The paths through this forest constantly evolve, so most breaking news is already outdated. Below is a list of links without much explanation, because we don’t want to misrepresent anyone’s service, and it’s best to just educate yourself right from the horse’s mouth. We have singled out some personal favorites (based on our own experience with using them), but please rest assured that merely getting mentioned on this list means we believe these services are relatively “organic” (relatively free of reliance on stream teams, bot plays, pop-up mentality, and deceptive marketing). With regard to this last sentence, please note that we are not telling you to run away screaming from all stream-teams and temporary promotions – we are only trying to help you most effectively reach potential new fans.
If you have NO budget, try…
(TuneMunk) this seems to have mostly fizzled
Contacting Curators Via Social Media (never send a Facebook Friend Request if you are only planning to drop your link on them. Also if you discover they’ve posted a link for submissions, use what they’ve provided, and don’t DM them.)
If you can spend $1-30…
$50-100…
$400+…
Our service of choice is currently SubmitHub. Here’s why…
Owner Jason Grishoff is one of the hardest working, most service-minded, honest businessmen we have met in this industry. Jason cannot guarantee fantastic results from every curator represented by his service, but he tries very hard to keep them honest, by…
- Providing extremely thorough information about each curator (so that you can find out exactly what they tend to accept, and where they will place it, before you submit)
- Clearly posting each curator’s sharing results in their profile
- Making all curators compete against each other for feedback ratings
- Penalizing curators who reject music without providing useful feedback, if the client chose to prioritize feedback
- Constantly updating the service’s quality-control and communication features
- Encouraging curators to place more artists, by enabling them to offer a “shout-out” if they cannot provide a “proper share.”
- Verifying share results by conducting discreet client interviews
- Keeping curators informed about important changes happening in the industry that might affect their followings
We have also found great value in other services.
…particularly OmariMC, who is much more expensive than SubmitHub, has a completely different business model, and provides a wealth of marketing information for independent artists (much of which has helped us promote our own music). Whereas, the Indie Bible is an excellent resource for self-education about a variety of platforms, the Spotify Community is great for any artist who has more time than money, and Chartmetric provides some unique industry data, Altogether, we believe these kinds of services, rather than competing, are COOPERATIVELY HELPING independent artists stay afloat. If you have enough bandwidth to sample several of them, we recommend finding out whose approach works best for you!
Digital Marketing Mojo for Independent Music Artists 