Can I Get My New Song Noticed

Let’s backtrack a couple of weeks, 16 days prior to release in fact. If Release Day is RD, then this is RD-16.

I upload my file to my distributor of choice, for me it’s LANDR. The process is painless, especially if you have things like cover artwork in the bag, it also helps if you are the sole composer / producer / lyricist etc as no tricky royalties to navigate.
Now with 16 days to go, what can I do to prepare and promote my track?

I can pitch my song to the Spotify playlist gods – curated playlists seem to be a decent way of getting music to a wider audience. You complete a fairly brief online form, including a description of the process of writing and recording and off it pops, the only fanfare is an e-mail confirmation and some small print that sets your expectations low; Don’t expect any feedback, you may get an e-mail IF you have been selected for a playlist a day or so before release. That’s that then. What else can I do in the time between now and release.

Social Media of course. Let’s just say I have a low digital footprint. No Instagram, no Facebook, no TikTok. I watch YouTube and that’s about it.

I think my track is pretty instant and social media friendly, part of me doing this process is that the track I have is possibly the most universal I’ve done to date (mostly for my own entertainment). I probably won’t produce such a commercial sounding track again so let’s see how far I can push it.

I create an Instagram account and a TikTok account. Facebook is for baby boomers right?

I also create a 45 second teaser of my song, with basic but (I think) effective repeated visual and lyrics, also stating the release date of April 3rd 2026.

Off it goes to Instagram and TikTok.

To this day, that Instagram post has had 0 views, Zero!
Tiktok, within minutes there is an early count of views at around 40, with 2 likes! – are we are onto something. Then it sinks quicker Scott Mills’ career, never to be seen again.

But wait, what is this button within the TikTok app that is encouraging me to promote my content, hhhmmmmm, I hover over it for some seconds before diving into the murky world of paying for my teaser video to be pushed to the world…