Three ways to get more streams, more followers, and more fans through Show.co

All CD Baby artists get free access to Show.co—a suite of cool music promotion tools that can help you build your following. These are the same tools I use for my new releases, and thousands of other indie artists do too.

Below are three examples of how you can use Show.co’s tools for your own music. These examples are just a few ideas, but there are really endless possibilities.

#1. Give people a fun reason to follow you

It never hurts to just ask people to follow you on Spotify, YouTube, or other places. But it can feel repetitive. Instead, why not give people a fun reason to follow you? An incentive!

Let me show you what I mean. Check this out. I promoted one of my singles with the promise that if you follow me on Spotify or give me your email, I will show you a video of me getting slapped in the face.

When someone sees this, they’re gonna be like, “Yeah, I kinda want to see that.” It makes them smile or wonder, and now I can email them more fun stuff and build their connection to my music.

Another fun example: My friend and podcast co-host Kevin Breuner created a campaign where he said ‘Hear the song that got us kicked off stage.’ It builds curiosity even with people who don’t know or care about the band. They got a bunch of new followers from it.

Here’s how you can create your own fun campaign: 

1. Create your Show.co account. You can sign up for free through your CD Baby account here.
2. Inside your Show.co account, start a ‘Social Unlock’ campaign. Why is it called Social Unlock? It’s as if you have locked up something cool or fun. And in order for your fans to get your cool content, they have to give you something (email, Spotify follow, etc.) to unlock it.
3. Have fun building your campaign! It takes just a couple minutes to set up your campaign. And you can collect emails, Spotify followers, and more. 

#2. Run a contest or giveaway

Contests are fun. And you don’t even need to give away a big prize. People just love the chance to win something for free.

So why not run a fun contest for your music? Give away merch or CDs or something that feels like it represents you.

I ran a contest for one of my albums, and used Show.co as the place to collect entries. See here. 

What’s great about using Show.co for a contest is that you get to collect a bunch of email addresses that make it easy to run your contest. 

When someone enters their email or adds your song on Spotify, Show.co will collect a list of emails. Then, you can download the list and use a random number generator to pick a winner. It’s quick and easy. 

#3. Ask fans to save your song on Spotify before it releases

Have you heard of a Spotify Pre-Save? Used by thousands of artists, it’s a great way to build buzz before your next release. It’s a one-page website where your fans can save your song on Spotify before it’s officially released. 

Artists like Kendrick Lamar and Miley Cyrus use Spotify Pre-Saves for two reasons:

1. Your fans will have the song ready to stream on the day of release. It’s in their queue.
2. It’s good to get a bunch of streams right away.

A high stream-count on day one can be an indicator of success for your newest song or album on Spotify, as it shows Spotify that your music might be worth sharing with their users via:

• algorithmic playlists (such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly)
• email notifications to your followers
• Spotify’s official playlists

Check out the video below to see how YouTuber Anne Reburn used a Spotify Pre-Save to promote her song.

So there you have it. Three ways to use Show.co to promote your music and build your following.

All CD Baby get free access to Show.co. Here’s how:

1. Log in to your CD Baby account
2. Click on ‘Free Marketing Tools’ underneath the featured tools section
3. Create your account for free

PROMOTE MUSIC