While traditionally artists needed to use a distributor such as TuneCore or CD Baby in order to get their music on a major streaming network, more services are allowing artists to post directly on their platforms. Here, we look at one example, the Pandora AMP service.
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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0
It used to be that in order to have your songs posted on a major streaming network then you had to use a distributor like TuneCore or CD Baby, but no more. Many of the major services now allow an artist to directly post on its network, and while it may take more time to do so across many services, there are advantages to [doing] so. Take the Pandora AMP service for example.
AMP stands for Artist Marketing Platform and that’s exactly who it provides – many new ways to directly reach both your existing audience and a potential new one.
In order to utilize AMP you have to first claim your Pandora profile. You can do that here. Be aware that this process takes up to 60 days, so plan your releases accordingly.
Once you’ve sign on then you’re given access to a suite of tools that allows you to promote singles, albums, shows, and just about anything else going on in your musical world. Here’s what you’ll see:
Artist Audio Messages (AAM)
These are simple voice-overs that will play before or after a track. You can use these to explain the creation, the context or just about anything else that helps promote the song. You can also direct the fan to tap the screen to take an action like listening to an album or watching a music video or buying merch, or even target multiple message to play for listeners in a different locations. Pandora has found these messages to be more effective than a similar post on other social platforms, reaching about 10% of your active listeners in the first 2 weeks of release. That said, you can also use these bites on social media too.
AMPcast
This is basically the same thing as AAM except that you’re able to record your messages directly from your phone rather than uploading a prerecorded file. The geo-targeting and call-to-action features on AAM also apply to AMPcast.
Featured Tracks
If there’s a particular track that you feel strongly about, you’re able to mark it as “featured.” That means the song will receive up to 90% more streams on Pandora for the next 8 weeks while it’s being featured. The Pandora Genome algorithm makes sure that the people who are most likely to enjoy your music are receiving the featured track so your efforts aren’t wasted.
Pandora Stories
Pandora Stories allows artists to share their stories through curating their own Playlists and Mixtapes from Pandora’s catalog. You can insert audio messages introducing each song or adding a commentary. A Mixtape differs from a playlist in that it’s more like a radio station in that the songs of the playlist are invisible and constantly shuffled. Mixtapes are pretty intensive in that they must include at least 80 tracks from at least 16 albums by at least 10 artists, so they take a little thought to put them together.
These are just some of the features of Pandora AMP that can be extremely helpful in marketing your music on the platform. For more info you can watch the video explaining AMP below or visit the Pandora AMP playbook. Also check out Ariel Hyatt’s excellent Pandora marketing guide.