Spinnup also shares great tips and insights with their artist community on how they can best propel themselves and make money from their releases. Spinnup have kindly shared one of these with us, their advice on how to distribute your music on social media. Read their advice below on how artists can distribute their music to these platforms and earn royalties each time their music is used in content.

Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer – these are just some of the big-name music stores artists and musicians are most keen to get their music on. Or at least they were, before social media platforms stepped up and also became players in the music space. With platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok incorporating music into their services, artists can distribute their music to these platforms and earn royalties each time their music is used in content.

To get your music on any of these platforms, whether they be traditional streaming services or social media, independent artists need to upload their music via a distribution service. That’s where a service like us, Spinnup, comes in.

All artists need to do is sign up for a free account, upload the audio and cover artwork for their single, EP or album, enter their release info, pay for their release and that’s it, we do the rest. And as long-time friends of Abbey Road Studios, we’re pleased to offer a free single release to fans of Abbey Road. Just enter the code SPINNUPXABBEYROAD at the checkout on Spinnup to distribute your track free for the first year.

Social media has become a powerful tool for artists to reach new audiences and get discovered. Many are also heavily centred are music, with the newer platforms like TikTok even launching their own music chart in early 2020. It’s become more important than ever for artists on all ends of the spectrum to have their music on these platforms.

It’s been proven that you don't even need brand new music to start your foray into the social media DSPs. Just look at what happened to Fleetwood Mac recently, who’s infamous 1977 tune Rumours was used by a TikToker in a video that then went viral. A whole new (young) generation of music fans were introduced to the track and led to Rumours landing back in the charts 43 years after its release and getting a boost of about 10 million streams.

The benefit for artists is twofold – they earn royalties from TikTok (and similarly, on Instagram’s equivalent, Reels) and often creates a newfound fanbase with the knock-on effect being a boost in plays and downloads from traditional music stores, upping their royalty payouts here too.

It’s not just a new source of revenue that music-based social media platforms have created, but a new style of music too. We’re seeing a new wave of producers and artists who make music specifically with these platforms, and their infamous challenges and dances in mind.

Two of our own artists found a niche in this new craze, KAIBA, a German artist released his track Overdose on Spinnup which became huge on TikTok, gained over 2 million views, and led to him signing with Universal Music Germany. On the other side of the globe TikTokers put their spin on the catchy lyrics from New Zealand artist Riverside and his track Daydream.

Thanks to the disaster that is 2020, people around the world have, and still are, spending more time at home than ever before. Unsurprisingly this has caused a spike in TikTok usage, with many people filling in the seemingly endless hours scrolling through the app, replicating its challenges or perfecting its signature dances. But how do you catch the attention of TikTok’s millions of users and content creators?

As well as having your music available for TikTok and Instagram Reels users around the globe to access and pair with their videos, it’s important for artists themselves to have a channel and a presence for their fans. The way to gain momentum on any social media is to not only have good content, but consistent content. Every few weeks or months you might have a hero piece of content (music video, edited performance etc) for platforms like Facebook and Instagram, that support longer form content, but in between make sure you’re connecting with your audience regularly, or even daily in the case of a platform like TikTok.

“Deliver funny or interesting content every day”, says KABIA. “It’s important to keep active on your social platforms daily, especially as TikTok users spend quite a hefty amount of time on it per day.”

So, where do you go from here? There are a number of DIY distribution services out there that will get your music not only on all the traditional music stores like Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer, as well as the new kids on the block Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. And while not all distributors are created equal in terms of royalty pay outs, Spinnup pays artists 100% of the royalties they earn from all music stores, the social media platforms included.

All while distributors differ slightly in their offering, at the core of what we do at Spinnup is we help artists get their music out into the world. And because we’re a part of Universal Music, just like our friends at Abbey Road Studios, we help artists to get signed. And who knows, if your tracks blow up on social media you could catch the attention of Universal Music, just like our friend KAIBA.

Thank you to Spinnup for providing us with the article. For more information on the distribution service head here.