If you’re an artist or band, music promotion is always top of mind. Getting in front of the right audience is half the battle. But once you’ve caught their attention, how do you ensure you can convert their interest into listens? This can be difficult due to the wide array of streaming platforms. If they aren’t able to click a link to listen easily, they will most likely move on. Therefore it’s important to provide the right option to listeners when they are ready to stream.
While Spotify and Apple Music are the most popular, every listener has their own preference whether it be Youtube, Tidal, or Amazon Music. Once you start engaging a global audience, the number of potential options multiply. When promoting online, you may be limited in the number of characters or links you can provide, so it’s important maximize your available space.
There’s a better solution – a smartlink. With a smartlink you can share ONE LINK that allows fans to choose their preferred platform to stream or buy your music. By lowering the barrier, you can increase your streams, sell more music, and gain more followers.
Artist Smartlinks
You can create a smartlink for yourself as an artist or band. The links within the landing page will then connect to your artist page on different platforms. This approach has the added benefit of not requiring constant updates of the link. It’s a great solution for when you can only include one link on your profile (i.e. Instagram, Twitter), if you don’t have a website, or when featured on music blogs.
It’s ideal for when you’re trying to create general awareness of yourself as an artist.
Release Smartlinks
With a smartlink for a release, the links will go directly to the song or album. The page also includes the cover art for that specific release. For instance, you may be in the process of an album rollout and want people to only listen to a certain album. This decreases the chances of fans getting distracted by searching for your release from your artist page.
This is ideal if you’re trying to heavily promote a specific release.
Podcast Smartlinks
Promoting podcasts can have similar challenges. The most common being, fans have their own preferred listening platform. In the case of podcasts, the options are now a lot more extensive than music streaming platforms. In addition to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, there is Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Luminary, and more. A smartlink can be used as a landing page to allow fans to listen using their preferred platform.
Because podcasts get updates so frequently, it’s usually best to create one smartlink for your whole podcast than individual links for specific episodes.
Create Your Own Smartlink
Upstream Indie partners with Apollo Promotion to provide high quality smartlinks for artists to improve your music promotion campaigns.
To get started, contact us today!
