Liam's Guide for Releasing Content
Releasing content is so important as an independent music producer. If your goal is to achieve real, consistent, organic growth, the key is really just to post quality content. Every. Single. Day. I’ll share a simple and efficient guide that i’ve come up with, which i’m sure will help. It’s worked for me.
I have a Youtube channel that focuses on all things music production: software, out of the ordinary gear like the OP1, OPZ, SP-404; the list goes on. I’ve consciously chosen a niche market to grow from, something that I know people are interested in but that’s not overly saturated with content. I’ve focused a lot on the OP1 specifically and after becoming fluent with the instrument (you know, through the depths of Youtube instructional videos that I now have a hand in creating), i’ve realized that there are so many avenues of the instrument that haven’t been covered yet, despite the fact that countless musicians swear by it; artists like Diplo, Bon Iver, Mark Hoppus from Blink 182 and even Beck. The list goes on and on…and on (Google “Artists that use the OP1”).
Outside of the OP1, I’ve since become accustomed to a few other popular electronic music making gadgets; including the SP 404 and the OPZ, as i mentioned up above. This power trio combined with a strong foundation with music software gives me an unlimited influx of ideas to work with, which equals an unlimited flow of potential content. So now the question becomes “what is the most efficient way of presenting this content to the world?” I will show you, with examples.
Let’s take one of my performances on the SP 404 for starters. This is a track that I composed 100% in Logic Pro X and then added live FX externally through the SP 404. Performance is linked below (scroll to 7:49), to give you an idea of the quality of content that I strive for.
It all starts with one of my favourite things, composing a piece of music. After the track is completed, I film a performance of it using an instrument that i’m fluent with, in this case the SP 404. It sounds cliche, but it really does help to go that extra mile. Really pay attention to constantly improving sound quality, lighting, how you’re presenting yourself. You might not get all of the engagement you want at first, but if people see real improvement they’ll respect that, and thus, more engagement for you! I recycle the meat of my content, which is the actual music making/performance part, and have realized that people are liable to engage with it more than once if I package it in a different way. I’ll tie this all in after showing you my current step by step method:
My Method
Post at prime time on instagram, usually around 5 pm on a weekday, or mid day on weekends. Include 5-10 solid hashtags that are related to your content
Always reply to all comments, but the first hour is extra important to improve reach/engagement, so reply quickly to everything. During this hour I also manually post to other social medias (twitter, tiktok, necessary subreddits, facebook) I make sure to include a few instagram story posts of that performance as well
I Create an instructional Youtube video (example link is below) featuring some aspect of how I made/performed this beat. I often end Youtube video with the live performance that I initially posted on instagram. I usually use that same track as background intro/outro music and B Roll (Like the video attached above):
Next, I post instructional youtube video manually on all social medias, usually I cut up several clips so that I can post more than once. Again, post to all necessary subreddits
Even if this track is less than a minute long, I still release it on Soundcloud. I like this platform a lot because people enjoy listening to ideas or even sometimes demos/shorter versions of your music. I share this Soundcloud release across all social medias, including necessary subreddits
I Have a more "official release” for the tracks of my choice- Release to all Stores (Spotify, I tunes, Tidal etc) - Still working on this one now
Numbers vary, but i’m posting 50+ times per music release across all social media platforms. The key is that I’m actively finding new ways to repackage my music in a professional way for more reach, which goes a lot further than just posting a track once on one platform and leaving it at that. Sounds like a lot of work, and it is! But this method continues to improve my growth and engagement. I find myself with real followers who actually engage and comment on my content, asking me questions about how to use the gear that I feature. It has definitely put me on the right track as a content creator.
Some of you might be thinking that there’s just too much recycling going on here and that your followers will get annoyed hearing from you all of the time. In my experience, it goes back to finding creative ways to repackage the content that you have created. If you repost a piece of content the same way 50x, then yes, people will flag you as a spammer. But if your followers are visually stimulated in different ways with each post, they will respect that. Chances are they’re only engaging with a small fraction of your content anyways. Social media algorithms are stacked against us as creators. That’s just the reality. If we post something, most of our following doesn’t actually see it, or they scroll past it, or maybe they’re just distracted with something else, so they don’t engage; it all just happens so fast. We’ve moved into a realm where, yes, content quality is still king, but so is quantity, especially when you’re first gaining traction as a creator. It really takes that extra effort to stand out above the rest.