Sometime in the fall of 2015, I made a social media post about free song promotion.  A friend of mine suggested I pursue the idea and thus started the Original Music Spotlight.  Being a musician today is about networking, being an entrepreneur, constantly learning about how to manage your music affairs, and for some, having a day job.  It’s really hard not to put a grin emoji after that last point.

With all the paid music promotion on the Internet, I’m not sure why artists don’t take me up on what I offer.  Because I’m scathingly self critical, I tend to think that since this my site is partially about my music and I’m interested in networking, that artists may have those ideas as reservations.  So, I wanted to explain what I offer with my free song promotion: stats and networking.

Free Song Promotion Stats

Here’s a screen of the types of free song promotion stats I keep and share with the artists who share their songs.  The spreadsheet screen shows various color coded pieces of information.  From left to right, the categories are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Snapchat, Pintrest, post hits, hits per day, media plays, media plays growth during week.  Data is collected for the first week of each post.  Also, I started collected monthly trends for posts and hits per day averages.  That would be useful for returning artists.

Speaking of trends, here’s a snapshot.  Information is collected by month and that data is combined on the white background cells on the left for hit total, hits per day, and months the post has been active.  Over time, you can see which months work best for posts and general post activity.

Stats Reveal What You Get

The bottom of the stats chart shows standard analysis of the data: average, lowest, highest, and median.  Though the original music blog category has an age of a few months, you can see that artists get exposure and plays.  Artists can compare their individual results to the data trends to see strong and weak areas.  An important stat is media plays.  Since most artists have their music in players that do not reveal the number of plays, the information does not include everyone.  Despite the limited data, you can see that 1 out of 4 viewers of the post usually click play.

Update July 2016: With the added data columns, getting insight into how “clickable” the post is gives insight into how visuals or whatever the embedded media has appeals to viewers.  Posts average 139 hits in the first week with a 29.1% post view to play rates.  Artists that share the post tend to yield better results and they can see if sharing on different platforms has results.  For example, one artists who didn’t share the post at all had phenomenal results on Twitter–and they’re not even on that platform.  Hopefully, if you think your Instagram following is active and supportive you can see how they respond to posts about you.

Update November 2016:

Persistence

Keep in mind that the blog posts remain online and people continue to read and listen.  The posts carry momentum far beyond the week of data tracking.  As my own network expands, so does everyone whose story has been told.

Update July 2016: with hit trends, you can see the value of persistence.

Networking Is A Bonus

Most of the artists who share their music check out other artists and we give each other support.  It’s always a cool feeling when other songwriters like one of your songs.  That coolness grows when they share your music or give you some encouraging words.  That’s why we network.  If I’m looking for a gig or open mic in different area, I have people to ask instead of searching through listings wondering which venues might be a good fit.

Contact Me

If you’re interested in sharing your music, contact me.  The usual way is via DM on Twitter or other social media.  How the process usually goes is I check out an artist’s music, find a song or two that I like, the artist sends me some information about a song with buy and social media links, I put it all together and post, and a week later I send stats to the artist.