your profile, similar to your IGTV content.
How Reels can help you reach more people:
Reels that show up on the Explore grid can be watched by anyone on Instagram
Reels will be selected based on someone’s interests and what else is in their Explore grid
Reels will only feature content marked as Reel (so your Stories, Lives, or IGTV posts will not show there)
Dos & Donts
Do
Inspire creation, giving a sense that anyone can join in and create
share original and authentic content, created with the Reels camera
use the Reels music library and audio tools
uses creative tools like text, filter or camera effects
uses vertical video
stay relevant with cultural moments and topics
have a wow or lol factor
pull the viewer in quickly – the more intriguing the better
is visibly recycled from other apps and contains logos or watermarks
is uploaded with a border around it
has the majority of the image covered by text
These types of Reels won’t be recommended as often to people who don’t yet follow you in places like Reels tab but will still be known the way they always have been e.g. on your profile or feed
Remix Reels
Create your own reel alongside an existing reel, together with the ability to add a voiceover and then control volume for original audio and recorded audio.
You can capture your reaction, respond to a fan or bring your own perspective to a trend you discover in the Reels tab.
IG Shopping in Reels
Artists who have set up Instagram Shopping also have the ability to tag their merch products in reels. People viewing a reel with product tags can tap ‘View Products’ to buy, save, or learn more about products tagged in that reel.
Reels with product tags provide an opportunity to drive product discovery with entertaining, short-form content that has the opportunity to be seen on Instagram’s global stage. Benefits of tagging products in reels include:
Drive Merch Discovery: Reels with product tags have the opportunity to be shown in the Reels tab, where they have the potential to be discovered by millions of people using the Instagram app. Your artist’s reels will also be visible in Feed (if you choose to share them there) and on your artist’s Profile.
Collaborate with creators: creators can tag products in reels to drive sales for merchandise or product collaborations. Your creator partners must be approved to use Shopping from Creators.
Entertain, educate, and inspire: Reels are short, entertaining videos that can help your artists connect with new and existing audiences. Your artists can feature specific merch items, or flex their creativity to inspire fans to engage with their products.
Please note that Checkout is not yet available ex-US.
Ads in Reels
Instagram has introduced ads to its Reels feed. The ads will be vertical and full-screen, up to 30s long and will appear between organic Reels. You’ll be able to identify ads by a Sponsored tag underneath the account name. Viewers can like, comment on, save and skip the ads.
Soundsync
Soundsync helps users create seamless Reels from videos in their camera roll. The tool will automatically edit/sync the uploaded clips to the beat of the selected song providing on the spot creative and inspiration.
How to use ‘Soundsync’:
1) Tap on ‘+’ and scroll to “Reels” mode
2) Upload from camera roll, choose “multiple select”, select 2 or more videos or photos. Tap ‘next’
3) You’ll automatically enter the Soundsync flow which will edit/sync your clips to a pre-selected song’s beats.
4) You can select different songs to easily edit/sync your video with different songs, it’ll auto-sync every time
5) Once you’re happy with your creation, tap on ‘next’
Superbeat & Dynamic 3D Lyrics
With these new tools, it’s easier to discover effects on Reels in the newly updated effect gallery. Superbeat is a new music beat effect that applies appealing visual edits to your Reel based on the song you choose. Dynamic 3D Lyrics are two new lyric effects that apply song lyrics to your Reel so you can perform to the music and connect with your audience.
How does it work?
Open the Reels Camera
Open the effect tray/gallery
Select Superbeat / Dynamic Lyrics / 3D Lyrics effect (You can always search for these effects and save them for future use)
Use the music picker to select a song
Then start recording and see the effect kick in!
Lenses
Community Lenses & Lens Studio
Lens Studio is free software to easily create your own lenses.
Pre-built templates allow for a plug, play and submit
Include up to 30 seconds of your track in the lenses to boost song exposure
New 3D body mesh tools and cloth simulations mean you can make realistic and immersive product try-on lenses.
Connected Lenses also allow users to interact via a Lens in real-time, wherever they are in the world.
You submit the lens – FUGA can help to get it featured to maximise its reach.
Getting featured in Snap’s Explore tab can significantly boost the exposure of your song and lens.
Editorial placements are also available via the Community Lens Explorer
When creating a preview: make sure the entirety of the preview video includes the defining elements of the Lens and include your artist in the preview rather than the stock lens model. (Note: this is a new requirement to associate the lens to the artist account)
Sometimes, your preview video will be displayed as a static image. Because of this, make sure the first frame of your video is compelling and shows off the defining elements of the Lens.
If a video of the artist using the lens is not possible, use a static image of the artist
Submit Lens from Artist Account
Make sure to submit from a verified artist account, these will be whitelisted in order to avoid having the Lens taken down for copyright issues. The lens must be submitted from the artist account in order to be featured.
Song Name = Lens Name
The name of your Lens will live above the Artist Account on users’ Snap Explore screens. Make the song name match the title of your lens for the best user experience. This will be especially important for artists that have multiple lenses associated with their profile.
Get Featured on Explorer
Send us the deep link and lens ID associated with your Lens and we can pitch to have it featured in Explorer. This will help get your lens in front of users and supplement your existing marketing campaigns.
Clean Audio
Explicit content will not get through Snap’s review process therefore the audio clip in your lens should not have any explicit lyrics in it.
Please use a clean/edited version or a clip of the song without explicit content.
Musixmatch for Artists: how to add song lyrics to your Instagram Story
🔥 Good news for all artists! This week, Musixmatch partnered with Instagram announcing a new feature that allows users to add lyrics to their Instagram Stories.
It’s getting easier and easier to reach your fans and promote your music on social media. Add music and lyrics to your Instagram story and reach a potential of 500M people using Instagram every day.
Instagram stories are now the best way to share your new release and reach your fans worldwide. To get your lyrics available on Instagram you need to publish your lyrics on Musixmatch following the steps below.
Join the Verified Artists on Musixmatch
Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Kendrick Lamar, The Black Keys, A$AP Rocky, Dua Lipa, Juice WRLD and thousands of artists are already verified on Musixmatch, join them and get your music and lyrics heard everywhere.
Instagram provided some step by step directions below:
Once in “Story” mode, add lyrics by selecting the ‘music’ sticker from the sticker tray after taking your photo or video.
Choose a song and use the scrubber tool to select the part of the song that best captures the moment you’re sharing. The scrubber will also enable you to find the lyrics of the exact part of the song you want.
Pick between different lyrics, animations, font designs and colors. Move, resize and rotate the lyrics to share your story.
Fans that watch your story will see the lyrics pop up as the music plays. When they tap on the lyrics, they’ll see a sticker with the song title and artist name that links to the artist’s Instagram profile.
There are lots of creative possibilities with Instagram Stories to engage with your fans, from asking your fans what their favorite quotes are to an endless mix of expressions adding music and lyrics to your life moments.
If you manage multiple artists, you’ll be able to manage them all with one account
Add, edit and sync lyrics
Download the Musixmatch desktop app, sign in with your previously registered account and connect your streaming service
You can play your tracks from Spotify, iTunes or Windows Media Player and Musixmatch will show the lyrics automatically. Click the edit button bottom right to make any changes
If the lyrics aren’t available yet, simply click on Add Lyrics and type in the lyrics following the writing guidelines shown on the side
You can edit the lyrics and the synchronisation of your lyrics if they’re already available
As soon as you save, your lyrics will be published immediately on all Musixmatch apps and available to partners in a few hours.
Submit a new release
Submit lyrics/timestamp details via Musixmatch’s Verified Artist link after the track is released (title, artist name, ISRC and track length cannot be made available to our database prior to a track’s actual release date)
For Priority tracks: If, upon release, you’re still not able to find the track in Musixmatch’s catalogue (by searching the catalogue on their website) by EOD CET time on Saturday after release day, please notify Musixmatch. Verified artists can send an email to artists@musixmatch.com for priority tracks to be added to Musixmatch’s catalogue with the link to the new release on Spotify and/or Apple Music.
For Priority tracks: If you find the lyrics in Musixmatch’s catalogue (by searching the catalogue on their website), but the lyrics are not appearing within the Lyrics sticker, please reach out to promo@fuga.com
Existing Tracks
Please first search the Musixmatch catalogue to determine if the track is available.
If you’re not able to find track lyrics in Musixmatch’s catalogue, log in via Verified Artist and submit the lyrics.
If you find the lyrics for the track in Musixmatch’s catalogue, but they’re not appearing on Instagram, reach out to promo@fuga.com and we will investigate what the issue is and notify Musixmatch if necessary.
Follow the writing guidelines
Write down all the parts of the song even when multiple repetitions occur
Primary vocals are focus and backup vocals should be in parenthesis
Please note: SONO for Artists uses an automated Google Translator which might cause you to see some funny or nonsense translations. If something is not clear contact us by using the in-app chat.
Strategy #2
As musicians, we know how exciting it is to finish a song and want to share it with the world right away.
But we also know that having an effective release plan is the surest way to set yourself up for success.
Whether you’re dropping your first track or your third LP, creating a practical, feasible plan should always be your goal. Remember, your release day should be a celebration, not a day to stress over all the things you missed.
The following tips will help you create an effective release plan – each and every time.
HOW TO CREATE A RELEASE PLAN
Establishing deadlines for key tasks will ensure you’re not scrambling at the last minute. Here is a timeline of important dates that will help you stay on track:
90 days before
Finalize your artist bio and other visual assets – you need these to secure press coverage, create hype on social media, and update your profile on streaming platforms.
85 days before
Identify the outlets you want to be featured on and start pitching for coverage. Many editors have their emails in their Twitter bio.
45 days before
Upload your music on SONO
30 days before
Start preparing all the creative assets
prepare and schedule social posts to ensure you get the most coverage.
14 days before
Organize your pre-save & smart links, including your song link
and your #linkinbio
1 day before
Get ready for release (and promotion)!
On release day:
Reshare posts from your excited fans on your Instagram Stories.
Pitch music to magazines, blogs and independent playlists
Keep on pushing.
Later.com analyzed over 35 million feed posts and determined that these are the best and worst times to post on Instagram each day:
TIP: If you know the location of your audience, you can schedule your posts accordingly to have the ultimate impact.
Here are eight tips to make your release plan more effective
