Read time: 4 minutes

As an independent artist, it's overwhelming trying to maintain your online presence.

There are so many details to take care of, like your:

• bio

• links

• banner

• content

• descriptions

• profile picture

Not to mention, you have to repeat the process across other social media (and adjust everything to their specific needs).

Then, you have to update everything each time you do something new.

Pain in the arse.

But forget about TikTok and Instagram for now.

While you've been perfecting your presence there, you've been neglecting an even more crucial platform.

Seriously, even big-time, signed artists don't get this right.

What am I on about?

I'm talking about your Spotify Artist page.

This is the most important platform for artists to get right - and you're not giving it enough attention.

Why am I parading this so much?

Because it is the platform most closely-tied to your music.

Obviously.

It's the first thing that any new listener sees (who discovers you through your music).

So, everything on your page is affecting your potential audience's first impressions.

Of you.

Of the artist (or band) behind the music that they just listened to and liked.

To the point where they wanted to find out more about you.

To quote Eminem:

Judging by what I've seen from most other independent artists, I'm guessing you're going to let it slip.

Right through your fingertips.

Mom's Spaghetti.

Today, I will be showing you how to not let that happen.

By optimising your Spotify Artist page, you will:

• increase your Spotify follower count

• increase your followers on your other social media

• increase your streams on current and all future songs

• get more loving DMs from fans who discover your music

Sound good?

Great. Let's dive in.

The Artist Photo

I could write a whole newsletter on this alone.

Here are the basics that you should cover:

If you are showing your face, don't frame any wider than your shoulders.

Yes, your profile picture might look okay when it’s large.

But, in all other cases, it's minuscule - the details of your face disappear, leaving you unrecognisable.

Faces are crucial for human connection, so make yours visible.

If you're in a band, that means getting creative with fitting everyone's face in.

The Banner

Your Spotify banner doesn't appear on mobile (as of writing this), but it's the most prominent visual element of your page on Desktop.

The rules for banners are different to those for your Artist Photo:

• try to work with the ultra-wide nature of the canvas (look up "cinematic stills" for inspo).

• I would encourage showing your face in the banner as well.

• bonus points: have your banner be in-theme with your latest (or upcoming) release.

The Body

There are lots of tiiiny little elements in the page "body" that are often left neglected.

Let's optimise these:

Artist Pick

Highlight your latest release here to drive more attention towards it.

There are options to put merch and tour dates here, but I would suggest against showcasing those.

Artist Playlists

These serve as a great opportunity for you to keep your songs in your listeners' music circulation.

If you can curate an amazing playlist of songs in your genre, your listeners will save it when they go to your page.

Put your own songs in these playlists.

Place one at the top of the playlist, then add each subsequent one every 10 songs down the track order.

Every 1% improvement helps.

Here are some playlist ideas:

• an "Ultimate" playlist of all your releases (do this after you've released 3 songs).

• an "Influences" playlists of your favourite artists.

• a "new [Your Genre] songs" playlist, highlighting similar artists in your genre.

• a "[Your Location] scene" playlist, highlighting artists in your local music scene.

About Section

This is a massively overlooked section of Spotify Artist pages.

This where you can give your most curious listeners the real meat 'n' potatoes of:

• who you are

• where you come from

• what you're up to

• what you're working on next

Yet, most people leave it blank!

A totally wasted opportunity to connect with the listener.

Take the time to write out a longer version of your bio to address this.

Also, include a lot of photos so people can get a better idea of who you are.

Include photos from:

• rollout photoshoots (to show your artistry and creativity)

• candid photos (to show that you are humans with personality)

• live and studio photos (to show that you're the real deal)

Don't be afraid to keep your older photos here, either.

You're telling your story to your audience, and photos tell a thousand words.

Social Media Links (in About Section)

Finally, don't forget your social media links.

Seriously.

Your new listener has just found your music.

They liked it enough to check out your artist page.

They've looked at your Artist Picture (or banner), scrolled through your discography, and are now in your About Section.

This listener is about to turn into a fan.

You need to make it as easy as possible to get them to convert into a follower.

Building an audience is all about keeping them in your world as an artist.

This means taking them off Spotify, and into your social media and mailing lists - aka into your content ecosystem.

This is how you nurture your audience, develop a real relationship with your listeners, and grow a community around your music.

I might sound crazy focusing on this point this much, but I've seen too many artists ignore this.

Roll out the red carpet for your new fans.

Remember your links.

Wrap-Up

That was a comprehensive and technical run-down of how to optimise your Spotify Artist page.

Of course, there are many other streaming platforms where people can discover your music.

I've focused on Spotify because it has the greatest market share in music streaming (31%), and has all the features that the other (inferior) platforms have anyway.

There are a lot of underlying principles encompassing marketing, branding and storytelling that I will dive deeper into in future newsletters.

For now, I hope this helps you step up your game and bring in a bigger audience to your life's work.

Let’s Work Together

Do you want help with growing an audience for your music?

I am currently offering consultations for independent music artists like you.

Reach out to me on Twitter or Instagram and we'll level-up your branding and marketing.

reading time: 5min

Three years ago (when I was 19), I was neck-deep in my graphic design obsession.

I was trying to improve at my craft by pumping out a large volume of work.

I decided to set myself a challenge:

Design 30 album covers in 30 days.

(these were for fictional pieces of music, with made-up names)

Doing this turned out to be quite a painful process.

Every day felt like a dice roll.

Will I come up with something good today?

As it turned out, most of my creations turned out to be…

Pretty underwhelming.

They just weren’t very interesting. They lacked impact.

(here are a few of them)

With each day that I tried to come up with something new, I increasingly felt like my dice were weighted against my favour.

At some point, someone who saw my posts must have thought the same thing.

They decided to leave a comment.

Little did they know that what they told me would stay in my head, 3 years later.

What they shared was a golden nugget of knowledge that I apply to my all of my work, to this date.

It can be applied to any kind of creative work you make.

They gave me this simple equation:

1 + 1 = 3

What?

Yeah, it took me a while to figure this one out.

But I got there.

Let's break it down:

A creative work (whether it’s art, film, literature, etc) is the product of multiple ideas.

The simplest form of a creative work can then be described as the combination of two ideas:

Idea 1 and Idea 2.

This, of course, is the “1 + 1” part of the equation.

So, how do we combine these two things to create “3”?

Well, here’s the secret:

(this is what took me years to realise)

There is an invisible “1” in the equation.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s the Viewer.

More specifically, it is the Viewer’s unique interpretation of how Idea 1 is connected to Idea 2.

This interpretation is dependent on the Viewer’s unique life experiences.

Creative works that can present ideas in a way to allow for these unique interpretations are the one that are most impactful.

These are the works that live in the Viewer’s hearts and memories.

These are the works that build culture.

This is because the art invites the Viewer to help build the meaning of the story themselves, by using their own perspective.

This gives them a personalised, one-of-a-kind experience.

I was over the moon when I figured that equation out.

So, the question is:

How do we actually create something that allows for this unique interpretation?

How do we make 1 + 1 = 3?

The Elastic Band

Imagine Idea 1 and Idea 2 as two pins:

They are holding down a piece of elastic (dotted line).

This elastic represents the Viewer’s mind.

The elastic is made out of their unique life experience.

It is the Viewer’s mind that connects these Ideas 1 and 2 together.

Pushing the pins together

When you present ideas that are too similar to each other, the pins get closer together.

As a result, the elastic slackens.

The Viewer’s mind remains inactive - it sits there, limp and lifeless.

Let’s see a practical example of what this looks like.

Imagine that we’re designing an cover for an album where the music is about "heartbreak".

What are the two ideas that we are getting the Viewer’s mind to connect?

Idea 1: Music about heartbreak.

Idea 2: The album cover.

An example of an album cover idea that is too similar to the concept in the music would be an the actual symbol of a broken heart:

The combination of these ideas makes sense.

Too much sense.

The pins are too close together.

The Viewer’s mind isn’t stretched.

The ideas presented don’t invite the Viewer to create some sort of unique interpretation of how the music and the visuals are connected.

If this isn’t clicking right now - don’t worry.

The following examples will help explain this.

Pulling the pins apart

What happens when you pull the pins too far apart?

The elastic snaps!

The ideas are so far apart from each other that the observer fails to make any connection at all.

Let’s go back to our "heartbreak" album example.

Imagine if the cover was an image of a washing machine:

How do you interpret this image in relation to "heartbreak"?

You probably fail to interpret anything at all, right?

The ideas are too disconnected.

In trying to connect them, the Viewer’s mind is stretched too far…

The elastic band snaps.

In the Viewer’s mind, the cover just feels random. Random things lack meaning.

This results in the Viewer just glazing over and moving their attention elsewhere.

If you want to make impactful work, this is not how you want your audience to react.

This is obviously a comically extreme example, but I’m trying to drive home what happens at the ends of this spectrum.

Finding the sweet spot

Now, there is a sweet spot between these extremes.

The pins aren’t too close together where the elastic hangs lifelessly.

The pins also aren’t too far apart where the elastic breaks entirely.

Instead, if we move the pins at juuust the right distance:

The elastic stretches.

It becomes tight and bouncy - full of potential energy.

This represents the stretching of the Viewer’s mind, as they pull from their own experiences to make a unique connection between the two ideas.

This is where the magic happens.

This is where 1+1 makes 3.

Let's go back to the album cover, one more time.

How do we show the idea of "heartbreak" in a way that isn’t too boring and predictable, but also not too random and disconnected?

We must present something that inspires the Viewer to use their own experiences to bridge the gap.

Here is an example I made. Take a look:

Stare at it for a few moments.

Think about how you interpret this image.

How do you use your own experiences to bridge the gap between this image and the idea of "heartbreak"?

If we had a group of people, chances are, you’d get a range of answers, such as:

• “The ground falling away from beneath my feet reminds me of how I felt when I suddenly got dumped”

• “The endless void reminds me of how I thought this feeling would last forever”

• “The grey stones remind me of how cold that person was to me”

• “The beam of light reminds me of how everything always gets better”

Now, the concept of "heartbreak" and the image I’ve shown you are basic examples I came up with off the top of my head.

Despite how cliche the examples are, do you see how hitting the “sweet spot” generates so much more meaning?

We were able to combine Idea 1 (concept of "heartbreak" in the music) and Idea 2 (album cover) to create a unique interpretation within the Viewer.

We made 1 + 1 = 3.

Implementation

As you can imagine, this principle applies beyond album covers.

In the field of music alone, you can use this principle to generate ideas for:

• song names

• t-shirt designs

• a music video storyboard

Of course, this doesn't have to be limited to the music industry, either.

I’m curious to see how you can implement this into your own work.

Good luck.

Before you go

If you're an independent artist who is planning to release new music (whether it's your 1st or 10th song), this might help you.

I'm taking on 5 new artists for 1-on-1 online consultation.

I will help you do any (or all) of the following:

1. Figure out who you are as an artist (branding) and what you want to say through your music.

2. Prepare your social media presence to reflect this (visual identity), and cast the net to capture your future audience.

3. Generate content to hype up your release (and create a backlog of work to show your future audience that you're active).

4. Launch your music correctly and supercharge the traffic coming to listen to it by using a paid ad campaign (it's easier than you think).

5. Build up your audience so you have an even bigger launchpad for your next song release.

You will get 4 x 1hr video calls with me, which you can deploy at your own pace.

You can purchase this bundle of calls for $299USD.

Full disclosure: My current price is always my lowest price.

As my experience grows, so will the price tag.

And again, I will be taking on 5 artists only (for now).

DM me on Twitter or Instagram to see if this is the right move for you - I'm happy to answer any questions.

You can also always hire me to work directly with you (such to design your album cover).

You can view my portfolio here.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Jade

These are results from the first song I released with my old band, jackrabbit.

I had zero experience releasing music.

To prepare, I consumed over 120hrs of YouTube videos, courses and books on music business and promotion.

Here are the 8 steps I took to get these results:

1. Test the Waters

Don't get in the studio straight away.

Production is expensive - you need to put your resources towards your best songs.

Test the engagement for each of your songs by uploading demos to SoundCloud first.

Nobody will hear these demos except for your friends and family. That's okay - you'll still learn which songs perform best.

This will inform what songs you take into the studio.

Guess which of these tracks we released first:

2. Budget Accordingly

Ari Herstand suggests budgeting money at a 1:1 ratio for production and promotion.

We budgeted $600 for production (with a professional producer).

Another $600 went to promotion - we'll get to this later.

I know what you're thinking - that's a lot of money for one song.

But, that's what you need for:

• Quality music production (that people will listen to on-repeat)

• Quality promotion (to see returns on the resources you spent)

Tell me. What's the point of writing, rehearsing, demoing, recording, producing, mixing, mastering, and releasing your music...

if you make ZERO progress in building your audience?

I don't know about you, but it doesn't seem worth it to me. Maximise your results.

Quality production & promotion is vital for this - and it takes some money.

Here's a Twitter thread I wrote to help you fund your project as a beginner artist.

3. Prepare the Party

Damian Keyes has a great metaphor for your social media presence - it's your "party".

When people poke their head in the door - what will they see?

• your cover of Free Bird?

• photos of your breakfast?

• a gig poster from eight months ago?

Not good enough.

People won't be staying at your party.

Realise this:

When your song is out, hundreds of people will be coming to your socials from your Spotify page.

Yes, really.

You need to be ready to capture this traffic.

Set up your profile to reflect your music, personality and artistic expression.

The people who like your music should be able to identify with your visuals.

Think about how you can do this through your:

• bio

• banners

• profile picture

• stream of content

This is how you start tell your story as an artist.

4. Create Content

Putting up one story post saying "just released my song, go listen!" is NOT a content strategy.

You need to create an ecosystem of content to support your single after its release.

How do you do this well?

Get creative and lean into your skills and interests:

• if you are good with a camera, make a music video.

• if you are a lyricist, do a Genius-style lyric breakdown.

• if you are funny, show silly behind-the-scenes footage.

Embrace your strengths and quirks, then start brainstorming.

A snippet from my band's music video - that's me on the left (acting my hardest).

Create all your content before the song releases. This way, you can post consistently as your new audience rolls in.

Be prolific. The more content your fans have to consume, the more they can warm up to you.

5. Generate Hype

Your song, socials and content are now ready.

Now it's time to build excitement.

Two weeks out from your release, make an announcement post for your song.

Follow these up with snippets of the content you will be sharing (and the song itself).

You won't have much of a fanbase before your first release. These posts will primarily show your future audience that you are active (giving them good reason to follow you).

This will be great practice for your second release, when your audience will have grown.

6. Rally the Troops

Use the loving support of your friends and family to give your song its first push.

Send EVERYONE a personal message and ask them to:

1. Like your song

2. Follow your Spotify Artist profile

3. Follow your socials

You only get to ask this once. This achieves 3 things:

• Builds social proof (more streams and followers is attractive to new listeners)

• Boosts your song in Spotify's algorithm (increasing your chance to get playlisted)

• Boosts your posts in social media algorithms (helping with future engagement)

7. Setup Paid Ads through Meta

So your song is out, and your friends and family have given you the first push.

This next step will supercharge your growth.

This tactic got my song 90% of its streams.

This is also where the money you budgeted for Promotion kicks in.

No, these aren't "bot" streams.

This method will bring real, engaged fans.

We tripled our Instagram following and received dozens of heartfelt comments and DMs.

Setting up ads is quite simple - it's mostly a matter of learning how Meta Ad Manager works.

Learn from Tom Dupree III and Andrew Southworth for setting up and optimising your ads for your music.

These channels were a game-changer for me.

8. Engage with Your New Audience

You should now have your first fans pouring in!

You need to foster this growth and start a community.

Do this by:

• Releasing that content you made earlier

• Having conversations in the comments and DMs

• Releasing more music regularly

Keep. Providing. Value.

Wrap-Up

Phew - that was a lot of info. Keep returning to this guide to ingrain the process in your mind.

When it comes time for your second release, just repeat these steps.

You will find your own preferred methods for your song releases.

Go get some results - good luck.