I hope this type of post is allowed but I’m just curious if anyone has any advice for running meta ads for instrumental electronic music more in the experimental side of things.
I’ve been playing aroubd with ads recently, trying to get listens on streaming but it hasn’t exactly gone well.
For example I just ran an add for a few days for my new track which is a longer sort of chill track that starts out pretty slow and builds up, my meta stats indicate people are clicking the link and bouncing before the 30 sec so not counting as a stream.
Now its fully possible that I just straight up suck lol but its got me thinking about how you guys that make similar music promote it?
I find it very hard to pick 15 sec clip that is supposed to represent the track and I also don’t want to start thinking like I need to start my trwcks differently to engage people in 30 secounds.
I don’t have much experience in this field but I think a good way to approach promo in general is consider what grabs and keeps your attention as a listener and then try and reverse engineer this in a way that feels authentic to you.
More and more these days people are attracted to things that feels intrinsically human and relatable and I think this is a tricky line to toe with electronic music. Personally I always like seeing electronic music performed in nature so those kinds of clips always get my attention and listens.
Unfortunately we’re in an age now where people want to escape in to a world rather than just a song, I don’t think this means you have to change your music, but maybe consider the world you think it lives in and then build the ads around that.
Thanks for the reply, yeah I think I need go re think my strategy. Ultimately I just make music I like to listen to for fun but it would be nice if some people listened now and then lol
I feel you, I’m on the verge of putting some music out myself so this felt very timely and I’ve been having a lot of these same thoughts.
You might already know about it but there’s a thread here on elektronauts where people post their tunes and everyone in there is super supportive Current sounds coming from your gear (Part 3) - #19 by 7schlaf. Could be a good place to start. I’d also like to hear your stuff if you feel like sharing it here or in a dm, whichever you prefer
I’ve done meta ads a bit over the years but never for music.
People want engaging, short video content. I think you would have more luck trying to get people to engage with you as an artist, like who are you what does your music say, vs trying to directly get a stream of a slow burner track. Or something like adding to a playlist, saving as a favorite etc
I tend to think about the various social media sites about demographics, ie Facebook is for Boomers, IG gen-x/millenial, Tiktok Millenial/gen-z etc
Ran some ads long ago to dip a toe in the water and found it useless. Like 10-15 years ago. Wasted money. Better off doing almost anything else. Spend it on mastering or make cassettes or even cds. Sell them for cheap or give them away as promos. It would be more fun to spend time and a little money to make an interesting video for your music and put it on YouTube for fun. Music marketing is just a nightmare for independent artists just getting going. Building a social media presence is difficult but ultimately better than giving money to meta for targeted ads of some kind.
Best thing you can do is play shows. Little gigs here or there. Give tapes and cds or download codes or whatever out for free at gigs.
Ads don’t even work the same way they used to. They’re worse. It’s garbage. Find the recent Corey doctorow interviews on YouTube about enshitification. He gets into ads here or there. Currently there are ai bots making ads and promoting them… often to other ai bots.
Not exactly sure what parameters you can set for ads, but in general I don’t think people with short attention spans like listening to slow build-up chill songs, or any song for more than 30 seconds for that matter.
Maybe it would be better if you self promote your stuff in specific enthusiast places.
I’m late gen-x; my childhood and teens spanned the 80s and 90s, so the culture from then imforms much of my thinking. Andnit likely doesn’t apply any more. But here’s my 2p anyway.
The only promo I’ve encountered for individual songs was music videos. We used to see album adverts on TV for a handful of the huge artists (enya, phil collins), but rarely for anyone smaller.
Printed ads for albums were similar, but covered a wider range of artists. You’d find more of that in physical record stores - cut-outs, posters - rather than on broadcast media.
I’m fairky sure that most of the indie artist promo I encountered came through magazine interviews, mini-reviews and BPM listings, hearing songs on the radio (we had good pirates and niche stations in my home town).
I’d be inclined to attempt the modern equivalents of the indie route: get on radio/podcasts/playlists; join the social group around your sound and share tracks with artists & DJs in your scene; start a mailing list and do the “regular content game” by releasing fewer tracks but more often; host your own events with artists in a similar or related genre/scene; get your music in local plays & choreographed dance performances etc.
