The generally accepted norm in the music industry is that you never promote your older songs once new music has been released. I understand that artists don’t want to live... The post 7 Reasons Why Every Independent Artist Should Promote Older Songs appeared first on D4 Music Marketing ..read more

This blog was originally published on Hypebot. This is a question musicians may be wondering about when considering launching a Patreon campaign as an additional income source. What is the minimum number of fans or social media followers I need to have a chance of earning success on Patreon? Since there are no discovery features on Patreon, it’s entirely up to you to funnel your fans to become paying patrons for your membership business. As someone who has been working with artists and managing their Patreon accounts for 6 years now, this was a question I wondered about myself but never found ..read more

Many aspiring artists dream of turning their music hobby into a full-time professional career. The problem is that this transition is challenging. Not only do you have to make enough to take the leap, you need to be able to keep it going for the long haul in an ever-changing, competitive industry. It’s not uncommon for professional musicians to bounce back and forth between doing music full-time and taking up another job to supplement income. Or, even returning to a full-time day job and doing music on the side. As an emerging independent artist, you might be wondering what are your best job o ..read more

There’s an active scam going around right now using my website’s name and likeness D4 Music Marketing. Please do not interact, click any links, sign up for anything or send any money to them. It looks like they are operating and directing people to d4musicgrouppromo.com with job offers and using WhatsApp to solicit individuals. They are claiming that D4 Music Marketing, Inc. is a record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment of the United States, which is not true. I am not offering any jobs and I don’t use WhatsApp so it is 100% a scam. Here’s what I know of the scammers: Domain Name: d4musi ..read more

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the number one problem emerging artists have is marketing their music to gain new fans and grow a loyal fanbase. It’s the most common question that I see in my inbox. In our current climate right now, the key to get yourself in front of potential fans in a cost effective way is through short form video content. Typically, musicians will associate this type of short form content with the dance, lip sync and crazy challenge videos found on TikTok. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be any of that. This trend of short form videos can actual be quite simple ..read more

2024 Update: This blog was originally published in 2018, but I recently updated it to reflect the changes I’ve seen in the past 6 years. Have you recently decided that you want to pursue your passion for music, but have no idea where to start? If you’ve been doing music as a hobby for a while now and you want to get more serious, you’re in the right place. In this blog, I cover all the major pieces and beginning steps you will need to take for starting your music career as an independent artist. Although this guide caters more towards performing artists, singer-songwriters, bands and rappers ..read more

We all know it’s hard to get your music noticed and grow a fanbase in today’s content saturated world. Have you ever thought about how much harder it would have been to make a living with your music as an independent artist WITHOUT the internet and social media? Or how about without powerful computers (desktops, laptops, smart phones) to conveniently record and produce music from home? In this blog, I want to share some key lessons we can learn from DIY independent music artists from the 1990s, specifically in the underground hip hop scene in the United States. Even if you don’t listen to or m ..read more

You’ve put a lot of thought into creating the right designs for merch based on your brand and music. With those designs, you decided on the best way to get those items made. Now, it’s time to sell! For many independent artists, live shows don’t come as frequently so you want to make sure you’re maximizing these opportunities to sell when you’re performing live. In this blog, we’ll go over all of the basics that you should keep in mind for selling merch in person and some tips to maximize your efforts. Please Note: This blog contains affiliate links to Amazon, meaning that I get a small commiss ..read more

The one thing that never fails to piss off creators and artists are social media algorithms! The days of free organic reach have been well behind us. Basically, ancient history at this point. Although the perception of how TikTok serves content to users seems to be more favorable, the complaints have more so been with Instagram and Facebook (both owned by Meta of course). To be fair, the YouTube algorithm doesn’t share your new video uploads to all of your subscribers either. What can musicians do to overcome this challenge with algorithms? Or is it even the source of the problem in the first ..read more

Note: This is an option blog piece that is a bit different from what I usually publish. It is meant to be a complementary piece to go with my Tactics For Musicians To Beat Social Media Algorithms blog. Whenever a musician posts about tickets to an upcoming show or new merch, there can be a noticeable dip in engagement and organic reach compared to other types of posts. I’ve seen it happen firsthand many times. Does this always happen? No. Have I seen sales types of posts do really well organically? Yes. The commonly held belief is that social media platforms will intentionally suppress the org ..read more